jerked it aside, and hurtled onto its target. The shredded collar told the
rest: there was no further resistance. What remained looked like the work
of paramedics at an accident scene, and the video camera absorbed it all,
discreet as a confessor: “The tiger took all the clothing off the
individual,” murmurs Trush. “The tiger undressed him quite well.” The
boots, now unseamed, were homemade: a timeless design of felt-soled
arctic moccasin that mimics tiger pads with their texture and silence. But
stealth is no defense against the hunter who perfected it.
By the time Andrei had drawn even with Tsepalev’s shelter, the tiger
would have tapered his awareness down to a single taut beam of
consciousness, and the intensity of this attention, boring into its target
like a laser, would have been an almost palpable thing, imperturbable: a
reality unto itself. The hunt—like lovemaking—occurs in a timeless zone
where all external measures temporarily cease to apply. It is a ritual of
concentration that determines life and death for all concerned.
Though death was close and breathing, Andrei had other things on his
mind. As the gap between the tiger and himself closed to one of seconds,
he may have had an inkling that something wasn’t quite right; perhaps a
bird sounded an alarm; maybe he glanced around, but judging from the
tracks nothing in his gait betrayed uncertainty. Meanwhile, the tiger
gathered himself, manifesting anticipation in its purest form: his eyes
riveted on their target as he flexed and set his paws, compensating for any
irregularity in the ground beneath; the hips rising slightly as he loaded
and aimed the missile of himself, while that hawser of a tail twitched like
a broken power line. There was the moment when impulse and prey
aligned in the tiger’s mind, and then a roar filled the forest with the force
of an angry god.
Caught off guard and off balance, Andrei, whose life was finished
though his heart still beat, swiveled slightly to the left. He would have
been amazed to hear and see this avatar of doom so unbelievably close
and closing fast. More amazing is the young man’s composure and
muscle memory: left shoulder dropping to shed the gun strap as the left
hand twists the rifle forward and up; the right index finger hooking and
hauling back the bolt as both hands, together now, guide the rifle butt to
ron
(Ron)
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