Abandoned Treasure
Stretching Our Legs

Nathan Storm’s POV

Shell, Montana

Monday, October 1st, 2007

I put the fence pliers back in my jeans pocket and stared. I’d repaired the barbed wire fence as Isra Roberts watched from the tree, only to have my mind shattered as I watched her come down. “That shouldn’t be possible,” I said, despite what I’d just watched. Isra didn’t care; she shifted from her cat in the tree’s shadow.

“Clouded Leopards are uniquely equipped to climb and hunt in trees. I can do anything up there.”

“Yeah, but THAT?” I’d watched Isra hang like a bat from a branch thirty feet up using only her back legs. Then she swung her front legs up and walked upside down before leaping a dozen feet to the trunk. Isra landed head-down on the tree trunk before walking twenty feet to the ground. “You’re like a Spidercat!” I started humming the song from the commercial in a Homer Simpson voice. "Spidercat, Spidercat, does whatever a Spidercat does."

Overalls and a T-shirt covered her tiny body as she slipped on her barn boots. “Clouded Leopards are the best climbers of all the big cats,” she replied. “Long tails for balance.” Her tail was fluffy and nearly as long as the rest of her body. “Wide, flexible paws to wrap around branches, and ankles that allow us to descend headfirst. Plus, you saw my teeth; for our size, we’ve got the longest canines of any cat, a modern Sabertooth. We’re faster than jaguars but don’t have their size. The wild ones max out around fifty pounds, while a wild jaguar can be seven times that weight. They hunt small animals in the trees and on the forest floor.”

“It’s pretty wild. I’ve worked with some werejaguars before, even shifting with them. They are impressive, but nothing like you.”

“Thank you. Let’s head back to the barn and put the tools away. As soon as the sun is down, we’ll go for a run.”

That got my attention. “Is that safe?”

“The hills back there are empty, and hunting season hasn’t started yet. We keep our eyes open and our noses searching, and we should be fine.”

It sounded good to me. I’d been stuck in the house for weeks while I recovered from my gunshot wounds. Isra was making up for lost time now, working me from sunup to sundown on the house, the barns, the livestock, and the land. If anyone saw me, I was a ranch hand hired to help Isra out. No one in this small community would question that, though I’d not met any yet.

I put my tools in the back of the Gator and jumped in the passenger seat. Isra drove back quickly, with me getting out to open and close the gates. The sun was already down as we drove off the property in her old F-150. We passed her neighbors before turning right on Highway 14, heading east into the Bighorn Mountains.

The road started the long climb up through the canyons, the road curving and twisting along. I wished I was doing this in the daytime on a motorcycle. It would be so much more fun than at night in a beat-up farm truck.

We passed the Shell Creek Rest Area on the left. “Where are we stopping?”

“Not there,” Isra said. “It’s a nice place to see the Shell Creek waterfall from, but too many people and cameras. We’ll park off the road up here.” She pulled into a gravel pullout on the right side, stopping near the steep slope and the trees. “Bring the blankets along.”

She locked the door and led me up a goat trail until the trees blocked the road. “Put your clothes under the blanket on these trees for later.” We stripped and shifted; I stretched out my body, feeling a few twinges from the shoulder damage I’d suffered. I trotted to a nearby tree, soaking it with urine to mark this place for later. Isra reached as high on a tree trunk as she could, running her claws down it as she arched her back. I walked over, rubbing my face against her neck. She purred, then led me higher.

It wasn’t the terrain I was used to. Open spaces were sedimentary rock carved by wind and rain into a maze of broken and unique formations. Sheltered areas that collected water held pine trees and underbrush. It took twenty minutes for me to reach the summit of the mountain. Isra had stopped in the last treeline, waving me on as she climbed into the branches.

I deeply sniffed the clean air and found no signs of humans. For the first time in over a month, I ran. For over an hour, I raced up and down the mountain. I only stopped when my muscles failed. Panting heavily, I lay on the edge of a cliff and looked out at the mountains in the pale moonlight.

I wouldn’t have noticed Isra was coming if not for her purring. Her big paws moved silently on the ground, and her coat pattern helped hide her in the shadows. I whined softly, leaning to the side in invitation. She eased her much smaller body next to mine at the edge.

We couldn’t communicate in this form, but we didn’t have to. The fall wind, the moon’s shadows, and the scents of the mountain told us all we needed.

Finally, she stood up and chuffed at me. My muscles were stiff, but I followed her down the slope until we reached our clothes. We quickly shifted and dressed before returning to the truck after two in the morning. “Thank you,” I told her as we drove off. “I needed that more than I realized.”

“That’s the disadvantage we have as independent Were-creatures,” she replied. “Few of us have enough land to run safely, and public forests aren’t as safe as before. Satellites, closed circuit television, night vision technology, and trail cameras keep us from being what we were born to be.”

She was right about that. On Pack land, shifting was routine, and we rarely went a day without being in our fur. I’d alternated forms in Isra’s home during my healing, but this was the first time outside. “How often do you shift?”

“Once a month or stuff off my land, maybe once a week in the backyard,” she replied. “Climbing a tree on my property isn’t the same as moving through the trees and forests up here. Luckily, there is a lot of backcountry in these mountains with little human activity.”

“How do you survive out here all alone? Don’t you miss your kind?”

“Cats are loners, Nathan. We aren’t the social animals you wolves are. When my daughter grew up, she moved on. Eventually, she will settle in a new territory and raise her family.”

“The bears are in the middle, then.”

She nodded. “Bear dens are immediate family. If the group gets too big, one of the males will set up a new den instead of challenging the dominant bear for the group. Coyotes are similar to them. They form small, nomadic family units. They see mobility as the best way to stay safe.”

“The jaguars form groups. They integrate with humans, yet keep their secret.”

Her expression told me what she thought of the big cats. “The Sons of Tezcatlipoca are unique among the Were. They have a power structure in the Clubs like a Pack, but only a few cats rule each chapter. Their strength and capacity for violence is well-suited to a gang culture. They also don't like other cats around. Luckily, the mountain lions are like us.”

“Loners.”

“Yes. We cooperate because we have to. We need to keep our nature from the masses of people while also staying off the radar of the Packs. They are the only Werecreatures actively seeking out and destroying our kind.”

It was my turn to nod. “The Alphas don’t like the idea of threats to their rule, no matter how far away they are.”

“We don’t threaten the Packs. We aren’t suicidal.”

“They see your existence as a threat because you aren’t under their authority, and you could expose us all.”

“That’s why we’re never safe, even here,” she replied.

I looked out the window as we headed back home, ashamed of my actions while still part of the Pack. Carol’s family wasn’t the only ‘threat’ our Pack had wiped out without provocation.

I was on the other side now.