all gone anyway. “Who would kill it?”
“Think about it,” Miguel said. “Who had the most to gain?”
“Antheus? Somebody from the mining company killed it?”
“Left the body by that gate, where we stopped. Right outside the gate, on the public easement. A female panther. Gut shot, and left to die. Fish and Wildlife investigated, but never could prove who killed it.”
Suddenly I hated people.
“Fish and Wildlife folks still coming out here, looking around, thinking they might find a mate,” Angus said. “But nobody’s found any evidence of a second panther. Yet.”
“So, that’s why we’re here. We’re going to introduce the world to this new panther.” Miguel held up the Baggie of cat poop. “Little panther scat, plus a set of tracks down to the creek, should leave a convincing trail.”
“Let’s do it,” I said, and grinned like I meant it.
While Angus showed off how much he knew about Florida panthers by telling us how far to space the tracks, and all such stuff as that, Miguel and I walked side by side, me with the left paws, and him with the right, and we made a clear track of the panther along the edge of Horse Creek, then down into the water, as if the big cat was drinking, then back to the high grasses, where Miguel left the scat, I scratched sand over most of it, and then Angus neatly followed our trail, brushing out all our footprints with a palmetto frond.
We hooped and hollered a bit, danced in the thick undergrowth where we wouldn’t leave prints, and Miguel pulled a camera out of the sack, snapped a couple shots of the scat and a long view of the panther’s tracks, and then we boogied out of there, happy as kids who’d put a scarlet king snake in the teacher’s desk.
Back in the truck, I took both Miguel’s and Angus’s hand for a second, and said, “Thank you for including me.”
They nodded and we crawled into the cab of the pickup and started back toward pavement.
Okay, I was glad to have been along on this Screw the Big Boys trip, and I couldn’t wait to tell Delvon what we’d done, but I got to puzzling. “Why’d you take me?” I asked.
“We wanted to test your dedication to the Cause,” Miguel said.
What cause? I thought, but then Miguel took a curve a bit too fast and I slid into him, thigh to thigh, and my brain just stopped working.
Yeah, okay, I was kind of engaged to Philip, even if I wasn’t talking to him right now, and I needed to get a grip on this lusting-after-Miguel thing. Pushing my leg away from physically touching Miguel, I promised myself not to act upon that lust until I resolved things with Philip, one way or the other.
Philip the steady, Philip the smart, Philip who brings wine and roses—I started listing his positive traits. For starters, he’d never have led me across a barbed-wire fence, through the no-trespassing signs, on a cat-track-and-scat spree.
But that was as much a negative as a plus for Philip, I realized, and leaned down to scratch a bug bite.
Angus scratched at something on his leg at the same time and pushed against me, and when I pulled away, I bumped back up against Miguel. Yeah, okay, it wasn’t my fault the front seat was so small, so I went with the flow and let my thigh sit there bouncing against Miguel’s and setting off electrical charges as the little red truck lurched down the road.
Angus broke my reverie. “Hey, Mike, let’s go by and check on Lenora. We’re in the neighborhood.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Miguel said, then smiled at me. “It’ll be another education for Lilly.”
Not sure I wanted to learn anything else today from my fake-the-panther clients, I glanced at my watch. I wondered when my next chance at getting some bottled water was going to be. A Save the Forest trail mix bar wouldn’t hurt either.
Apparently catching me looking at my watch, Miguel the considerate asked, “Lilly, is it all right with you if we take a side trip?”
“Does she have a
“Think about it,” Miguel said. “Who had the most to gain?”
“Antheus? Somebody from the mining company killed it?”
“Left the body by that gate, where we stopped. Right outside the gate, on the public easement. A female panther. Gut shot, and left to die. Fish and Wildlife investigated, but never could prove who killed it.”
Suddenly I hated people.
“Fish and Wildlife folks still coming out here, looking around, thinking they might find a mate,” Angus said. “But nobody’s found any evidence of a second panther. Yet.”
“So, that’s why we’re here. We’re going to introduce the world to this new panther.” Miguel held up the Baggie of cat poop. “Little panther scat, plus a set of tracks down to the creek, should leave a convincing trail.”
“Let’s do it,” I said, and grinned like I meant it.
While Angus showed off how much he knew about Florida panthers by telling us how far to space the tracks, and all such stuff as that, Miguel and I walked side by side, me with the left paws, and him with the right, and we made a clear track of the panther along the edge of Horse Creek, then down into the water, as if the big cat was drinking, then back to the high grasses, where Miguel left the scat, I scratched sand over most of it, and then Angus neatly followed our trail, brushing out all our footprints with a palmetto frond.
We hooped and hollered a bit, danced in the thick undergrowth where we wouldn’t leave prints, and Miguel pulled a camera out of the sack, snapped a couple shots of the scat and a long view of the panther’s tracks, and then we boogied out of there, happy as kids who’d put a scarlet king snake in the teacher’s desk.
Back in the truck, I took both Miguel’s and Angus’s hand for a second, and said, “Thank you for including me.”
They nodded and we crawled into the cab of the pickup and started back toward pavement.
Okay, I was glad to have been along on this Screw the Big Boys trip, and I couldn’t wait to tell Delvon what we’d done, but I got to puzzling. “Why’d you take me?” I asked.
“We wanted to test your dedication to the Cause,” Miguel said.
What cause? I thought, but then Miguel took a curve a bit too fast and I slid into him, thigh to thigh, and my brain just stopped working.
Yeah, okay, I was kind of engaged to Philip, even if I wasn’t talking to him right now, and I needed to get a grip on this lusting-after-Miguel thing. Pushing my leg away from physically touching Miguel, I promised myself not to act upon that lust until I resolved things with Philip, one way or the other.
Philip the steady, Philip the smart, Philip who brings wine and roses—I started listing his positive traits. For starters, he’d never have led me across a barbed-wire fence, through the no-trespassing signs, on a cat-track-and-scat spree.
But that was as much a negative as a plus for Philip, I realized, and leaned down to scratch a bug bite.
Angus scratched at something on his leg at the same time and pushed against me, and when I pulled away, I bumped back up against Miguel. Yeah, okay, it wasn’t my fault the front seat was so small, so I went with the flow and let my thigh sit there bouncing against Miguel’s and setting off electrical charges as the little red truck lurched down the road.
Angus broke my reverie. “Hey, Mike, let’s go by and check on Lenora. We’re in the neighborhood.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Miguel said, then smiled at me. “It’ll be another education for Lilly.”
Not sure I wanted to learn anything else today from my fake-the-panther clients, I glanced at my watch. I wondered when my next chance at getting some bottled water was going to be. A Save the Forest trail mix bar wouldn’t hurt either.
Apparently catching me looking at my watch, Miguel the considerate asked, “Lilly, is it all right with you if we take a side trip?”
“Does she have a
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