Forest Cat - Part 1

(In "Forest Cat," a young veterinarian returns to her home town to work with the local vet. When a wounded cougar is reported in the nearby national forest, she grabs a tranquilizer gun and goes on the hunt. Will she find and treat the wounded animal, or discover that Bess, the Witch of the Forest long feared by local children, actually exists?)

 

 Outside the window of the veterinary hospital, the sun glistened on what remained of the last big snow of a Wyoming spring. The main roads were clear, and so was our parking lot. A few miles away the snow was six inches thick under the trees of the National Forest even though it was nearly June.
            I'd just finished stitching up an injured Labrador retriever when Doc Shiner called me into his office. I glanced in the small mirror by the door, then rubbed the shine off my freckled nose with a tissue before I smoothed my hair and traipsed down the hall to Doc’s office. The sharp smells of disinfectant and the fainter scents of animal pervaded the building. Dogs in the cages out back yipped and barked at each other.
            "Shea, I've had a call from Jim out at the ranger station. Hunter wounded a cougar up by Lost Lake. Animal disappeared into the forest, toward Bess Milton's place. Missy, you're the one with the zoo medicine specialty. Want to go up there with some tranquilizer darts and make sure they don't kill it?"
            "Sure. You got the darts?" My thoughts immediately jumped to a question, Is Bess Milton  -- a.k.a. The Witch of the Forest -- still alive?
            He unlocked the tall gun cabinet next to the window, and then handed me a rifle and a box of tranquilizer darts. "Good luck."
            "Where's Bess live?" We'd all wondered about this as kids, and searched the forest for signs of her cabin with no luck.
            He shrugged. "Show up at the Ranger Station. They'll know."
            I first time I’d seen Bess Milton, I was about eight. Her clothing was a color cacophony, ragged patchwork skirt, faded purple blouse, and scruffy sheep skin vest, finished off with well-worn boots. Her unkempt black hair flew around her head. She looked  like the witch we wanted her to be. Add her outward appearance to stories like the one about the little girl who developed an eye twitch after bumping into Bess in the grocery store, or the cats which went missing just after she’d paid the town a visit, and voila, you had Bess, the Witch of the Forest.  
            By high school, we'd mostly forgotten her. She still came into town for groceries, but we ignored her. If she crossed your path it was considered bad luck to look her in the eye. I tried it a couple of times. My look would meet hers, but she never so much as smiled, and nothing bad ever happened afterward. I had always wondered who she really was, and why she had become a hermit.
            Now, all these years later, I might get to see her again, maybe even see where she lived. Maybe the summer wouldn't be a waste after all.

            Fresh from graduating with my Veterinary Medicine Degree, with a zoo specialty, I'd come back home. I’d had  two zoo job offers, one on each coast, but I had never wanted to live anywhere but here. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a zoo within two hundred miles, and no wild animal parks or private exotic animal refuges, either.
            I took the part-time job offered by Dr. Bill Shiner, the local small animal veterinarian. I had accepted that my future would be mostly spays and neutering, and maybe minor surgeries. Yesterday I had stitched up a German shepherd that had tried to bust through a sliding glass door to go after a cat.

           Not many love prospects here, either. Mostly, the males of my species were mountain men,

 

survivalist types, or loggers. But, like I said, I didn’t want to live anywhere else.

 

            I stopped by the house to get my hiking boots, some thicker jeans and a parka in case this 'hunt' lasted past dark. Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed my backpack. I kept a few emergency medical supplies in there, plus a compass, matches and a signal mirror. I grabbed a couple of energy bars and took to the road in my SUV.
            An hour later, after plowing through a few snow drifts and skidding across a few icy patches, I was at Pine Ranger Station. A lone Jeep with the National Forest Service - USDA logo on the side sat in the cleared parking lot. Sunbeams twinkled on snow piled around the perimeter of the lot.
            A voice crackled over a radio as I opened the door to the building. "No sign of the cat here. Heading west northwest toward Lost Lake. Out." The aroma of strong coffee swirled.
            The forest ranger at the desk looked up as I shut the door. "Help you?" he asked.
            "I'm Shea Maroney.” I pushed my parka hood back and shook out my hair. “Doc Shiner sent me to help with the cougar."
            He squinted at me and the gun slung across my shoulder as he rose from the chair. "You know how to use that, then."
            "I do."
            He stepped around the desk. "Shea Maroney. I remember you."
            I scanned his face, checked out his eyes and his smile. Something registered. "Erick Parsons."
            "Mind like a trap." He grinned. "What in the world are you doing living all the way out here?"
            I'd last seen Erick four years ago, at a party just before we'd graduated with our bachelor's degrees. He’d hardly changed, really, except to get more muscular and tanned.  "I was born here. And I’m temporarily at home with the folks until I can find my own place. And you? A Ranger?"
            "Joined the Park Service. Got on here last winter, full time. My dream job." His grin widened. "Great to see you."
            I remembered that smile, remembered I'd dreamed about going out with him, but he never asked. I shifted my look to the window and the forest beyond. "I'm worried about the wounded cougar. I want to help bring her in. Alive."
            "Did you go on to vet school? I seem to remember you had lots of plans." He wasn't done with Old Home Week.
            I nodded. "Zoo medicine specialty. Lions and tigers, giraffes and elephants. I think I can handle cougars. How far from here was the animal shot?"
            He pointed up at the wall map of the forest. "Five miles or so. Right about here, southwest of the Lake. The hunter reported that he thought he’d hit her in the leg. Cougar disappeared into the brush. Ranger McCreedy met up with the hunter. They followed the blood trail for awhile, but lost it."
            "Female? Maybe it's gone to a den. Could have cubs. Anyone else searching?"
            "Mike from Cedar Station met up with McCreedy to search this morning."
            I studied the map, looked at the roads and the topography, and tried to think like a mountain lion. I'd been all over this part of the forest when I was in high school, but eight years had passed. "Doc mentioned Bess Milton’s place. Does she live around there?"
            Erick Parsons put his finger on the map. "Somewhere west of Lost Lake, a few miles north of where the hunter shot the cougar. You know about Bess?" He grinned.
            "She was already a legend when I was growing up. I’m surprised to hear she’s still alive."
            "We run across her once in a while. I'm worried about how she'll get on with that wounded cat. Calls these wild animals her 'pets.'" He shook his head. "One of them will kill her and that will be the end of that." Erick grimaced.
            I pictured Bess as an older woman wearing even more ragged clothes, and with her unruly hair now mostly gray. Walt Disney's "Snow White" came to mind. I imagined Bess standing in a clearing with birds landing on her shoulders, skunks sniffing her shoes, butterflies playing with her hair. Erick was right. The possibility that a wild creature might kill her was real. I had dealt with wild animals every day during my months as a zoo medicine intern. As tempting as it was to pet their thick, soft fur and stare into their beautiful predator eyes, I had always been aware that lions, bears and wolves thought of me as nothing more than a good meal.
            "I better get going." I grabbed one of the forest trail topo maps from the counter display.
            Erick made a move to grab his jacket, but then checked himself. I knew he shouldn't leave his post, and I didn't want him to. I didn't need help or companionship. I wanted to find the cougar, and in the process, find Bess, the Witch of the Forest.

(Watch for Part 2 coming Friday, June 28)