Leopard's Kin Read online

  Both kittens were near her now, pushing themselves against her body, sliding their cheeks along her jeans, their tails sticking up in the air like tiny, furred flags. They were both purring as she absent-mindedly reached down with both hands and stroked them, staring off into some far-distant landscape of loneliness and despair. Luke crawled up into her lap and head-butted her under the chin while Leia put her front legs across Lori’s legs and squeezed tight, claiming her. Their adoration and peacefulness was calming Lori, but it took her a moment to realize it. Finally, when Luke stretched up and started licking her cheek, Lori pulled herself out of her stupor and giggled despite herself.

  “Don’t, Luke,” she said groggily in a half-hearted protest, “that tickles.”

  He carried on, though, until she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her chest. She buried her face in his soft fur and she could feel the power of his purr vibrating across her cheekbones.

  “Okay,” she whispered to both of them. “Okay. I get it. No more feeling sorry for myself.” She wiped away the remaining tears from her flaming cheeks and looked down at them. “But what am I going to do?”

  The kittens just watched her, offering solace in the only way they could until she gently displaced them, stood up and went to fetch a couple of buckets and a scoop. It took a lot longer and the day was almost finished before she was done, but Lori transferred all four bags of salt into the buckets, carried them down and dumped them into the water softener and holding bin one trip at a time until the job was finished.

  And she vowed never to buy the big bags of water softener salt again.

  **********

  The dry days of August continued on, but there was a change in the air this night as Lori turned from Ebony’s stall, said a final good-bye to the horses who were contentedly munching their hay, and headed back to the house. They were bedded down for the night and with the crackle of electricity in the air, she didn’t linger long once the chores were finished. She wasn’t exactly relishing another night alone in the house, though, especially since the wind was rising in anticipation of the predicted thunderstorm to come. She was deep in thought as she scraped her boots off at the bottom of the back porch and grabbed for the railing.

  As she raised her head to check her ascent, there was a meow from the top step and she jerked her head up with a gasp. There was a large brown tabby tom sitting directly in her path, perched like the sphinx on the top step, his front paws outstretched in self-assured contentment.

  “Holy God – you scared me!” she accused the stranger as she continued to climb the porch stairs. “Who are you and what are you doing up here?”

  The feral cat stared at her with his amber eyes and she felt the hair stand up lightly on the back of her wrists and neck. Despite resembling a fuzzy teddy bear, his unnerving silence and tightly-coiled power were intimidating. When she got to the top she dropped to a squat and extended a hand for him to sniff, but he wanted no part of her.

  She looked him over and marvelled at how powerful and huge he was. There was more than just an age difference between this guy and her domesticated kittens inside. This one had clearly been brought up in the wilds of a harsh environment, facing numerous life-threatening situations on a regular basis. She had seen strays like this crossing cut hay fields reduced to stubble, searching for mice, and knew that they were ever-vigilant for hawks and owls from above, and a myriad of threats from the ground: fast-speeding cars, coyotes, snakes, and other cats that might be sick and infect them.

  “Would you be hungry, by any chance?” she inquired. He looked up at her with his ears tucked back defensively. “I’ve got some leftover hot dogs, if you’re interested in table scraps.”

  He answered with a loud meow then stood up with a luxurious stretch. He kicked it into high gear, then, and continued with his tirade of dialogue. “Alright, alright,” she murmured as she stepped into the house. Grabbing the kittens’ kibble, she scooped some into a bowl, chopped a hot dog up in it, and set the melange outside the door as he eagerly made his way over. He ate it before she had a chance to pull her boots off and get comfortable on the couch. No time or food was wasted on this property, by any of its inhabitants or visitors.

  It was dark before the storm hit, taking its time in gathering momentum. Lori switched off the TV with reluctance; the house always sounded unnervingly quiet in these few minutes she took to check the doors were locked and all the downstairs windows were sealed up for the evening. Regardless of the summer’s heat, and the fact that she lived on a remote country road, she always ensured the main level was barred and bolted before going to bed. She’d watched too many documentaries of intruders breaking in through open windows on hot nights.

  Tonight, though, she also shut the upstairs windows, since she knew there was rain coming – she could smell the freshness of it when she pressed her nose against the screen. She took a deep breath, loving the scent of its promise, and cranked the window shut in her bedroom. Pyjamas on, teeth brushed, and she was just turning back the covers when the first flash of lightning seared its way across the sky. It was a fair distance away – the answering thunder was many seconds in coming. Leia’s ears went flat back against her head and her eyes grew wide at the booming noise. She slid off the bed and slunk underneath it in preparation. Luke soon followed suit and Lori sighed at her lack of protection.

  “Maybe I should think about getting a dog, you cowards,” she said in playful threat. Although in reality, her parents’ big shepherd was more of a coward than any animal she’d yet seen when it came to storms. He was too big to hide under the bed, but chose to hop in the bathtub as his fall-out shelter.

  Lori turned on the fan and lied on top of the covers, picking up the latest Horse & Rider magazine as some light reading before bed. The lightning-and-thunder combinations started coming in faster succession now and several times she looked up from her reading with a gasp. One particular rumble shook the entire house, the windows rattling in their frames. Lori looked up at the roof, expecting it to cave in at any moment, but instead the heavens opened up and began to pour. She could hear the rain striking the roof and windows with a ferocity that made her grateful for a well-secured home and a barn for the horses. Unfortunately, after such a long dry spell, this hard rain was going to cause flooding – she would have preferred a nice, soaking rain that gently seeped into the ground and softened things up. She hoped it didn’t carry on like this too long or she was going to have erosion of the sand in the outdoor arena.

  Another dramatic lightning strike – this time, much nearer to her property – lit up the sky with a flash of white-green light and Lori cringed in spite of herself. She threw the magazine onto the floor by her nightstand, grabbed Cody’s pillow and wrapped her arms around it. Her bedside lamp was still on, but she checked to make sure the flashlight she kept on the nightstand was still in working order, too. She clearly wasn’t going to be sleeping anytime soon, so she resigned herself to lying there, cuddled up with her pillow, and listened to the tempest outside.

  Crack, said another sharp lightning-thunder blast, causing Lori to flinch in spite of herself. She usually loved storms, but being at the house alone wasn’t as much fun. It brought on all sorts of worries she’d never considered before: what if the rising wind blew off the shingles, what if the rain started leaking into the basement, how were the horses handling it, what if she lost power?

  As though she jinxed herself with that last thought, another blast of lightning struck nearby and suddenly the house was plunged into darkness. Lori heard the feeble, final squeal of their carbon monoxide detector go off as the power surged, and then that eerie silence of a home with no electricity settled over her. No refrigerator humming, no fan creating white noise in the background, no kicking on and off of the water cooler they kept in the dining room – all Lori heard now was the lashing of the rain outside and the steady tick-tock of the battery-operated clock on the wall.
r />   She flicked on the flashlight and got out of bed, marking the time. If the power didn’t come back on soon, she’d have to go down in the basement and keep an eye on the sump pump. She was pretty sure they had a battery back-up on theirs, but she certainly didn’t need the basement flooding on top of it all. She paused for a moment, realizing she still thought of things in the house as “theirs” – not “hers” – but brushed aside the trickle of pain caused by the acceptance of being alone.

  She could hear the wind starting to gust angrily now and she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This part of the country was known for tornadoes – they’d had several historical ones that caused significant damage in the earlier years of settlement and she had heard the neighbours talk of a lethal one about 30 years ago that had wiped out an entire herd of dairy cattle just down the road. What if there’s a tornado? she thought in panic. Is it better to turn the horses out and let them fend for themselves? Or should I leave them in the barn?

  She could hear the wind screaming around the windows and walked over to her office, which faced the back of the property and the barn. She looked in vain towards the stable, trying to see what was happening. She could just make out tree branches whipping around as the gusts increased in ferocity. If she turned the horses out, didn’t she run the risk of them getting impaled or crushed by falling debris, though?

  “God, I don’t know what to do!” she muttered half to herself and half to the entity creating this storm. Her fingers tapped with anxiety on the sill as she looked out into the dark.

  Another flash of lightning lit up the sky and she was able to see the barn clearly. It seemed frail and forlorn out there in the dark and Lori made up her mind in a heartbeat. She was pulling on some rainproof gear she kept near the back door before she knew it; grabbing a large, portable spotlight, too, on her way to the stable.

  The rain swept straight up under her hood and doused her face by the time she had gotten off the porch, the wind pushing her sideways across the yard as she made her way to the horses. The tomcat was hunched down in front of the stables, seeking shelter from the storm, and she called to him.

  “C’mon teddy bear - before you get drenched - get inside here with me.” She slid back the barn door and was greeted with a nervous nicker from Piper.

  “Hey, boy.” She called softly to him as she turned on the bigger spotlight and set it up on a wooden ledge near the door. She could just make out Piper and Ebony, the two closest to the entrance, as they put their heads over the half-doors of their stalls. Further back, she caught the movement of Rick’s filly, her liver-chestnut colour making her almost invisible out of the range of the light.

  Lori went to each horse in turn, going into the stall, running her hands over them, trying to soothe them with her presence. They seemed to quieten a bit as she continued to murmur to them, so she decided to stay for awhile. The wind still rattled the windows and doors here, too, but the extra bales of hay and bags of bedding she had stacked up along the aisle for tomorrow’s work helped to muffle the sound.

  Lori began to sing softly – an obscure lullaby that had been handed down through her mother’s side of the family for generations – and then launched into “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon, since it seemed to segue nicely. She walked over to Piper’s stall and rested her forehead against his as the storm raged on, her fingers automatically entwining in his mane.

  “I know, buddy,” she said into the quiet as Piper gently nudged her, “I’m scared, too.” She turned her head so that she could press her face into his hide and took a deep breath of his warm skin. She could smell the citronella fly spray she’d put on him earlier in the day and a combination of hay, manure, pinewood shavings and sweat. It was the best perfume in the world.

  It was about the time that the rain let up that the lights she had turned on by the back porch came back on. Lori could see them spring to life as she looked out the tack room window.

  “Well, kids,” Lori called to the horses as she made one final check around the barn. “It looks like another tragedy has been averted. Thanks for your company.” She looked over to where the feral cat was settling on a hay bale but he seemed content to stay put for the night. She switched off the portable spotlight and made her way back to the house, the trees dripping around her, her feet squishing in the drenched grass, and the lightning continuing to flicker off in the distance to the east.

  **********

  The next night, the lack of sleep during the storm caught up with Lori – she was yawning like a kitten herself while Piper and she made their customary check around the property. There had been some wind damage to her neighbour’s old silo and a huge ash tree down the road had taken a direct lightning hit, but everything on her own property seemed intact.

  Lori dragged herself up the steps to the house, fixed herself a quick supper of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon, took a quick shower, and was in bed by 9:00. She would be convinced later that her dream lasted the rest of the night.

  She dreamt that she was panning for gold with a rusty, dented pan. It was something she’d never done in reality, but she seemed quite adept in her dream, as though she’d been doing it for years. The stream she stood in was shallow, with a million little pebbles paving the riverbed and it was into this soft base that she dipped again and again. Swish, swish, swish as she gyrated her hands in a counter-clockwise motion, scanning what remained for any telltale glimpse of the shiny metal left after sifting. She found nothing and dipped again, the water ice-cold from the mountains she was conscious loomed up behind her back.

  It was still – there wasn’t another soul in sight – and she wasn’t alarmed by that knowledge, even though she didn’t have a clue where she was. None of the surrounding terrain seemed familiar. There was a brilliant blue sky overhead, with numerous fluffed white clouds being pushed along by the slight breeze.

  She dipped again, the pebbles rattling loudly on the bottom of her pan as she continued with her work. At one point, she thought she saw a trace of gold and felt her heart beating faster as she pushed a cold hand into the water, moving the chaff out of the way for the treasure she was certain lay buried underneath. But as she shoved the brown, red and black pebbles out of the way, no gleam of gold revealed itself and she sighed in frustration. It must have been the sunlight reflecting off a particular piece of granite caught at the bottom of the pan. She dumped that load and scooped again.

  She carried on, listening to foreign birds calling from the trees around the stream as she worked, until a rumble started to seep into her subconscious. The murmur started out so quietly she wasn’t aware of it until the noise began vibrating under her feet, as well. It was then she looked up in alarm and saw that a mountain far in the distance across the riverbed was beginning to crack at the top, as though its lid had been prised open.

  Lori stood, gaping, unsure of what was happening. As the noise grew louder, though, she realized the top of the mountain was being forced up by some great red substance; when her knees began to tremble from the vibration beginning to hum through the earth, she realized it was a volcano. She watched, appalled, as the crack at the top of the mountain opened wider in agonizing slowness. This was no great eruption, but rather a steady peeling open of the crest, with more and more of the earth’s core revealed underneath, like some gaping wound that refused to bleed.

  She knew she should run. Just because it hadn’t blown yet didn’t mean it wasn’t likely to, but she felt riveted to the spot. She dropped the pan in wonder as she watched the molten liquid bubbling under the surface. She couldn’t move.

  Just as abruptly as it began, it seemed to stop. The crack didn’t lessen, the top didn’t lower itself again, but at least the rumbling ceased and nothing more happened. Lori finally dragged her eyes away from the mountain-volcano, shaking herself out of her stupor. She gasped in surprise as she saw something moving down the road that ran to the side of that mountain – so
mething on four legs that trotted steadily along, coming straight at her.

  It was some type of animal – of that she was sure – but it was still so far away that she couldn’t make it out. Self-preservation belatedly kicked in and she turned to make her way back to her camping supplies on the other creek bed. She knew she didn’t have a gun, knife or any other significant form of protection but in the way of dreams she felt if she could only reach the pot and pan she carried with her, she’d be able to frighten whatever it was away.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she trotted up the riverbank and was alarmed to see the beast had gotten much closer – a long tail swishing behind the animal was clearly evident now. Its silence and speed were a lethal combination; Lori sped up, her arms and legs pumping as she ran the remainder of the way to her campsite, her breathing coming in rapid, panicked gasps.

  She flew into the tent, frantically looking around for the pot and pan, throwing other bits of debris out of her way as she searched. She seized on them and grabbed a fire extinguisher lying nearby, too; she was ready to do battle with whatever she had on hand.

  She got out of the tent as quickly as she could, dimly aware that she didn’t want to be caught within if she was attacked. She raced outside, only to be brought up short when she looked across the river bed and saw the animal’s eyes boring into her own from only yards away.

  It was a snow leopard, and a fighting-fit one. How had it gotten here so quickly? Lori’s brain screamed at her. That wasn’t normal! Her lungs were still heaving from her run and the adrenaline that was coursing through her body but the cat just sat there, staring at her with its intense grey-green eyes, its massive front paws threatening violence just by their very existence.

  Lori stared back at the cat and was conscious of the wheezing noises she was making as she tried to recover air. She suddenly became aware of the implements she held in her hand and tucking the extinguisher under her arm, began to bang the pot and pan together. The noise was deafening in her dream; it seemed to reverberate through the valley, clanging from the mountainsides. The leopard flattened its ears back against its head, but continued to sit there, staring at her. It wasn’t phased in the least by the enormity of the noise.