“Do you ever have dreams?” he asked the kit gently.
Pebble Heart looked away quickly. “No.”
Gray Wing knew very well that Pebble Heart wasn’t telling the truth, but he decided to say no more for now. There’ll be a better opportunity to discuss this, when the other kits aren’t listening.
“Well, thank you,” he meowed. “I feel much better. Let’s head back to camp now.”
He grabbed up the hare and the kits helped him to carry it as he led the way back to the hollow. When they arrived, Turtle Tail was sitting outside her den, grooming herself. The kits dropped the hare and pelted over to her as soon as they saw her, huddling close to her as she gave each of them an affectionate lick behind their ears.
“You’re trembling!” she exclaimed. Looking past them to Gray Wing as he approached more slowly, she asked, “What happened out there?”
Gray Wing set the hare down in front of her. “Are you proud of your kits?” he asked. “They did well on their first hunt.”
Turtle Tail fixed him with a long stare. “Answer my question,” she meowed. “What happened out there?”
Before Gray Wing could think how to reply, Sparrow Fur exploded into speech. “Gray Wing killed a hare, but then his breathing went funny again. He pushed us away.”
“Pebble Heart brought him a berry,” Owl Eyes added.
Gray Wing saw fury flash into Turtle Tail’s eyes, but her voice was quiet as she mewed, “Kits, take the hare down into the center of the camp so that we can all share. Now,” she snapped as the kits hesitated.
“I’ll help them,” Jagged Peak offered, padding up. “Come on, kits.”
“Thanks, Jagged Peak,” Turtle Tail meowed.
Gray Wing couldn’t suppress an irritated twitch of his tail. Jagged Peak is always nearby when the kits need anything.
With Jagged Peak supervising, Sparrow Fur, Pebble Heart, and Owl Eyes began dragging the hare away, while Turtle Tail and Gray Wing gazed at each other. Once the kits were out of earshot, Turtle Tail rose to her paws.
“Let’s go for a walk.” She led the way up the slope without waiting to see if Gray Wing was following.
Turtle Tail didn’t speak again until she and Gray Wing had reached the shelter of the gorse bushes near the top of the hollow. Then she turned and faced him. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Gray Wing understood very well what she was getting at, but he had no idea how to reply. “Uh… what do you mean?” he asked, playing for time.
Turtle Tail gave her tail a single lash. “Too much time has already been wasted by the two of us not talking to each other,” she began. “Not anymore. I’m not stupid, you know! I’ve seen you struggling with your breathing, ever since the forest fire. You can’t even teach your own kits—or as good as your own kits—to hunt without there being a problem. And then to push them aside like that? What were you thinking?”
Gray Wing felt as though everything was piling up on him, like an avalanche in the mountains.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like?” he demanded when Turtle Tail stopped at last for breath. “Trying to keep a camp of cats happy? Asking myself if Tall Shadow made the right choice when she wanted me to take over as leader? I didn’t ask to be any cat’s leader, and now I can’t sleep for worrying about the others! Do you really think the other cats need to know that I’m struggling with my health?” He let out a long sigh. “I don’t feel like a leader,” he continued. “I couldn’t get the cats out of the forest when the fire spread. If it hadn’t been for Thunder taking the lead and River Ripple guiding us…” His head drooped in shame, listening to the rattle of his breathing.
When he looked up again, he saw that the anger had died from Turtle Tail’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s only because I care. I don’t want to see you become more ill. And I definitely don’t want to hear about you pushing the kits away.”
“It won’t happen again,” Gray Wing meowed, struggling against the fog of depression and inadequacy that surrounded him. “I needed some air, that’s all it was.”
“And next time?” Turtle Tail asked.
“There won’t be a next time,” Gray Wing assured her. He could tell that his breathing was getting better—he was sure of it.
He met Turtle Tail’s steady gaze. Thankfully, she didn’t pursue the argument.
Together, their pelts brushing, they turned back toward the camp.
Turtle Tail opened her jaws to say something, but there was a scuffling in the undergrowth. A hot, unwelcome scent hit Gray Wing in the throat.
“Dogs!” he exclaimed.
Two of the panting beasts leaped out of the bushes and stood growling on the path in front of them. Gray Wing thrust Turtle Tail toward a nearby stunted thorn tree and scrambled after her into the branches.
The dogs had seen them, and snuffled around their tree, leaping up to plant their huge paws on the trunk. Gray Wing looked down, not daring to move. The dogs were both huge, with sleek black pelts and flopping ears. Their jaws gaped and their tongues lolled as they panted in their eagerness to get at the cats.
“Now what do we do?” Turtle Tail asked, frozen with fear as she dug her claws into the branch.
Gray Wing didn’t reply. He remembered what Shaded Moss had once said about dogs: It’s an animal you don’t want to meet. And here were these two, not many tail-lengths from the camp!
His chest tightening, Gray Wing felt it was almost as if the dogs had turned up to prove Turtle Tail’s point. Everything began swirling in front of his eyes. Don’t let me fall out of the tree! he thought desperately.
Sensing his distress, Turtle Tail pressed her body against Gray Wing’s flank, gently pinning him between her and the tree trunk. “Thanks,” he whispered, realizing that he wouldn’t fall now that she was supporting him.
Loud paw steps sounded from beyond the gorse bushes, and a Twoleg voice was raised in a loud yowl. One of the dogs glanced around, but neither of them moved away from the tree.
Then two Twolegs appeared farther down the path and stomped up to the dogs on their heavy paws. They spoke harshly; Gray Wing didn’t understand the words, but he recognized the angry tone. The Twolegs pulled long tendrils from their pelts and fastened them to the dogs’ necks, dragging them away from the tree.
The dogs resisted, their paws skidding on the ground as they went on snarling and snapping at the two cats. Finally the Twolegs gave the tendrils a vicious jerk, and the dogs stopped pulling and walked quietly alongside them down the path.
Gray Wing puffed out his breath in relief. “Imagine being under orders like that!” he exclaimed with a disgusted snort. “Those dogs are pathetic. And the Twolegs must be flea-brained to want them around.”
Too late, he remembered that Turtle Tail had once lived in a Twolegplace, but she was already climbing down the tree trunk to the ground. Gray Wing hurried to follow her, his paws slipping on the rough bark. “I’m sorry,” he called out. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”
When Turtle Tail turned to face him, Gray Wing was thankful to see that her eyes were glimmering with laughter. “It’s okay. You don’t need to worry,” she told him. “You looked pretty scared, though, for a cat who thinks dogs are pathetic.”
Gray Wing breathed a sigh of relief. He never wanted to quarrel with Turtle Tail; her anger over the hunt and his treatment of the kits had struck him like a claw in his heart.