The Trophy The old cat looked down from his special perch above the cliffs. He was very hungry, not an unusual condition for his kind of predator. The hunger was always there, a driving force throughout his life. In his youth, the encroachment of human settlement on his hunting grounds had forced him to make the perilous, island-hopping journey from Vancouver Island over to the mainland. Driven by his hunger and his instincts, he searched for new territory. The steep, rugged, isolated coastline above Cordero Channel became his home. Initially, he was disappointed to find a human habitation here, at the south end of the channel where it met the entrance to Bute Inlet. However, the humans seemed happy to stay in that one spot, never venturing up the cliffs and into his territory.
Lately, though, he was realizing the benefits that came with such a place. The cougar was aging and it was getting harder to kill and eat his food. The deer knew he was coming before he could sneak up on them. If he did manage to catch some small rodent by surprise, his teeth couldn''t tear into it like they once had. Jumping was more difficult, and sometimes he grunted from the exertion. Perhaps worst of all, his eyes didn''t seem to work properly. There was a haze around everything. He had to squint to see what was going on down below.
Down below a human was burning meat. The cougar didn''t need his eyes to tell him that. At least his nose was still working properly. The smell had attracted him from quite some distance away. He had been here before and was never disappointed. The cougar had to admit, these days it was far easier to scavenge here than to hunt. [.] The smoke from the meat wafted past him.
The smell of it made him purr. His tail twitched in delightful anticipation. He caught himself drooling. He knew from experience that no one cleaned up at night. The leftovers would sit out until morning, when the humans finally woke. If he waited patiently, the noise would stop and the people would disappear. Then he could sneak down and eat his fill. The old cat put his head down and took a nap.
*** Meanwhile, oblivious to the eyes that watched from above, Nelson bustled about, getting ready for the party, which he held at Dent Island Lodge every year. Big pieces of meat had been marinating overnight and were now on the grill, cooking slowly. Moose ribs, venison, and salmon all waited for space on the big resort barbecue--probably far more food than people to eat it. However, Nelson had to empty the freezers to make room for the more gentrified tastes of the returning guests. The new season was about to start. This would be the last gathering of its type for the locals until the summer was over. *** When the big cat awoke, the sky was dark. Noises and enticing scents still rose up the cliff from below.
He listened patiently as the noise subsided, the hoots and hollers waning until there were no more. Still the old cat waited. As hungry as he was, he didn''t want any surprises. Finally, he was satisfied; now was the time to move from his perch. The moon had risen, and he was thankful for it. Even his night vision, once so acute, was beginning to fail him. As he climbed down to the buildings, his mouth watered. He picked his way carefully and quietly along the humans'' path to where the burnt meat smells originated.
[.] As he passed close to the house, he peered into the big picture window that faced over the back deck. It was dark inside and he had to squint, trying to see through the haze of his eyes. The moon came out from behind a small cloud, and it was then he saw something unbelievable. Another cougar was staring back at him! The old cougar couldn''t trust his eyes at first. He blinked and shook his head, trying to focus. Sure enough, there it was, staring back at him. Probably one of those virile, physically fit three-year-olds who think they own the forest.
He had dealt with young male cougars before but never one who was so arrogant as to face him directly. The old cougar was outraged, and without thinking he uttered a deep guttural snarl. The interloper just stood there stubbornly, staring back at him, his lips lifted to snarl back. The old cougar settled in. If this youngster wanted a test of wills, he was ready for him. They began staring each other down. The Trophy Hunter Nelson slipped out from under the bed covers and landed, catlike, on the floor. He was attuned to sounds in the middle of the night, no matter how deeply he slept.
There was always something making noise. The creak and groan of the docks moving, the shriek of mooring lines--normal sounds left him sleeping peacefully. This sound was different. It was out of the ordinary. It had pulled him awake like nothing he had ever heard before. It resonated deep inside him, a visceral snarl that touched him at a primal level. Crouched motionless beside the bed, Nelson struggled to come fully awake. He didn''t want to disturb Gilly, who was still sleeping peacefully.
Herbert Crane had recently offered him a kind of partnership in the resort, something that made Nelson very happy. He wanted to show Herbert how seriously he took such an offer. It made Nelson even more sensitive to strange noises and things that might be going wrong. He also didn''t want Gilly to know how nervous Herbert''s offer made him. He was still slightly drunk from the party the night before. Nelson stood up slowly, then took a couple of steps toward the bedroom door and stopped. He was wearing nothing but a T-shirt. Something about that sound made him feel exposed and vulnerable and acutely aware of his dangling man parts.
He reached for the rifle he kept behind the bedroom door, in need of its cold steel reassurance. Armed, he quietly left the bedroom and walked stealthily into the kitchen. The sound seemed to come from the breakfast nook, a small side room where guests could get coffee and make toast before an early tide. A door led out onto the back deck and the outdoor kitchen. Moonlight spilled in through all the windows and illuminated the small room with an eerie glow. A slight movement caught his attention. Nelson turned to the counter where the breakfast preparation took place. He found himself looking into the eyes of a cougar, its head wreathed in a strange blue light.
Instinct took over. Nelson clicked off the rifle''s safety with his thumb, swung the gun up to his hip, and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked violently in his hands. The sound of the blast echoed in the confined space, deafening him. Something big and metallic hit the back wall, rebounded, and then skidded off the counter. It landed on the floor with a shattering clang. Ears ringing, Nelson looked down at the carnage, dumbfounded. Time seemed to slow down.
The smell of gun smoke filled the air. The bullet had punched through the side of the big eight-slice commercial toaster, the one that always occupied the same spot on the counter. Took it square in the middle. The toaster now lay like a dead animal on the floor, its electrical cord stretched out behind it. The ringing that enveloped Nelson prevented him from hearing Gilly approach him carefully from behind. "Nelson?" She stopped a few steps away. She was as dumbfounded as he was. "What did you just do? Nelson heard her, but she sounded so very far away.
Her words were distorted, slowed down, like a record playing at the wrong speed. Gilly came up to him gently and put one hand on his shoulder, careful not to startle him. The other hand she laid firmly over Nelson''s hand that held the forestock of the gun. Looking past him, her hands gently calming Nelson, she took in the scene before her. "Nelson!" She spoke softly, like she was talking to someone in a trance. "Honey, you just shot the toaster!" Gilly''s statement of the obvious roused Nelson back to some kind of awareness. "I . umm .
I thought . I thought it was a cougar," he said, a man trying to remember a dream and put it to words. ". Thought it was going to eat me!" He looked around, still expecting to see a dead cougar somewhere. All he saw was the commercial toaster on the floor, the bottom crumb tray hanging out like a tongue, toast crumbs spewed like blood splatter. This was a very dead toaster. "Oh, Nelson, sweetheart, you''re not going to get eaten." Apparently, Gilly had previous experience with half-naked men and random gunfire first thing in the morning.
She remained perfectly calm. Her tone of voice was appropriately kind. "You shot it, all right! Oh boy, you sure did! You shot it really well." The motherliness of this approach triggered a response from Nelson that took him back to his childhood. "I don''t understand," he said petulantly, trying to will his explanation into reality. "There was a cougar right there." He pointed to the place the toaster occupied only a few moments before. "On the counter, Nelson? There isn''t enough room on the counter for a cougar.
You must have been seeing things." Gilly, who had been jerked out of a deep sleep by the sound of the gunshot, was now wide awake. The now empty place on the counter was lit by the glow of the moon coming through the window. As she looked over at the window, she began to put it all together. Maybe a cougar had been looking through that window. There had been reports of cougar sightings on this side of the inlet. Perhaps Nelson had seen its face as a reflection in the shiny chrome metal. Gilly was only too aware that Nelson, a bit ti.