Authors: Toni Anderson
“Thanks.” Axelle stowed her frustration and smiled her gratitude. From their tracking data she had a good idea where Sheba might have denned up. Barring accidents or breakdowns they might get there before nightfall.
She was praying for a collar malfunction even though that would put their million-dollar project way behind schedule. The alternative meant the cubs and their mother were probably dead. Her instinct told her losing two cats in a couple of days wasn’t coincidence, nor was it a local herder protecting livestock. A professional poacher was going after her animals for their fur and bones to feed China’s ravenous appetite for traditional medicine. It was imperative to find out exactly what was going on, and with the continuing conflict in Afghanistan it wasn’t going to be easy.
“Do the elders know anything about what might be happening?” she asked. Only twelve miles wide in places, the Wakhan Valley was a tiny finger of flat fertile ground separating some of the tallest mountains in the world—the magnificent and treacherous Hindu Kush to the south and the impenetrable Pamir Range to the north. Harsh winters trapped locals inside for seven months of the year. Wildlife was scarce and the region mercilessly inaccessible, but these people knew the land better than a visitor ever could.
“No.” His eyes shot between her and Josef. “They are scared that if the snow leopards are dead, you will blame them and they will lose their clinic.”
The Trust not only had an anti-poaching scheme, they also vaccinated local livestock once a year against common diseases,
gratis
. The program promoted healthier livestock and reduced the losses herders suffered to sickness, which in turn compensated for the occasional snow leopard kill. So far the scheme was working, except now they had two missing, possibly dead leopards and two tiny cubs unaccounted for.
The weight of responsibility sat like an elephant on her chest.
“Josef, run over and reassure them while Anji and I finish loading.” She held his gaze when he looked like he’d argue. The village elders sometimes struggled to deal with a woman. She didn’t mind because she loathed politics. “Be quick. We don’t have time for tea—you’ll have to make your excuses.”
It wasn’t how things were done here and she didn’t want to offend these people, but the survival of a species trumped social niceties today. Ten more minutes and they were finished packing. Anji tied the spare gasoline canisters onto the roof and made sure both big gas tanks were full. They honked and Josef jogged over and jumped into the van.
“Everything be okay.” Lines creased Anji’s leathery skin. “
Inshallah
.”
God willing, indeed.
She and Josef exchanged a look as Anji gunned the engine over the rough road marked only by a line of pale stones. Dust flew, stirred up by the tires, the land still soft from the thaw. They bounced over rivers, ruts and alluvial fans. Axelle craned her neck to stare at the imposing mountains.
“If the collars
are
working”—Josef spoke from the backseat—“there could be some crackpot in these hills picking off critically endangered animals for money. Anyone that desperate isn’t going to care if a couple of foreigners end up as collateral damage.”
They’d left some weapons with their other belongings last fall. Her father had insisted she have some sort of protection when he’d heard she was conducting her research in Afghanistan. Now she was grateful.
She glanced at Josef sharply. “Do you want to go home?”
“I’m just saying this could be dangerous.” His hands gripped the back of the seat as they bounced over a rickety bridge.
“If you want to go back you should say so now. The pilot can fly you out in the morning.” She kept her voice soft. They were almost the same age but he was her responsibility and she had no right to place him in danger. “I don’t want you thinking you don’t have a choice. I can handle this.” He had a life. He had a future. She only had her passion for saving things that needed saving.
“Ya, I run away and leave you alone in the wilderness.” Josef sat back and crossed his arms, muttering angrily.
She held back an instinctive retort. She didn’t care about being alone in the wilderness, but with this amount of ground to cover, she needed all the help she could get. “I have Anji,” she said instead. “We can get more men from the village.”
The Wakhi man grinned a gap-toothed smile, his eyes dancing. After generations of war and decades of being ignored by the government in Kabul, a few missing teeth were the least of anyone’s problems. A few dead leopards might not rank high in the concerns of government either, not with the resurgence of the Taliban, not with the constant threat of assassination, insurgents and death.
“If we find sign of a poacher we will gather men from the village and hunt him down,” the smaller man said.
Axelle nodded, but she was worried. This would be Anji’s responsibility when he finished training and was appointed the wildlife officer for this region. He needed to be confident enough to take charge of dangerous situations like this. She bit her lip. He was such a sweet little guy she didn’t know how he’d confront armed poachers. The idea of him hurt didn’t sit well. He had a family. People who cared.
Isolation pressed down on her shoulders. All she had was an estranged father and a grandfather she hadn’t visited in two long years.
Energetic clouds boiled over the top of the mountains. A spring storm was building, but it was nothing to the growing sense of unease that filled her when she thought of someone lining up her cats in the crosshairs of a hunting scope.
***
Two hours later the sun was sinking into the west. Desperation and the need to hurry pulsed through her blood and made her head pound with frustration. The van got stuck twice but they’d managed to push free of the freshly thawing ground. The shock absorbers were toast. Ahead she could make out the faint outline of pale yurts set deep in the shadow of the mountains.
A sonorous snore resonated from the back seat where Anji slept. Josef’s cheeks were ruddy from the exertion of driving in such demanding conditions. They’d all taken a turn behind the wheel.
“Keep going,” she urged as they passed the yurts. To save time they needed to drive as far as they dared toward where she figured Sheba had denned up. Half a mile later they bumped over a rock the size of a football, and her head glanced off the side window.
Dammit
.
“I can’t go much further without breaking an axle,” Josef warned.
“Stop here.” She scrabbled in her bag for a head-torch and flashlight. “We’ll hike the rest of the way.”
“We go now?” Anji asked groggily, throwing a blanket off his lap.
“You take the van back to camp and man the radio, Anji.” They needed someone back at base camp in case they ran into trouble. “There’s a cave over this ridge that Sheba used as a den. If the cubs aren’t there—” Her voice wavered. She didn’t want to think what would happen if the cubs weren’t there. The Hindu Kush was no place for babies to wander alone in the dark.
Even though they’d traveled as fast as they could, it was probably already too late. Swallowing her concern, she jumped out of the van. Josef joined her with a flashlight and radio.
“Let’s go.” She started along the path, running because it was still twilight and the precious light wouldn’t last long.
She tripped over a rock and Josef grabbed her arm. “Careful.”
But she didn’t want to slow down. Despite the icy mountain air, heat poured off her body and her heart thumped like her veins were empty and desperate for blood. So many predators roamed these lands—bears, wolves, lynx, leopards, humans—how could two young cubs survive without their mother’s protection?
They clambered over large rocks at the top of the ridge and moved cautiously down the steep slope on the other side. The sky shifted to velvet blackness with nothing but ice-encased peaks to cast a faint silvery haze over the lower slopes. Axelle worked her way along a tiny goat path carved in ancient stone. Slippery and dangerous. The narrow beams of their flashlights provided the only clue as to where to put her feet while strung high above a cliff face. She slipped, slamming her knee into a rock. Stones trickled down the mountainside, lending a soundtrack of granite rain to their frantic search.
Her heart revved. She held tight to Josef’s hand as he hauled her to her feet. “Thanks.”
“We should go back.” Every crease on his face told her he didn’t want to be here.
“We’re almost there.” She pulled away. “Two more minutes and we’ll know for sure if the cubs are in that den.”
Axelle inched along the path, the sound of Josef’s footsteps crunching in her wake.
There
. A few yards away she saw the narrow opening of the den. There was a tingle between her shoulder blades that made her hesitate, alert for danger.
They’d rushed here worried the leopard was dead, but if they were wrong, they were approaching the den of a large feline with young cubs. Snow leopards were nowhere near the size of lions or tigers, but she and Josef were balanced on the edge of a cliff face. The leopards could dance down these rocks; she and Josef would smash and burn.
Josef went to move ahead but she raised her hand to stop him. “Wait.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the boss and I said so.”
He grunted, less than impressed. She knew how he felt.
There was no clever way to do this. She inched forward on all fours, the sharp rocks digging into her knees. She held her breath, listening, then shone her beam straight into the mouth of the den. Bare rock reflected back at her.
Nothing
.
She ran the beam of light across the floor of the entranceway and saw animal bones—standard snow leopard fare. This was definitely a den. She inched forward, Josef close enough she couldn’t turn without knocking into him. A part of her welcomed his body heat in the ever-deepening cold. The other part didn’t like to be reminded about how it felt to touch a man. Memories could be colder than an Afghan winter.
They peered silently inside the shallow cave. More bones lay scattered on the bare rock and what looked like a bed of fur was nestled against one side of the cave. There were no green reflective retinas or bad-tempered snarls. An outcrop of rock blocked her view of the back of the cave where the cubs might have wandered in search of food or warmth.
She needed to get in there and take a better look.
Tension built in her muscles and sweat suddenly slid down the groove of her spine. Her mouth went dry and she forced several swallows to moisten it. Her hands shook. God, the last thing she wanted to do was crawl inside that dark hole and take a look behind that rock. Josef grabbed the belt of her pants before she started inside.
She dangled like a rag doll. “Put me down, dammit.” She managed to shake off his grip. “I’ve got to see if the cubs are behind that rock.”
“I’ll go,” he offered.
“You won’t fit.” Without wasting another moment, she wriggled through the tight opening. Stupid childhood fears would not stop her from doing her job.
Pressure pounded her immediately and made every pore on her body swell. Memories betrayed her, recollections from a time so long ago the images were more like visions of another lifetime. The silence. The immense weight above her that could shift and crush at any moment.
Concentrate
. She swung the light around but saw nothing except bare rock. Her pulse sped up. Walls pressed in on her. Gnawed bones poked at her palms as she dragged herself across the ground. Dust and dirt flew through the air and she wheezed. The thought of the cave collapsing, of all that mighty rock crushing her, made her mouth parch and her heart drum.
She breathed in, in, in. Short little breaths that expanded her lungs to bursting. Finally she released the breath and was able to move again. She stuck her hand in the nest of fur. Cold. No remnant of warmth from soft delicate bodies. Josef grabbed tight to her ankle and, despite the bruising pressure, she welcomed the connection.
She shuffled forward, concentrated on the beam from her headlight as she squeezed through the narrow gap and finally got a look behind the outcrop of rock.
Dirt, rock, and white bleached bones.
Disappointment slammed hard into her chest and she swallowed the awful sensation of failure as she shuffled backwards. “Nothing.”
Josef’s eyes were wide in the glare of her lamp. She brushed the dust and fur that stuck to her clothing, dropping her head to hide the tumult of emotions.
“What do we do now?”
“Go back to camp.” There was nothing else to do in the dark. Anger and anguish knotted in her throat.
Wearily Josef turned and began picking his way along the trail. Axelle wanted to look for the collar but the risk was too high and she hadn’t brought a radio receiver. A harsh wind blew down from the mountain and sliced through the layers of clothing, freezing her to the bone. She hugged herself and trudged onward. The radio squawked and they both startled.
“I find the cubs. I find the cubs!”
Anji
.
Axelle grabbed the handset. “What do you mean you found the cubs? Where are you?”
“They in box in yurt.” It sounded like he was jumping up and down in excitement.
This didn’t make any sense. The wind gusted in her face as she frowned at the stars.
“What the hell is going on?” Josef murmured.
She didn’t know. “Let’s go find out.”
***
Dempsey and his soldiers remained fixed in position as the strangers disappeared over the ridge. To the east, wolves howled, the cries echoing off giant pinnacles that edged the corridor like row upon row of shark’s teeth. Awareness rippled over Dempsey’s skin like hives.
“What was that was all about?” Baxter whispered into his personal role radio, which connected the four of them over short distances. Dempsey didn’t answer. He sprinted up the craggy face to see what they’d been looking at. It took him less than a minute to climb there and back again.
“Empty animal den. Some kind of predator,” he told his unit.