Claws by Ozzie Cheek Page A

It wasn’t called Safari Land then. It wasn’t called anything. Just another abandoned farm going to seed. At the time I think they had a couple of lions and tigers and some Great Northern wolves too. Not sure what else they were keeping there. I heard they were trying to breed the wolves with Huskies. Anyway, about four years ago they got rid of the wolves and started bringing in more and more big cats. I’m not sure where they got them.”
    “A failed circus, overcrowded zoo, dumb people trying to raise a lion or tiger in their yards,” Katy said.
    “So not that hard to come by?”
    Katy nodded.
    “I was out there maybe three years ago with my daughter, Jesse, and then again about a year or so back. The Cheneys wanted to open a safari park. Take you on a protected drive while the animals roamed free. But they could never get all of the permits they needed and then –”Jackson glanced over at Katy. She had been quiet for the last few minutes. She was asleep. “Oh hell,” he said.
    Kali and Shaka heard the motorcycle when it was two miles away, but they paid little attention to it. Raised in captivity, the ligers were familiar with machine noises. Anyway, they were too hungry to concern themselves with the noise. They had followed the wolves into the hills, but with Kali moving slower than usual, failed to catch them. Now, Kali was leading them toward a distant chicken coop.
    The ligers crossed a creek where the water was lowest and climbed up a steep bank. At the top of the bank was a paved road, hard beneath their paws. They were halfway across the road when they saw the bright headlight.
    Ronnie still was thinking about the meeting at the Umfleet house as he rounded the bend before the bridge over Brown’s Creek. Fred had been the instigator in turning the guys against Ted Cheney. He had told them that somebody in town was talking to the law about the militia group. Fred wouldn’t reveal how he knew this. He claimed that there was somebody high up that backed the KGC but couldn’t be seen as part of it. Fred cast suspicion on Ted. Ronnie doubted if any part of Fred’s tale was true, but he was glad to be rid of Ted Cheney. Ted was difficult; Fred, he could handle.

    As soon as Ronnie crossed the bridge, his light beam illuminated the animals. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. Two monster cats stood as still as statues in the middle of the road. Ronnie slammed the brakes and swerved to miss the animals. The Harley-Davidson went into a slide. He rode the slide off the asphalt and clung to the handlebar when the bike caught air. The Fat Boy flew over a steep bank and came down front-wheel-first on a bushy hillside. Ronnie catapulted over the handlebar and turned a perfect somersault before landing on his back. The motorcycle bounced and banged its way into dense weeds.
    When Maryann Fedder woke up, the television was on. It took a moment for her to remember what she had been watching before crying herself to sleep. A woman on the Shopping Network had been selling the identical nightgown she was wearing. She rubbed the satiny fabric and felt the lace edges. She was certain Ronnie would like it. She imagined him fondling it and slipping it off her and …
    Maryann made herself stop. She didn’t want to cry again so she focused on the television, flipping channels. Three years earlier her parents had upgraded the satellite service to receive over two hundred channels. She paused for a moment when she saw a guy on a motorcycle. Ronniehad never made a date and failed to show up before. She guessed this was how he planned to dump her.
    She switched channels. Usually, she watched cooking shows. New dishes were appearing regularly on the family dinner table now. She paused. Africa. The channel had to be National Geographic or Discovery. What she saw reminded her of something her dad had said earlier about lions and tigers loose in Idaho. She gasped when she saw a leopard bring down a helpless baby wildebeest. At