With spring at their heels and summer nigh, the Shiz and Marynt-Tol (called Tol) were eager to raft the Wend and might have done that very thing had a post not arrived from friends in the vicinity of Upidon which described their horrible plight of  recent weeks both in the forest and along the shores of the Ganto river. They were anxious to pack up and relocate  but feared they’d be hunted or worse, that they’d bring trouble to others. The Forest offered refuge more than the open grass could. They also considered moving south and west where there were caves.

Paw prints pressed deep into the sand for long stretches of waterway.

In the trees, the leviathan tiger was spotted both bounding through the flora and climbing the trees. Most nights the cat put on it’s audio fright show in the shroud of darkness where it echoed through the  trees.

One day, the cat approached the teepee community. None of the tribe had ever seen such a creature. It walked through the cluster of teepee homes on the south west bank of the river, sniffing them and rubbing his cheek on some which caused them to lift and lean.

Gasps were heard from inside where in addition to the menace of it’s shadow they could see the size of it’s thick legs.

“None of us want to go against this thing!” the letter stated. “All of us together can not  meet it on fair ground. It’s fast, it’s powerful, it’s huge.”

The post reported that when a party went through to check on each family it was discovered that two  people were missing. One was Beatta Mae, same age as the Shiz and Tol and a close friend since childhood. She and another person had gone separately to pick berries. What was truly chilling was the announcement that for sure the cat had gotten the other berry picker. They found parts.

That put the cat in a different category altogether. With that flavor of menace, it was an enemy.

The story teller began with a description of the twelve families who were living just outside the forest along a tributary of the Ganto. Taulk listed them one by one naming the parents and each child and any others who lived with them.

The chief was given the letter. He read it to the tribal counsel who voted to organize a party  to go south and assist the group. They would leave in seven suns.

No help had been requested, but it was thought to be prudent. Rounding people up to make the trip proved difficult.

The Shiz and Tol set out immediately since they were provisioned.

It was a three day journey, plenty of time to devise a plan. Most of the strategy came from Shiz. When he and Tol batted ideas around the chemistry created unique results.

“It’s a machine,” Shiz reasoned. “It has limits. It has instincts. It has expectations.”

“It’s an eating machine.” Tol added. “It has taste. Therefore it will eat you and not me.”

“Oh good, then you’re the bait that he won’t eat and I’ll be the tidbit”, Shiz joked.

Shiz was a thin one.

“Problem is, he’ll still be starving when he’s done with you. He runs, climbs, leaps, and pounces better than I can escape,” said Tol. “So I guess we die the same day at different time. He should be done with you in five or ten minutes. Then I’m toast. What if we soak ourselves in something cats don’t eat?”

Each of them formulated one strategy after another to gain advantage over an implacable foe.

By the time they arrived in the teepee cluster at Upidon, they had imagined an innumerable ways that the cat might get them.

They went from Teepee house to teepee house and found everyone to be shaken, paralyzed with fear. They’d seen the cat. They had a reason to be that way. The one it got was a nine year old boy and that loss was still fresh.

The group was uniformly disabled by a fear so intense that they were unable to function as a defensive unit. They were waiting to die or be forgotten. None of them wanted to lure the thing back to their home. If it made passage across the Nitara, then they felt it should have no   problem with Ganto or the Spaga river. From there, none could stop it. The country would be ravaged and all would be lost.

Shiz and Tol listened with disbelief. It must be some kind of terrible to cause this behavior in a people known for facing the worst intrusions without fear. It wasn’t so easy to recognize some of them after knowing them for so long with faces of stoic confidence.

Not today. Not at all.

“What about Beatta?” Tol inquired.

“Went to get berries. She was not with Algan. We haven’t heard. We think she’s on the middle mesa. That’s where the berries are. There’s a pond up there and . . . ”

They were done talking. No one wanted to talk much. They didn’t want to gather firewood or wash or venture out.

With enough light left for an hour, Shiz and Tol entered the forest. After a rocky trail and twenty minutes they came to the famous stand of Upidon canopy.

It was stunning. The bottom side of the forest canopy was so high and so thick that it seemed impossible that the stand was so clear and light.

Golden beams of evening light was streaming obliquely through the park landing on the trunks of the gigantic trees and laying swaths of illumination across the ground cover.

The middle mesa was far in, and they sped up to reach it before dark. They could see it.