Cole dismounted, took the wire snips from his saddlebag, and strode to the fence. He bent to cut the bottom strand but hesitated as he reached for the second one. “See this,” he said. “Hair.”
A tuft of short, tawny-colored hair was caught in one of the barbs. Glenna dismounted to examine it. “There’s an orange cast to it,” she said.
Though Mattie had hoped following the tiger would lead them to Tyler Redman and his hunting party, this bit of hair caught in a barb cast a different light. It made the tiger more real. She wanted more than ever to find it alive and keep it that way.
Cole cut the fence, and Brody dismounted to help, pulling the sharply barbed wire back so the horses could pass through the gap. Mattie waited for Cole to swing back into the saddle, and they fell in line at the end as they started the climb through the foothills.
The trail Moose followed took him into an arroyo about six feet deep and the same distance wide, and though Glenna rode Honey down into it to stay with her dog, the others remained on the bank. Piñon, ponderosa pine, and juniper sprang from the rocky soil around them, and Mattie kept Robo from trailing down into the lower ground. If the tiger attacked, it would most likely come from above.
Shod hooves clicked against stone as they continued upslope. After a half hour, Moose left the arroyo and headed up into the forest, where lodgepole pine and spruce grew sparse at first but soon thickened, reducing visibility in all directions. The ground underfoot became rough as the incline steepened. Mattie grabbed the saddle horn as Mountaineer lurched up the side of a draw.
Moose led them into the wide mouth of a canyon filled with pockets of aspen amid the evergreens. Rock shards rolled from under the horses’ hooves as they churned their way upward. Gradually the canyon narrowed, and the horses had to pick their way around boulders. As the terrain grew more and more rugged, Glenna called more often for Moose to wait.
The trail led them to a narrow path, pinned against the canyon wall on one side and thickets of thorny currant bush on the other. An eerie feeling of being watched crept over Mattie, and she scanned the top of the canyon wall. A breeze fanned her cheeks, telling her that at least they would be downwind from the tiger if they should overtake it in this narrow passage. That might prevent it from sensing their presence and attacking from above.
A deep growl came from behind. Mountaineer tucked his tail and hopped forward, making Mattie grab the horn to stay on. Once he stopped up against the rump of Brody’s black-and-white paint, Mattie turned in the saddle to look over her shoulder at Cole. He reined to reverse direction, eyes searching the canyon rim.
The growl escalated to the snarling rumble Mattie remembered only too well. Moose bayed, booming sounds that echoed off canyon walls. He rushed past Mountaineer’s legs, making him spook. Barely able to keep her seat on the lunging horse, Mattie tried to calm him. Thank goodness he was wedged in on the narrow path and unable to bolt.
The horses jostled, crowding each other. The snarl intensified to a full-throated roar, one that sent chills down her spine.
“Can you see it?” Glenna shouted from up ahead.
Robo stayed beside her, his fur bristled. Mountaineer settled enough that she could scan the top of the canyon wall.
And then she saw it.
Teeth gleamed as the huge tiger loomed over them on the canyon’s rim, crouched and poised to leap. The creature was so magnificent, it stole Mattie’s breath. Rifles scraped out of their scabbards as Brody and Cole pulled them free. Mattie realized with horror that they might not have a choice. For their own survival, they might need to shoot this superb beast, a disastrous end to their mission to save it.
A gunshot echoed from a distance. Impossible to locate, but it sounded like it came from up above. The tiger whirled and disappeared behind the canyon rim. Moose continued to bay and tried to scale the wall, falling back to the path time and again until Glenna called him off. Robo stopped barking and stood guard beside Mattie, bristled and growling.
“What in hell?” Brody shouted as he struggled to control his horse.
While the horses settled, Cole made eye contact with Mattie, his gaze stunned. She knew how he felt. Their target’s sudden appearance had staggered her as well.
“We’re going to need a different plan,” Glenna said, cool as creek water.
TWENTY-FOUR
Mattie realized she was trembling. “I need to get off this horse,” she said to Cole.
He swung down to help her, but she’d already slipped from the saddle. As soon as her feet touched firm ground, she got a grip on her shudders and turned to stroke Mountaineer’s neck, trying to soothe him. At the same time, she settled Robo with her voice, telling him to cease his growling while she assured him he was a good boy.
“This is a challenge,” Brody said, resting his rifle crossways against the pommel of his saddle. “We’ve found our tiger and our hunting party at the same time.”
“How do you think they’re tracking it?” Cole asked.
“I don’t know,” Glenna responded in a quiet voice. “I thought I saw a collar on its neck. Did anyone else?”
Mattie had to admit she hadn’t. She’d been too rattled and distracted by trying to stay on Mountaineer.
“They could have a GPS locator on it,” Glenna said. “Like the one I use on Moose.”
The two different purposes posed an awful contrast: one to protect an animal, the other to kill it. Mattie wanted more than ever to find the members of Tyler’s hunting party and arrest them all.
Glenna dismounted to huddle with Mattie and Cole on the narrow trail, and they kept their eyes moving along the canyon rim. “Where did that shot come from?”
“Good question,” Cole said. “It sounded like it came from behind us, farther back in the direction we came from but up above.”
“We’ve got to get out of this canyon,” Brody said. “We’re sitting ducks down here.”
“True,” Cole said. “For the tiger anyway. But whoever shot that rifle might not know we’re in the area. Our approach would have been shielded from sight unless someone scouted along the canyon’s edge.”
Mattie wanted to get up above so Robo could find the trail of whoever had shot that rifle. And the sooner the better. “What’s the fastest way out of here?”
Cole frowned. “I don’t know this area well enough to say what’s up ahead. It’s best to go downhill and find a place where we can ride up.”
“Let’s go,” Brody said. “I want to get out of this trap and up to a place where we can see.”
After remounting, they headed downhill, with Brody in the lead setting a fast pace, and the horses seemed eager to be going toward home. Mattie scanned the rim as she clung to the saddle horn, lurching with Mountaineer when he tucked his haunches and slid down the steeper parts of the trail. She’d much rather have been on foot.
As the canyon opened up, she searched for a break in the wall and soon spotted a chute choked with brush, but it afforded an incline that she knew she could scale. She pointed it out to the others. “Robo and I can head up there. I want to get onto the trail of that gunman.”
“No, we stick together,” Brody said.
Mattie tried to convince him. “Our suspect in a double homicide is in that party, Brody. Once we get to them, we can arrest them all for illegal hunting activity and sort it out later. I’m better off on foot in this kind of terrain. Besides, if we stay on horseback, they’ll hear the four of us coming a mile away.”
“I’ll go with her,” Cole said, eyeing Mattie with concern.