But then there came the sound of something behind him. He backed up to a big tree and froze, gun held in both hands. He could just barely see his footprints in the gravelly ground, and he stared through the trees from left to right, trying to see what had made that noise. Colder air began to settle through the tops of the pines. He looked up and realized that the soaring stone walls of the canyon were closer now. They should be opening, not closing on me, he thought.
He hesitated. He was beginning to get the sense that he was walking into a trap. He was definitely forgetting something important. It had to do with why Kenny had brought him across the river twice. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize what he’d seen when they landed yesterday, but he couldn’t raise the image of the Chop’s entrance. Dark and too many trees. Plus, he was very tired.
Climb a tree, he thought. See where you are. Orient yourself. Then proceed. He looked up and sighed. What with the altitude and his own fatigue, he wasn’t sure he could climb a tree right now. And the last time he’d climbed a tree, that damned cat had come up after him.
Okay, climbing a tree was out.
He pressed on, no longer bothering to watch his back in order to make better time. He was intent on getting out of this canyon. The rangers had given him forty-eight hours, but the weather front was obviously not going to wait that long. He didn’t want to be in this canyon if the river really rose up, and he sure as hell didn’t want to get back to the meadow and find only one tent standing.
He came to another line of dense-pack pines, stubbier than what he’d been going through. The river had changed its tone, sounding more like a flood than a rapid. He plunged through the pines, sure that the way out was just on the other side, and finally burst out onto a wide gravel beach. A blaze of sunlight revealed that he’d made it to the canyon entrance. The river swung north to his left in a wide silvery arc, although it looked to be twice the size of what it had been before. The meadow up above a stand of pines on the other side was visible, and the little cluster of tents was still there. That was the good news.
The bad news, however, stopped him cold. He now understood why Kenny had brought him across on the other side, because where the river made its turn, the current had scoured the south bank away to nothing. The gravel beach narrowed down into a spit that lay submerged about a hundred feet in front of him, after which there was only a sheer rock cliff rising out of the flowing water a couple hundred feet up the south wall of the canyon. The river swept through its turn with barely a ripple along that southern edge, indicating deep water. The distance to the other shore from the gravel spit was a good two hundred yards. The benevolent sunshine seemed to mock him as he stood there, trapped on the wrong side of a rising river.
As he surveyed his predicament, the mountain lion stepped casually out of the pines about thirty feet away and looked his way.
55
Cam froze when he saw the cat between him and the riverbank. He tried to think what to do. Step back into the stand of pines? Pull out the. 45 and start blasting away-with both remaining rounds? Do the fifty-meter dash straight ahead and then jump into the river?
He stared at the big cat. It did not appear to be injured or even marked. He then wondered if it was the same cat that had mauled Kenny, or was it a different one? A mate? The cat looked right back at him, its black mask clearly etched in the bright sunlight. Its tail began to twitch. Cam quietly extracted the Colt and held it down at his side.
There was no point in going back into the trees. If the cat wanted him, it would have the advantage in there, and Cam would probably never see or hear it coming. The trees were too insubstantial to climb, and it was probably a couple hundred feet back to the nearest big pine.
The cat made that guttural coughing sound again and lay down on the gravel, its entire body pointed right at Cam. He’d seen house cats do the same thing when they had a mousie out in the middle of the living room carpet. For a crazy moment, Cam was tempted to walk over there, right at it, and see if he could shoot it like he’d shot the other one, right through the long axis of its body. But then he saw the muscles in the cat’s shoulders coiling. It lifted its lips at him, baring yellow fangs.
He looked longingly at the water, but there was no way he could outrun that thing if it charged. When it charged. He slowly knelt down on one knee, took a two-handed shooting stance, braced himself as best he could, pointed the. 45 at the cat, and cocked the revolver. The cat growled when he moved, but it still didn’t charge. Its tail was whipping back and forth now, its agitation clearly growing. Cam focused on its face along the blade sight picture and then dropped the point of aim slightly. If he fired now, he could probably hit it in the chest, but the shot would be slightly downhill and just far enough away that the drop of the round might result in a clean miss.
He commanded his lungs to expand and tried to keep his eyes from watering as he waited, the big Colt getting heavier in his hands by the minute. The cat began to inch forward on its belly, taking his measure the whole time, its eyes glaring in anger. Cam refined his aim point as the cat made its approach, still belly-down on the gravel, its breathing becoming audible as it made its move. Cam remembered reading somewhere that this was the time to make himself as big and tall as possible, to make the cat pause, but he didn’t want to disturb his shooting stance. He had only two rounds, and he’d probably only get off one shot before the damned thing was all over him. He remembered what the mortally wounded beast had done to White Eye, that speed bag hammering with those three-inch-long claws. And Kenny with his shirtful of innards.
The cat stopped, twenty feet away now, and began to quiver all over. Its head was down, giving Cam less, rather than more, of a target.
Then he remembered the camera.
Holding the gun in his right hand, he unzipped his left parka pocket and brought out the little disposable, slick in its plastic shrink-wrap covering. Being careful not to make any sudden jerking moves, he brought the camera up, pointed it at the cat, armed the flash, and fumbled for the shoot button. An instant later, there was a bright flash and the cat shrieked at him. He did it again, and a third time, and each time the cat yelled at him. But its eyes were blinking now and the flash had clearly upset its attack pattern.
He fired it again and again, and each time the cat reacted. After the sixth time, he put it back in his pocket and reset his shooting position. The cat was no closer, but it was still blinking furiously. Its tail was, if anything, whipping back and forth more vigorously, but the cool, careful “Here I come” expression on its face was gone.
At that instant, two shapes burst out of the trees between the cat and the riverbank.
The cat sensed and reacted to the new danger before Cam even knew what was happening. It whirled around on the loose gravel, still down in its crouch, and, flat-eared, fangs bared, roared at the two shepherds. They stopped in their tracks, spewing gravel out in front of them, and then spread out, one on either side of the cat, each one keeping about fifteen feet away, their fur and hackles up and showing more teeth than Cam had thought possible. Frick was to Cam’s right on the downstream side, while Frack held position nearest the stand of pines.
They’d left the cat one avenue of escape, which was to dive straight into the pines, but the lion wasn’t having it. It roared again and feinted at Frack, who answered with a pretty impressive roar of his own and even more ivory. He stood his ground, much to Cam’s surprise, while Frick kept moving, down on her belly now like the cat, growling and showing teeth, making the cat turn to keep her in view even as Frack started to slide toward his right. Cam was still so surprised to see the dogs that he hadn’t done anything, but now he did. He scooped up a handful of gravel and threw it at the cat’s back.