To say that a tiger is an “outside” animal is an understatement that is
best appreciated when a tiger is inside. Cabins are small, of necessity, and
the tiger filled this one the way a cat would a fish tank. Much to the
tiger’s irritation, Grisha Tsibenko was not at home. In the course of
searching for something—anything—made of meat, the tiger destroyed
the place. When he got around to the mattress, which smelled richly of
Tsibenko, his habits and afflictions, the tiger tore it apart and then lay
down on its harrowed remains. Perhaps by chance, or perhaps by
synthesizing his recent experiences hunting for humans, the tiger had
arrived at a more efficient method: building on his success with cabin
stakeouts and with mattresses, he combined the two here in a way that
also warmed him in the process. Waiting for prey inside was the tigrine
equivalent to a better mousetrap. Now it was only a matter of time.
It is not known how long the tiger waited for Tsibenko to show up, but
it is a small mercy—in a place notably short on mercy—that he didn’t.
The image—arriving home to find a tiger in your bed—is one worthy of a
folktale, and there are Udeghe and Nanai stories in which exactly this
occurs. In any case, at some point that morning, the tiger got up and left.
It may have been because he got impatient, or it may have been because
he sensed Andrei Oximenko coming up the Svetly Creek road.
Vladimir Shibnev knew this road intimately because he had helped build
it back when he worked for the logging company. It was a dead-end spur
that followed Svetly Creek for about three miles before petering out in a
steep tree-clad bowl. Unless one hiked over the ridge behind Sobolonye,
the only way to get there was by driving south out of Sobolonye for five
miles to Yasenovie, and then turning west onto the main road back to
civilization. From there, it was another couple of miles to the Svetly
Creek turnoff. The spur followed the creek northward, almost all the way
to Tsibenko’s cabin, which was set back discreetly in the forest beyond.
While Lazurenko, Burukhin, Smirnov, and Kopayev followed the tiger’s