Rarely did a human invade his home. His home the
swamp, had been a safe haven all his life. Only by
accident did one of these foul smelling creatures even
get near his territory, and even then, not for long.
For humans fear the swamp and what might be in it,
especially at night. Remembering this detail brought a
twinkle to his eye and made his muscles tense.
Stretching from his daylong sleep, he moved to
his favorite limb and began to sharpen his claws.
“I’ll make this quick and get on the hunt” he thought
to himself. “Humans have no place in my territory and
I’m hungry”.
Scanning the outlying area from his post in the
swamp, in the limbs of his favorite tree, he saw a
distant light on the horizon. “What does it want?” he
wondered with perked ears, listening to the clumsy
footsteps sloshing through the shallows.
Focussing in closer to the light that moved from
side to side rapidly, he could hear an angry voice
getting louder and louder with each call. Then
suddenly to the right of his line of vision he caught
movement. Quickly the object moved through the dense
brush. He could hear its labored breath. Then a change
in the wind brought him the scent of this thing that
the human hunted. “Another human?” he thought, as his
focus switched to the rapidly moving object.
Tracking the object through the brush with his
keen eyesight, he could see clearly now it was a
human. “A small human?” he noticed with amazement as
his head turned with curiosity.
“Why is the larger human hunting the smaller
one?”
“Do they hunt their own?”
Slowly and silently he moved down the limbs of
the massive tree. “I must see this closer” ran through
his mind as he neared the lowest limb of the tree.
Hidden in the foliage, he could see that the small
human was now leaning against a tree in the distance.
“It’s afraid.”
“I can smell the fear and hear the heartbeat
from here.”
The light that moved from side to side grew
closer. The loud voice of the larger human got louder
and closer as well. As it got closer, the smaller
human began to tremble uncontrollably. Again the
wind changed to bring him the scent of the small
human.
“A Female?”
“Since when does a male hunt such a small female?”
To the ground, he leapt silently. Closing in on
the two humans as they came closer together. Suddenly
the light that had been moving so quickly before was
now still. It was shining on the smaller human female
now. It became clear that she had been running for
some time. Her skin was bloodied and bruised, and she
had fallen many times during her run from the larger
human.
In voices he couldn’t understand, the larger
human yelled at the smaller female human and moved
closer still. The female looked for a way to escape,
but her legs failed her and she fell into the thick
mud.
A shiver moved across his spine as he watched
from the dense bushes of the swamp.
“This isn’t right.”
“Something is wrong here.”
“I can feel it.”
The larger human moved closer yet to the small
female and reached out with one arm as he raised the
other in the air.
“No”, he thought to himself over and over again,
quickly moving through his mind. Almost without
control he could feel his muscles tense and his claws
unsheathe themselves from his strong paws. His hair
began to bristle over his back and his eyes narrowed
as they flashed red. Gritting his teeth together as a
snarl began to form on his coal black face.
“No… No! ..No!” doubled in his mind as his fury
became like an all consuming fire over his body until
it could be contained no longer.
With a violent scream likened only to something
from the depths of Hell, he flew from the bushes and
through the air. The Larger human, freezing in his
attempt to strike the smaller one, turned only to
catch a glimpse of shadow and red eye-shine as it
struck him head on.
The smaller human curled up in fear, turned her
head to try and see what had saved her from the
impending strike, but all she saw was the larger human
being attacked by darkness and savage claw slashes.
Savage claw strikes indeed they were. Some flew across
the face of the human, while others sliced into his
body.
The larger human cried out in agony as each slash
brought home a gushing of blood and the tearing of
tissue. Lightning fast, each slash came. Followed by
savage bites to the neck and face. Bites with the
power to crush the skull of the larger human if it so
desired. Luckily, for the human, it did not desire to
do so.
The smaller human reached for the light that had
fallen from the larger ones hand’s during the attack.
Then she aimed it at the larger human and the thing
that had saved her. With a gasp, she had seen what few
others had ever seen. On top of the larger human set a
large black cat with ruby red eyes and a long thick
black mane. The sight scared her so that she dropped
the light to the ground and it went out. In that
instant, the panther-like cat arose from the larger
human with a leap and turned to face him again. But
the larger human did not turn to advance the fight any
further. Instead, it got to it’s hind feet as fast as
possible and ran off screaming in the direction it had
come from, leaving the smaller female alone with the
beast.
Again, shaking uncontrollably, the small female
backed against the tree’s trunk, where she had been
sitting and watching the whole attack take place.
Wondering to herself, “Am I next?”
Stuttering as she barely spoke, “P…Please…Please
don’t hurt me.”
She put up her hands and closed her eyes for the
coming attack as the massive black cat turned to her
and lowered its head.
Softly, she could feel the breath of the beast as
it got closer to her. Then, without warning a cold
tickle ran over her hand as the cat’s nose brushed
against her. After that, a wet bristly feeling ran
over her hands. As she opened her eyes she could see
the massive cat licking her hand. Then the large cat
moved closer to her and rubbed his bloodied face over
hers and purred. A smile came over the girl’s face and
a small giggle.
“Thank you” she whispered in the cat’s ear.
“You’re my hero. You know that?” she said in a timid
little voice. The small female rose to her feet and
hugged the big cat tightly.
In the distance, they could see many lights now.
Some were as red as the big cat’s eyes and others were
bluer than the sky during the day. As the flood of
lights, like the big cat had seen earlier, got closer,
he moved away from the small female. Turning toward
the lights, he took a deep breath and let out a cry.
But this cry wasn’t like any that had been heard in
the forests or swamps before. It sounded like a young
female human screaming.
No more had the scream begun to echo through the
swamp, when the lights turned toward the big cat and
small human’s direction. With one final nudge to the
nose by the big cat, he turned back for his tree.
As he quickly disappeared from the small female
human’s sight, he could see the lights getting very
close to where he left her. Then he could hear a soft
soothing voice coming from the gathering of lights.
“Another female?” He thought to himself.
“Ah, the mother of the small one” he realized
with a calmed look on his face.
As he watched the group begin to walk out of his
swamp, he noticed in the distance two male humans
holding the one that he had fought with by his arms,
which were behind him. He didn’t know why, but that
made him feel good inside.
Slowly the group left his sight over the horizon,
but not before he could see the small female human
waving her arm in the air in his direction.
“Good bye small one” he thought to himself, and
with that let out a roar to match that of any of the
big cats. Then he climbed down his tree again, this
time in the other direction.
“Now then, maybe I can still find a meal tonight”
he thought as he wandered off into the thick dark
swamp that is his home. |
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