Page 79 of Beasts of Mine

Cat studied me for several seconds before answering.

Forever is a long time, Cat told me, his golden-brown eyes narrowing slightly.

“Should've thought of that earlier,” I replied to Cat, smiling when one of his ears twitched. Giving them names should have made the situation more ridiculous. Instead, it clarified something I'd already been doing without realizing it. They weren't simply three leopards anymore.

Cat was the one who checked every path before I walked it. Menace was incapable of leaving either me or my possessions alone. Gentleman somehow always knew where the safest water, best wildlife, and easiest routes were. I could identify any of them from a glimpse between the trees, and somewhere over the last several days I'd stopped thinking of them as interchangeable animals entirely.

The rest of the fourth day gave me even more reasons to question what, exactly, I'd befriended.

Menace knew far too much about my camera equipment. I discovered that shortly after lunch while reorganizing the field bag before heading toward a small clearing where I'd seen parrots feeding earlier in the week. Most of my gear was spread across the worktable as I debated which lens justified the extra weight, and Menace pushed his nose directly against one of the padded compartments.

“Out,” I told Menace, nudging his muzzle away with my forearm while I continued sorting equipment. He moved approximately six inches and remained there, watching my hands with his usual complete disregard for personal space.

“The light's going to be terrible if they're high in the trees. I probably need the longer lens,” I muttered to Menace, mostly thinking aloud as I shifted two padded sleeves aside.

Menace immediately shoved his nose against the correct one. My hands stopped with the zipper halfway open as I looked from the sleeve to his face.

“You know which one I meant,” I told Menace slowly, watching his amber eyes meet mine without even a hint of guilt.

Yes, Menace replied, touching his nose to the padded sleeve again as though there was nothing remarkable about that.

“How?” I asked Menace, lowering myself into a crouch until we were nearly eye level.

You use that one for things far away, Menace told me, nudging the telephoto sleeve once more while his tail swept lazily across the boards. I looked at the lens and then back at him.

“That's a telephoto lens. You actually understand what it does,” I told Menace, studying his expression for some hint that I was giving him too much credit.

You point it at far things, Menace replied, his ears tipping toward me as though he'd offered the most obvious explanation imaginable.

“That is not helping your case,” I told Menace as I sat back on my heels.

What case? Menace asked me, managing an excellent imitation of innocence despite the amusement in his eyes.

“The one where I eventually have to explain why none of you behave remotely like normal leopards,” I told Menace, pulling the lens sleeve toward me.

We are normal leopards, Cat told me from beneath the platform, his deeper voice carrying clearly enough that I leaned over the edge and found him stretched in the shade below.

“You weren't invited into this conversation,” I told Cat, glaring down at him while he barely bothered to lift his head.

I heard it anyway, Cat replied, resting his chin back on his foreleg with complete lack of concern. I frowned as I returned to packing. Cat had always understood me unusually well, but lately I'd started noticing how often he responded before I'd finished explaining myself. Menace knowing which lens I meant was difficult to dismiss, and Cat apparently anticipating the rest of my thoughts wasn't helping.

The parrots ended up being worth carrying the heavier lens. By the time I returned to camp in the afternoon, I'd filled another memory card with bright green bodies flashing between shadowed leaves, scarlet patches catching the scattered sunlight whenever one of the birds turned its head. Menace had followed most of the way and behaved himself surprisingly well, though I suspected that had more to do with the camera occupying my hands than any sudden development of manners.

Gentleman made my list of suspiciously un-leopardlike behavior longer before sunset.

We were several hundred yards from camp near a small opening in the canopy I'd been considering for evening photography. A faint breeze moved through the clearing in uneven currents, carrying my scent toward the game trail before shifting back toward the trees. After several minutes of watching the grass near my boots, I was already reconsidering the location.

“This isn't going to work. If I set up here, anything coming down that trail is going to smell me before I even get a chance to—” I told Gentleman, speaking mostly to myself because talking around the leopards had become second nature.

West side, Gentleman told me before I could finish, rising from where he'd been sitting and crossing the clearing toward the opposite slope. The rest of my sentence disappeared as I watched him climb the shallow rise.

“What?” I asked Gentleman, following the direction of his gaze when he turned back toward me.

Higher ground. Wind moves away from the trail there, Gentleman explained, glancing toward the grass before indicating the ridge with a movement of his head.

Curiosity won, and I followed him.

The difference was obvious as soon as I reached the rise. The breeze passed across the higher ground and carried away from the game trail rather than toward it. The trees overhead also opened enough that late sunlight filtered through in broad shafts, warming sections of leaf litter while leaving the edge of the trail in shadow.