was on the surface. The pyatka measurement that is burned into
Lazurenko’s mind is 13.5 centimeters (about five and a half inches).
Trush remembers the measurement as twelve centimeters. In the end,
these differences would become moot. What mattered was that this was
not only the biggest tiger in the Panchelaza, but for fifty miles around,
and somehow Markov had crossed him.
Born shortly after perestroika, the tiger was roughly six years old—just
entering his prime mating years—and wherever he chose to live he would
likely be the dominant male. After a good feed, he could weigh close to
five hundred pounds, and yet he had the explosive power to make a
standing leap over a ten-foot fence, or across a residential street.
It is possible to determine a tiger’s gender, and even his identity,
simply by looking him in the face; a male’s head is noticeably bigger and
broader with a manelike ruff about the neck and tufty muttonchops
running along the lower jaw. As with male humans, the male tiger’s nose
is also bigger and heavier—in the case of some tigers, almost snoutlike.
The Panchelaza tiger had a big nose, and, like a male athlete’s heavy
brow and jaw, it was a clear indicator (among several) of this animal’s
fully developed masculinity and natural inclination toward dominance. A
tiger’s nose carries other clues, too: because the hair on it is so short and
thin, it is one of the few places where battle scars will show, and this
tiger’s nose was crisscrossed with them. He bore other wounds as well,
and these would come to light in time. As young as he was, he was
already a veteran and, as such, was perfectly poised to be the czar of his
domain for years to come.
When the tiger met Markov, he would have been in full arctic mode:
thickly furred in a way that his southern counterparts would never be, he
was insulated by a dense, woolly undercoat laid over with long, luxuriant
guard hairs. From certain angles, he appeared as bushy as a lynx. His tail
was a furry python as thick as a man’s arm. This was the winter tiger: not
the svelte, languorous creature of long grass and jungle pools, but the
heavy-limbed sovereign of mountains, snow, and moonlight, resplendent
and huge in his cool blue solitude.
ron
(Ron)
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