Cat In A Leopard Spot

I nod, not enthusiastically. I am not about to tell her of the high regard in which she is held by both victim and beneficiary of her meal-exchange scheme. Nor am I about to tell her about a new worry of mine: I have spotted my Miss Temple’s small aqua car in the driveway as we were working our way to the compound. Apparently she arrived here after us. Why, I cannot imagine.

“Well, if we cannot track him like the Yorkies,” she says briskly, “we will have to use our superior feline brains and deduce where he has gone. Do you notice a significant absence around this cage area, Pops?”

“Besides the Yorkie noses?” I snap.

She dodges my flashing teeth, and my sarcasm. “People. I do not see one keeper or guard. Which tells me they are off doing something else. Something more important than watching the stock.”

“And I know better than you on how many thousand acres they might be off doing that more important something.”

She has already turned and started trotting around the sprawling ranch house. “We will start with the nearest acres, then.”

I do not like following Miss Midnight Louise, so I manage to catch up and sprint past her by the time she reaches the front of the house.

But I stop cold, frozen by another inexplicable absence.

“My Miss Temple’s Storm,” I squall, dismayed. “It is gone! This was supposed to be a simple deposition mission. Now I have her to look after too.”

Miss Louise’s eyes narrow to mean-business dimensions. “I presume that ‘too’ means that you feel obligated to ‘look after’ me as well.”

“Not at all. I would not look after you if you came by carrying the queen of England’s train in your teeth.”

“Good,” she says. “What is that vehicle still squatting on the driveway?”

“Big?” I suggest.

A withering glance. Dames have no sense of humor.

“It is an in-town off-road model of SUV, which I suppose means Suburban Uppity Vehicle.”

“Hmmm.” Miss Louise goes to sniff the giant tires, doing a pretty good imitation of a scent hound. Her matte-black beetle-nose wrinkles. “Creosote bushes, sagebrush, and prickly pear. I suspect that there is where we will have to head.”

“The bush, you mean.” I am ahead of her. I am already heading that way.

She scampers to catch up.

“It is a hunt,” she suggests a bit breathlessly.

I enjoy making the kit hustle to keep up with the mature operative, and pedal faster.

“Yes, it is a hunt. But I suspect that there is more dangerous game and more hunters out there than the driver of that Suburban Uppity Vehicle has dreamed of.” Why else were Mr. Max Kinsella and my Miss Temple conspiring at the Crystal Phoenix not four hours ago?

Now I know what must be done, and I am just the dude for the job…once I have managed to stow Miss Temple Barr and Miss Midnight Louise out of harm’s way.

That is the real most dangerous game.

Chapter 46

Stalemate

“We’ll have to hoof it from here,” Temple said, eyeing desert and brush untracked by tires.

Speaking of hoofing it, a doe-eyed eland gazed at her through the palo verde thicket before vanishing. Not only hunters might cross their paths out here, she realized, but prey. Some of it pretty big prey.

“We can’t,” Leonora said when Temple came around to jerk the passenger car door open, eyeing her fashionably clad feet in dismay.

“Heck, we can navigate on these pitons better than anybody. Haven’t you waltzed down the flight of stairs from the art museum at the Bellagio a few dozen times, with not one misstep? What’s a little desert?”

Leonora allowed herself to be coaxed out. “Doing PR for the Crystal Phoenix makes you very pushy.”

“Doing PR makes anyone very pushy. You can’t afford to be a fading violet.”

“I’ve never been out here,” Leonora said, gazing around as nervously as the vanished eland. “I have no idea where they might be.”

“We’ll have a better idea when we look. Come on! We’ve got to try.”

Temple didn’t mention that Max was counting on her.

Together they minced over the sand and gravel and into the shade of the palo verdes.

“Isn’t this area pretty bushy for desert?” Temple commented.

“We’re still fairly close to the ranch house compound. It was planted with more tree-type growth so that the hunting would be more like…hunting. There are underground sprinklers to keep the trees growing.”

“No expense spared,” Temple muttered.

“I get the impression you disapprove of our hunt ranch.”

“Me? Oh, no, I’m just a crass PR flack looking for a hot attraction for my client. Why should I care if a bunch of confused, helpless animals are slowly slaughtered in the name of macho decorating schemes?”

Leonora stopped. “You loathe it. You loathe me.”

“Does it matter?”

Leonora couldn’t make up her mind, but stood there teetering, her remade face bluntly ugly in the broad daylight.

“Look.” Temple stepped closer. “I think you loathe it too, only you’ve never had the luxury of thinking about anything beside your own situation. Let’s worry about all that later. Right now, let’s just find and save one panther. Okay?”