Stacey, Tom, and Frank drove back from Martin’s store. Quarrals met them head on halfway to their farm. He flashed his lights and they waved without stopping. He turned on his blues, pulled a U-ey, and came up behind, his lights still flashing.
Tom checked his side mirror. “What’d you do now?”
She pulled over and rolled down her window. “No idea. Somebody said Frank pooped in their yard?”
Quarrals removed his wraparounds and rested his arms on her window frame.
Frank poofed and hissed.
“Any idea what I did to your cat to piss him off at me?”
Tom leaned forward. “It’s the uniform. You should’ve seen what he did to my dress whites. Something we can do for you, Sheriff?”
“Remember I mentioned kids drinking on your property and seeing strange lights?”
“You found the meth lab? The pot growers returned? It’s where The Invaders swap out personnel?”
Quarrals laughed. “I warned them twice to find some place new, and they do, but it’s still on your property – like I said, Campbell bought up just about everything not tied down – and I wanted to warn you folks. Normally I’d say their story was typical teenage CYA crap, but better safe than sorry. Plus they were shaking when they found me.”
“They came looking for you?”
“Wanted me to go back with them. Some of them hightailed it on foot and forgot their cars. Found their cars, not a mark on them, perfectly driveable. Those who remembered their cars left tire marks three, four inches deep. They must’ve blown out of there. I already told them they’ll either repair your land or pay to have it done, don’t worry.” Quarrals looked down beside Stacey’s pickup, then up and down the road as if checking for anyone who might overhear what he had to say. “I got them into the cruiser one by one to make sure they didn’t infuence each other’s story. The common factor among them all was they said they saw a huge cat. Some said a big, white lion. Tore after them and they barely got out alive.”
Stacey and Tom stared at each other for a moment
Quarrals focused on Frank, still poofed and hissing at him, and didn’t notice. “Can’t be my friend here.”
Stacey smoothed Frank’s fur. “I didn’t know there were mountain lion in this area.”
“There’s not. Bear, yes. Wolf, too. Eastern Timber wolf, not much bigger than a coyote and you’d mistake them for a short-haired shepherd. But not a big cat. Bob and sometimes a lynx will come down out of Canada, but nothing large, nothing you’d mistake for a lion or even a mountain cat. And a white one? That’d be some kind of hybrid or albino. Something like that.
Tom lifted Frank onto his lap. “How much did those kids have to drink?
Tom looked around where he stood outside Stacey’s backdoor. “Oh, Christ.”
Inside he opened kitchen and vestibule drawers. “You have a flashlight, Stacey?”
She said it as an accusation, her full attorney mode nailing a witness with their own lie. “You let Frank out again, didn’t you.”
“I was outside with him. I didn’t take my eyes off him, I swear. I blinked and he was gone. Do you have a flashlight, yes or no?”
She grabbed a flashlight and a bag of KittieYums from the kitchen. Tom stood in the open doorway.
“What? He’s there? He’s okay?” She shook the bag. “Frank?”
Lights danced in the woods. A moment later the lights came through the trees and hurried across a field like fireflies on the run.
She turned her flashlight on. “What is that?”
“I think it’s a bunch of kids runnig towards the house. You expecting company?”
Young male voices screamed at them. “Let us in!” “Don’t close the door!” “Please save us!” “There’s a lion chasing us.”
Tom gauged their advance as he would a surface torpedo. “They’re coming awfully fast, Stacey. Didn’t Quarrals say there weren’t any mountain lion up here? They’re country boys. They’d run that fast from a bobcat or lynx? Especially if there’s – ” he counted – ” four, five, six, seven of them and only one cat?”
“They’d know the difference between a bobcat, lynx, mountain lion, and lion. They said lion.
The teenagers ran past them into the kitchen red-faced, breathless, and shaking. One boy pushed through the others to the sink and vomited.
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