The Gathering
Page 7

Daniel was okay. He had some puncture wounds where the cougar had dug in his claws, and he’d definitely be bruised and battered tomorrow, but he’d avoided a bite, which was the main thing.
He argued that he didn’t need medical attention, but Mom drove us into Salmon Creek, calling ahead to make sure one of the doctors would be at the clinic. Dr. Inglis met us there, which surprised Mom. Dr. Inglis is the head of the research lab, and doesn’t usually work at the clinic, but she said she’d been out with Dr. Lam, and when he’d gotten the page, she decided to come along.
While Dr. Lam looked after Daniel, Dr. Inglis chatted with me. She’d heard this was my second cougar encounter today, and wanted to know all about it. She made it sound like personal curiosity, but I knew it wasn’t. She was making sure I was doing okay, that I didn’t need the services of Dr. Fodor to deal with the trauma.
One drawback to living in a medical research town is that they’re paranoid about health, both physical and mental. The adults get off easy. Not the kids. Sneeze twice in a row and the teacher calls the school nurse. Drop out of a sport or let your grades fall and you’re whisked off to Dr. Fodor’s couch. They especially monitor the teens, as if hormonal surges could make us spontaneously combust at any moment.
The worst is when Dr. Davidoff comes to town. I hate Dr. Davidoff. We all do. He’s creepy, with cold hands and awkward, lame jokes. But he’s the St. Clouds’ top doctor, so every year, he brings a team to visit the lab. And, since they have world-class doctors on hand, it’s time for every kid to get a complete physical. Oh joy.
My parents are big on eating natural food, getting lots of exercise, and staying healthy, but even they find the town’s obsession a bit much. Still, they don’t knock it, not if it means I get the best care possible. I suppose that’s the point. The town keeps its employees happy by keeping their kids healthy. Since they have the resources right there, it’s an easy benefit to provide.
Dr. Lam cleaned Daniel’s wounds and gave him painkillers for tomorrow. Then Dr. Inglis listened to his version of events and made sure he wasn’t traumatized before she called Chief Carling to report it. Out here, wildlife attacks are like gunshot wounds in the city—every one needs to be recorded.
Dad took the tranquilized cougar to Dr. Hajek’s. The tom had been tagged, so we needed to find out where he was from and whether he could be returned. She had the facilities to hold him; we didn’t.
The cat had come for the shed. I was sure of that. No matter how clean I keep it, it carries the scent of the rabbits and fawns I’ve housed there; and new predators to the area often check it out, hoping for a well-stocked food larder. Once they realize they can’t get in, they usually leave it alone.
As for why the new tom was in our park at all, he was clearly checking out territorial prospects. The island isn’t overpopulated with cougars, so Marv doesn’t see a lot of challengers. As he gets older, though, they’re bound to increase. This only proved how quickly a younger and more dangerous big cat would move in if we relocated Marv.
I felt bad for the old guy. He’d come to our rescue and how would he be repaid? Hunted and tranquilized to teach him a lesson about getting too friendly with humans. Yet as romantic as it is to think Marv had been protecting us, it was far more likely that he was simply protecting his territory. Still, I’d feel guilty when Dad did it, and, to be honest, I’d miss my encounters with the old cat.
SEVEN
IHAD A ROUGH night. Between being verbally attacked by a total stranger and physically attacked by a cougar, I’d need a skin of granite not to let it affect me.
I dreamed about the old woman and the cougar, and those were definitely nightmares. But I also dreamed of what I’d felt when that cat looked me in the eye. What I’d smelled and felt and seen.
I dreamed of what had happened in the shed with the marten. My blackout. No, not a blackout. A vision of what had happened to the animal.
I’d talk to Mom about it later. I always went to her with things like that, because she wouldn’t go all Native mystical on me and talk about vision quests and whatever. Not that Dad or Daniel would do that—they’d been around us long enough to know better. But still, well, I’d just be more comfortable talking to Mom about it.
It’s like my love of nature. Some people say it’s because I’m Native, and I know they’re not trying to stereotype me, though sometimes I really wish I was into model airplanes instead. I love animals and yes, I’m Native, but as my teachers would say, correlation doesn’t imply causation. I have a park ranger for a father and an environmental architect for a mother. They met at a rain forest conservation rally and have raised me out in the woods. It’d be bizarre if I didn’t turn out the way I did.
But what had really happened tonight? With the cougar, it was obviously adrenaline with a chaser of shock, and maybe a little post-traumatic stress thrown in for good measure. One best friend had died in front of me last year. Another almost did tonight.
I could rationalize it while I was awake, but once I fell asleep, I was running again, ground and wind whooshing past. I smelled the musk of animals, the tang of the earth, and blood. I smelled blood and it made me run all the faster, heart speeding up not with fear but something else, something that gripped my belly like … like hunger.
I bolted upright. Sweat poured down my face, and I gasped for breath as my heart pounded. My legs ached like I really had been running.
I pushed off the covers, got out of bed, and went to the window. I stood there in the moonlight, hands pressed against the cool glass as I scanned the forest, looking for … I don’t know what I was looking for, only that I was looking and I was aching and I wanted something. Wanted it so bad.
The window was open a crack, and I could smell the rich, loamy night, just like in my dream. I bent to open it farther, then crouched there, my heart galloping. I let the cool air and the scents wash over me and, gradually, my heartbeat slowed and the sweat dried and I was left standing there, confused and shivering, until I went back to bed, pulled up the covers, and fell asleep.
“You could have stayed with my mom today,” I said as Daniel navigated the potholes and ruts. “You’ve got to be hurting.”
“Nope. Don’t feel a thing.”
“Tough guy,” I said.
“No, well-medicated guy. You really think I’d let you go to school without me? I’d show up tomorrow and hear that I got pinned running from a cougar, only to be saved by you rushing in and staring him down.”
“Um, yeah, that’s pretty much how I remember it.”
“Exactly why I’m going. To get my version out first.”
I laughed. “Not a chance. But I will include the part about you throwing me to safety. The girls will love that. Especially Nicole.”
Daniel gripped the steering wheel, his gaze straight ahead.
“So it’s still a no, then?” I said. “Look, if you aren’t interested, I’ll stop teasing you, but you did say she’s cute …”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s been over a year.” Not just a year since Serena’s death, but a year since he’d gone on a date. That was starting to worry me. “All I’m saying—again—is ask her if she’s going to my party. Yes, obviously she is, and obviously, as the host, you’re not asking her for a date, but it would just … open the possibility, you know. Let her know you might be interested, and see how things go. No pressure.”
“We’ll see.”
We pulled in the parking lot to see Corey talking to a girl who looked, from the back, like Sam. As we drove closer, though, I could see her dark hair was sleek, not spiked, and her clothes had colors, which meant they’d never be found in Sam’s wardrobe. Then I caught a glimpse of her face and realized it was our elusive tree-climbing hiker.
Corey waved us over. He said something to the woman and she turned, smiling. That smile evaporated when she saw us. Her gaze darted about, like she wanted to make another escape. She settled for pasting on a big, phony smile.
“Hey, guys,” she said. Then, to me, “Does your dad still want that report, because I was super-busy yesterday. I can try to squeeze it in today.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “He’s got other problems right now.”
“Another cougar,” Daniel said to Corey. “I saved her.”
“A mountain lion?” the woman cut in. “What happened?”
“This is Mina Lee,” Corey said. “She’s a reporter doing a story on Salmon Creek.”
“Cool,” I said. “What paper?”
“It’s an American one,” she said, as if kids from hick-town Canada wouldn’t recognize the name. “We’re doing a series on unusual small towns, and this one certainly qualifies. I’m particularly interested in getting the point of view of young people like you. Your opinion of this place must be a lot different from your parents’.”
When we didn’t react, she leaned forward, conspiratorial. “It can’t be easy living out here. Two hundred people …” She shook her head. “It must be so isolating.”
“It is.” Corey turned to Daniel. “If there were more kids here, I wouldn’t need to hang out with you. And we wouldn’t need to hang out with girls. Even if they are hot girls, and, well, being such a small town, there’s not a lot of competition for dates, so they’re stuck with us and—” He looked at Mina. “I like isolated.”
Mina studied us, trying to figure out if we were making fun of her. Honestly, unless it was a rainy Saturday night and no one had wheels to drive into the city, we didn’t mind living here. I could tell that wasn’t what she wanted, though, so I played along.
“It can be a bit much,” I said. “No Starbucks. No clubs. No Aéropostale. Hell, we have to drive an hour just to hang out at the mall. Epic inconvenience.”
The guys struggled to keep straight faces as they nodded.
“And then there’s the”—I lowered my voice—“medical research.”
Her eyes glinted. Bull’s-eye.
“How do you feel about that?” she said. “Living with such secrecy and under such intense security. I mean, they built an entire town to hide their work.”
“I worry that they’re hurting bunnies,” I said.
“We aren’t supposed to talk about the medical stuff.” Daniel looked around, mock-anxious. “We get in a lot of trouble for that.”
Mina nodded. “I understand. But I’d love to chat. Privately.”
She set a time and place for us to meet her after school, then handed me her card and told us to bring along any other kids who wanted to talk.
EIGHT
AS SHE WALKED AWAY, Corey rubbed his temple, grimacing.
Daniel glanced at him. “You got your—?”
“Headache meds? Yes, Dad. I’ll take one when I get inside.”
I handed him Mina’s card. “Your mom will want this.”
“I texted her before you guys showed up. Even snapped a photo. She’ll pass it on to Mayor Tillson and Dr. Inglis.”
Dr. Inglis was as much a part of town politics as Chief Carling and the mayor. Mina Lee wasn’t the first “reporter” to come sniffing around Salmon Creek. From the time we were little, we’d been told how to deal with them.
As far as we knew, no actual reporter had ever come to cover Salmon Creek. We might be an unusual little town, but we’re definitely not worthy of a feature in an American newspaper. We were, however, worthy of attention from activists and competing medical companies. Over the years, we’d had a few activists posing as reporters, searching for evidence of animal testing or stem cell research. Of a bigger concern to the St. Clouds, though, were the corporate spies.
Drug research is a huge business, with potentially huge profits. Imagine how much you could make if you developed a cure for cancer. Or even the common cold. The St. Clouds built Salmon Creek so they could develop new drugs without rivals peering over their shoulders. But that doesn’t mean their rivals don’t occasionally send spies to see what they’re working on.
Still, it doesn’t take us long to sort out the troublemakers from the tourists. An alert about Mina Lee would go through Salmon Creek before lunch, shutting down all her potential sources of information.
I told the guys I’d catch up with them later. I had to go in early and prep Mrs. Morris’s classroom. No, I’m not a teacher’s pet. There’s a rule at our school that if you aren’t on a sports team, you need to do extra work. Being temporarily off the track team meant I was on teacher-helper duty two mornings a week.
“Watch out for Rafe,” Corey said. “I saw him in the smoking pit.”
“Phony,” I muttered.
“She thinks he’s not a real smoker,” Daniel explained.
“He’s not. Half the time he doesn’t light his cigarette. The other half he takes a couple of puffs and puts it out. It’s part of the bad boy package.”
Corey grinned. “Been paying attention, have you?”
“Maya always pays attention,” Daniel said. “She notices everything and has an opinion on it, which she’s not afraid to share as frequently and as loudly as possible.”
Corey laughed.
“Watch it,” I said as I walked away, “or I’ll share my opinions on what happened last night.”
“Hey, yeah,” Corey said. “So what did happen?”
I left Daniel to explain and went around the school the back way, past the smoking pit. Yes, we had a smoking pit, which is completely weird for a private school owned by a medical company. Kids smoke, though. It’s a given, and the more adults try to stop it, the more kids are determined to do it. So the school board designated a smoking pit right beside the furnace room, where the rumble makes it hard to talk. Then they enacted a town bylaw prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to anyone under twenty. Of course, kids can get them elsewhere, but only the most determined bother.