“Red! Red! Over here!”

The sound bounced off trees, first seeming to come from this way, then that, giving me no clue to the direction from which Benji was calling. But the tone in his voice left no doubt that he had discovered something loathsome.

Each time he called my name, a chill brushed down my neck.

“Benji! Where are you?”

“Oh, Red, over here! Come quickly!”

The thicket to my right seemed to be the source of Benji’s voice.

His broken sobs pulled me closer.

“Benji! I hear you but can’t see where you are!”

“Here, just in front of you, on the ground. Pull these aside.” He shook the vines to show me which ones to move.

I began tugging at the grapevines that choked this part of the forest floor.

Soon I came upon Benji’s hunched back.

“Benji? Did you find him? Is he …”

Looking over Benji’s shoulder, I could see a man’s legs on the ground, covered by buckskin. He had one shoe off and one shoe on. His bare left foot was clenched like a dark brown fist.

“Oh, Red! He’s barely alive.”

I clawed at more vines until I was at Benji’s side.

The South Woods Lion Man’s head, with its mass of tangled hair, was cradled in Benji’s lap.

I must’ve been in shock, because the thought I couldn’t get out of my mind was that this must be some sort of mistake; we needed to keep looking. This man was far too small to be the South Woods Lion Man.

But it was he.

“Red, you’ve got to run to Buxton and get the mayor! And the doctor. I’ll stay here and look after him.”

Benji wasn’t thinking clearly.

A sense of fear and panic rose in my chest as I said, “That is madness! I would never be able to find this place again.”

He rocked the Lion Man’s head and looked up.

“I can’t leave him! I’ll start a fire; you can tell where we are from that. Just climb a tree and you’ll be able to see it. Just make sure you keep heading southwest, you can’t –”

“Benji! You need to go. What if I get lost? It just doesn’t make sense. You can cut hours off the time it will take to get someone here.”

Benji muttered, “You’re right.”

He leaned forward until the Lion Man’s head was completely covered by his sobbing chest.

“Come,” he said, “cradle him and try to make him comfortable. You must promise me you’ll hold him; you must promise me you’ll not let go of him even if …”

“I promise, Benji. Please hurry. It won’t be long before night sets in; I’m absolutely terrified to be out here! Please hurry.”

Benji kissed the Lion Man’s cheek and told him, “Please, sir, just hold on. I’m going for help.”

The man’s eyes blinked rapidly, but it was not an acknowledgment that he’d heard.

Benji stood, a stain of blood on his lap and chest. I took the Lion Man’s head into my lap. It was surprisingly light.

I stared down at his mass of hair and at the smooth, dark brown skin of his forehead.

My confused mind thought about playing chess with Father.

During our matches, without knowing how or why, I’d so often find myself in a dire situation neither foreseen nor easily reversed. The only thing I knew was that the game was over. I had that same feeling now.

But in this dire situation, I found myself holding the dying South Woods Lion Man’s head in my lap in a jungle of grapevines somewhere in the forest as night crept forward. It did seem as though the end was near; however, there was no king to tip in resignation to make it all end.

I raised my head and said, “Please, Benji, hurry!”

He was already gone.