A waning gibbous moon with seventy five percent of her visible disk illuminated flashed down onto the sparse woods like a spotlight above tombstones. The light caused Tikki to be more frustrated than usual in his hunt by the advantage it had given to his prey, that and the commencement of Turkey hunting season. Originally Jac and Quoddy planned to wait until sunrise to begin their adventure but the full moonlight had given them courage to leave their house before dawn. Even downwind of the fence, the tiger’s movements betrayed by flooding light and the sparsely vegetated undergrowth of the Pine Barrens warned off the deer that tracked through the Tiger Lady’s property. A common black bear, either unfamiliar or apathetic about the significance of the scent of the far superior predator, had been scavenging the food left for Tikki and his mates by their keeper. The she-bear teased them with her comings and goings through a break in the fence where a tree had fallen and crushed a section – a place none of the tigers had been able to discover yet. Despite the temperate latitude of their adoptive home, the female tigers were coming into heat, and another improvised mating season had begun. Spirits were high.
“Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all. Whoooo?” called Nocta, the old Owl; not so much territorially, but to let Tikki know that he knew Tikki was aware of him.
“Oh, it’s you,” the tiger looked up at the perched bird.
“Yes, it’s me. Any luck tonight?”
“With all of this light? How about you?” asked Owl.
“Nothing,” the tiger complained. “I can’t stand the strange game Veripidichcha Mathu (the crazy lady) leaves. It’s meat has the most peculiar taste. I have gotten used to it but I prefer the deer. Whenever I make a kill though, there it is again. I taste it in the difference. I wish the barrier were gone. I could pursue the deer right out to their lairs – and that bear.” As he conversed, Tikki calculated automatically, his muscles anticipating the exertion of the leap that would bring down the owl. Just before he tensed to leap though he made a small sound like a cough. The owl alighted automatically to a higher branch.
“Deer don’t have lairs. They lie about in the grass at night. They don’t nest,” said the owl.
“Whatever they do, they tend to do it on the other side of the fence,” griped the tiger who relaxed his abortive pounce.
“I would never eat anything from the She Human. One of your kind, a large female would address me before she became sullen over the very complaints you now describe. She once told me your name for the She Human means The Crazy Lady,” said Nocta.
“That is so. A young cub asked why we don’t simply prey upon her and her mate. The very thought sent shivers to the end of my tail.” Tikki became aware of the scent of prey on the wind and automatically crouched low.
“Yes. Time take her!” the Owl cried as he flew away not wishing to push his luck any further by remaining so near the tiger.
“Wait! Do you hear that?” Tikki tensed and became very still. He moved down among a circle of Mountain Laurels as the two boys approached.