then by Khomenko’s bullets), and he was simply immobilizing the latest
threat. When Trush encountered that tiger again, six weeks later in the
village of Verkhny Pereval, he had drawn attention to himself by killing a
young horse and hauling it over a six-foot fence. Self-defense and
livestock killing both fall under the category of normal tiger behavior,
but something else was going on here, east of Sobolonye; Markov’s tiger
was in another realm altogether.
Trush and Lazurenko continued to follow and study the tracks for a
cautious quarter mile. Every fourth print, they noticed, was dotted with
blood, the hot droplets boring holes in the snow on their way to the frozen
ground below. It was the forepaw, right side. Some of the holes were
ringed with a halo of yellowish green, a sign of infection. Even so, all of
the paws seemed to be making equally deep impressions, so the injury
didn’t appear to be crippling. The tiger was proceeding carefully and
steadily, but the men were not certain where it actually was; for all they
knew, it could have doubled back and been tracking them. Trush could
feel it now, by the hairs on his own skin, that he was being drawn into a
strange and terrible conflict. He was duty-bound to go there—he knew
this—but he was also beginning to understand why Markov’s friends
were so frightened, and it was not because they were cowards. Because of
this, and because he didn’t want to risk an ambush, Trush called off the
hunt and headed back to the cabin. It was a decision that, though sound in
the moment, would come back to haunt him.
As Trush, Lazurenko, and Gorborukov worked their way back to
Markov’s cabin and up the tiger’s entrance trail, they found evidence of
the animal’s method and, in some ways, this was more unnerving than
what they had just seen. By an improvised wellhead made from a beehive,
they discovered the heavy aluminum water dipper Markov used for
drinking; it was all but unrecognizable. It had been chewed so savagely
that it looked as if it had been used for target practice and then run over