James Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The dead trader lay where the panther left him, and James Blackwood had walked that same road a hundred times without fear. Now he crouched over the body and understood his work had changed. He had spent two years clearing wolves and bears from the trails around Rowanfall so travelers could cross without dying. This was different. He found no tracks. No broken brush. No sign at all, except the four deep claw lines across the man's back. James carried his hound everywhere. The dog had never failed to find a scent. He let the animal circle the body now. It whined and pulled back, tail low, nose working the air. Whatever had done this left nothing for the dog to follow. James stood and scanned the tree line. The forest held still. He could not track what he could not spot. He did not go home empty-handed. He dragged the trader's cart off the road and went back to his cabin to think. The timber walls and steep roof had sheltered him since he first came to this frontier. He sat on the porch and looked at the dark trees. A hunter chases what runs. This thing wanted him to come close. So James changed the hunt. If he could not find the panther, he would make the panther find him. Before dawn he hauled a fresh deer carcass to the road and dropped it near the bloodstain. He tied the hound inside the cabin, where it could not die for him. Then he climbed a thick oak above the bait and waited. His bow lay across his knees. Cold crept into his hands. The sun rose, crossed over, and fell. He did not move. Near dusk the forest went silent. No birds. The hair on James's neck rose. He saw nothing, and that was the warning. He stared at the brush until his eyes ached. Then a patch of ferns shifted against the wind. He saw the shape only when it reached the deer. Gray fur blurred the edges of the cat, as if the forest clung to its hide. It was close. It had passed under his tree without a sound. James drew. The bowstring creaked, and the panther's head snapped up. It gathered to spring. He loosed. The arrow took the cat behind the shoulder. It screamed and bolted into the brush, and this time it bled. A dark trail marked the ferns. James dropped from the oak and followed the blood until he found the panther dead beneath a fallen log. He stood over it a long time. He had cleared the beast that no one else could even see. But the trader's cart had carried letters. One warned of a southern pass choked with thorned vines that strangled oxen where they stood. The road was open again here. Somewhere else, it was already closing.