Fatalis (36 page)

Gearhart turned back to the door. The animals were halfway between the cave and the boulders where the soldiers had been. Because they were slowed by the weight of the bodies, the sheriff was able to see them more clearly now. They were definitely tigers of some sort.

The chopper was about one hundred and fifty feet from the mountaintop. Gearhart leaned into the cabin.

"Hold us here, steady as you can!" he shouted at the pilot.

The Chinook slowed and leveled off. Gearhart raised his rifle.

"Fire at will!" he shouted to the men behind him.

The air exploded with short, hot pops from the Ml6s. The cats were peppered with fire and began twitching, hopping, and snapping at the air as sprigs of red exploded from their shoulders, backs, and hindquarters. The gunfire was constant, some of the animals taking four and five hits as the gunmen shifted targets and their fire overlapped.

The two cats nearest the cave went down almost immediately, their backs and hind legs chewed apart, their skin hanging like bloody rags. Shots to the neck and skull finished them both off. Two other cats, wounded in the rear haunches, dropped their prey and tried to drag themselves forward, only to be pinned to the ground by additional fire. The last cat went down when it paused and used its fangs to scratch at a bloody hole in its right shoulder. It was hit by a succession of bullets that caused it to stagger sideways, though it managed to stay on its feet until it tumbled over the side of the mountain.

When the last cat went down, the other men lowered their rifles and high-fived each other. But Gearhart continued to watch the site as the Chinook hovered. After a long moment the last cat climbed back onto the ridge. It was moving with obvious difficulty.

"You should've been less loyal, you sonofabitch!" Gearhart yelled.

He watched and waited until it was back on top. Then he put a bullet between the cat's large, luminous eyes. Its great head flew back and then the cat dropped forward, its front legs splayed.

The site was still.

"Let's go down and see to our people," Gearhart said.

Gearhart looked at the ridge as they descended. The dusty tan surface was mottled with blood. Some of it in pools and some in threadlike streams. The pools were spreading and the streams were crawling forward, mixing the blood of man with the blood of cat. Except for the blood, the dark brown scrub, torn clothing, and fur stirred by the rotors, nothing on the ridge was moving. They would land, gas the cave, and make sure there was nothing moving inside either. Though Gearhart was saddened by the cost in human lives, he was satisfied that the objective had been achieved. He didn't know whether these tigers were throwbacks, mutations, or animals made from spliced genes. He didn't really care. That was for Grand and his kind to figure out. All that mattered to Gearhart was that the animals wouldn't be leaving that ridge under their own power.

There would be complaints about the fact that these animals were killed rather than captured. But there would be far more complaints if the animals had been able to lose themselves in the hills for days or maybe weeks more.

There would be mourning for the men who died here, though much less than if the cats had been allowed to prey on dozens of other people in Santa Barbara and adjoining counties.

There would be criticism, but there would also be praise. The most important thing was how Gearhart felt.

He had done what he'd set out to do.

He had ended a lethal threat.

Grand spent the morning making the calls to local environmentalists and animal rights groups. He also got an entomologist at the university to agree to go out to the creek to check for gnats that might have escaped from the cave. But the area was still closed off and she had to turn back. Hopefully, the insects hadn't escaped from the cave and would still be there when this was all over.

After that-with Hannah's blessing-Grand had spoken to several other newspapers and TV interviewers about what he thought was out there. He wondered if Hannah had not bothered to put up a fuss because she knew how they'd treat him. Like an alumnus of
The Weekly World News
.

Not that any of Grand's colleagues rallied behind what he had to say. When he spoke with them their reactions ranged from polite doubt-they were clearly humoring a man who had been under a lot of stress-to cautious interest to outright dismissal.

Only Joseph Tumamait put credence in what Grand had to say. Just like the old days.

Grand finished his calls and interviews late in the afternoon. He was about to try and plot possible routes for the cats when Hannah phoned.

"I just heard that the sheriff and the National Guard have literally closed off about two hundred acres in the mountains," she said. "There were reports of gunfire up there."

"Any information?"

"None."

"I've got to get up there," Grand said.

"The mountains are shut up tight-"

"No, Gearhart just thinks they are," Grand replied. "I can get wherever I need to. Do you have any idea where his command post is?"

"A traffic copter friend of mine said he thought he spotted it somewhere up near the intersection of Ballinger Canyon and Route 33."

"Thanks," Grand said.

"Whoa, wait! When are you going?"

"Now," he said.

"Can you swing by?"

Grand didn't want to expose her to further danger. But the idea of doing this without her seemed strange. "Sure," he said.

Hannah and the Wall both joined Grand in his SUV. They kept the windows down and the air conditioning off so they could hear the comings and goings of trucks, choppers, or other vehicles, possibly get a read on the direction they were headed. They heard nothing until they were about two miles up Route 33 when rifle fire began echoing through the mountains. Though sportsmen often took target practice in the open fields this was different: It wasn't sporadic but a continuous roar, like a fireworks finale.

Grand stopped the SUV suddenly, got out, and listened. A moment later he jumped back in the SUV.

"Could you tell where it was coming from?" Hannah asked.

"The northwest," Grand said.

"But I thought-"

"I know," he said, "that they were headed to the southeast. But Jameson Lake is to the west-it's possible they went that way for some reason."

Grand turned west on Barbara Canyon Road, followed the Cuyama River for several miles, then swung north. He stayed off the main and secondary roads, pushing the SUV through the rocky terrain of the Santa Ynez foothills. Grand and his passengers were silent the entire time. The scientist did not want to believe that the sheriff had found the cats already. Perhaps his officers found them in a cave and had been firing to pin them there-

When he heard the sound of a chopper, Grand followed it until the vehicle could go no farther. He stopped between two and three thousand feet up Monte Arido.

"Come on," he said, getting out of the car.

"Where to?" Hannah said.

Grand pointed up the mountain. "A chopper is hovering somewhere up there. They may have spotted the cats and are staying with them."

"Waiting for the cavalry to arrive," Hannah said.

"Maybe," Grand said.

Grand looked for the most accessible slope, the one with the easiest incline, and started up. He half walked, half ran so he could reach a point that was clear of the lower peaks and ridges so he could see the top of the mountain. The section they were climbing would give them both a view and access to the top.

Grand climbed for nearly forty-five minutes before reaching the top of the slope. The first hint of twilight was touching the sky. Perspiring and breathless, he had a clear view of the rest of the mountain. He looked ahead. What he saw was not promising.

A long-bodied helicopter was hovering approximately one hundred feet above a wide, level ridge. What looked like a large canvas sling had been lowered from the side of the chopper, just behind the cockpit Grand could only see the ends of the sling; the rest of it was lying flat on the ground. There were at least a dozen people moving around the ridge.

Hannah and the Wall had fallen behind but Grand didn't wait for them. He scurried up, frantically clawing over rocks and grass toward the top. After climbing another thirty or forty feet he stopped again and looked up.

The sling had begun to rise. Now he could see what was in it It was one of the cats, its golden hide blossomed with red.

Grand fell to his knees. And for the first time since Rebecca died, he reached into his soul for a scream and tears.

By the time Hannah and the Wall reached Grand, the scientist was just getting back onto his feet Hannah didn't have to ask what had caused him to cry out. She saw for herself. The sight was vulgar and revolting. In addition to the one bloody cat in the sung, she saw others lying around the ridge. It was disturbing enough to be around death but it was more disturbing to be present for an extinction. Hannah wasn't a religious woman but the air felt chill and its whistle seemed mournful. She could swear she felt God frowning. Or Nature.

Something.

The Wall snapped several pictures. The small, quick click of the shutter made the deaths seem more real, more tragic. It made Hannah think of the Chumash artists who had put so much effort into rendering animal likenesses on the cave walls. They made the paints, maybe spent hours getting in touch with the animal spirits, then sketched what they felt. They put living images on the cold stone. The Wall's images were of death.

They climbed the mountain, though their movements were now a blur. The smell of sinkholes being paved on nearby Route 166 wafted over. All Hannah could think about was the loss of these last surviving members of a magnificent race. She could only begin to imagine what was going through Grand's heart and mind.

When the trio finally reached the site it was worse than Hannah had imagined. Army National guardsmen were milling about different sections of the ridge. There were four dead cats still on the ridge and four red-flag markers near them. That meant human bodies had been removed from those spots. She wondered, coldly, whether those deaths had been what drew Gearhart to the ridge or whether they were a result of the sheriff having attacked the cats.

Grand reached the ridge first and ran toward the nearest of the cats. One of the National guardsmen moved to intercept him; Grand knocked him aside. Two other soldiers rushed forward to grab him. Grand reached the nearest of the cats before the men got to him. The soldiers tried to pick him up by his arms but Grand shook them off and stood.

"Leave him!" Gearhart shouted.

The soldiers stepped back as the sheriff approached. Grand crouched beside the cat. Hannah and the Wall arrived as Gearhart did. The photographer immediately started snapping pictures in case they were chased away. But Gearhart didn't seem to mind. To the contrary. He was obviously pleased with himself and seemed almost to be inviting coverage of his grotesque triumph.

Gearhart stood on the other side of the dead cat. He spoke loudly to be heard over the chopper.

"This is a restricted area," the sheriff yelled, then looked at Hannah. "But I'll tell you what. If you want some good shots, some really choice pictures that are sure to sell papers, go to the base camp where we've evac'ed the bodies of the guardsmen and my deputy. You'll spot them easy enough. They're the ones that look like sharkfood."

Hannah watched as Grand touched the cat-its ear, then its muzzle, then its bloody shoulder. She'd once seen her father's groom touch a sick horse the same way, with tenderness and great sadness. Hannah wished there were something she could do for Grand.

"You didn't have to do this," Grand said.

"No?"

"You see what these animals are now-"

"Yeah. Killers."

"And what are you?" Hannah asked. "Why don't you ask the people in town?" Gearhart said. "Ask the families of Roche and Greene, if they'll talk to you. Ask the Rangers who work in the mountains. See if they agree with you."

Grand's hand moved along the lithe, muscular body. "It still didn't have to end this way. It wasn't necessary to kill them
or
lose any men."

Gearhart squatted and looked into Grand's eyes. "Is that your professional police opinion?"

Grand looked at the blood on his hand. "It's a fact."

"Is it? Sorry, but you were only batting.333 in your own field. There were more than two cats, you got that right. But you had the direction they were moving wrong and they came out in daylight." Gearhart reached across his body and slipped the hunting knife from his belt. "Deputy Bright was part of the unit up here. He had a wife and a young son who adored him." Gearhart wrapped his fingers around the cat's foot-long tail. Then he slid the knife underneath it and sawed across the base of the tail.

"Oh Christ don't-!" Hannah said.

The tail came free. Gearhart held it replaced the knife, and stood.

Grand just stared at him.

"I know Mrs. Bright very well," Gearhart said, "and I don't give a good goddamn whether the animal rights people picket my office round the clock, throw red paint at my house, or build a shrine up here and burn me in effigy. I don't care whether I get voted out of office and run out of town. Knowing that I did my duty here is the only thing that matters."

"Is it?" Grand asked.

"It is."

Grand's eyes swept across the ridge and then he looked back at Gearhart The scientist stood and walked over to the cat that was being loaded onto the sling. He examined it and then he looked at the other cats. Finally, he walked back to Gearhart.

"You know what really matters, Sheriff?" Grand asked. "Patience. It gets you everything. Respect, cooperation, and most important-knowledge."