Track of the Cat Read Online Free PDF Page A

desert warfare.
    He slipped in, knelt by the tub with a childish grace. His hands dipped under the water, rested cool on her waist.
    "No trouble this time. Just a lot of talking and drinking cerveza," he said. "The Border Patrol hardly stopped me. They must be getting used to my old bug."
    "They don't have much of a problem with middle-class white men with Illinois plates sneaking into Texas," Anna said. The El Paso Border station was more concerned with illegal aliens than drugs. And something in his proud assumption of wickedness made her want to deflate him now and again. Eco-defenders had altogether too much fun fighting the good fight. They looked in the mirror and a little too often to overly impress Anna. "And the beer and the talk, that's the best part, isn't it?" Still, she was smiling and she'd moved her hands to cover his.
    "Not the best part," Rogelio said, his voice liquid. "You are the best part."
    The Clark tape came to an end and the player automatically clicked over to the second cassette. The Chenille Sisters singing, "I Wanna Be Seduced." Anna laughed.
    She did.

    Anna did some of her best thinking after making love, curled warm and satisfied in the curve of Zach's shoulder. Of Rogelio's shoulder, she corrected herself without pity. The mind is clearer when the body is quiet.
    "Rogelio, are you still awake?"
    "Depends," came a slow answer and she felt the warmth of his hand at her breast.
    She caught it and held it somewhere near the floating ribs- less distracting real estate. "I keep thinking about the Drury Lion Kill."
    Already, in self-defense-or natural callousness, Anna was not sure-she'd dubbed the death of the woman from Dog Canyon the "Drury Lion Kill."
    Though something about the phrase bothered her. "I wonder why she was messing around up there. She wasn't on transect. Middle McKittrick is closed."
    "That's what rangers do," Rogelio replied and his smile warmed the darkness. "Go all the good places us mere mortals are shut out of.
    Everybody knows that."
    "Seriously. Who in their right mind would drag a full pack down that canyon on a contraband lark?" Rogelio's hand was trying to wriggle free, his lips brushed her neck.
    "Mmmm," he purred, "you're doing it to me again. God but I'm crazy for you, Ana."
    Anna tried to fix her mind on the saw grass, the vultures.
    "One of your pet kitty cats ate a ranger," Rogelio said and his hand slid down to her thighs. "Lions do that, querida. They're meat eaters."
    "Seriously-" Anna said and again caught his hands.

    "Seriously," Rogelio replied and pulled her to him.
    Even as she responded, she ached for Zachary, for some good, old-fashioned conversation.
    First thing in the morning she would call Molly. First thing.

    "Reality check," Anna said. She pressed her mouth close to the phone.
    "I've only got seven minutes till Mrs. Claremont."
    "I found a dead body."
    "What's that sound in the background? Where are you?"
    "At the pay phone by the washer and dryer in the Cholla Chateau in the Rec. Hall. That's the dryer. It squeaks," Anna explained. Molly knew where she was. She was just being difficult.
    "Get a phone. A real phone."
    "I promise."
    "Okay. A body. Human or otherwise?"
    "A woman. I found her up Middle McKittrick Canyon yesterday on my lion transect."
    There was a moment's silence. Anna waited through it. Molly was lighting a cigarette. Not for the first time, Anna was amazed that Molly's patients stood it. One hundred and fifty dollars an hour and they had to breathe tobacco smoke. "Middle McKittrick," Molly said. "That's one of those bloody awful washes you've got down there, isn't it?"
    "That's right." Anna glanced at her pocket watch. "Four minutes till Mrs.
    Claremont."
    "Mrs. Claremont will still be neurotic in fifteen. Tell me."
    Anna told Molly everything as she had since she was five and her sister was eleven. She told her of the vultures, the tears, the saw grass, the ghosts, the paw prints, the claw marks. Occasionally Molly interrupted with