Free Warrior by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

Nevada. Not just for my peace of mind, either. Even with fresh snow, no wind, and Baby’s nose, finding cougars out there won’t be easy. I suspect you’re a good tracker.”
    “I get by.”
    The buried drawl in Nevada’s voice told Eden that he was amused by something. She smiled slightly. “I’ll just bet you do. You don’t miss much, do you?”
    “No.”
    Eden didn’t need to be told any more. Nevada had lived on the razor edge of awareness for so long that he had forgotten there was any other way to live.
    “I’ll put your skills to work every chance I get,” Eden said. “There’s so little time.”
    “I heard you’d be here until June. At least, I heard the government cat expert would be here. That’s you, isn’t it?”
    “After a fashion, but probably there will be more than one cat expert coming and going. My grant money is private, administered through the university at Boulder, but I’m working in conjunction with a federal study of cougars. The whole study will cover a decade. My part will last only as long as the tracking snows do, unless I find a female that’s denned up with cubs. Then I might be able to stretch things into May or June.”
    Nevada bent over, righted the packsaddle with an easy motion and asked, “What is your part?”
    “A feasibility study.”
    “Of what?”
    “Whether it’s possible to monitor cougars without drugging them, putting on bulky radio collars, and then turning the cats loose to lead a supposedly normal life.”
    “Yeah, I always wondered how many animals the scientists lost that way,” Nevada said dryly. “Drugs are tricky things, especially with cats. As for the radio collars
    ” He shrugged, bent over a bedroll and began putting it back together with the smooth, efficient motions of a man who has done a task so often he no longer has to think about it. Eden worked alongside Nevada, watching him from the corners of her eyes, fascinated by his unconscious grace and his casual acceptance of his own physical strength.
    “What about the radio collars?” Eden asked, realizing belatedly that Nevada had stopped talking and was watching her watch him.
    “I’m no specialist,” Nevada said, looking away from Eden, straightening a blanket with a casual snap of his wrist, “but I’ve noticed one thing about wild animals. If there’s anything different about an animal, the others shun him. Or they attack him. Makes me wonder if anyone has thought about that when they wrap a few pounds of brightly packaged radio collar around a wild animal and turn it loose. Then the specialists come back every few days or weeks in a helicopter or a small plane and buzz the hell out of the local wildlife trying to track down the radio collar’s signal.”
    “Somebody around here must have thought about it,” Eden said. She knelt and began stacking firewood that had been scattered when Nevada had rolled into it. “Dr. Martin said my particular part of the grant money came from one of the local ranchers.” Suddenly she turned and looked at Nevada. “Was it you?”
    He hesitated fractionally in the act of righting the water bucket, then shrugged and said, “I’m a cowhand, not a rancher. Luke and Ten own the land.”
    Eden waited, certain that she was right. Only someone who respected and understood wildlife would have given money for a study that didn’t disrupt the animals’ normal lives. It was obvious that Nevada felt an unusual affinity for wild animals. She had never seen Baby take to a person with such ease.
    “Both Luke and Ten admire the cougars, but they have their hands full raising kids and cattle,” Nevada continued, “and at the same time they’re protecting and excavating some of the Anasazi sites at September Canyon. On a ranch there’s never enough money to do everything that should be done.”
    “So you paid for part of the grant.”
    Again, Nevada shrugged. “The cougars are staging a comeback around here. Now, I believe the cats live on wild