In the campground across the road, she heard the faint shouts of a woman. “Zack! Come here right now! Right now! I mean it!”
Probably one of those dog owners who constantly threatened their pets but never bothered to train them. While the woman continued to call out and the phone repeated its high-pitched rings in her ear, Sam snapped a one-handed photo of the light passing through the vandalized board, then stuck the camera into a pocket of her hiking vest.
“Save the Wilderness Fund,” a breathless voice finally responded over the airwaves. “Lauren Stark.”
“It's Sam. I'm in Utah. I just reached the park.”
“Finally!”
“Hey, I'm sorry, I can't help it if this yahoo plowed into my Civic in Idaho. It took forever to get the fender pulled out, and the trunkâ” Sam made a chopping motion in the air. “Never mind. You're right, I'm late and we don't have time to discuss why. Are we ready to go?” She paced back to the picnic table and checked the zippers on her backpack.
“The new page is up with the usual information about the fund and your first article of backstory on the cougars. Butâoh Godâwe're running so late, I'm hyperventilating just thinking about it. Adam wants something impressive to show on the news, something you know, like woweeâ”
Adam? How had Adam Steele gotten into the mix? Sam had a sudden sick feeling that she'd landed this job only because of some backroom negotiation by the television reporter. A puff of breeze sent golden leaves spiraling down around her. She turned her head to study the shadow creeping across the canyon floor. “Lauren, I promised you a new article today, and I
will
deliver. I'm going to look for the cats right now. I'll send you something by nine o'clock your time.”
“We'll be here. And don't forget the chat session tomorrow night.”
Sam groaned and pulled a leaf from her hair. “Didn't I have two days in the backcountry before that?”
“That was before you showed up a day late. We've been posting an ad for the chat session for five days; we can't change the schedule now.”
“Of course you can't.” She'd have to hike back down tomorrow for a dependable electrical connection. Maybe this combo of wilderness and Internet was not going to be so great, after all. She was already exhausted and she hadn't even started this job.
“Tomorrow, eight P.M. Utah time,” Lauren reminded her.
“I'll be there.” Snapping the phone shut, she stashed it inside another vest pocket, trying to ignore the enticing aroma of grilling hamburgers from the nearby campground. Crackers and cheese would have to suffice for dinner tonight. After hefting the backpack upright on the picnic table, she balanced it with one hand and turned to push her arm through the shoulder strap.
Her hip bumped against a warm body. A small figure stumbled away and banged into the signboard with an audible crack. Sam gasped and let go of the pack, which fell back onto the picnic table with a dust-raising thump. A toddler blinked at her, his blue eyes huge under the bill of a red baseball cap. His lips trembled as he raised a plump hand to his forehead, dislodging the cap. It tumbled to the ground at his feet.
“I'm sorry, honey.” She knelt next to him, patted the shoulder of his Pooh Bear sweatshirt. “You scared me.”
The urchin jammed his thumb into his mouth and regarded her silently from above a small fist. He couldn't be more than three years old.
“Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
At the reminder, his blue eyes filled with tears.
“You won't cry, will you?” she murmured hopefully, plucking a pine needle from his honey blond bangs. “Where's your mommy?”
The child jerked the thumb out of his mouth, whirled around and slapped a chubby hand against the Plexiglas-covered notice. “Kitty!” he chortled.
“Big kitty,” Sam agreed. “That's a picture of a cougar.”
He poked a stubby finger toward the bullet hole above his head. “Hoe.”
“Hole,” she couldn't help correcting. “Bullet hole. Bad hole. There shouldn't be a hole in the cougar.” She sounded like a dolt. Jeez, she didn't have time for idiotic conversations with toddlers. She should be a half mile up the trail to Sunset Canyon by now. Where were the boy's parents? Â She quickly surveyed the parking lot. Only a ground squirrel scampered through the dusty gravel between the vehicles.
The child turned toward Sam and softly patted her left breast where her T-shirt bore the emblem of a mountain lion on a rock. “Cougie!”
She captured the tiny fingers, slippery with saliva. “That's another cougar,” she told him. “And it's also sexual harassment, as you'll find out in a few years.”
Gently, she brushed back his fine hair, so soft she could barely feel it against her weather-roughened fingertips. A crisscrossing of scratches marred the toddler's pink cheeks, probably from the blackberry vines bordering the parking lot. She found no lump on his scalp, so he couldn't have hit the board very hard. Recovering his baseball cap from the ground, she slapped off the dust and tugged it back onto the boy's head. The parking area was now completely in shadow. She was running out of time.
The woman still shouted from the campground. Her cries now sounded more distant. “Zachary! Where are you, Zack? Zacharryyy!”
The child ducked his head under the arch of a blackberry bramble and peered down a narrow trail that forked left to the river, right to the road. “Mommy?”
So Zack was not a recalcitrant dog, after all. No wonder the woman sounded so insistent.
“You came down that path, didn't you, Zack?” Sam stood up, moved back to the table, and pulled her pack upright. The boy followed her.
She thrust her arms beneath the backpack's straps and hefted it onto her shoulders. “Go back to Mommy now.”
“Zachary! Come here right this instant!” The shouts were faint now.
Sam cupped her hands and shouted toward the campground. “He's over here.” Could the woman hear her over the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the babble of the river?
“Mommy mad.” The boy's whisper was barely audible.
Sam patted his small shoulder. “She's just worried. She'll be so happy to see you, Zack.”
He pulled a circle of black plastic from his sweatshirt pocket and thrust it in her direction. “Twuck!”
The plastic piece was imprinted with a tiny tread pattern and had a center hole for a diminutive axle. “Looks more like a wheel,” she said, pushing it back into his hands. “I bet Mommy would help you find your truck and put this wheel back on it.”
“Zack!” A man's tone this time, deeper and closer. It sounded like he was only a short distance through the trees, standing on the edge of the road where it overlooked the river's bend.
The child stared uncertainly in the direction of the voice.
“Now your daddy's calling you, too, Zack.”
The toddler thrust his thumb back into his mouth. Sam winced, remembering all the places that thumb had been in the last few minutes. She cinched the waist strap on her pack and huffed out an impatient breath. “Okay, we'll go together. But we've got to make it fast.”
Taking his hand, she pushed her way through the gap in the blackberries. A thorny branch snagged the netting at the side of her vest, bringing her to an abrupt halt. She let go of the little hand to free herself, and the boy darted into the shadowy cut between the brambles.
“Wait, Zack! Take my hand!”
The toddler disappeared amid the dark foliage. After several seconds of wrestling with the thorny branches, she tore herself free. Sucking on a bleeding knuckle, she took a step down the overgrown trail, squinting into the gloom. She was anxious to be on her way while she could still see the ground under her feet.
His head and shoulders backlit by the glow from a kerosene lantern across the road, a man blocked the other end of the tree-lined path. Zack's daddy.
“Got him?” she shouted.
The rush of the river drowned the man's response, but he raised a hand in thanks. Sam waved back, then hurriedly retraced her steps to the trailhead lot. The hubbub of RV generators, crackling campfires, and excited squeals of children faded as she jogged over the bridge and up the rocky trail to the canyon rim above.
2
SAM followed the waning light to Sunset Canyon, where the sun rested squarely on Rainbow Bridge. The camera lens framed the burning orb, which appeared to have settled on top of the natural rock arch. The lineup of setting sun and arch was an autumn phenomenon the rangers kept to themselves, not wanting to encourage visitors on the steep trail at dusk. She carefully positioned herself and snapped a couple of photos. Even with the polarizer, the image would include sundogsâcircles of light floating in space. But sometimes those imperfections made a photo more interesting. But nothing she saw through the lens was remarkable.
Wowee,
she reminded herself. She needed wowee.
She freed herself from her pack and sat on a low rock, the camera in her lap. The best hope of spotting wildlife was to become one with the surroundings. A magpie flitted to the skeleton of a piñon snag ahead. Focusing a bright eye on her, it squawked a harsh note, no doubt after a handful of trail mix or some other such easy meal.
Go away
, she willed the bird. It abandoned the branch and hopped closer.
Her stomach growled, the noise loud in the quiet canyon. Â She'd already eaten the cheese and crackers. Apricots in an hour, she promised herself, picturing the dried fruit she'd packed. As if reading her thoughts, a chipmunk skittered from beneath a nearby rock and approached her backpack with spasmodic movements. Leaning down slowly, she picked up a pebble for defensive ammunition. As she straightened, she saw a flash of movement near Rainbow Bridge.
She let the pebble drop from her fingers and had her camera zoomed in when the big cat strolled out onto the rock arch, a black silhouette against the fiery orange sky.
Oh, yes. Thank you, God
. On her feet now, she snapped the photo, one eye on the rough path and the other on the cougar in the distance as she stealthily moved toward the rock bridge. If she stuck to the shadows, she might be able to get close without alarming Leto. It
was
Letoâeven in the dim light, she could see a divot of fur missing from the female cougar's left flank, the scar left from her bullet wound.
Pricking her ears, Leto turned her head. Sam froze and held her breath. A second, smaller cougar emerged from the shadows onto the bridge. Judging by the size, it was Artemis, Leto's female cub. Sam pressed the button and prayed the cats' ears wouldn't pick up the tiny ping of the shutter. The cub, now nearly as large as the adult cat, crouched low, hesitated a second, then pounced on her mother's tail. Leto hissed and cuffed Artemis.
Sam used the distraction to trot a few steps closer. She needed to put the sun behind her. As she passed beneath the bridge, the two mountain lions suddenly rose, their muscles rigid, their glowing eyes focused in Sam's direction. Her heart skipped a beat; she was easily within their leaping range. She kept her gaze locked on them as she slowly walked backward up the canyon floor.
On the other side of the bridge, with the sun at the proper angle, she paused and focused. The cats watched her silently, their amber eyes merely curious, not telegraphing the concentrated focus of hunters, at least not right now. Their calm was a little creepy. Was it possible they remembered her? Or were they so accustomed to people that they were unafraid? That didn't bode well for human or beast.
The white markings on the cats' muzzles gleamed in the growing darkness. She snapped several more photos. The cougars tracked each movement she made. The intensity of the moment was almost painful. Awesome, in the true meaning of the word.
The digital camera beeped to signal the memory card was filled. The cougars flinched at the noise but held their ground.
The bottom pocket of her vest held two more memory cards. Moving slowly, she slid her hand down and pinched the zipper pull between her fingers. The hiss of the nylon teeth was barely audible. Then the zipper stuck. She glanced down at it, just for a second. When she looked up, the lions were gone.
A quick perusal of the surrounding hillsides revealed no sign of the cats. Without a sound, they had vanished into the brush and rocks. It was a great magic trick, one she'd witnessed all too often. She let out her breath and, holding the camera in front of her, trudged back to her pack, checking the images on the camera's tiny screen as she went.
In the last picture she'd taken, everything was colored the same golden hue; the lions were nearly indistinguishable from the rock bridge. She sighed and pressed the Delete button. The next image was not much better.
The third photo brought her to a dead stop. The shot captured the cougars just as they'd turned to look at her. Two pairs of mountain-lion eyes burned brightly, staring directly at the photographer. The burnished amber of the cats' fur glowed against the cobalt of the darkening sky beyond.
“Wowee! Yes!” She raised a fist in victory as she continued down the rocky wash.
Twilight made the desert rodents bold. A kangaroo rat leapt across her path. As she hauled her pack up by a shoulder strap, a chipmunk burst from beneath the top flap, streaked up her arm and flung itself onto a nearby boulder.
“Great.” Now she'd have to look for chew holes in her food packets, not to mention those disgusting black-rice droppings the little varmints always left behind.
Before reshouldering her backpack, she dug out her halogen flashlight and moved the beam over the bridge and surrounding cliffs. Only the leathery flutter of a couple of bats moved within the circle of light.