The Ridge(112)

Standing beside the open door, gun still extended, Shipley said, “Let’s see if we can keep him down this time.”





49


KIMBLE APPROACHED THE BODY slowly, the shotgun cold in his hands, and he hoped for some sign of life. One last gasp, something. He had to be the one to end it.

He had to be.

There were no last gasps coming from Dustin Hall. Shipley’s shot had caught him just behind his left eye and the bullet had blown through his brain, and Kimble knew with one look that he’d been dead before he’d fallen into the snow. All the same he knelt and put his hand in front of Hall’s mouth, waited for breath, found none. Touched his neck and then his wrist, searching for a pulse.

Nothing.

Shipley and Darmus were standing above him now, and Kimble looked up to see Audrey Clark approaching. A lion, out of its cage, free, moved beside her in the night, and she saw it but did not stop.

“I got him,” Shipley said.

“Yes,” Kimble answered softly. “You got him.”

They were all together then, everyone understanding a piece and no one the whole, and they looked at each other in silence before Audrey Clark said, “You were dead. He pushed you… you were dead.”

Kimble looked up and met her eyes. “Yes.”

Silence again, but only momentarily, because Audrey Clark said, “Ira.”

Roy Darmus murmured an oath and moved for the truck but then decided it was too late, and Kimble turned his head and saw the black cougar advancing through the blowing snow, slinking along without making a sound. The cat stopped not five paces from him, and Kimble moved slowly to turn the shotgun toward him.

“No,” Audrey said. “Don’t. He wants to see the body.”

Kimble couldn’t process that, had shifted his finger to the trigger, when she said, “Just as he did with your deputy.”

He thought about that, thought about the way she’d described her last sighting of the cougar, the black cat standing atop Wolverton as the life bled out of him and the blue torch stayed at bay, and he finally understood.

“Like the lighthouse,” he said. “The cats are like the lighthouse.”

Except this one, which may have been something more than the lighthouse. Kimble rose and moved backward. They all did. The cougar waited until they had cleared enough room, and then he slunk forward, his head swaying side to side, his green eyes impossibly bright. He reached the body and paused, then circled it. He paid the living no mind at all now; his focus was on the dead.

The cat studied the corpse, and then he raised his head and looked toward the ridge.

“There won’t be anyone coming for him,” Kimble told the cat. “The lights are on.”

The black cat watched the ridge for a long time, and then he moved on through the snow and into the night.

Nathan Shipley said, “Did I just see that?”

“Yeah,” Kimble said. “You saw it.” He turned to Audrey Clark. “You were right.”

“Dustin knew it,” she said. “And Dustin could—”

Darmus said, “The cats are out, Kimble. The cats are out. There is a lion right behind us. Look.”

“That’s just Woodrow,” Audrey Clark said. “He won’t hurt you.”

“There are others.”

“Not many. He didn’t manage to let many of them out. I can get them back in.”

There was no waver to her voice. Kimble looked at her and he believed her.

“Well, let’s do that,” he said. “Quickly.”

She didn’t move. “I saw you fall,” she said. “Now here you are.”

“Yes,” Kimble said, and he saw from their faces that they all understood. He pointed at Dustin Hall’s body. “I came back for him.”

Shipley said, “But I got him.”

Kimble worked his tongue around his mouth, which had suddenly gone very dry, and drew in a breath that didn’t come easy.

“I know.”





50


SHE MOVED WITH AN astounding grace and confidence, talking to the cats, coaxing, at times touching them. She had Shipley follow with the tranquilizer rifle, but he did not need to use it. Kimble took Darmus to check the rest of the gates and secure the ones Hall had opened before being disturbed. In four of the enclosures, the gates were open, inviting the cats to freedom, but they had remained inside.

“It’s home,” Darmus said. “I guess they trust it more than they do these woods.”

They were right to do that, Kimble knew.

It took her twenty minutes to escort back inside the five cats—one lion, three tigers, and an ocelot—that had left their enclosures. There was something different in the way she moved with them from what Kimble had seen in her before. Something had changed, but he did not know what. They spoke little until it was done. The three men were afraid of the cats; the one woman, who was not afraid, was focused on them, worried for the safety of the animals.