I was panting hard when I arrived at the base of the outcropping, and I lay in a small pool of shade for a time to catch my breath. From where I lay I could see the steeply pitched meadow below, and spotted the three small bad dogs as they emerged from the woods. They had my scent and came in single file straight toward me.
My lips drew back in an involuntary snarl.
At that moment I did not remember Lucas, did not think about Axel or any people at all. I was stripped down to my canine essence, gripped with a primitive fury; I wanted to sink my teeth into coyote flesh. I got to my feet, waiting for them to arrive, for the fight to begin.
Twenty-six
The three coyotes came up the hill silently, their tongues out, their eyes slits. As they approached they spread out, knowing that with my back to the rocks I could retreat no farther. I could smell the hunger on their exhalations, and they shared a familial odor—these three males were young, from the same litter, and clearly starving. I was bigger than any of them, but they were desperate.
The instinct to engage them was nearly overpowering, an urge I didn’t understand compelling me, but I stayed with my tail to the boulders, resisting the impulse to lunge, to chase them down. I barked, snapping my teeth, and they pulled back slightly, nosing each other, unsure because I wasn’t fleeing. One of them seemed larger and more bold, and this one rushed a few steps, dancing back when I darted forward to meet him while his two brothers moved to the side. I turned to face this new challenge and sensed the bolder one leaping at me. I snarled and charged and the other two came at me and I chopped the air with my fangs, knocking a smaller coyote over as the bold one sprang and I felt teeth on my neck, tearing my flesh. I screamed and twisted and slashed and bit and we went up on our rear legs and I forced him back and his brother darted forward.
And then there was a blur of motion from above me and another animal joined the melee, landing right in front of my assailants. The coyotes were snarling and yelping in shock and fear and falling away from a ferocious attack. I stared in amazement as an enormous cat, far larger than I, sprang at the coyotes with nearly blinding speed, claws slashing. Her massive paw struck the bolder one in his haunches and sent him tumbling, and then the three of them were fleeing down the hill in panic, the cat loping easily after them for just a moment before she turned and stared at me.
I wagged. I knew this gigantic feline. Her scent had changed but still, at her essence, it was Big Kitten.
She came to me and purred and rubbed her head under my chin, nearly knocking me off my feet with her tremendous strength. I play bowed and she put out a frolicsome paw, swatting without claw at my nose. I was only able to climb up on her shoulders by raising my front feet off the ground. How had she gotten so big?
When she turned and climbed higher into the hills, I followed, tracking her by smell as night came. I was back on the trail to Lucas, so of course I was back with Big Kitten. Things repeat.
She led me to a half-buried elk calf, and we fed just as we had done so many times before, side by side over the kill.
I was tired and lay down in some grasses. Big Kitten came over and licked at the wound on my neck, her rough tongue scrubbing at it until I turned away from her and sighed. She went out to hunt but I remained where I lay, easily sleeping. She did not return until the sun was out, curling up against me and purring. I rested, resisting the urge to get to my feet to do Go Home. This was part of our pattern, to be near food and eat as much as possible before we moved on. We would do this until we were with Lucas, and then he would feed Big Kitten when he fed the rest of the cats.
*
The nights grew cooler as we traveled together. She would not accompany me during the day, but would always find me at night, sometimes leading me to a meal, usually buried in the dirt. We would spend time feeding before moving on from that spot. I was making steady progress toward Lucas; I could feel it, could smell it.
Then one day Big Kitten did something very unusual. I nosed her in the morning as she lay half hidden by a downed tree, then trotted confidently away. There was a town ahead, a place where I could forage and bring food back to Big Kitten. It was how we traveled together.
This day, instead of sleeping and catching up with me later on, Big Kitten followed me. I didn’t hear her, of course—she was soundless on the trail. Instead, her scent caught up to me, so strong I knew she was right there. I turned and looked. She was standing atop a large rock, motionlessly watching me.
I did not understand this new behavior, and went back to her to see if I could comprehend. She leaped lightly to the ground, rubbing her head against me, then scampering back toward where she had been sleeping, looking expectantly over her shoulder.
She wanted me to follow, as if luring me back to where we had come. But I needed to continue to make progress toward the smell of home. When I didn’t move, she returned to me. This time she didn’t rub herself against me, she just sat and stared at me. After a time, the two of us just looking at each other, I felt I understood.
Big Kitten would not be living in the den across the street. She would not be lying on Lucas’s bed with me, waiting for a Tiny Piece of Cheese. She was not going to go any farther. For some reason, she could not or would not accompany me, nor wait for me on the trail when I went to a town to see if I could find food. It was as if she wanted to do Go Home herself, had a place she needed to be, and where we were standing now was too far away from there.
I went to her, wagging, touching her with my nose. I loved Big Kitten, and knew that if I stayed with her she would hunt all winter for us, find prey when the snow made my progress so difficult. I had enjoyed my life with her, first when she was a defenseless kitty, and then when she grew large enough to protect herself, and now when she saved me from the small bad dogs. But my life had taught me that I would stay with people and animals until it was time to move on, and it was that time now. I had to do Go Home.
I went back to tracking the odors toward the town up ahead. When I stopped and turned, Big Kitten was back on the rock, watching me with unwinking eyes. I remembered my mother doing the same thing, when I left her at her new home under the deck. Dutch had been confused and upset when I said good-bye but Big Kitten merely watched, just like Mother Cat. She was still there the next time I glanced back, and the next.
And then I looked, and Big Kitten was gone.
*
It was dusk when I strolled into the town. There were leaves on the ground, scuttling ahead of me on the light breeze. Cheerful lights blinked awake inside the houses, flickering as people walked in front of windows.