Forest of the Night — Marti Steussy

THE LADY AND THE TIGER

The First-In team had promised New Lebanon's loggers that the planet's tigerlike predators were gone. But it was a tiger that stood over Hashti in the woods, pawing her and uttering an eerie, songlike cry. Panicked, the horse trainer hit her assailant.
He snorted in surprise--and fled.

The tiger's call haunted Hashti. The First-Inners heard mystery in the alien song. The loggers heard danger. Hashti's lover heard profit--and the loggers agreed. The unusual feathered tiger pelts represented a way to buy themselves out of lifelong debt to Oldearth Company.

But Hashti and the First-Inners had begun to believe that the tigers might be intelligent beings. Someone had to learn the truth before the colonists' terror led to wide-scale massacre. So Hashti set out into the forest alone to learn the ways of the tigers...