pretty good idea.
Sorting through the heap of blood-stiffened clothing, Deputy Bush
pulled out a knife sheath—empty—and then a small military first-aid kit,
the only pieces of equipment that weren’t torn off or left behind.
“Where’s the knife?” asked Bush.
“Somewhere in the woods,” answered Onofrecuk, quickly. “In the
snow.”
Bush was young, but he was no fool; in all likelihood, the knife and
gun were together—wherever they were. The deputy let it go, and opened
the first-aid kit. There were no bandages or medicines inside, only
cigarettes. When the gathering was done, Gorborukov and Deputy Bush
escorted Markov’s friends back to the cabin with Markov’s remains, but
Trush and Lazurenko stayed behind. Together, they followed the tiger’s
exit trail through ankle-deep powder. The trail was hot—that is, as fresh
as it could possibly be without actually laying eyes on the animal. Snow
has a muffling effect on all sounds, but in the case of a tiger, especially
one making an effort to avoid detection, this effect is absolute.
Meanwhile, Trush and Lazurenko announced themselves with every step;
despite their best efforts, they might as well have been on radar. Their
disadvantage was striking; it was as if the tiger had removed itself from
the same plane of physical consequence to which they remained bound.
This was not an animal they followed, but a contradiction, a silence that
was at once incarnate and invisible. Track and scent were the only signs it
couldn’t disguise. Trush had stalked tigers before, and he had also been
stalked by them, so he understood what was going on: the tiger was
controlling the situation now, bending the future to its will.
Trush was badly shaken by what he had seen and this, combined with
the steadily failing light and the absence of a shooting order, caused him
to hesitate. It was clear to him now that this tiger was not the same kind
of animal that had killed Khomenko. Considering the audacity of
Khomenko’s transgressions—tracking the tiger down and then trying to
kill it—that animal had showed admirable restraint. Russians call man-
eating tigers cannibals, but Khomenko’s tiger—an old male—was not one
of those; he had already been injured twice (first by the rival tiger and
ron
(Ron)
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