Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

10 ∞ severe reaction

Day Two ∞ Saturday afternoon

DANNY LOOKED AT MRS DAVENPORT IN DISBELIEF, a chill assailing his nape. "Another animal? I'm going to have to see that for myself."

"They'll soon be back with it." Mrs. Davenport took him aside without letting go of his arm and looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. 

"Who's your friend over there, Danny? Aren't you going to introduce her?" She nodded toward his truck.

He felt his ears burning. The old lady was still sharp as usual. "Not today, ma'am. She's not feeling so well..."

"Ooh, then let me get her a cup of tea, how about some—"

"No, no, it's okay," he chuckled, raising his hand to slow her down. "No need. I'll soon take her home anyway."

She squeezed his arm and winked at him. "You're too shy." 

He shook his head, smiling.

Mrs. Davenport was right. Danny looked up as he heard men's voices approaching from the woods. Two men appeared with a pole on their shoulders between them, the dead cat hanging upside down with paws bound and head and tail dangling. Mr. Davenport trailed behind them.

"Hey, look! There it is!" a boy shouted and waved the other four children to come. They ran over to meet the procession. Danny and Mrs. Davenport walked over to the driveway, followed by the rest of the women.

The men paused in front of them. "This was a relatively healthy female," the man at the back said, a wildlife rep with a tranquilizer rifle hanging from his shoulder. He had the NWR refuge logo on his shirt. "Just a bit underweight. But it looks like it got into a fight with another cat." 

Danny swallowed as he looked at the reddish-tan fur, pasted to the corpse by yesterday's rain. So the neighborhood wasn't safe yet. He stepped back as the men continued toward the refuge truck and swung their load onto the bed. The children followed the men with a barrage of questions.

Mr. Davenport dropped a broad hand on Danny's shoulder. "You see we're having a lot of excitement here today, eh?" he said in his deep voice. He was a broad-shouldered weathered man of Danny's height.

"Hi, Mr. Dee. Well, we had our share of it yesterday." Danny told him about Lad.

The old man nodded and pushed his glasses up the nose ridge. "Yep, I'm sure it's the one that's been roaming around the district these past few weeks. I'm surprised that the catfight didn't wake me up, though: normally they'd've made a racket... Threatening screams and the like. I'm a light sleeper."

Danny looked at him thoughtfully, then turned as he heard more voices coming from the woods. The rest of the men were returning, two police officers, three of the neighbors, and two wildlife reps carrying a wriggling, crying sack between them. 

"We caught it!" one of them said as they passed, heading for the van. 

Everybody gathered around and watched as they offloaded the sack into the waiting cage and locked it. The spotted cougar cub backed up as far as it could in the cage and hissed at its captors.     

"It's soo cute!" one girl said. "Can I have one, Mommy?" The children chattered away.

"Well, this cub is just a few weeks old," one of the reps, a burly, bearded man said. He wore a cap displaying the Wildlife logo. "Old enough to follow the mother but not old enough to survive out there on its own." He smiled at the children's barrage of questions. "Don't worry—we're taking the cub to the reserve. As soon as we can, we'll have it transferred to a proper facility that can serve as its new home. It will be well taken care of, okay?"