Panther’s lungs heaved, his old heart thumping solidly against his breast bone. The age-flaccid muscles in his legs were already sapped, and now they complained in unison with his joints. Despite the chill, he wore his blanket open, thankful that he wasn’t climbing this ridge on one of those sticky hot midsummer days that rolled over the Salt Water Bay country. But then the forest would have been alive, the buzzing of insects covering all hint of approaching sound.
Panther had liked the summers as a boy. On those warm nights he’d walked out beyond the palisade and felt the world pulsing and vibrating with life. With it came the swarms of mosquitoes that had floated around his greased body like a personal mist. Grease kept them from sucking a man dry, but it didn’t stop them from clogging nostrils or filling his throat when they flew into his open mouth.
Maybe winter was a better season after all. The harvest was in, the bugs were gone, and white perch could be collected from the fish weirs. The hunters had traveled up the peninsulas to drive deer into their surrounds. Big baskets of nuts had been collected from the ground or shaken from trees. During those cold, blustery months, a man could sit by the fire and tell the old stories, gossip with his friends, and watch his family through contented eyes.
But not me, oh no, I had to leave all of that behind.
Irritated with his sudden longing, he pushed himself that much harder. From what hidden corner of the soul had all of these long-stifled desires arisen? Was it sitting by Nine Killer’s fire that stirred the embers of memory?
He was gasping for breath as he climbed up next to a great spreading beech tree, and finally topped the ridge. There, he bent double, puffing like a toadfish hauled from the water.
“This is where it happened,” Nine Killer said as he stepped past Panther and looked around the flat ridgetop. He tapped his war club on his left palm, making a smacking sound. “Are you all right, Elder?” Sun Conch asked, bending down to peer at him. She laid a cool hand on his hot shoulder, and patted Trim encouragingly.
“Lost my wind.” Panther waved her away and straightened on his rubbery legs. “Youth is wasted on the young. Red Knot no doubt ran up that, completely unaware of how desperately some of us would crave that ability.”
“Few know what they have, Elder, until it is taken away from them,” Nine Killer concurred. “You’re not going to fall over dead, are you?”
“No. I’d hate to make you carry another corpse back from this place.” Panther coughed, his throat rasping from the effort.
“You’re assuming I’d carry you back.” Nine Killer prodded the leaf mat with his war club. “I might just leave you here for the crows and raccoons.”
“They’d have a poor feast, I assure you.” Panther had caught his breath. “Very well, show me where it happened.”
Nine Killer followed the shallow rut of the trail. He stopped about midway across the narrow ridge. “We think she was killed here. That someone stepped out from behind that tree.” He indicated a gray-barked walnut.
Panther stepped up to the walnut, its trunk so thick he couldn’t quite reach around it. If the hard wood knew any secrets, they remained hidden in that cracked and lined bark. Then he walked back to the big beech tree, and studied it. The thick roots had knotted and flexed from the bottom of the wide trunk. “Look here, War Chief. Since the tree is perched on the lip of the edge, a person could crouch down here in this hollow and watch the trail below.”
Nine Killer and Sun Conch came over and studied the little leaf-filled hollow between the thick roots. From there, the trail could be seen snaking down into the trees, and the branches overhead would have broken a watcher’s silhouette. Nine Killer bent down, with Panther looking over his shoulder, and carefully picked out some of the leaves that had drifted into the hollow. “I think this is fruitless. That morning was damp, so the leaves would have been flexible. None of them are broken or crushed from a person’s weight, and I can’t tell if the ones that are stuck together are that way from being stepped on, or from being frozen and thawed since they blew in here.”
Panther pointed to a spot where the smooth gray bark had been slightly polished. “Did someone lean there?”
“Maybe.” Nine Killer shrugged. “Do you know of a way to tell if that was rubbed by Red Knot’s killer, or by children playing around the tree over the last moon?”
“No, I don’t,” Panther straightened and stepped thoughtfully back, looking between the beech and the walnut. No more than six paces separated the two. “The beech is a big thick tree. But rather than wait there, the killer retreated to the walnut.”