by Kip Nelson
Darren held each of his family tightly, but looked past them down at JR’s pale body. His skin was as white as snow, and his expression as peaceful as a winter’s night. The line between life and death was slender and far too easily crossed. He placed his hand on his heart to feel it beating, glad to be alive, and bowed his head solemnly. His tears dripped to the ground, landing on the wet leaves and sticks.
Then, Darren and Brent picked up their tools and began filling in the grave. They shoveled the dirt back into the hole that had been dug. The dirt spilled over JR’s body and eventually covered every inch of the man. The final part of him to disappear was his hands, and the flower that rested upon his body. Then, there was nothing.
“Will anything grow from him, Daddy?” Michelle asked.
“Not in the ground, but I like to think that something will grow inside us. It’s like his life planted a seed inside all of us. As long as we nurture his memory and the lessons he taught us it will grow, and we all will be the better for it. We should try being as kind and compassionate as he was, and we should learn to offer each other counsel. We are a family, and I know that sometimes it’s difficult to share our feelings with one another, but we’re all we have in this world. We should try making the effort to open up to one another so we don’t leave with any regrets, or anything left unsaid.”
Darren looked down at the grave and told the children to go back inside the cave. Then, he picked up the two sturdiest sticks he could find and fashioned them together into a cross. He dug a small hole in the ground using his fingers, and then pushed the cross in tightly. It stood erect, marking the grave where JR was at rest. Darren wiped his hands on his thighs and inhaled deeply, steeling himself against what was going to happen next, for he was sure that this world would offer him some new challenge.
Chapter Twelve
As the day passed Darren thought about the future. The excitement he and Brent felt about the farmhouse had been tempered by the events in the cave, and it didn’t feel quite right to leave the area yet. The bracken he had placed on the ground in the cave to help cover the blood had worked, but the metallic smell still filled the cave and it didn’t serve to calm his mind.
He wanted to leave sooner rather than later, though. He worried that other survivors might see the advantages of having such a shelter and take it as their own. He looked around at the cave and exhaled deeply. It would be difficult to say goodbye to this place. It had kept them safe and sheltered from the elements. In many ways it had been the perfect home for this type of world and leaving it for pastures new was a wrenching thing to do. But progress meant a sacrifice of sentimentality.
It just seemed a shame that when he finally was ready to leave the cave the mountain lions already had been driven away. He wondered if they would return and take it as their home, or if anyone else would come across the cave. He thought it unlikely. Frankly, he was surprised that more people hadn’t come to this part of the world. He’d always thought of it as something of a hidden secret, but he naturally assumed he wasn’t the only one to be aware of it. And even if he was, he believed that when people started venturing away from the city they would come across this place. But winter had lingered for a long time and he hadn’t seen many signs of anyone breaking free from the city.
He wondered what that meant.
Had they already found safety and sanctuary in the city? From what little he’d heard from those who had spent more time in the city than himself it seemed unlikely. But the obvious alternative was a grim one, that there wasn’t anyone left in the city to leave. People would have been driven to desperation and a civil war may well have broken out. Millions could have died…it almost didn’t bear thinking about. The scale of the sorrow was too much for him to comprehend. There were some days when it felt as though he and his family were the last people alive.
They spent the day gathering more supplies, ready to move, because Darren wanted to leave as soon as possible. Brent was smart enough not to ask to go out on the bike again. With the mountain lions somewhere outside it wasn’t safe for him to go out there. Later on in the day Darren witnessed something that touched him deeply; Tara and Michelle were kneeling at the rear of the cave, away from the fire. They had their heads bowed and their hands clasped together in prayer. They were speaking to JR, and he found that quite comforting.
In the dim light of the afternoon Darren saw a shadow sweeping across the cave wall. He instantly bristled and alarm bells went off inside his head. He didn’t tell the others about it, but instead rose and crept toward the cave mouth, peering outside. He scanned the horizon, peering into the trees and the bushes, not seeing anything, until light glinted against golden gleaming eyes and he gasped. It was the mountain lion, still with the wounds on her face, staring at him, waiting to make her move.
It seemed as though his instinct had been proven correct. The mountain lions weren’t going to give up this place that easily. They had returned, perhaps also to take vengeance. Darren steeled himself against the thought of his family being placed in danger, and glared outside. If he hadn’t caught a glimpse of the mountain lion as the clouds broke and a ray of sun had illuminated her eyes, he never would have known she was there, stalking him. The animal was an apex predator, and in a battle of wills between the two of them, there was no telling who would emerge victorious.
Humans had climbed to the top of the food chain, which technically made Darren the superior predator, but it had been primitive humans who had made such progress. Darren was the product of generations of stagnation, of humanity relying on its technological prowess, while the mountain lion had honed its predatory skills and instincts. She had trained itself to be the perfect killing machine, and already was teaching its cubs the lessons they needed to learn to follow in her footsteps.
It wouldn’t be long now until they were able to fend for themselves and the mother mountain lion could rest, knowing she had done her duty. Darren still had years until Michelle and Tara would be able to take care of themselves. There was still much he had to teach Brent and Betsy as well. Sometimes the way humans went about things seemed so inefficient when compared with their animal counterparts.
He tried telling himself that the mountain lion was just there waiting for them to leave, but deep in his heart he knew that she was desperate. She wanted to protect her family just as much as he wanted to protect his, and she had found it difficult to search for food. The last hunt had ended in disappointment for her. She’d returned to the cave wounded, and then she had attacked JR and gotten a taste of human blood…
Darren looked behind him at the pool of blood where JR had been slain. If he could smell the blood, he was sure the mountain lion could too, for she had a superior sense of smell. She and her cubs would be a slave to their appetites, unable to resist the urge to taste fresh meat. He shuddered when he thought of himself being torn limb from limb, the flesh stripped from his bones by their sharp teeth, their hot fetid breath washing over him, and he, unable to resist their savage power.
Slowly, the mother mountain lion emerged from its hiding place. The cubs were nowhere to be seen. She must have found another sanctuary for them and come back here to try claiming some flesh. Darren felt sympathy for her as he knew what a strain it was to feed a family, but she couldn’t be allowed to succeed.
The mountain lion strode forward. Her fur had lost some of the shine that had been present when she first had come into Darren’s life. She looked gaunt and battle-hardened, and her fur was matted to her body and tousled. Darren wondered if he looked in the mirror, he would see the same thing? He’d seen his reflection a few times, in puddles and streams, but never as clearly as he would see in a mirror. He wondered if he’d even recognize himself.
While these thoughts tumbled through his mind the animal continued advancing. She looked old and wizened. Her paws trod on the ground with all the pride of ownership. When she breathed, her nostrils flared, creating the image of a snarling beast. Darren glanced back and was glad t
hat all the kids were inside. He hissed at them to stay where they were. Tara and Michelle immediately looked scared, but Betsy and Brent maintained their composure and made sure the two younger girls didn’t do anything rash.
Darren reached behind him and pulled the gun from the small of his back. He didn’t have as many bullets left as when he had embarked on this journey, and unless a miracle happened and he came upon a gun store, he knew there wouldn’t be a way to replace them once they were gone. He curled his fingers around the gun and aimed the barrel at the mountain lion, who didn’t seem concerned that the barrel of the gun was pointing directly at her.
It soon became clear why. Her target wasn’t the cave itself, but what lay outside. She reached JR’s grave and began pawing at the loose dirt, seeing where it was weakest. At first, she pressed both paws onto the ground and then began flicking at the dirt with her right paw. Her claws were extended, and they dragged the dirt back as though she was plowing it, but Darren became incensed. Not only had she killed JR in the first place, but now she was defiling the grave. There was no doubt in his mind she wanted to drag the body away and take it to feed her family. He wasn’t about to let her show such disrespect to JR, and he strode out of the cave pointing his gun at her.
“No! No! I will not let you do this! Get away! You hear? Get away! Leave us!” he bellowed, gesturing wildly with the gun to try shooing away the mountain lion.
Any smaller animal surely would have been ushered away by this angry man wielding a weapon of death, but the mountain lion was hungry, desperate, and proud. She would not be calmed or ordered around so easily, nor would she pay heed to Darren’s outburst.
She looked at him for a long moment, and then resumed pawing at the ground, dislodging the dirt that Darren had packed over JR’s body.
“Don’t make me do it,” Darren said.
He thought about the cubs she would leave behind. They probably weren’t ready to defend themselves just yet, and although Darren had sworn vengeance on them last night, it had been a product of his anger. Deep down he didn’t want to harm innocent creatures. He wanted to be like JR and take care of them, but they made it so very, very hard.
The mountain lion looked up at him with her solemn eyes. Darren tightened his grip on the gun. Disregarding his warnings, she continued delving into the grave. It was as though she was testing his resolve and declaring him weak, unable to carry out his threats. Darren had many lines he never would cross, but this wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t about to let the mountain lion ruin JR’s corpse and drag it away to use it as food.
In one breath, Darren pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled, making his hand jerk back. The shot cracked the air and rippled through the area. There was a whimper and a yelp and blood sprayed out. Darren watched as the mountain lion roared and turned away, running back into the forest, blood dripping from its flank.
He’d hit it, and it was only a matter of time before she bled out. But he thought of all they had been through and how cruel it was for a creature to know it was dying yet be unable to do anything to stop it. The question that troubled him was if he should put the mountain lion out of her misery or leave it to bleed out.
Brent came up to him.
“Did you get it?” he asked.
Darren paused for a moment. “No, not completely. I need to go finish her off,” he said, clenching his jaw.
It was the least he could do to the creature that had been an uneasy ally with him, until she had gone too far. This action wasn’t borne completely out of respect, though, but also fear. He knew the mountain lion was a hardy creature who may well recover from the gunshot wound and just come back to plague him again. It was better he end it now, before it could go any further.
“Stay here with the girls. Don’t any of you go outside of this cave. Don’t move until I return,” he said, grabbing Brent by the arm. Brent nodded, determined to follow his father’s orders.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Brent asked.
“It’s better that I do this alone.” Darren pursed his lips and then marched away from JR’s grave, leaving his family behind.
As well as the gun, he also took with him one of the spears they had fashioned. He passed JR’s grave and noticed the stains of blood at regular intervals, a trail left by the mountain lion mother. It shouldn’t have been too hard to track her down, but he had to be careful. Because even though she was wounded, she still was very capable of killing him.
Darren walked along the path and entered the forest. His eyes darted up and down, checking the ground to ensure that he was following the path of blood, while also making sure the mountain lion wasn’t nearby, waiting to leap out at him. He held the gun out with two hands, wanting to make sure he didn’t miss if he had to fire quickly.
Aside from the blood, he also saw where the ground had been trodden by her strong paws. On one side the ground was flattened at regular intervals, while on the other it was dragged around and messier. Darren knew the animal must have been having trouble walking. He’d hurt her more than he realized. Perhaps she wouldn’t pose a threat any longer. He increased his pace, figuring she couldn’t have gone very far, wanting to end this and get back to his family as quickly as possible.
He walked over fallen logs and avoided sinking into the soft mud, although, thankfully, the flood’s effects mostly had been negated by the cold weather, which had chilled the ground into a solid hunk of mud. When there was a patch of mud free of grass or leaves or sticks, Darren could see the paw prints left by the mountain lion. It wasn’t long before the she came into view. She was dragging herself into a small copse and her cubs were there waiting for her, mewing fretfully.
Darren felt great pity for her. The great beast was rendered a cripple, dragging her limbs across the ground, faltering and falling. She looked like a defeated champion who had endured one battle too many, and he was the one who had vanquished her. She whimpered in pain and only looked around when Darren strode up to her. He made no effort to mask his approach.
When she saw him, the mountain lion bared her teeth and her lips quivered as she snarled. She twisted her body so it was between him and the cubs, but he didn’t intend to hurt them. Although, as he thought about it, he wondered if he should kill them too. After all, if he killed their mother, he might as well be consigning them to a long, slow, starving death. Maybe the merciful thing was to give them all peace now.
Darren raised the gun and looked into her eyes. His finger fell to the trigger, ready to take the shot.
Chapter Thirteen
The eyes of the mother mountain lion stared back at him and Darren became transfixed, so transfixed that he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger just yet. When he looked into those eyes he was reminded of everything that had happened since they had arrived at the cave. He thought about the fear that had seized the family and how they had tried desperately to stay out of the mountain lions’ way. He remembered sharing food with them and how the girls had been fascinated with the cubs. What’s more, he thought of JR’s last act, of how he had tried helping the distressed mountain lion mother. It didn’t seem right that it should end like this.
“No,” Darren said. “I can’t do it. You might have killed my friend, but that doesn’t mean I have to kill you too. If you die, then so do your cubs, and I’m not ready to let them suffer for what you have done. I’m sorry for shooting you, but you have to realize by now that I’m not going to take the chance of you hurting my family. I know that you’re wounded and you’re hungry, but I can’t give you everything. I can let you live, though. I think it’s what JR would have wanted me to do. He wasn’t a man obsessed with revenge. So, I forgive you for what you did to him.”
Now that Darren was right in front of her, he could see that the wound he’d inflicted wasn’t as bad as he first had imagined. It was a flesh wound, and perhaps had caused her more shock than actual pain. She would recover from it eventually, although he did not think she would be an effective hun
ter.
“I’m going to get your cubs some food,” he said, and left the three of them. None of them made any move to follow him.
He couldn’t quite explain why he felt such an affinity for the animal. There was nothing suggesting they had anything in common, and yet he felt a bond with her. When he saw her so wounded, he imagined how he would feel if somebody stood over him with a weapon and held his and his family’s lives in their hands. He’d want mercy, so that was the gift he would give her.
He hoped that once he moved on from the cave the mountain lion wouldn’t be able to find them any longer. But somehow it gave him comfort to imagine a time long in the future, perhaps in five or ten years, when the Dawkins family had made a prosperous home for themselves. And then one day a shadow would creep along a wall, and outside he would see a proud mountain lion, and would know that he had helped them survive.
Darren crept through the forest, watching out for even a small animal to take back to them, and perhaps one to take back to his own family as well.
In a matter of footsteps he was stopped in his tracks by a gunshot. Puzzled, he looked down at his own gun to make sure he hadn’t fired himself, and then realized the shot had come from behind him. He turned back, jaw slack, and ran toward the animals he just had left. When he reached them, he heard laughter and three more gunshots, one for each of the cubs. The pain in his heart blazed fiercely. When he saw two men standing over the dead animals Darren raised his gun and pointed it at them. He dropped his spear to the ground as he wanted to hold the gun with both hands.
“What the hell are you doing?” Darren cried.
The men turned around and furrowed their brows at him. They both were grizzled and had long beards, making it difficult to determine their ages. One wore a flat cap, the other a deerskin hat, and both of them wore heavy clothes,, protecting them from the elements. They both had rifles slung over their shoulders and carried packs on their backs. They looked alarmed when they saw Darren had a gun trained on them, and both held out their hands.