Core Values

  Some lady saw a big cat, only this time it was reported as a black one.

  Brubaker pinned the clipping to the wall above his drawing table, along with all the others he’d saved since beginning to track this story. He made a mark on the map. If it was indeed the same animal; it was behaving pretty much as he would have expected. The cat got to within seven or eight kilometres of town, then turned back to the northeast.

  In that direction, it could follow the lakeshore for miles.

  The Pines Provincial Park had a good-sized deer herd up there. If the animal followed the beach, it was maybe forty kilometres. It would be two or three good nights of prowling, essentially.

  As for the remarkable colour change; the report didn’t mention what direction the lady was looking. If she was looking into the sun, say eastwards at dawn, south at noon or west in the evening, the animal might very well have been the correct colour. It could have appeared as a black silhouette. He couldn’t rule it out. In that location; presumably she was familiar with squirrels, or the possums that were proliferating in recent years. Foxes and coyotes don’t climb trees, and everyone knows what a raccoon looks like. The reports were so incomplete. People weren’t trained observers. Sheer excitement made their observations untrustworthy. People saw, but they did not observe. A squirrel now, its tail was bushy, almost the same size and shape as its body.

  If Bru had the opportunity to question the lady, he might have been able to narrow it down. A big cat’s tail was extremely long compared to almost any other mammal. It was the same thickness all the way along. Leaping animals such as the squirrel and the cat had long tails. A badger or wolverine has a much shorter tail. But they’re digging animals, not climbers. At a distance of thirteen metres, how could she make a mistake like that?

  As for the distance traveled between sightings, that was well within the capabilities of a big cat in the time allotted. Brubaker had seen a raccoon run across the road recently at night, perfectly visible in the headlights. At seventy-five or a hundred metres, the tail rings and distinctive hump-backed shape were quickly identifiable. But then, Bru had some experience. While he needed glasses for reading, his vision was in general pretty good.

  There was a small herd of deer that seemed to travel back and forth along the limited-access Highway 442. Built in 1980, it was cut right through the heart of a strip of bush that was between two concession roads. Sometimes the herd was on the south side of the highway, sometimes the north. While commuting back and forth to London; Bru saw more than one dead deer in the ditch, presumably hit by some early-morning commuter.

  The Pines herd wasn’t subject to hunting. Their numbers were becoming a problem. A controversial deer cull had occupied the headlines several years previously. If anyone asked Brubaker’s opinion, he would have told them that as a young man, he dreamed of re-introducing the big cats into this habitat. As a more mature adult, he could see the problems.

  “People would go fuckin’ ballistic,” he admitted. “They want to live in the country, leave their pets unattended, and let the kids play in the yard.”

  They just weren’t prepared or even willing to share the habitat, or make any kind of sacrifices in order to accommodate the big predators.

  In Brubaker’s experience, some human beings were un-trainable.

  His sympathy lay with the cats.

  Chapter Forty

  Sergeant Oberon gets buggered…Part One.