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anywhere. He backed toward the forest, and the grass moved as if to invisible hands, bending in the direction he was going. In frustration he almost let loose his shaft.
    Two Knives slid one foot behind him and then the other. The grass caught at his ankles, and he was careful not to stumble. The bow string dug into his fingers, but he didn’t relax it.
    In his wake stalked the cat.
    Two Knives did not sweat often, but he sweated now. Drops beaded his brow, and his buckskin shirt became so wet it clung to him. He risked a glance behind him and saw he had a long way to go to the trees. With the cat shadowing his every step, it would be a wonder if he made it.
    Two Knives thought of Fox Tail. A great sadness gripped him. He had loved his firstborn with all thelove a father could have for a son. He loved his other children, too. In order to spare them and Dove Sings, he decided to provoke the cat into attacking him and then to try and slay it with an arrow. He came to the forest. Farther in, the undergrowth was thick, but here at the edge there was little. He would see the cat if it came at him. He backed up a dozen shrot steps and raised his bow. He saw the tips of the grass move, but they stopped moving well out from the woods. He aimed at the spot where he thought the cat must be and let fly. The shaft flew true and hit exactly where he wanted, but nothing happened. There was no screech or yowl, no rush of a tawny form with fangs bared. He had missed and wasted an arrow.
    Two Knives nocked another. Acting on an idea, he sidestepped to a tall pine. Without taking his eyes off the grass, he jumped high into the air and wrapped his arm around one of the lowest branches. In another moment he was straddling it and had the bow string drawn. He could see more of the grass—but he still couldn’t see the cat.
    Two Knives climbed higher. He went as high as the limbs would bear his weight and still couldn’t spot his stalker. He could see his lodge, though. Dove Sings and Bright Rainbow were moving about outside it. He went to cup a hand to his mouth to shout a warning to them to go inside but thought better of it. Dove Sings might do the opposite and come to see what was wrong. She was strong willed, that woman.
    Two Knives turned his attention to the grass again, and his blood turned to ice in his veins. The grass had parted, framing the head and forequarters of the meat-eater. He could not quite believewhat he was seeing. It wasn’t a tawny mountain cat; it was a black one, as black as a raven, with piercing yellow eyes that were fixed on him in hatred. He saw it for only a moment, and then it was gone.
    Two Knives had never heard of such a thing. Or had he? He remembered a tale told among his people, a tale he’d heard when he was a small boy, about a black mountain cat like this one that wreaked havoc with the Tukaduka. The Devil Cat, they called it. Not in the white sense, which Two Knives had learned from one of the trappers. The trapper said that all the good in the world came from God and all the bad in the world came from what the trapper called the Devil. Apparently the white Devil lived far under the earth in an inferno of fire and caused suffering to human souls after death.
    The Tukaduka meaning was different. To them a devil was a thing of evil, whether it be man or animal. The Devil Cat of their legend was a beast of unrivaled bloodlust that thirsted to kill, kill, kill. When it died, its spirit lived on to continue killing, and to this day Tukaduka mothers sometimes warned their children not to be out after dark or the Devil Cat would get them.
    Two Knives had not taken the legend seriously, until now. He hoped for another glimpse, but the creature had disappeared. It had been looking right at him, so he saw no point in trying to hide. Instead, he descended to the lowest limb, hung by an arm, and dropped.
    The cat didn’t show itself.
    Two Knives put his back to the trunk. He would have a clear target in front,