Bella's Story Page 8

  “Cougars stay away from people, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  I heard a faint crack out among the trees, as if a dry twig had snapped when something stepped on it. I sniffed. The odor of ham was the strongest thing I could smell, but I could also tell that Big Kitten was still there.

  “What was that?” Shirt Man asked.

  “What was what?”

  “Didn’t you hear a noise?” Shirt Man dug into a pocket and pulled out a flat, rectangular black box—his phone. He thumbed it and a bright light sprang out of it. He shone the light into the trees.

  Yellow eyes stared back.

  Big Kitten was halfway up a tree, clinging to the trunk with all four feet. She froze, her eyes wide. Her ears went flat against her head. Her mouth opened in a snarl.

  “Yahhhh!” Shirt Man yelled and dropped his phone. Both he and Furry Face tried to jump on the cooler at once. They smacked into each other and fell sprawling into the dirt.

  When he fell, Furry Face dropped my collar and the ham.

  “Get up, get up!” Shirt Man cried frantically.

  Stick Man was already running for the pickup truck. The other two men staggered to their feet and joined him. All three dove into the back of the truck.

  Big Kitten leaped off her tree and disappeared into the bushes. She had been brave to come this close to the men. Now that they were running and shouting, she was terrified.

  I looked at the men huddled in the pickup truck. I looked at the ham in the dirt.

  It didn’t seem as if we were doing Sit anymore. I picked up the ham in my teeth and trotted off in the darkness to find Big Kitten. Our pack was together again.

  * * *

  Over the next several days, Big Kitten and I did not manage to find any humans who could feed us. There were plenty of streams and pools, so we were not thirsty, but my stomach was in pain all the time.

  We hunted, but Big Kitten was terrible at it. She didn’t seem to notice the scent of any animal, even the most obvious. At least she did learn to understand when I was tracking prey, and she would follow me closely. But even if I got close enough to flush a rabbit or a squirrel or a mouse out of hiding, she didn’t chase it!

  Often she would just crouch in the grass or among the rocks, nearly invisible, watching me tear after our dinner. It was irritating. She just did not understand how to be part of a pack.

  I could smell towns, but they were too far to do us any good. All I could think of was metal cans full of discarded meat and soggy bread, or doors opening so that people could hand out bacon. But we could not find any of those things here.

  My strength began to fade. I had to lie down and take lots of naps during the day. In the nighttime Big Kitten would often leave my side to prowl around, but I slept without stirring until light.

  I was so exhausted that when I saw a rabbit hop by one morning, I almost forgot to chase it. Then I surged forward, and the tiny creature ran and turned and bounded and fled straight toward Big Kitten.

  Big Kitten shot out one paw and smacked the rabbit hard. It went tumbling and she pounced.

  She had it! Prey! Food!

  We devoured it side by side.

  The rabbit didn’t make the hunger pain go away, but it did give me strength. Early the next morning I woke up with some energy. I lifted my head and sniffed.

  What was that smell? That amazing smell?

  It was blood! Blood and fresh meat!

  Big Kitten was sleeping beside me. She lifted up her head, too, catching the same scent on the breeze. Together we rose and followed the trail on the air.

  Before long we came upon a grassy area surrounded by trees. Lying in the grass was a deer with a long, smooth stick jutting out of its neck.

  The smell of humans was strong on the stick, but I could not see or smell any humans nearby. And the deer was dead.

  The deer was food.

  I was prepared to start eating at once, but Big Kitten did something very odd. She seized the deer in her jaws and began dragging it away. Was this some sort of game? Why play a game with food when we were both so hungry?

  I followed Big Kitten. She did not stop until she came to a patch of sandy soil by a boulder. She dropped the deer, and we finally fed. I ate until my stomach was so full it was almost painful. All I wanted to do now was sleep.

  For some reason Big Kitten didn’t join me as I stretched out in the sun. She scratched and dug at the dirt until our kill was completely covered over with sand, leaves, and grass.

  What an odd thing to do to perfectly good food.

  When she was finished, Big Kitten lay down beside a large boulder, nearly hidden in the grass. I fell asleep listening to her purr.

  We stayed with the deer for several days, feeding, making trips to a small stream to drink, and then coming back to rest. I knew I wasn’t doing Go Home as I should, but the lure of food was too strong to resist.

  At last we had finished the deer down to the bones. Bones are good, too, but not good enough to keep me away from Lucas.

  It was time to do Go Home again.

  I found a trail for us to follow, one where human feet had walked. Big Kitten, as usual, did not stay with me on the trail, but she followed close by.

  We had strength in us from the deer, strength enough that we did not need to eat for a day or two—maybe a little more. Maybe we had enough strength to take us all the way to Lucas.

  But then something happened that changed everything.

  16

  When I woke one morning, the sky was just starting to lighten, and the world was completely different.

  A heavy white layer of Snow Do Your Business, thicker than a dog bed, lay on the ground. Wet flakes poured from the sky with a faint, muffled roar.

  Most of the smells that used to fill my nose had vanished, wiped out by the Snow Do Your Business, which smelled of clean, clear water and little else. Without all those scents to distract me, I could feel the pull of Go Home more powerfully than ever.

  Big Kitten was not sleeping beside me. She’d gone during the night, as she often did. I got up and shook myself. Wet drops flew from my fur.

  When I stepped out into the Snow Do Your Business, my paws sank. I lifted my nose and I could smell Big Kitten coming closer. Soon she trotted out from between two trees with something gray and furry—something like a big squirrel—in her mouth.

  The Snow Do Your Business did not seem to bother Big Kitten when it came to walking. Her paws barely seemed to sink into it. She walked gracefully, picking up a front foot and then putting her back foot right into the hole that the front foot had left.

  She came to me and dropped the squirrel at my feet, and we fed. Then she sniffed me and rubbed her head on me, the way cats do.

  I was eating many different things, now that I was taking care of Big Kitten. T-i-i-ny Piece of Cheese seemed so far, far away now.

  It felt so good to have food in my stomach and my pack with me that I shook myself all over and bounded away through the snow. With each leap, I sank in deeply. Flakes flew as I heaved myself out and jumped again. A wind was picking up, so that the flakes twinkled in the air.

  It was hard work, but it was fun! I barked at Big Kitten. Wasn’t she going to play with me? We’d been working so hard at Go Home for so long … it was time for a little bit of fun.

  I galloped downhill and onto a flat stretch where the Snow Do Your Business had been swept away by the wind. My paws went skidding out from under me as if each was trying to run in a different direction. Ice!

  Big Kitten picked her way down the hill after me. She touched one paw delicately to the ice and drew it back. Then she sat down and looked at me as if she did not understand that it was playtime.

  I skidded and scrabbled on the ice, getting myself turned around. Then I braced myself, gripping with my claws, and launched myself across the ice, toward Big Kitten.

  She was startled. She drew herself up, making herself tall.

  I tried to stop and play bow in fr
ont of her so that she’d see how much fun Snow Do Your Business could be, but I could not stop. Big Kitten tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late. I plowed into her, and we both tumbled across the ice.

  At last we were playing!

  Big Kitten snarled and showed me her teeth. I did a play growl back at her. She rolled away and righted herself, shooting her claws out to grip the ice, and tried to run.

  She fell, flat on her belly. I pounced on her. Wrestling!

  Big Kitten was so big that I could not wrestle with her for long. She rolled over again and flung me off. Then she struggled to her feet and did her best to run.

  I chased her. Yes! Playtime at last! But when we got off the ice and into the deeper snow, I had to give up Chase-Me because Big Kitten was so much faster. I sank into the Snow Do Your Business with every leap, while she stayed more or less on top.

  We found a spot at the roots of a tall tree and slept some more. We slept the whole day, in fact, lying curled up together, sharing each other’s warmth, while more Snow Do Your Business came down.

  I began to get restless. Now that I could feel the sense of Go Home so strongly, I wanted to move toward it. But I could not travel with all this white stuff pouring from the sky.

  When we woke in the morning, it was time to get back to work. Go Home was hard work, even harder than before.

  To make a way forward, I had to break a path with my forelegs. Yesterday, the Snow Do Your Business had been fun. Today it was trying to slow me down, to keep me apart from my boy.

  I missed Lucas. I ached to be with him, to feel his hand on my fur, to be called Bella again. Big Kitten was my pack now, but a pack was not a person. When I was with Big Kitten, I had no name.

  I wanted a name. I wanted a T-i-i-ny Piece of Cheese. I needed my person so powerfully it was hard to sleep.

  But it felt impossible to get to him. In the next few days, I struggled to move forward, but the Snow Do Your Business kept trying to hold me back.

  Where I struggled, Big Kitten walked easily. It seemed as if the snowfall had reversed all the rules of our pack. She decided where to go, and I had no choice but to follow her.

  The ground we were traveling grew steeper by the day. Downhill, I could sometimes smell people and machines, smoke and food. Uphill was only the pure, wild smell of rock and ice. Big Kitten always chose up. I always went with her.

  The Snow Do Your Business that made the going so hard for me somehow seemed to make hunting easier for Big Kitten. In the nighttime she often came back with some kind of food to share with me—a mouse, a rabbit, or a squirrel.

  Was she finding a human to feed her? I couldn’t smell any people anywhere nearby.

  One morning I smelled something familiar, but it was not a person. It was us. Big Kitten and I had wandered in a large circle, and we’d crossed over our own trail!

  We were not getting any closer to Lucas at all.

  Frustrated, I plunged away from my own footsteps and charged out into the unbroken whiteness. Then I froze at the barest suggestion of a scent on the cold air.

  Dog.

  A dog! It had been so long since I had seen another dog!

  I turned toward the scent, even though it meant walking uphill. I played with Big Kitten every day, but right now I longed to wrestle with a dog.

  As I trudged upward, I picked up a new odor. Humans. I hesitated.

  To see the dog I could smell, I would have to get near a human. They were together, somewhere on the mountain above me.

  Two other humans were off to the side. They did not seem to have dogs with them.

  Humans often had food, like ham. But even the nice ones did not seem to understand that I was doing Go Home.

  I walked forward and paused and went forward again. I wanted to find this new dog. I wanted to see the people and I also wanted to stay away from them. It was hard to know what to do.

  I pushed my way between two trees and saw whiteness. No trees, no rocks. Just a long steep slope, like a white wall, reaching up toward the sky.

  Way, way up there a man and a dog were trudging through heavy snowfall. Above them, the wall of white continued up, ending in a ridge with sky above it. A thick layer of Snow Do Your Business sat heavily on the top of the ridge, curling over its edge.

  The man was wearing very long shoes and clutched poles in his hands. I could smell that the dog was a male. I did not know why anyone would take their dog on a walk so high up a hill, but I knew the dog was happy to be with his person. I could tell by the joyful leaps he was making through the fluffy whiteness.

  “Stop! Hey!” a voice shouted.

  Startled, I looked around. Across the long stretch of whiteness, I could now see the two other men I had smelled earlier. They were so far away that they seemed very small. They had their hands up by their mouths.

  “Get out of there!” one shouted.

  “That’s not safe!” the other one added.

  “Avalanche zone!”

  These two men sounded scared and angry. I retreated a few steps into the trees. The man high up on the hill kept walking, but his dog looked toward the noise. Then he stared in my direction, and I knew that he had picked up my scent.

  “Get out of there!” both men without dogs screamed at once.

  The dog barked and lunged a few steps downhill, toward me. He wanted to play! I shoved my way out of the trees and through the thick Snow Do Your Business in his direction, excitedly wagging my tail.

  “Dutch!” the man with the dog shouted. “Get back here!”

  The dog glanced back at his person but kept on bounding down the hill toward me.

  The man lifted one of those strange, big, flat shoes. He stamped, trying to get his dog’s attention.

  “Look out!” one of the other men shouted.

  There was an odd, low noise. The curl of snow atop the ridge crumbled to bits and fell.

  The man in the big shoes jerked his head around to stare as a rumble, loud as a truck, shook the air. The ground slid beneath him and he fell, tumbling.

  The sliding ground caught the man and the dog and knocked them over. They were both floundering as they plummeted toward me, moving faster than I’d ever seen anything move, even Big Kitten.

  I needed to get away. I turned and dashed for the trees, plunging in huge leaps. The booming sound above me grew louder and louder. Then something slammed into me, tossing me into the air.

  I lost all sense of up and down. I was rolling and falling. I could see nothing and my paws could not find the ground.

  I had just one thought as something soft but heavy slammed into my head.

  Lucas.

  17

  And just like that, the noise was gone. I lifted my head and shook it. Snow Do Your Business flew.

  I was now well into the trees, but I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. My back legs were pinned under a layer of white stuff so heavy, it felt as if Lucas were lying across them.

  If Lucas were here, he’d know what to do.

  Panting, I struggled to get free. I wanted to find Lucas. I wanted him to help me, to pick me up in his arms, to get me somewhere safe. I whimpered for him, but he was too far away to hear me.

  I could not move my back legs, so I strained with my front paws to drag myself forward, trying to dig out. I pulled and was able to move one leg a little, and then the other. Now I could shove with both rear legs, and the heavy Snow Do Your Business had to let me go. I pushed and staggered forward, free, panting with exhaustion.

  Just moments before, the air had been filled by a huge sound. Now there was total silence.

  I looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  The dog! He was still out on the white slopes, uphill from me, and he was sobbing with fear. We were not a pack, but the instinct to help him still rose up inside me.

  I ran toward him. The layer of white stuff underneath me was much firmer than it had been before. I did not sink down. I ran across it as lightly as Big Kitten.r />
  The dog was just at the tree line, digging frantically. Snow Do Your Business flew into the air behind him. He was a huge dog, larger than I was, with thick, dark fur. He didn’t even glance at me when I arrived at his side, just yipped and whined in distress as he dug and dug in a frenzy.

  Something very bad had happened. But what? Why was this dog attacking the snow so desperately?

  I did not know, but before I could think, I was digging next to him. Something was bad, and we were digging. That was all I knew.

  We had not been at it very long when I smelled someone approaching. It was the two men who had shouted. They were still shouting.

  “There! Over there!” one of them exclaimed. “See? They’re digging!”

  I kept at it. The ice was packed under my paws and it was hard to get a good hole started. My nose picked up a scent under the snow—a man, the same man whose scent was painted on the male dog.

  Now I knew why we were digging. We were digging to save the man.

  I hardly looked up when the two new men glided up on long shoes, holding poles in their hands. One of them was taller and had darker skin than the other. They both kicked their strange shoes off.

  “These must be his dogs!” the one with dark skin said.

  The men knelt next to us. Now there were two dogs and two people digging.

  “Got his shirt!” gasped the first man.

  “Is he alive?” asked the second.

  The first man, the taller one, whipped off his mittens. “Still got a pulse!”

  The men dug armloads of Snow Do Your Business away from the buried man’s face. Soon they had his shoulders free. They stood up, each holding one of his arms. They hauled on the man, straining to break him out.

  “Keep pulling!”

  Then the two standing men fell down, and the buried man was free. The male dog licked his face, whimpering.

  The taller, darker man pulled a phone out of his pocket. “No signal up here. I’ll go back down to the cabin. Gavin, you stay with him.”

  “Okay!”