go to her father for help on this one. Ben Tankersly might have more money than God, but like most cattlemen, he wasn’t fond of predators. He’d tell her the only good lynx was a dead one, and he had his own stuffed specimen in his office to underline the point.
But Tess had worked each summer through college, and socked every spare penny away. Like both her older sisters, she’d learned early that if she didn’t want to dance to her domineering father’s tunes, she had to pay her own piper. “I can handle it.”
Waltz pried open the lynx’s jaws and bent close to study her curving fangs. Gently she lifted the gums aside to reveal the back teeth. “All intact. That’s something, anyway. So what did you pay for her, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“Pretty steep for a half-dead cat.”
“Now ask me what he wanted for the cage,” Tess suggested, straight-faced, then added as the vet raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Five hundred.”
As they burst out laughing, she realized that here was somebody who might become a friend. They clearly shared the same passion for animals. Though the vet was inches shorter than Tess’s slender five-foot-seven, she had a combative bounce and an intensity that made her seem much larger. Tess suspected she couldn’t have picked a better ally to help her save this cat.
“Slick,” Liza Waltz agreed, when she could speak.
“Very slick. I was tempted to say, ‘keep your crummy ol’ cage,’ but then I took another look at Zelda’s fashion accessories.” Tess pressed a thumb gently against the center pad of the cat’s forepaw. Saber-sharp claws flexed into view, then retracted as she released the pressure. “And I thought…mmm…well, yeah. Maybe I don’t want her riding in my cab, till we’ve gotten to know one another better.”
“I should probably tell you this after you’ve paid my bill, not before, but…even if I can save her, if you’re thinking you’ve bought yourself a thirty-pound lap cat, you’d better think again. Lynx make rotten pets.”
“No, she’s a wild animal. I understand that.”
But Waltz had already launched into a passionate lecture that she’d obviously made before. “If I had a dollar for every bozo who thought he wanted a lion or a tiger or an ocelot for a pet! I mean, sure, it’s a wonderful fantasy—I wanted a cheetah when I was ten. But reality’s quite another thing. For instance, this kitty…” She paused to smooth her hand across the lynx’s soft tawny and cream-colored belly. “Once she gets her strength back, she’ll be able to clear twenty-four feet in a single bound. Now picture that in your living room.
“And will she scratch the furniture? Oh, baby—we’re talking shreds! Ribbons! She’ll go through a couch a week if you give her the run of your place.
“And as for spraying…male or female, spayed or unspayed, exotic felines mark their territory—and you—and everything else they can find to anoint. And we’re talking buckets.”
“Euuuw! No, I’m not up for that.”
“But I can’t tell you how many people are—till they try to live with a wild cat. Then once they do figure it out, they come crying to me or the zoo or the pound or a big cat sanctuary, because although they love their pet, they just can’t keep it. So naturally, they want to find a loving, happy home. But…”
“But?” Tess fingered a black-tasseled ear. Yes, she could see how someone could fall in love with the idea of owning a lynx.
“But since people just keep on buying and trying, seventy or eighty of these animals come up for adoption each year in this country. Every last zoo is full to overflowing—they don’t need another lynx. The big cat sanctuaries are desperate for operating funds and cage space. They can’t afford to take on more pets-gone-bad. If the pound dares to place a lynx, then it just comes bouncing back again, once the new family gives up. So…” The vet shrugged, turned away, washed her hands at the sink.
“So?” Tess wondered.
“So when the owners run out of options, they dump the animal in some forest and try to tell themselves a cat that’s lived all its life in a cage or indoors will learn how to hunt before it starves. Or if they’re responsible, they put the poor beast down. Or suddenly the wife is wearing a fancy coat and a sheepish grin. But any way you cut it, there’s no happy ending. Which brings me to you.”
Tess jumped as the vet swung to aim an accusing finger at her.
“Assuming she lives, what do you mean to do with her?”
“I…haven’t thought it out, very far. This wasn’t something I planned. Zelda just happened.”
“Start thinking.”
“Well…I live on a ranch north of Trueheart, Colorado. At least, that’s where I’ll be living this summer, while I finish writing my dissertation. I suppose I figured I could free her there, maybe, and set up a feeding station outside. And hope that eventually she learns to hunt.”
Though she’d have to do this secretly. The cattlemen of Colorado were up in arms about the recent reintroduction of lynx to the San Juan Mountains. Tess’s father had been one of the main financiers of the lawsuits that had tried and failed to block the Division of Wildlife from bringing the animals back to the state. And when Ben Tankersly drew a line in the sand, his ranch manager and all his cowboys stepped up and toed it, if they valued their jobs. So Zelda would find no welcome at Suntop.
“Well, Problem One. If you’re talking about one of those suburban excuses for a ranch—a ten-acre ranchette—forget it. Lynx are territorial, but they need a range of five to a hundred square miles. You’ve got a female, so figure on the smaller side of that, but all the same. Have you got that kind of room?”
“More than enough.” Suntop was larger than Ted Turner’s ranch, larger than Forbes’s. Back in the 1890s, Tess’s great-great-grandfather had carved his vast spread out of the foothills of the San Juans, and Tankerslys had guarded it jealously ever since. Now Ben ruled there, king of his own small kingdom.
“I live at Suntop,” Tess admitted. When pressed to say anything at all, she generally put it like that. Strangers tended to assume she worked on the ranch rather than that she was a member of the family. She hated the way people looked at her when they learned she was a Tankersly. As if they were calculating her worth to the penny. And once they started adding it up, she was too proud to explain that she might be land rich, but she was cash poor. And likely would always remain so, if she wanted to live life her way.
So it was best just to disclaim or downplay all connection with Suntop, whenever possible.
“Suntop!” Liza Waltz let out a long, low whistle.
“Yeah, that should be room enough, but here’s Problem Two. Lynx hunt at six thousand to nine thousand feet. Is the ranch that high?”
“Not the home range,” Tess admitted. “But the summer grazing, up in the high country, borders on that kind of elevation. Then north of that is all national forest, the San Juans, hundreds and hundreds of square miles of wilderness, going up and up.”
“That would do. That’s not far from the area the Division of Wildlife chose for its lynx restoration program. Which brings me to another point.” The vet paused for a minute while she
