He wakes in the deeper night, curled up on his side, arms folded to his chest, hands in fists, cheek to the hard ground, his ear numb against it. His neck hurts. It’s a torment to unclench his fists and work the fingers.
Then he senses it wasn’t pain that woke him.
He stops flexing his hands and lies motionless. Listens hard. Bits of moonlight filter through the trees. Close by, Cacho lies with his back to him. And then from somewhere behind him he hears it, the sound that roused him.
A low, reverberant growl.
His scalp tightens and his bladder feels a sudden urgency.
He knows with an instinct as old as that of the first men to walk the earth that he’s in the presence of something against which he stands not a chance. Only in movies has he heard a lion growl, and now knows it bears no comparison to the real thing. The growl comes again, and he feels its resonance in his bones. His hand closes around a large rock and draws it close. You do what you can.
He waits, motionless, chest aching for the deeper breath he dares not risk lest his fear be heard in it, even though he’s sure the thing can sense his fear anyway, can probably smell it. He waits. And waits. Then hears the growl again, but only barely. At greater distance. Moving away. He waits a long time before he very slowly turns over onto his other side, suppressing a groan, and looks in the direction from which the growl came.
In the near distance is a low rise running roughly parallel to the river, its sloped, moonlit face scooped and deeply shadowed. He hadn’t noticed it when they crawled out of the river, but then he hadn’t been focused on much of anything at the time except the fact of still being alive. He rolls over again and looks at Cacho, who hasn’t stirred. He stares at the glow of the moon behind the lower leaves, certain he will sleep no more tonight, not with that growl still sounding in his mind. And then is once again asleep.
His next waking will be to a reddening dawn.