went after Green alone?” Lansky asked.
“Yeah, I’d never worked with a team before. I’ve always been kind of a loner in the woods.”
They were all quiet. They looked at Lou for confirmation. All he had to do was nod.
“Have you been on any other rescue runs?” Thez asked trying to keep things going on a safer level.
“Not organized ones like this. I have done a little tracking for Rusty. I found Manuel Silva after the police lost him. That just kind of happened by accident because Rusty didn’t know I could track at the time. Once I found a lost boy scout but I just happened to be nearby and heard he was lost, so I asked for a starting point and tracked him three miles through the Angeles Forest. Then there was the time I rescued my nephew when the drug boss kidnapped him. He was pissed off at me for messing up his drug lab in the Angeles Forest. I guess the police went in later and closed it down and he blamed me. He was nutso, wanted to hunt me like an animal, took my gun away and turned me and Patrick loose. It was run or die so I ran, hid Patrick where searchers could find him and then I had to bring Peccati in without any firearms. I tricked him by leading him into a trap and he lost his rifle in the scuffle. I ended up in a boxing match with him until I could find his rifle and hold him for the police. I guess that was another one of my scarier moments.”
Silence again.
“So,” Thez said, “Does anything normal happen to you?”
“Only for short periods of time.”
My stomach did a little flip flop as the helicopter descended and then settled on top of a hill. Everybody hopped out and gathered in a group away from the blades. We hiked down the hill for a short distance until the noise level decreased.
“Lansky, Landon take care of the plane. The radio call into the station said a small plane spotted one passenger making his way northeast from the crash site. Why he went northeast I have no idea, the area is rocks and buttes. Seems to me like he’d head downhill, looking for a road. Victor and Thez, stay with Cassidy. Cassidy, stay on the passenger’s trail.”
I followed the group down and around the base of the hill. Lou was sticking to me like glue. I think Rusty must have told him about Jack. He wanted to gauge my reaction. He also needed to keep things under control. I meant to keep my feelings under wraps but I still felt a wave of nausea when we rounded the corner and saw the plane, debris scattered over a couple of acres of land. The tail section was intact but the cockpit had crushed into the main body of the plane. The debris was mostly the wings, having been sheared off by some small trees dotting the landscape. I stood silently until the nausea had passed and I could clear my head.
Focus on the job, Cass. Find a trail leading away from the plane. Don’t look at the cockpit. It’s not your job. I set my mind to the task at hand and trekked around the hill. Casting around on the ground, it wasn’t hard to find the tracks. One man had left the plane. One man… and something else.
I looked at Lou then started for the plane but he stepped in. He knew I wouldn’t go to the plane without a reason. He stopped me, understanding that it was something Rusty would have done.
“What is it Cassidy?”
“I need to see something…Okay, I don’t need to see it. I need something confirmed.”
“What is it?”
I showed him the tracks I found in the sand. Huge dinner-plate sized cat paw prints.
“This isn’t a mountain lion,” I said. “I’ve seen a few mountain lion tracks. Never seen a mountain lion. The tracks come from the direction of the tail.”
“Thez, look in the plane. Tell us what you see.”
Thez trotted over to the plane and glanced in. He crawled in through a gaping hole in the side. There was a short wait and he came out with two rifles and handed one to Lou.
“Those aren’t ordinary rifles.” I observed. “What did you see, Thez?”
“There’s a big cage back there, empty.”
I checked the rifle over carefully. “These rifles are loaded with tranquilizer darts. I hope our missing passenger thought to bring one of these with him.”
Lou got on his radio to talk to the guys in the cockpit. “Heads up guys. We’ve got a large cat on the loose. Keep your eyes open.”
“Okay,” I said, “the passenger first. The cat second.”
“Cassidy, if there’s injuries we’re leaving the cat. We can’t risk people’s lives for the sake of a cat. We’ll call in animal control once we know what we’re dealing with.”
“I know, just prioritizing. This cat is too big to bring back anyway.”
I found the passenger’s tracks again and picked my way along, reading the sign. This was going to be tricky because he was heading into the buttes and buttes meant rocks and rocks meant poor tracking conditions. I took mental notes as I went along. Smallish men’s boots. Looked like hiking boot tread. Could be a woman but the walk looked more masculine, the gait firm and determined, focused. This guy wasn’t looking for help. He was either hiding from something or looking for the cat. I couldn’t yet tell from the tracks if the person was injured. So far so good on that count.
The area around the plane was grassy, which wasn’t great for tracking but the trail was fresh so it wasn’t a problem either. It just slowed me down a little. This brittle yellow grass was much easier to read than other kinds. I wanted to take my time with this track. I had a feeling I needed to know something about the man I was tracking. This operation was not making any sense. Who would be transporting large cats in small planes across California? Was it legal? When things don’t add up I become cautious and piece things together trying to make sense of it. I take in all the subtle, little clues I can read.
Thez followed along, rifle in hand. Victor was behind him, calm, just waiting for his turn to act.
“Make yourself useful,” I told them. “Keep an eye out for movement, man or animal, doesn’t matter. If you see movement point it out to me.” Thez took his eyes off the ground and started looking around more.
I followed the tracks up into the bluffs and the terrain became rocky with sandy spots where the rock had eroded away. The guy’s trail became more erratic. He would walk and stop and his footprints would stay in one place for a bit, as if he was looking up into the rocks. He would then continue forward. I was convinced he was looking for the cat. He knew how dangerous it was with the animal being loose. I wondered whether his intentions were to shoot it or tranquilize it. If he was hunting the cat he must have a weapon of some kind. A tranquilizer gun or a rifle. Surely he wouldn’t just tranquilize it. That would only be a temporary fix for a very dangerous animal and there was no way one person could transport an animal that large back to the cage. If he found the cat he would be forced to shoot it. Why he didn’t just follow the cat’s tracks was a mystery to me, but many people just don’t think that way. They forget there are clues all around them and will just go by their gut reactions.
I’d followed the guy’s footprints around the bluffs in a fairly predictable pattern until suddenly I noticed that the man had knelt down on one knee. The weave of his pants was still visible in the dirt. This had happened very recently. I looked up at the rocks in the direction his leg had been
