Wild Rain (Leopard People 1)

"I'm certainly not evil, my dear. I may have made one or two mistakes in my life, but I don't think I've ever been evil."

She shrugged. "I suppose passing that sort of judgment is all subjective. It depends on the point of view. You don't think you're evil, but someone else may very well think you're the devil incarnate."

Delgrotto paused to watch in fascination as the knife chopped through the remainder of the vegetables so fast her movements were a blur. "I suppose that's true. If one turns the view even slightly, there is always a different slant. Where were you raised? You are obviously one of us."

Her hands stilled and she looked up at him. There was a moment of silence. Only the sound of the rain on the roof could be heard. Even the wind stilled, holding its breath. Delgrotto glimpsed the fury in her eyes. In her heart. "I am not one of you. I will never be one of you. I don't like people who play god, not in this life, and not in any other life."

"Is that what you think we did?" His voice was gentle.

Rachael dropped the knife and put distance between them, going to the door and staring out into the darkness. She didn't trust herself or her over-the-top fury with this man who had presumed to judge Rio so harshly. She would like the old man to meet her uncle, to show him what true evil was.

Rachael took a deep calming breath. Her bad temper was beginning to affect the small leopard under the bed. Fritz snarled and showed his teeth, but remained still. She looked down at the forest floor. Somewhere out there Rio ran, flat out, expending every drop of energy he had, risking his life to save the life of the child. And the child's grandfather had condemned him to a life of banishment.

"You think we take advantage of Rio." There was no inflection whatsoever in his voice, no anger, no denial. No remorse.

"Of course you take advantage of him. You're doing it now, aren't you? You came here knowing he wouldn't hesitate. Knowing he would risk everything for your grandson. You knew what his nature was when you condemned him, yet you did it anyway. You put the yoke of service around his neck and kept him chained to a society, to a people who used him, but weren't willing to associate with him or lift a finger to help him. You need him and what he's able to do, but you don't want him to taint your perfect society."

Tears burned in her eyes. She kept her back to him and her fists clenched tightly at her sides while the anger swirled in a black knot in her stomach. "He was injured often, I've seen the scars. He must have been so alone and depressed at times. You left him to live always feeling ashamed and not good enough no matter what he did. And all the time you knew what he was on the inside. You knew his true nature."

Fritz emerged from under the bed and rubbed along her leg, wrapping his tail around her. He glared at the elder, hissed and spit before slipping out into the night. Rachael caught a glimpse of Franz waiting in the shadows of the canopy.

"Yes I did know him," Delgrotto admitted.

She could hear the sounds of him dumping vegetables into the broth, but she didn't turn around, disgusted that she was in the same house with him. "Power is a strange thing. It seems so innocent on the surface, yet it twists and corrupts until the user is no longer anything but a weapon." There was a lash of contempt in her voice.

"It does seem so when viewed from a distance," Delgrotto said mildly. "Yet just as you observed, turn the view slightly and you see something else. Rio stood before the entire village. Not just the council. He was young and strong and filled with power. He was covered in the blood of the man whose life he took."

"He was covered in his mother's blood." Rachael whipped around to face him, her dark eyes flashing.

Delgrotto nodded, conceding her point. "That is true also. Rio had skills far beyond his years. He was an expert marksman even as a young boy. Few of our strongest men could defeat him in the mock battles we have. He was popular with the young crowd, everyone looked up to him. And he violated our most sacred law. We work at teaching our children that hunters did not come into our forests, our home, with the intention of committing murder. We eat meat, and we kill animals to eat it. They hunted for fur. This man did not stalk and kill Violet Santana in cold blood. He had no idea she had a human side. He would have been appalled at the idea of killing a woman."

"And because he didn't know, that lessens his crime?"

"How could it be a crime if he didn't know what he'd done?"

"He was poaching. The leopards are protected."

"It was still an animal to him, not a human. How can we teach our children otherwise, Rachael? We are a lethal species, with cunning and intelligence and gifts beyond the ordinary, but we also have the mood swings and temperaments of our animal cousins and that makes us far too dangerous without laws to guide us. What would you have us do? He was a hero to the young men. Where he went, they would follow."

"He didn't obey you, that was his crime. He stood before you with his head unbowed and his shoulders straight ready to accept responsibility for his actions."

"Without remorse."

"The man killed his mother."

"And you believe an eye for eye is logical? Is justice? Where does it stop? Do we then carry on feud after feud until we no longer exist? Rio chose his path with full knowledge of the consequences and full knowledge that he was in the wrong." Delgrotto pulled two bowls from the cupboard. "We spent a hundred years to try to convince our people we could not brand hunters and poachers as murderers. In one day, Rio Santana changed all that. Our people have been divided ever since."

"Because they see into his heart. They see what he does for them. For all of them. For you, for your grandson, for Joshua. Even the local tribesmen seek him out because they see into his heart and know he's worthwhile. He's extraordinary." Rachael, in her frustration, wanted to shake the calm demeanor of the elder. How could he stand there and possibly think he was fit to deliver a judgment against Rio? She seethed with frustration and anger and she didn't understand how Rio had accepted and lived with their blatantly unfair sentence.

"The young men saw Rio as a leader, as a man with skills and the ability to take charge. Some of them followed him. They separated themselves from the village, living outside the protection of the community yet stayed involved. Rio committed murder on a human being. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the reasons, he hunted the man, using his skills as one of our people, and he deliberately took that man's life. He not only put all of our lives in jeopardy from possible reprisal, from someone finding our species, but he put our very way of life in jeopardy. We have laws for reasons, Rachael. Should he have gone unpunished? Rio knew and accepted the laws of our society."

Rachael watched as the elder set the table and lit a candle as a centerpiece. She couldn't quite leave the doorway and the night. Rio was a presence everywhere, but out in the darkness, he was in his element. She knew he was far from her, yet she still felt him. All the nights she woke to find him gone, or just returning, he had been running free, running in his other form. She longed to be at his side instead of debating an issue neither could resolve.

"Come sit down and eat," Delgrotto said kindly. "You have great courage, Rachael, and you protect those you love fiercely, just as Rio does. I'm grateful he found you. You've brought him happiness."

"He would have been happy if you hadn't taken everything away from him."

"We spared his life. It was the only choice open to us. Banishment or death. No one wanted it, and no one was happy with the sentence, but we felt we had no choice. We spared his life and lived without him. We caught glimpses of his greatness, this son to our people. A born leader. We saw what it did to him. You can't see what it did to us."

"I hope you don't want me to feel sorry for you." Rachael limped across the room to the table. She left the door wide open. There would be no sleeping until Rio returned safely and the sound of the rain soothed her ragged nerves and made her feel closer to him. Rio's rain songs. The sound made him closer to her.

"Not sorry for us. Perhaps understanding. We lost him and his moth

er. Banishment means he is dead to us. We can't see him or speak to him, yet he gives his money to us for the preservation of the forest."

"How could you take it?"

"If we can't see him or speak to him, how could we return it?"

"So you could see the money, just not the giver."

Delgrotto smiled at her ferocity. "You must promise me you'll have many children with him. We need them."

The soup was delicious. She hated to even concede him that much and it annoyed her. A faint grin stole over her face. "I think I have a closed mind where you're concerned. I don't want to see your point of view."

"At least you can admit that." He seemed to savor the taste of the broth. "You would make a good member of the high council."

Rachael managed a rude noise around the next mouthful of soup.

Delgrotto's eyebrow shot up. "You don't think so? One has to look at a problem from every angle. Before you can do that, you have to acknowledge there is more than one angle. I didn't agree with banishment, but the alternative was beyond our capabilities to impose on him."

"Well for heaven's sake, did you consider another punishment? Something not quite so harsh? Live a little, make a few laws up, that's what every other governing body does."

He nodded his head politely, considering her suggestion. "What do you believe is a fair punishment for murder?"

"It wasn't murder."

"What was it then?"

"I don't know, but I've seen murder. I've felt the malevolence of a cold-blooded murderer, of someone truly evil, and that is not Rio."

An owl hooted in the distance. The elder lifted his head and stared toward the door for a long moment. "I'm sorry you've had to be exposed to such a thing, Rachael, and, of course, you're right. There is nothing evil about Rio." Delgrotto ate another spoonful of the soup. "We can agree he took a life."