His eyes never left her. His teeth remained bared in a snarl as lethal as that of any cougar, eyes like an imprisoned convict. She could see him debating how he could best use her, how he could force her to free him. Stepping away from the cage, she put her hand on Bucky's shoulder, steadying herself against the solid buckskin gelding. She stood silently for a long time watching the cat as he continued his careful assessment of her.

At last she knelt again, and spoke softly, though the other riders were on down the trail. "You run with the wild band. With the band that, almost two years ago, came to Hellhag Hill." Even as she said it, she thought, alarmed, that if he was one of that band, they might have come back searching for the kit.

But why would they? To take the little tattercoat back into their clowder? Why would they want her back? She had been nothing but an outcast.

Would they want to remove any cat of their kind from human company? Would they hurt Kit to keep their secret?

But that didn't make sense. If that was the case, why had they ever let her stay in the village? Why hadn't they taken her away at once?

Or was this a new and stricter leader? Charlie knew from Kit that the band had been ruled by a tyrant. Was there now a worse dictator, a beast even more predatory and controlling? Kit had said the leaders changed whenever a stronger male killed the old one. Was this tom even more anxious to keep his kind from being discovered? The cat continued to glare.

"If you will talk to me," she said, "if you will tell me why they trapped you-tell me how they managed to trap you-and if you'll tell me why you are here, I'll set you free."

His snarl rumbled.

"I promise I'll free you," she whispered.

In order to free him, she would have to handle the cage. If he chose, he could slash her fingers to ribbons through the bars before she could ever release the door and push it in.

Rising, she slipped her hoof pick from its little case on the saddle and fished her knife from her pocket. Because Bucky was tense and snorting, she was afraid he wouldn't stay ground-tied. She undid her rope from the saddle and tied him to a deadfall.

Opening her saddle bags, she found her leather gloves and slipped them on. Crouched again before the cage, studying how best to spring the latch, she heard Ryan call her from far up the trail. Oh, they mustn't come back.

"I'm fine," she shouted. "I'm coming. Give me a minute."

She had thought at first the cage belonged to one of the animal-rescue groups that trapped feral cats, that gave the cats shots and "the operation," then turned them loose again. But this cage wasn't like theirs. Though of the same humane design, it had stainless steel bars instead of wire mesh, and a different kind of tripping mechanism, too. A different way to release the door, and a far more complicated latch. But what gave her chills was the bungee cord.

The strong elastic cord was used to keep a trap open for many days so the victim would grow used to going inside for food. Normally, the cord was then removed, and the trap set. An ordinary cat would not realize the difference, but would go on in and trip the trigger, slamming the door shut before it could escape.

But this bungee cord hung in three pieces, frayed apart. It did not look chewed, but tampered with. The door had been sprung while the weakened cord was still in place, and it had pulled apart.

She looked into the tom's blazing eyes. "Was the cord on when you went in? So you thought it still held the door?"

The cat blinked, as if to say yes. It glared, and would not speak.

"You didn't chew it in two? It doesn't look chewed."

He lashed his tail, reluctantly letting her know he understood, but still unwilling to speak. This was too bizarre, kneeling in the wilderness talking to a trapped cat from whom she fully expected answers. This was a scene out of Alice, crazyand impossible.

But it indeed was quite possible.

"Tell me," she said impatiently. "Just tell me, and I'll free you! There are two more riders, they'll be over here in a minute. We can't talk in front of them."

The big cat studied her, ears back, teeth glinting.

She said, "This trap was not set by the rescue people. Whoever set it knew you, knew that he was setting it for an animal as smart as himself." She was studying the heavy, complicated latch when Ryan began calling again.

"Tell me now! Quickly! Speak to me now, and I'll free you. Otherwise I'll leave you. I swear I will."

The cat smiled with teeth like ivory daggers. His look said, Isn't this proof enough? My smile, my cognizance? That is all the proof you need, so get on with it.

Rising, she turned and swung onto Bucky and headed out, meaning to stop Ryan. She could feel, behind her, the cat's alarm.

Ryan had left the trail. Behind her, Hanni waited. "Go back," Charlie said. "It's all right. A feral cat in a cage, I don't want to frighten it. Looks like it's been there a long time. I'm going to free it; I think I can spring it all right."

"Let me help, I'll be gentle." Ryan booted her horse, moving beside Charlie before Charlie could stop her, and sliding from the mare. The cat, now crouched at the back of the cage, snarled and spit. Now its eyes were shuttered, giving away nothing. Charlie, opening her folding hoof pick and knife, began to work on the lock.

No cat could have opened this, it was hard even for her, with the simple tools she had. As she wedged the pick into place, Ryan forced her own knife into the moving part of the mechanism; Ryan's knife was heavier and sturdier than Charlie's. By wedging in both knives, they were able at last to spring it. The moment they did, the cat surged forward against the closed door. But then, realizing he must get out of the way for it to be pushed open, he moved back. Ryan stared at him, puzzled. Immediately, he began hissing and growling as if frightened, trying to hide his too-intelligent behavior.

"I must have scared him," Charlie said, "when I stood up." Retrieving a fallen branch, she lifted the cage door.

As Ryan, using a second stick, pressed the door back into its open position, the cat moved a step toward the opening. He paused, looking fiercely up at them. Neither woman moved. He took another step. Another, toward freedom. His eyes never left them. He watched them secure the door open, wedging the branches in. Watched them back away from the cage. And he streaked out and through the woods-a flash and he was gone, they were looking at empty woods.

But then, from the shadows where he had vanished, the whole woods seemed to shake and shift, a violent stirring that came from every direction like silent small explosions. And then gone, the woods utterly still.

"What was that?" Ryan said, swallowing.

"I don't know," Charlie whispered, seeing in her mind's eye the swift, cat-shaped shadows vanishing among the trees. She watched the woods as Hanni joined them, her gray gelding prancing and fussing. Hanni took in the scene, the empty trap, and the woods beyond. The widening shafts of sunlight showed nothing alive, not even a bird flitting.

"I didn't know there were trappers up here," Hanni said. "But why a humane trap? If they're trapping for fur…?"

"Cat trap," Charlie said. "Surely a 'trap and neuter' group."

"Why would they work way up here? How often do they check their cages? To leave a cat like that… No food, no water…" Hanni knew as well as Charlie that no animal-rescue group would have left a trap there unattended. "How long was it in that cage?"

Leaving Bucky tied, Charlie walked deeper into the woods, searching until she found a large stone. Returning, she knelt and began to hammer the cage, bending the bars as best she could; the metal was thick, hellishly strong. When her arm grew tired, Ryan took the stone. Stronger, from years of carpentry work, Ryan struck with a force that soon collapsed the sides and sprung the door. When the cage lay bent beyond use, its lock and hinges broken, its door twisted into folds, Charlie carried it through the brush to where the land fell sharply, and heaved it down the ravine into steep, jagged rocks among a tangle of bushes.