She stepped out onto the path and called to him. “You are sick, brother, and confused, and very tired. What you have done, you did not intend. You deserve ease. If you wish, I will give it.”
The human scrambled to him feet and patted himself down with quick furtive movements, his eyes fixed upon Mhari. “Too small, too small,” he garbled. “Don’t shoot the smallcats, you fool. The big cat. The wild cat. The great cat.”
He produced a familiar-looking gun from the folds of his filthy coat and pointed it at Mhari. The weapon spat fire, and Mhari’s shoulder blazed and burned.
A wail of pain escaped her. She fell where she stood, dimly aware of the brush of fur against her flanks and the thoughtless jostle of many small bodies as the smallcats rushed past her.
They swarmed the wild man like large, deadly rats, biting and tearing. His screams were terrible, but they did not last long. The smallcats lingered on.
And then, just as quickly, they were gone.
A small, rough tongue rasped over Mhari’s face again and again. It was rather pleasant, and so was the soft thump of a furry head against her neck. Except for the pain in her shoulder, Mhari was quite content-
The pain roared back, loud and angry. She gasped, and the sudden intake of breath carried a familiar scent. A moment passed before Mhari’s groggy thoughts could focus enough to identify it: the big tom who had tried to stop this thing.
She forced her eyes open. Yes, it was the handsome cat she had fought and vanquished. If he wished to settle scores now, she could do little do stop him.
“Get up, Freckles,” the big tom urged her. “We have to move now.”
Mhari heard it then-the deep, reverberating thumps of a horse’s hooves. She had seen horses in the park during some of her walks, always ridden by a policeman.
She struggled to her feet, allowing the big tom to guide her into the bushes. He found a small hollow beneath a fallen tree and gently pushed her into it. A good choice, Mhari thought dully. Shelter. Defensible.
“The smallcats will find me,” she murmured.
The tom touched his nose to hers in an oddly comforting gesture. “Don’t you understand? The smallcats, as you call them, set you up. If I hadn’t found you, the police would have found that crazy man dead of an animal attack, a gun lying beside him and a large wild cat dead nearby. They probably wouldn’t have looked any further.”
He twitched his whiskers in frustration. “I’ve been trying to stop this. Maybe this man was a threat, but cats killing humans? Imagine the repercussions! I thought Smithwicks’s gang recruited you for muscle. I had no idea…”
The tom’s voice trailed off. He glanced over his shoulder toward the place where the wild man’s torn remains lay. “No thinking creature deserves such a death. Not even one whose thinking is somehow twisted.”
“Perhaps, especially not such a one,” Mhari said softly.
“Agreed.”
“I did not attack him. I did not tear him apart or eat his flesh.” For some reason, it seemed important for the tom to know this. “But I would have killed him had he desired a quick death.”
The male blinked, apparently surprised by her candor. “From what little I saw of the man, that would have been a kindness.”
“May I know your name?”
“Jason,” he said absently as he scanned the woodland shadows. “Listen, I think you’ll be safe here for a while. I know where you live. I’ll do what I can to get word to your human. But you have to stay here, Freckles-any human with a gun is likely to shoot at a cat your size.”
“My name is Mhari,” she said. “And I would be pleased if you would visit me from time to time.”
That made him smile, albeit a little grimly. “Let’s get you home first.”
The night passed and most of the next day, and still no one came. No smallcats, no Jason, no Woman. Weak with pain and thirst, Mhari was almost glad a small, yapping dog found her hiding place. She was almost pleased to see the grim-faced humans in their Animal Control jumpsuits and long poles with loops at the end. She was almost relieved to have the relative comfort and safety of a small metal cage. And surely no water had ever tasted so sweet. One of the humans stuck something sharp in her hip, and she slept. When she awoke the next morning, her hurts had been cleaned and wrapped. Even though they planned to kill her.
Like the koi, Mhari would be permitted to live until she died.
Her Woman came later that day, bringing the portly Man with her. He waved important Papers and blustered on and on. Some of the things he said were sensible. All of the blood on Mhari’s fur was her own. The man had shot Mhari, but there was no evidence that she had attacked him. The Woman had insisted upon something called an autopsy, which proved that none of the wild man’s many wounds came from a Serval’s teeth or claws. There was evidence of other animals, and many of the small bites had been taken before the wild man died. And apparently there was no trace of something called “human DNA” in Mhari’s scat.
The round, loud Man talked and talked. Mhari still did not like him, but she could see that he impressed the humans at Animal Control. Mhari’s Woman signed many papers. Thick wads of money surreptitiously changed hands. Finally the Woman was allowed to open Mhari’s cage and strap her into her jeweled harness.
The Woman sat in the back seat of the car with Mhari on the way home, while the Man drove. She stroked Mhari’s coat and talked and talked, but for once Mhari did not hear. She did not hear English or Italian. She would not have heard even if the woman suddenly spoke Serval, for her own thoughts were too loud, and too troubling, for her to hear anyone else’s.
Mhari understood why the smallcats “set her up,” to use Jason’s term. They wished to protect themselves and their civilization. Perhaps they suspected that the wild man could hear the tiger. Perhaps they suspected that the wild man was doing the tiger’s bidding, acting as the wild cat’s agent in the city. And as Smithwicks had said, there was no place for the greatcats in the city.
Perhaps they thought there was no place for her in the city, either.
Perhaps they were right.
The Woman leaned down to give Mhari a careful squeeze. “I’ll be much more careful about your gate,” she said. “It just isn’t safe for a Serval to wander the city. You’ll stay in the house with me tonight.”
“No, I won’t,” Mhari said. Her Domestic was strongly accented by Serval, but perhaps the woman would understand. After all, hadn’t her ancestors kept company with Serval for hundreds of years?
The Woman sat up, smoothed a hand uncertainly over her hair. “But it’s such a lovely day, isn’t it? It would be a shame for you to stay indoors on such a night as this will be.” She laughed a little. “Perhaps I’ll stay in the habitat with you.”
“No. You won’t.”
“But of course I can’t.” She sighed and turned away to watch the city pass by.
Despite her best intentions, the Woman didn’t quite secure Mhari’s gate that night. The Serval waited until the waning moon was nearly set, then she slipped through the quiet streets to the zoo.
The tiger was still lying beneath his tree. Mhari wondered if he had bothered to move at all in the days that had passed.
“Your human is dead, Great One,” she said respectfully, “but not by my tooth or claw. I did not understand until it was too late. Forgive me.”
“And you understand now?” he asked, but in a way that suggested he had little interest in her answer.
“I think,” she said hesitantly, “you were trying to get him to free you.”
That got his attention. His ears went up, and he gathered his hind legs beneath him as if he might actually consider rising. “In a sense, yes, that is so.”
“Life will never be as you once knew it. I have wandered the city, Great One, and have learned that there is no place for us here. For the Serval, much less the greatcats, freedom is death.”