She surveyed the ground, determining the course of each step, and saw a mound of snow and boughs. After a few more steps, she identified the leg of a coyote protruding from beneath the branches of the small heap. She had come upon a cache site and felt certain it belonged to the cougar whose tracks she had seen that morning. The lion had been within ten feet of her. She thought of the boughs of juniper she had covered herself with. The cougar had mistaken her for another lion’s cache. Though cougars were wary of people, they had no problem scavenging another lion’s kill.
This kill was fresh. Despite the fading daylight, she could make out the blood trail from where the cougar had dragged the coyote and fed off the carcass, and all the while she realized how easily this carcass could have been her. Amy Raye lifted the boughs. There was plenty of meat left. One of the hindquarters was still intact. There was meat left along the spine and on one of the shoulders. The cougar would be back, and in that instant she wondered if he was watching her, as if she could feel his stare lifting the hair on her flesh. She looked around her. But lion could be as invisible as the breeze. She removed her knife from her pack. She knelt beside the carcass. What was left of it probably weighed no more than twenty pounds. It would take less time to strap the animal to her pack than it would take to cut away the remaining meat. And yet she worried that carrying the carcass on her pack would make her more of a target for the lion. Amy Raye understood enough about lion to know that the two things a cougar would fight to protect were its kittens and a cached kill. Instead of scavenging her that morning, the lion had moved on and taken down this coyote. And then it occurred to her that perhaps there had never been a dog. Perhaps it was this coyote that she had heard. But she did not have time for these thoughts. She cut through the tendons that connected the right hindquarter. She removed a front shoulder as well. The other shoulder and the upper abdomen were already gone. Then she placed the meat in her pack and covered the remaining carcass with the boughs. She wondered if the lion would return for his kill once he’d picked up her scent. Perhaps she should have taken the entire carcass. But the decision had already been made. Each second pounded in her ears. She felt certain of the lion’s imminent return.
She secured her pack onto her back and moved away from the cache site. The whole affair had taken no more than five minutes. Her heart thumped wildly. Though she remained careful with her steps, she moved quickly, glad for the rush of energy. As the rest of the daylight was extinguished, the moon rose higher. The sky had remained clear, and her eyes had adjusted to the new light. She felt amazed at the clarity of her path, the speed with which she was able to move. With the pound of elk meat she had left, and the meat from the coyote carcass, she could survive a couple of weeks, maybe more. And there was the hope that someone had found the cave where she had been staying. Perhaps the person was still somewhere close by. The barking sounds she had heard had come from that same direction. And if someone had found the cave, the person might be able to determine that all this time Amy Raye had been alive. She gave thanks for the moon and the clear sky. She thought of Christmas and Julia and Trevor and Farrell, as if all of it were in her reach. She thought of her childhood and the crèche her father would set up in their front yard, the ceramic figures arranged around bales of hay. And for a moment she imagined her father finding her. She imagined him calling to her and asking her to come home.