The Ridge(45)

The tiger roared. Tried to roar. The powerful sound died into a rasp and blood ran out of his mouth and onto his muzzle. Wesley Harrington, more than four decades devoted to these beautiful cats, felt the black rage again.

I will find whoever did this and tear his heart from his chest, kill him with my hands…

“Easy, Kino,” he murmured. “Easy.”

He was close now, about five feet away. Within range of the pole, but it would be a stretch, and he didn’t want to be off-balance. Another step, then. Two more. He needed to get this in where it would count, and he knew this cat and the cat knew him and there would be no problem with this, no problem at—

He’d just pressed the syringe to Kino’s rib cage when the tiger lunged. It was difficult for the cat—obscenely difficult, considering that Wesley had carefully approached from his left side, his wounded side, knowing that if the tiger did make aggressive movements, it would be harder for him to go left than right.

It was hard. His left foreleg twisted uselessly, shattered bone rolling in the shoulder socket, fresh blood pouring free, as he pushed off the ground entirely with his hind legs. For one second they were facing each other, the tiger’s lips peeled back to expose massive, bloodstained teeth and enraged eyes that glittered in the flashlight glow. Wesley saw the right paw rising, saw it coming, and even in the second before it hit him he was more dazzled than terrified. What an incredible show of power. This cat was dying, but he had risen up one last time, risen bold and brave and—

The impact caught him in the chest and threw him back toward the fence. The pole syringe and flashlight fell from his hands and he felt searing warmth and then he was down on his back and the dark trees wove overhead in the endless breeze, tendrils of fog drifting through the fences and out into the woods.

It had not been a full-strength blow. Far from it. A tiger did not need to use full strength, or even half strength, to kill a man.

Wesley got his chin onto his chest and looked down and saw the source of the terrible warmth that engulfed him. Kino had torn him open. In one swift strike, the cat had laid Wesley open from midchest to abdomen. The blood pulsed and pooled around him and he was glad that it was dark and he couldn’t see the wound any better.

Should’ve used the gun, he thought stupidly. Not even the dart gun—the real one. Should’ve just ended his misery. Because that cat is dying, and he is scared, and he knows that it was a human that did it.

Kino was up again, moving again. Coming toward Wesley. He let out a bellow, and Wesley, who knew more about cats than he did about people, understood. The cat was not coming to finish the job. The cat was sorry.

“I know,” Wesley said, or tried to say, but his tongue was leaden in his mouth and his jaw seemed locked. “Not you, Kino. Not your fault. You were scared. We were both scared.”

The cat’s noise had changed, shifting from the roars of agony and fear to the softer chuffing, the sound of friendship, of love, and Wesley could see that Kino was trying to reach him. Not to strike again, not to do harm. The tiger didn’t want to kill him, never had. It was scared, that was all, and an animal of such tremendous size and strength could kill quite accidentally when it was scared.

Kino fell again. The white on his muzzle was stained dark with blood. He tried to stand and couldn’t. Wesley said, “Not your fault, Kino. Not your fault.”

Still the cat tried to rise. Wesley dug his fingers into the grass and the dirt and dragged himself. Parts of him seemed to be trailing behind, but he did not look back. The tiger had gotten so close; all Wesley had to do was close the gap.

He reached him and got his hand up, laid it on the side of the cat’s massive head. The tiger chuffed again, softer, and nuzzled against the hand. Wesley tried to scratch his ears, but it was hard to make his fingers work.

The tiger turned from him then, faced the woods, and growled. Wesley looked in the same direction, and that was when he saw the blue light. It flickered through the darkness, a thin blue flame that seemed to move on its own, a dancing orb in the black night.

“Who’s there?” Wesley tried to call, but he didn’t have much voice anymore.

The blue light came on toward him, and Kino growled again, and now he had support, every cat in the preserve joining the chorus, standing at attention. Across from Kino’s cage, illuminated in the moonlight, Wesley could see that two of the white tigers were on their hind legs, forepaws resting against the fence, snarling into the night. The blue light retreated, flickering in and out of the trees.

That’s him, Wesley thought. That’s the bastard who did this. If I had the rifle right now I could get him. I could hit him from here, so long as he kept holding that light.