Saving the White Cougar by Terry Spear

Chapter 14

After dinner, Stella and Ted worked on a board game and when the sky cleared, Ted called the Havertons to see about taking down Halloween decorations and got a hold of Hal.

"We took down the dance stage and pulled up the dance floor. Some of the fall stuff is being left up for Thanksgiving, including the scarecrows. We already put away the Wizard of Oz characters before it rained. There wasn't really that much stuff to put away in the haunted house, so it's done. We're good, so don't worry about it. You can help with the scarecrows after you return from Thanksgiving, if they're still up by the time you return from Texas."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Ted. Hell, you work all the time. You and Stella just have a good time."

"Thanks," Ted said, and he was glad for it. When they ended the call, he said, “Okay, no working on the Halloween decorations. It’s taken care of.”

“Oh, okay.” Stella wanted to run as a cougar. Ted was always game, and the two of them stripped, then shifted and ran out the cougar door without another moment's hesitation. With the clouds slipping away, they would be able to see the sunset and he was glad for that since they hadn't been able to enjoy one at the falls yet.

He had to remind himself that they had all the time in the world now to enjoy the sunsets once she moved here and that made him feel really great.

They raced across the pastureland and through the woods, then finally made it to the pond. It was sparkling in the shining sunlight that had just begun to set. For a moment, she stood watching it, then she licked his face, and tore up the cliff face.

He took off after her, having the time of his life. They finally leaped on top of the boulders until they came to the peak of the cliffs and sat there together, watching the sun set.

It was beautiful up here, especially sitting with his mate, who was the most riveting color of all.

They watched geese flying overhead toward a lake and saw a bear rambling off in the distance through a meadow to a stream. Both of them watched the black bear, instantly captivated. At least the bear was on the other side of the ridge, the waterfall and pond behind them. Though if it was one of the bears he’d met this summer, who was a shifter, they had nothing to worry about. The sun continued to sink in the sky, coloring the drifting clouds pink and gold and red. Then he saw a rainbow cross the sky and he licked her face. She licked his back, acknowledging she had seen the majesty of the rainbow too.

When the sun was nearly gone, she bounded back down the rocks, the chilly breeze whirling around them as they made their way down to the bottom. With night vision cat eyes, she could see in the fading light as she swam across the pond to the waterfall and beyond. Their cougar coats kept them warm and he swam after her and found her looking through the screen of water at him.

He moved through the spray of the waterfall and joined her, winding around her, rubbing against her body like cats do and licked her face.

It was time to return to the bunkhouse, shift, take a hot shower, and more loving.

* * *

The next morning,Ted and Stella were making breakfast—cinnamon pancakes, and pumpkin spice lattes, and she had the notion to return to the cliffs where she'd been shot so that she would have no fear of the area. "Have you found the spent shells around the cliffs where I was shot? At least the blood would have been washed away during yesterday’s storm."

"We had rain while you were sleeping in the clinic too. Dan told me that there was no evidence of blood anywhere that you had left behind, and we cleaned up the hayloft and the barn where the rain couldn't wash it away, so you're good there." Ted got on his phone and then put it on speakerphone. "Hey, Dan, Stella was asking if any evidence was left behind where the hunters had shot her on the cliffs, or near there."

"We cleaned them up, and then we took pictures of the shots fired at the barn and the casings left all over the place. We have several rounds we dug out of the barn walls. All of it was taken into evidence, including the two that Vanessa dug out of Stella's arm."

"Okay, good."

"As cougars, we can still smell where the shooting took place earlier, and we can smell the blood, but the evidence of the blood is at least washed away, so if the men try to have a lawyer attest to the fact that they shot a cougar and the trail of blood led all the way to the barn, it won't fly."

"That's good news." Ted asked Stella, "Did you want to ask the sheriff anything else about the shootings?"

"No, that sounds like we're covered, story-wise," Stella said.

"Thanks, Dan, we're about to eat breakfast. I'll check in with you later," Ted said.

"Have a great day." Dan ended the call.

Ted and Stella ate their pancakes.

"I want to go out there," Stella said.

Ted frowned at her. "To relive the trauma?"

She sighed. "No. I just want to prove to myself the hunters are gone and not out there looking to shoot a white cougar."

"We can ride out there."

"You don't want me to go in my white fur coat."

"No. I can't help but worry that they got the word out to someone about the injured white cougar. So unless we run at night or in the morning before daybreak or just farther away from where they claim to have shot you, I don't want anyone to see you as a cougar running in that area."

"Okay. We can ride there. I would love that. And I'd probably feel safer anyway." Though she had wanted to climb up on the rocks as a cougar, to prove to herself that she was really safe there and that the men wouldn't be there to shoot her again. "What about the rattlesnake?"

"It's too cold for them to be out and about. We had that one day where the temperature had risen, but not now."

“Should we take the dogs?”

“Not this time. They need to help Kolby and the other ranch hands with the cattle. The new guys need to learn how to give the dogs commands too, and the dogs need to learn to obey them.”

“Okay.”

After cleaning up from breakfast, they headed out on the appaloosas to ride. Ted was amazed how much Stella loved riding horses, like she'd been born to it when she'd never been around them much.

"I was dying to ride when I was younger, but my adoptive parents were afraid of how the horses would react to us and rear up and injure us, because we smell like cougars. When I was emancipated, I did my one and only trail ride. I loved it, except that the horse kept trying to knock me off his back, and the trail wasn't that interesting. I love how we can go anywhere all over the acreage," Stella said.

"Yeah, and the seasons make it appear different too, so even if you're going to some of the same areas, you'll find flowers or snow or fall colors that make it appear completely different." He hoped Stella was feeling all right as she followed the direct path that she had traveled as a wounded cougar. It even made him feel stressed out, but if she needed to do this for her own peace of mind, they had to do it. He didn't want to ask if she was feeling all right either, if she just had to live in the moment. Instead, he talked to her about other things that were more cheerful, he hoped.

He told her about how Ricky had been turned and how he had turned his brother, and they'd chased each all over the clinic as cougars when they had been recovering from their injuries. "They created all kinds of havoc."

Stella laughed. "I hadn't realized they were more newly turned."

"Yeah, and Ricky turned Mandy by accident. He turned his brother on purpose though. The brothers were close to each other and Kolby had practically raised Ricky, so Ricky couldn't imagine being here among cougars—and we wouldn't let him go because he'd been newly turned—without his brother being a part of the community."

"And Mandy?"

"Oh, she was Ricky’s ex-girlfriend.”

Smiling, Stella raised a brow.

"Mandy ran into him with her car." Then Ted told the rest of the story and Stella laughed.

"Being a cougar has always been kind of a negative thing in my book, so I'm glad that I can hear how being turned can turn out fine, and being what I am, can too."

"Yeah, we have to make do with what we have to work with, but we do that by celebrating what we are, and with so many of us here, we can do that in grand style."

"I'll say."

They finally reached the cliffs and she said, "I didn't realize it was as far as it was to the ranch. I thought it was just because I was trying to keep really low and I wasn't sprinting for safety like I wanted to do."

"It is a long way from the ranch. Those hunters had to travel a long distance to reach it."

"What if they start posting all over the social media sites that they injured a white cougar?"

"We've got more patrols out in this area, checking to make sure we don’t have any hunters about. We would have done it for anyone if any of our cougars had been shot."

"Oh, good." Stella sounded vastly relieved.

"Yeah, we don't take chances when we have issues like this. If someone else had been hit, we could have the same situation—hunters or thrill-seekers searching for the wounded cougar. Even some good Samaritans who might want to rescue it could be searching all over the property. But with the notion we might have a rare white cougar, we could have a lot of different folks coming to check it out for various reasons."

They came around the cliffs and saw a sheriff department’s vehicle parked in the area where Stella had parked her Jeep. Chase was up on the rocks and they looked up to see him waving down at them. "Good day for a climb."

"I want to join him." Stella climbed off her horse. Then she tied her up to a tree branch and Ted did the same with his horse.

It was much easier climbing the cliffs as a cougar, but no one was to go anywhere near here as a cougar right now, just in case hunters figured the cougar, or others, might have marked this as their territory.

They finally made it up to the top and stood there, looking at the majestic surroundings, seeing the horse ranch way off in the distance, but if he hadn't known what they were, he would have had to guess that the horses standing in the pasture were just that. So Stella wouldn't have known it before she raced for the safety of the barn.

"It's beautiful out here. Too bad hunters trespassing on the ranch lands had to spoil it for the rest of us, at least for a while," Chase said.

"I agree," Ted said, "but it's good to take note that we can't let our guard down when it comes to the cougars and other wildlife's safety."

"Right," Stella said. "It's too beautiful and the land needs to be preserved." Then she frowned at Chase. "Has anyone ever tried to grow illegal crops on the property since the Havertons have so much acreage?"

"Yeah, a couple of times. They were thinking the land was untamed, owned, but no one would be the wiser. But with our sense of smell, we can sniff out the illegal plants or stills and take them down quicker than they can put them up or grow their plants. We've caught the marijuana plants in the early stages of growth. The ones who were attempting to grow on the land found it wasn't profitable as much as we were watching for them. Not only that, but we arrested several of the men who came back to check on their plants, and even caught some planting one time. Thankfully, we have an army of law enforcement officials who can take them down."

"Even with legalizing pot in Colorado, they still plant illegally?"

"Yep. It has to do with the 'free' land to grow on and avoiding regulations and taxation. We haven't had any issues in the last couple of years, though we check out the acreage and others like it that the cougars own regularly," Chase said.

Which was another good reason to have his and Stella’s home built in another area of the land—to help show there were too many eyes on the property for other illegal activities to take place, Ted thought.