More Than A Cowboy. Peggy Nicholson
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 set up an IV bag on a pole, then taped Zelda’s left forepaw to an immobilization board. “You’re sure Hazeltine purchased her from a fur farm?”
“Yes. I insisted he give me all her papers, and they prove it.”
Liza grunted as she inserted the needle in a vein, nodded in satisfaction, then hooked up the tubing. “I’ll need to check those. The reason I ask is, if by any chance Hazeltine lied—if he trapped himself one of the Colorado DOW’s lynx—we’ve got to hand her over. They’re protected by the Endangered Species Act, state and federal, and believe me, we don’t want to mess with those guys!”
“No, but I’m certain her papers are in order.”
“I’ll have to call that fur farm to confirm it, because the DOW’s imported one hundred twenty-nine lynx into Colorado over the past four years, and do you know how many of them are left?”
“I haven’t really followed it lately. I know the program hasn’t gone as well as they’d hoped.”
Liza snorted. “The numbers have dwindled down to forty-seven cats, which can still be tracked by their radio collars. If Zelda isn’t one of the missing lynx, then where the heck are they?”
BY THE TIME Gabe returned with their take-out supper, Adam had managed to gimp his way to the picnic table on the screen porch. The evening breeze was mild for April, but not cool enough to dry the sweat he’d broken getting on his feet. He wiped a wrist across his forehead and called, “I’m out here,” when Gabe came through the kitchen door bearing grease-spattered brown paper bags.
“Geez, I turn my back for ten minutes and you’re out of bed!”
“Barbecue ribs and clean sheets are an ugly mix. Besides which, I was bored.” When Adam had insisted on signing himself out against his doctor’s advice, Gabe had decided to extend his visit and see him settled at home. But three days of devoted nursing and nagging was getting on both men’s nerves. It was just as well Gabe was headed back to Colorado tomorrow.
Adam sighed at the thought. “Wish I was headed west. Spring skiing, instead of swatting mosquitoes.”
“Then come with me,” Gabe suggested, as he tossed napkins and a bottle opener on the table. He ducked back into Adam’s pocket kitchen for plates and silverware. “Plenty of room at the home ranch, and you know Mom would love to pamper you. Since the twins went off to college, she’s got too much time on her hands. She’s been wallpapering everything but the border collies, and bugging Dad to take tango lessons. A mission to whip you back into shape is just what she needs.”
Adam grinned, shook his head and, popping a cap off a Negra Modelo beer, handed it over. “Thanks, but no thanks. Connie’s overwhelming enough when a man can run, but right now, while I’m feeble… First thing your mother would do, is start matchmaking.”
Gabe clinked his bottle against Adam’s in a rueful salute. “Too true. She couldn’t believe, when I called them yesterday, that you don’t have a steady girlfriend to take over once I’m gone.” His voice rose an octave and turned fretful. “A pussycat like Adam? Are those Louisiana women all blind and crazy?”
“Plenty of foxes in these woods, but they’re all marriage-minded, even the ones who