Forest Cat - Part 2

I'm not saying I ever believed Bess Milton was really a witch. But time distorts memories, and when you're an impressionable child, images imprint on your brain. Did she really look as weird as I remembered in those clothes? And was the expression on her face really that scary? I expected to feel differently when – and if – I saw her again.
            I glanced up at the sky as I left the Ranger Station. Several good hours of daylight remained, but dark fell fast in the mountain forest. The drooping branches of the trees absorbed whatever light trickled down and left the forest floor in shadow most of the day. The air was crisp with cold and moist with snow, the scent of pine was strong.
            I drove away from the Station and up a forest road that eventually passed near the point where the cougar had supposedly been shot. From here on out, I would be on foot and in the snow. I parked my SUV in a pull out just off the road, gathered my gear and headed out. My boots crunched in the snow; birds fluttered and chirped above me in the trees. My cheeks burned with the cold air.

            Using the provided GPS coordinates, I soon found the hunter's blind and a nearby tree stand. I would track the blood trail as far as I could, and then use my compass and map, hopefully to find Bess' cabin.
            Carefully, I studying the trampled snow below the tree stand, and then radiated out in large circles, watching for drops of blood. When I finally stumbled on the blood trail, I followed it and the cougar's tracks through a low area muddied by snowmelt and up into a ravine where huge boulders had tumbled haphazardly into the trees from nearby cliffs.

            The blood trail and the tracks disappeared.
            I checked my compass once again, and then searched, slowly moving in ever larger circles using the nearest trees as the circle’s core. Fifteen minutes passed. I had found nothing;  I was ready to give up.

            Then, I saw a small drop of blood in a snow pile at the base of a tree. Once again, I slogged through drifts in a circular search, using the blood drop as the center, but again, I came up empty. I went back to the tree and looked up. No sign of the animal, but there seemed to be smears of something dark a few yards up on the trunk.

            Had the lioness waited here, assessed her injury, and regained her strength before moving on?
            I unhooked my back pack, hung my mini binoculars around my neck, and climbed the tree.
            From a vantage point twenty feet up, I studied the lay of the land. A rocky stream rippled down the mountain a hundred yards away with a steep bluff on the opposite side. A dark area on the side of the bluff could be a cave. I finished my 360-degree scan of the area, and then went around again, slower.

             Bingo.
            Dead tree limbs had accumulated into a huge, messy pile at the base of the boulder field fifty yards away. Although it looked natural, it sparked my interest. It had all the makings of an expertly constructed brush shelter. I eased down the tree, swung the gun around and loaded a tranquilizer dart. Then I moved.
            Ten steps from the shelter, I stopped and listened. The woods were quiet, too quiet. The very silence of the birds and squirrels betrayed my presence. Whatever was in the shelter was listening, too. Its muscles were bunched, ready to pounce into action.

            Was I ready for the cat to charge out at me? The even more pressing question was, was I

ready to go in after it?

 
The answer to the second question was definitely no. I would be at a disadvantage, crouched down, looking into the dark. It would be immensely better if I could draw the animal out, or at least evoke a response so that I knew what I was dealing with.

            I threw a stick onto the shelter. It thudded against it. Nothing happened. I pitched another stick with the same result. And then I grabbed a rock about the size of my fist. It crashed into the branches, and thudded down inside.

            "Go away." The voice was soft.

            "Bess? Is that you? Are you hurt?" I stepped closer and heard a deep sigh. "I'm coming in. I'm not going to hurt you."

            "Go away."

            "I'm Shea Maroney, from town. There's a wounded cougar in the forest, and I'm trying to find her, to help her. Have you seen her?"

            Leaves rustled inside the shelter and then a few branches moved, revealing an opening. A hand reached out. I grabbed the hand and pulled gently. The woman, small and dressed in dark denims and a jacket, easily moved through the opening but then collapsed on the ground.

            She stared at my face with the same cautious expression I remembered from years ago. Her eyes shifted to the forest behind me. "Help me get to my cabin. It's not far, but my leg ---"

            Blood had soaked her left pant leg, and a tear gaped open revealing a bloody wound.

            For a moment, I was back in elementary school. Here was the witch of the forest with a leg wound, but the hunter had reported wounding a cougar in the leg.

            "What happened?" I ignored the shiver that ran up my spine. Bess was very much a woman, not a cougar.

            "Help me to my cabin."

            I prompted her for more information; what had happened? When? She shook her head. I finally shrugged. "Which way?"

            She tilted her head to the east.

            Together we moved through the trees, around rocks, across streams. Several times, we stopped to rest. What little light there was, dimmed.
(watch for Part 3, the conclusion of "Forest Cat," on Monday, July 1)