Page 48 of Native Hawk
Chapter 14
Catalina bit her lip. She hoped he couldn’t read her mind. Her thoughts were going in all sorts of dangerous directions.
“No?” he asked. “All right. I’ll tell you mine then. I was just recollectin’ the last time I tangled with arealwildcat. I was about twelve years old, and my brother Chase and I were headin’ to the river to go fishin’.”
Catalina tried to imagine what Drew would have looked like as a boy.
“We were almost to the river when we heard a strange sound. We thought it was a baby left on the riverbank, cryin’.”
Catalina rolled onto her back, toward him, so she could hear better.
“But it wasn’t a baby. It was amindich.”
“Min-…”
“Mindich.White folks call ’em bobcats.”
She repeated the word to herself. “Bobcats.”
“It was a little thing, just a kitten really. Poor thing had got stuck in a snare. The noose was wrapped around its back legs, and it couldn’t get out. So there it was, squallin’ like a colicky baby.”
Catalina wasn’t sure what a colicky baby was.
“Chase said we should leave it alone. He said it was the will of the Creator. Themindichhad been led into the trap. Maybe it was supposed to die there, to become food for axontehl-taw.”
“What is a—”
“Axontehl-taw?It’s a coyote. You know coyotes?”
“The animal that looks like a dog.” She’d seen one in the canyon on her buggy ride to Paradise.
“That’s right. Anyway, I told my brother that if it was the Creator’s will that themindichbe led into the trap, then it was also his will that we find themindichand rescue him.”
Catalina smiled. Drew had been very clever, even as a boy.
“So I pulled out myyehwilxit…” He paused. “Funny. When you tell a story from the past, you go back to the language o’ the past.”
She nodded.
“I pulled out my knife and started to cut themindichloose. But he must have thought I was amikyow,a big bear or somethin’. The little critter started growlin’ and attackin’ me with his front paws. He got in a couple o’ good swats at my arms, drew blood.”
She sucked air between her teeth.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he confessed. “But I sawed through that rope as fast as I could. When I finally cut him free, I thought he’d bound off. But he didn’t. He just sat there, starin’ at me. Chase whispered somethin’ about him bein’ a messenger from the spirit world. I think the poor thing was just stunned. Anyway, that littlemindichsidled up to me, as pretty as you please, plopped down right by my knee, and started purrin’.”
Drew laughed low, and the sound of his laughter warmed her like whiskey.
“Did you keep him for a pet?” she asked.
“I thought about it. He let me pet him, and he even licked my knee. But pretty soon we heard a loud yowl. His mama had come lookin’ for him, so we left him there and took off.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
“Naw.”
It must have been interesting growing up in Drew’s world. He sounded much nicer than her siblings.
“My brothers used to throw rocks at rabbits,” she told him.
