“They're fresh.” Sean spoke with authority. “Probably a dog wandering through.”
“Not a dog,” Norah answered. “No claw marks in these prints.” “Or a raccoon, I was about to say. Maybe a possum.” Norah followed their progress between the trees. “How long have you lived in these woods, Sean? All your life? The front paws of a raccoon look just like a human hand, five fingers stretched out. And claws, amigo. Possum looks like a raccoon only the fingers are more spread out, like you were playing piano. Claws too. This thing we're following is a cat. Or maybe a gray fox, though the claws would show up in the snow this deep.”
“A cat? We're chasing after a cat?”
Norah waited for him to catch up, then bent to the print. “Definitely not Tiger or Fluffy. It's not a housecat, or if it is, then a really big cat, probably wild. But look how deep here. That animal weighs about twenty pounds, and look how it's walking.”
“Like there's only two legs? Where did its other feet go?” “A cat walks like this.” She splayed out her feet and hands and slunk forward with an arched back, rolling each shoulder in rhythm, which made him laugh uncomfortably. “But a wildcat will put its back foot right in the middle of the hole left by the front one.”
“A wildcat? Like a leopard?”
“If it's a leopard, I'll connect its spots. Bobcat, I think. C'mon.”
They hurried through the winter forest, the snow fresh and undisturbed save for the solitary set of tracks and the windblown litter scraping along the surface, the papery oak leaves, the empty acorn cups, the feathery twigs snapped off in the latest storm. In the boughs, frostings of snow remained, and when the children brushed against low-hanging branches, powder would sluice off and shower to the ground in their wake. The scrub pines and occasional firs provided the only color, the rest dun or gray in the cold and damp. Deep in the forest, a rare quiet pervaded, the snow hushing all sounds but their own footsteps. He could hear her labored breathing, which reassured him when she hurried ahead out of sight, and he caught up by following the husky rasp to find her squatting again before a thrash of marks.
“See this deep impression here,” she said, pointing to what looked to Sean like nothing more than two wide scrapes. “Kitty is tired. She sat back on her haunches for a siesta. Or maybe to watch a mouse skitter under a stone.”
“What if it turns out to be a bobcat, Norah? What if we catch up to it?”
“Have a little faith.” Her nostrils flared as she breathed deeply. “The game is afoot, my dear Watson. Well, come on, man!”
The afternoon faded to shadows as the trees grew thicker. Coming to a culvert between two hills, she paused and pointed to other tracks bisecting the cat's, showing him the rabbit run by the different patterns of footfall, the small front legs and the leaping pads. He expected blood on the trail, but the two animals had passed hours apart. Norah inspected the rough snow where the cat had casually sniffed the hare's scent and moved on. The sun dipped below the treetops, the upper branches splintering the sky into maroon and orange. The children climbed a path to the crest of the next hill, and she waved for him to stop and be still.
Silhouetted against the pewter clouds on the next rise about fifty yards ahead stood the cat in sharp relief against the snow. Its head cocked, nose in the air, catching their scent on the wind. A cloud cleared the setting sun, and the cat was bathed in light, its fawn-colored coat mottled with spots, the long white hair cloaking its paws and bristling at the tips of its ears and the bobbed tail. As quick as a breeze, it strayed into shadow and was gone. They could smell the tang of urine, hear the soft crunch of its getaway, and see its ghost standing on the vacant spot, fixed by magic and time.
“Listen, Sean. Tell me what you hear.”
He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the bare hour, the sound of the land in stillness.
Norah faced him, her eyes glistening, as if she were remembering some past pain, and she asked her questions in a care-laden tone. “Do you know about the atom bomb? The ones they dropped in Japan?”
Though he was not sure that he remembered any details, he nodded.
“There was just silence, like this, after the fires, after the sirens. Everything was still. Even the birds were gone. And those who survived walked around the destroyed city stunned to be alive.”
The cat was long gone, he was sure, unlikely to come near the sound of her voice.