Track of the Cat

A friend of mine was reading this, and because there's a cat, I got interested. I read a couple of 1 star reviews and I'm a bit... irritated.

But, before that, there are some delicious morsels in the writing. Like this one:

Thursday night the moon rose full and round at 9:12 p.m. Anna was waiting for it. The light came first, a faint silvery glow on the bottom of the few ragged clouds left from the afternoon's fruitless thunderheads. Then a dome, slightly flattened, pushing up into the saddle between El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak. Fainthearted stars faded from sight. Cool, colorless light poured down the park's western escarpment, rolled out like liquid silver across the ravine-torn desert to pool black under the spreading brambles of the mesquite and shine in the cholla needles.

Especially if you have read the whole book and found out the mountain lions were framed. It was a murder, by a human being, and the mountain lioness was killed for no reason, and her cubs starved to death for no reason, and if you have no tears for them, I think it's you who are the heartless b*tch, and not Anna Pigeon.

They didn't starve to death. Someone who found them first and took care of them.

One vulture, bolder than the rest, dropped down from the ledge on wide-spread wings, stirring up the putrid air. Unheralded, a Gary Larson cartoon flashed into Anna's brain. Vultures around a kill: “Ooooooweeeeee! This thing's been here a looooooooong time. Well, thank God for ketchup.”

Gagging, Anna turned and stumbled toward the pool. Razor thin lines of red appeared on her face and arms where the saw grass cut. Oblivious to their sting, she fought free of the vegetation.

“Karl had an audience. Pesky and Gideon looked on adoringly as the big man mucked out their shelter. Pesky kept nudging Karl's behind. Anna supposed he sometimes carried sugar or carrots in his hip pockets for the animals. The mules were not so easily won. They stood back by the manger, wary of Pesky's hooves, waiting for some serious food.

Under his breath, Karl was whistling, “We'll be quiet as a mouse and build a lovely little house for Wendy,” from Peter Pan.

Anna watched for half a minute. She figured she'd like Karl even if he did kill a ranger every now and again.”

BTW, Karl didn't kill anyone. He is a lovely person, a good and kind man, and Anna was correct in liking him. Now, Anna liked the murderer as well, until she found out they were the murderer. You didn't notice that? Too busy trying to find things to be petty about?

“As she slipped through the gate into the Maintenance Yard, her mind set on a little breaking and entering, Anna wondered if there were a crime she wouldn't commit under the right circumstances. Murder certainly. In fact she was keeping a list of Those Better Off Dead. If she were hungry she would steal. There were betrayals of the heart.
She'd never be cruel to an animal and she wouldn't litter.”

Nevertheless, Anna didn't kill anyone.