To Take a Stand

(a.k.a. Shasari’s Dream #3)

Begin Date: 23-Sept-03 (onboard USS IWO JIMA on her maiden deployment)

Finish Date: 03-Oct-03 (onboard USS IWO JIMA)

Author’s Comments Original Description

Chapters:

Chapter One - Getting There Chapter Two - Help From a Friend

Chapter Three - Meeting Dono Chapter Four - Dono’s Friend

Chapter Five - Of Loss and Conviction Chapter Six - Just Getting Away for a While

Chapter Seven - The Emperor’s Forest

Author’s Comments:

This is yet another dream that my friend Shasari shared with me. It’s only a single scene, much like the other stories, but has that same depth of feeling and meaning that goes much beyond what I think that single scene could portray. Hence, this story turned into a few more pages that he might’ve expected.

I’ve admittedly taken a lot of liberties with this story. It goes into far greater detail than the original description had. In most cases, the scenes and chapters that led up to the last are based on real info about real people that I know. Dr Yevgeni and Dono Wykov are real people, that had their own passions about tigers and trying to save them. I still email from time to time with Dono, as he is back in Russia now. I have never been there, but maybe someday I’ll go, as Dono has invited me out for a visit. I guess it would only be fair, as he spent a lot of time under my roof while he was in the US getting his degree.

I think that very few people might know what its like to feel so deeply passionate for something that they’d put their own life on the line for it. I know that feeling well. So does Dono and Dr Yevgeni, which is why I’ve called them by name here. I supposed that those feeling, overall, are just a very small part of the cause that we’ve all taken up for the plight of endangered species.

What’s it like, you might ask, to be able to stand next to a real, live tiger, and have them chuff at you? I can’t begin to describe it. It’s no different to reach down and pat the shoulder of a cougar, and to have them look at you, and head rub your face, and be purring at you the whole time. It’s all the same: the total feelings of contentment and peace, the total inability to be able to describe it to someone that’s never experienced it.

That’s what Shasari, in my best guess, is feeling in this dream. It starts with a deep admiration for a particular animal. Then, you build on that, by putting yourself wherever they are. And then you bump it up to the next level, by taking on the commitment to work towards their salvation, even though there might not be any hope of it in the long run. People will always be stupid. They’ll always throw away the precious resources and treasures of this planet, and then, when they’re gone, wonder what happened.

Is there still time to save the tigers? Is there still time to save whatever endangered creature that’s near and dear to your heart? Well...that’s entirely up to you. How much of your own soul will you put on the line to save it? How much of your own life? What price are you willing to pay?

Do those seem like difficult questions? They’re not really. But of course, maybe you’ve never heard a tiger chuff either. Maybe this story will help you in your plight.

Original Description:

I was in a forest clearing, setting up a small campsite for myself. I was hiking solo in the forests of Siberia. I'd set up my tent and campsite, but the whole while I sensed something watching me, I didn't dismiss the feeling but kept on with my work.

Got the camp set up and I was inside writing in my journal by the light of a kerosene lamp, when I heard a noise outside. I rushed outside with my lantern and saw that a tiger was approaching fast, with a couple poachers nipping at his heels. I didn't hesitate and put myself between the tiger and the poachers and stood my ground, warding them back ... in the dream one of them shot me and then the two bailed out.

So I'm lying there in the snow right, and the tiger pads over to me, and then next thing I know I'm standing next to him, he says 'come with me, brother, it's time I took you home' and we walked off and out of the camp, I turned to see the tigers body laying right next to mine, covering me with his warmth, then looked at myself, and the tiger I was walking next to, a very huge tiger, and we walked off and out of the light of the campsite into the forest, which had strangely turned from the dead of winter into a beautiful spring in an idyllic setting.

To Take a Stand

Chapter One - Getting There

My friends all thought I was crazy. I guess they might’ve even had some good reason for it.

“What do you know about Siberia? It’s like thirty below on a good day!”

I didn’t even comment to that. There was no point.

“Just because you’ve lived in the snow up here all your life doesn’t magically prepare you for that!”

That too was true. I didn’t argue it.

The winters of New England were certainly something to behold. But how could you compare that to anything like Russia? Especially Siberia. At least it wasn’t the Ukraine.

“Yer friggin’ nuts, man! You know that?”

I’d been called worse. I finally responded.

“Haven’t you ever cared about anything? Something you were willing to take a risk for?”

He just stood there looking at me for a second.

“Yeah. Sure. But you’re not taking a ‘risk’. You’re gambling with your life. And besides the fact that you’re gonna freeze your gonads off out there, what the heck do you think you’ll be able to do about anything? They’re poachers! They have guns! What can you possibly do against them? Wave a peace symbol at them and make them vanish?!”

For a second, I was just pissed off. It settled to simple frustration quickly. I’d known him for the better part of my life. He’d always been stubborn - not that I wasn’t - but he also had never understood my passion for big cats, tigers specifically, let alone anything else that mattered to me.

“Listen!” I finally said, “I’m going! This is important to me, and I don’t really care if you understand that or not. I’m going! So just deal with it!”

For just a moment, he opened his mouth to say something, and then didn’t. He’d used those words on me more times than I could count. Now he was getting them thrown back in his face.

I just kept packing the last of the things into my back pack, and then started pulling the covers over and tying the small ropes off.

“You at least have contacts and all that for over there? You’re not just going to be on your own and roaming the countryside?”

I nodded.

I’d been emailing back and forth with a guy - his name was Dono Wykov - that was supposedly a research assistant to one of the local biologists. He said he was only a college student, but he was very knowledgeable about tiger behaviors and territories. He seemed very smart, even though I had a hard time sometimes understanding his English. Of course, I was just glad that he emailed me in English, as I couldn’t speak a word of Russian.

So I’d be flying into Vladivostok, and then taking a bus ride all the way up to Ternay. It was a twenty seven hour flight, with a transfer in Atlanta, then another in Frankfurt Germany, and another twelve more hours on the bus. Dono had handled virtually all of the arrangements for the trip, and I was actually looking forward to meeting him in person.

He and I had been emailing for months and months. I’m not even sure how I met him. But he had many of the same passions that I did for saving the tigers. Probably more so, being that the Siberian Tigers were a Russian treasure. So for him, it was very personal. He’d said exactly that many times.

“I sent it all to you by email a month ago, remember?”

He obviously didn’t remember. I didn’t really care about that either. I wasn’t sure that he could figure out how to dial an international phone number anyway.

“Are you gonna take me to the airport,” I said, sternly, “or do I need to call a cab?”

He looked like he was about to say something, but then didn’t.

“Yeah. I’ll give you a ride.”

“Thanks.”

I picked up my pack and headed for the door. I’d already turned everything off in the house.

“How long are you gonna be gone?”

I shrugged.

“My will is in the top drawer of the desk,” I said. “Right there in the center.”

He nodded, even though he obviously didn’t want to think about that. He was my executor. I damn near had to break his arm to accept that and sign the will in the first place.

“How long will you be gone?” he asked again.

I shrugged again.

“I’ve got supplies for three months already paid for. So at least that long.”

“Three months?!”

I just gave him a sideways glance. He didn’t like that at all, but nor was I about to stand there and listen to any more argument from him either.

“Let’s go,” I prompted.

I locked up the deadbolt to the front door of my house and then handed him the keys. He took them reluctantly.

I dropped my suitcase and pack into the back of my truck, and we got in, him in the driver’s seat. We proceeded on in silence. It was going to be a long drive. I just had the feeling.

• • • • •

I was sitting at the gate, waiting for the last leg of the flight. I was tired, but I couldn’t seem to fall asleep either. I hated waiting, but it’d be another two hours before the flight would be on the way. On the flip side, I was still just so excited about almost being there. This was a dream of a lifetime, and I was finally living it.

I sat back. The only thing I could do was wait.

Chapter Two - Help From a Friend

“Sir?”

I looked up at the young kid standing before me. He didn’t look even fifteen.

“I friend of Dono. I give you help get through entry visa and custom.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

The kid was just then taking my suitcase from me.

“You need passport,” he said.

I reached into my pocket and pulled that oh-so-important document back out for the hundredth time for the trip.

We stepped up to an armed set of guards not far from the baggage claim area.

The kid reached out for my passport and I hesitated before giving it to him. He just walked right up to the guards and started into a conversation with them. There was some finger pointing at me and then the kid waved me forward. The guards just looked at me for a second and then the guard that held my passport handed it back to me.

“You go need visa.”

I nodded to the man, even though I wasn’t sure what he meant.

The kid took me by the shoulder and led me forward. There were a few booths ahead but I didn’t have a prayer at reading the Russian script above them.

“This where get visa. Give again?”

I handed my passport to him again.

He pulled me up behind him in the line and the guard in the booth waved him forward.

I stayed right there at the head of the line as the guy and the guard dialoged. He handed the guard my passport, followed by money. I wasn’t expecting the guy to be paying the fees for me.

The guard waved me forward and I stepped up to the booth.

“Why come here, sir?” the guard asked me.

“Research, sir. The tiger project.”

The guard nodded.

“How long you stay?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell him. The plan had been for three months, but maybe it would be longer.

“Three months. Maybe longer.”

The guard looked to the guy and asked him a few questions. They did some dialog.

“Six month,” the guard said. “If need longer, you need come back, get new visa.”

I nodded.

The guard proceeded to stamp my passport with all the entry stuff. Then he handed it all back to me including some other papers.

The kid took my suitcase again. I grabbed my pack again and followed him onwards. I didn’t like that the kid was so quiet, but I was also very glad that he was here. This was the first time that I’d ever flown international, so I’d never been through the visa stuff or customs or anything like that before.

“Where to?” I asked.

“We need go custom now.”

The kid did all the talking for me and I only gave a shake of my head when the kid asked if I had anything to declare. Then, we were free of the hustle and bustle of the fairly large airport, and were headed outside.

The kid flagged down a cab and spoke with the driver for a moment before opening the door and motioning me inside. He put my suitcase into the trunk, followed by my backpack, and then got in on the other side.

“We go bus now.”

I gave the kid a nod, thankful for his help in everything.

“Thanks,” I told him.

The kid glanced at me, at first seemingly unsure why I’d say something like that.

He gave me a small grin.

“You worry?”

I shrugged and then nodded.

“No worry. I friend of Dono,” he said. “No worry.”

I gave him a nod.

He got me to the bus and I tried to pay him for everything but he wouldn’t take anything. I wasn’t sure if I would be offensive to just force a $20 bill on him, but I had to at least try.

“No. No,” he kept saying. “No worry.”

“I want you to have it,” I returned. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

Finally, he nodded, and I held out the bill for him. Even so, it took him a while before he grasp it.

“I have more,” I said.

He shook his head.

“No. No. You keep. You need.”

I guess that was true. I still didn’t know what I’d face over the next however many months.

I reached out my hand to him.

“Thank you,” I said, earnestly. “For everything.”

The kid gave me a very warm smile as he grasp my had.

“You no worry,” he said. “You meet Dono soon. He want meet.”

I nodded. I was looking forward to meeting him too.

“You go now,” he said, motioning to the bus door.

The kid had already made sure all my stuff was stowed on the bus.

“Thanks,” I said again.

“I find you when time for you go,” he said.

“I’d like that,” I told him.

He gave me another smile, and then waited for me to get on the bus. He walked backwards as I moved back to my seat. I was next to the window.

He smiled at me again and then waved. For just a second, I had to wonder where I was. He looked like any kid, in any city, anywhere I’d ever been. It was hard to believe I was on the other side of the world now.

I gave the kid a wave. He smiled again, waved a second time, and then vanished into the crowd.

I just sat there, thinking about the long journey so far, and wanting the last leg to go quickly as well.

It was only a few more minuted before the bus got moving.

Chapter Three - Meeting Dono

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but Dono Wykov wasn’t it. He looked to be barely older than the kid I’d met in Vladivostok.

He was a tall, slender, sort of guy, dirty brown (almost blond) hair, that was just taller than I was.

“You have fine trip, yes?”

I nodded and smiled as his hand came out and grasp mine, almost taking it before I reached out with it. His Russian accent was very thick and his grip was quite a bit more than what I was expecting.

“I was guess you want get start very quick, yes?”

I gave him another nod. I was tired from all the long hours of travel, but now that I was finally here, there’s was nothing I’d rather do.

“Very tired you look,” he said, picking up my suitcase and then my backpack.

I thought about that and then nodded. Yeah. I guess I was.

“Come,” he said, started forward. “Maybe you sleep for while first.”

I was about to protest, but then common sense prevailed. He was right. I’d be better of to get some sleep first.

“Dono, thanks for setting everything up. I really appreciate it.”

He glanced back at me.

“Was happy help you,” he said. “I have been think you more crazy than me, come here from you home.”

“This is important to me,” I protested.

He gave me a warm and knowing smile.

“Is know,” he said. “I feel same way. Is why I help you.”

In all the emails for the past however many months, I’d learn that about Dono. He was very passionate about what he did. The tigers meant a lot to him. I guess that’s probably the biggest reason I’d talked with him so often.

He led me outside the small bus terminal, and walked us to a small car. I had no idea what the make was. Something that I’d never seen before. He put my suitcase and backpack into the back seat, and then waited for me to get into the front before he shut the door. He got into the driver seat, and started us out of the small town and into the countryside.

He’d said he lived in a small village. I’d just never realized how small until he parked at his house. The village was just a small gathering of houses, a small store with a single fuel pump, amidst acres and acres of farmlands. Or what would probably be farmland, were it not currently covered in snow.

I tried to pick up my backpack, but Dono literally took it from me.

“I get,” was all he said.

He led me up the short walkway into the small, cinder-block house. He put down my suitcase, opened the door, and seized the suitcase again before I could get a hand on it.

He led me inside.

“This is Mother,” he said.

I barely got turned towards the quite large woman before she reached out and seized me into a warm and friendly hug. She almost lifted me off the ground before releasing me, and then almost burst into speech. Of course, it was all in Russian, so I didn’t understand a word of it. That didn’t daunt her spirits at all.

“She not speak English,” Dono said.

I gave him a grin. I’d figured that one out on my own. Or was he meaning that she couldn’t speak English? Yeah. That was probably it.

She put her huge arm across my shoulder, continuing on in the endless, ninety-mile-per-hour babble. She pushed me before her and we marched into a hallway, and then into a bedroom. I don’t think she’d stopped or hardly taken a breath the whole time.

Don had set my things down and had tried to speak a few times, but couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Finally, he just let off with a quick stream of Russian of his own. I didn’t know what he said, but his mom was suddenly quiet. She didn’t look upset or anything, just quiet.

“You hungry?” Dono asked.

I thought about it, but even though I couldn’t remember the last time I ate, I think the lack of sleep was weighing more heavily on me.

“Is okay say no,” he said with a genuine smile. “Is think you need sleep, yes?”

I gave him a nod.

His mother reached out again and took me into her smothering embrace once again. Then, she literally unzipped my heavy coat and started to help me take it off. I didn’t offer much resistance.

Then, she took the jacket from me and shoved me back and onto the bed. I didn’t have much choice but to sit down.

Dono’s mother literally took him by the shoulder and pulled him towards the door to the small but comfortably warm room.

“You sleep. Plenty time later for explore.”

He gave me a warm smile.

“Is have friend you want meet. You like.”

I could only take his word for it. Maybe it was the biologist that I’d be working with.

He pulled on the door.

“See you morrow,” he said, then vanished as the door close completely.

I couldn’t help but yawn. I couldn’t even remember what a bed felt like. And this one was oh so soft!

I took my clothes off, not bothering to do much more than drape them over my suitcase. Then, I pulled back the thick blanket and two sheets and climbed into the tall, soft, and spacious bed.

I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I don’t remember anything after that.

Chapter Four - Dono’s Friend

If I had ever doubted Dono’s age or strength or fitness when I first met him, I certainly didn’t now!

I didn’t even know how long I slept, but it was a while. He was waiting for me when I finally got up. I took a quick shower and then got dressed into my more rugged and durable clothes, and then he handed me what looked like a day pack.

“Is food,” was all he said.

He was wearing an identical pack and dressed rather casually comparing to my dressed-for-a- blizzard attire. Of course, I had to think that he was probably used to Russian winters. I certainly wasn’t.

After making sure I was good to go, he set us off on a trek right out his back door, through the small village, and right out into the thin forest of trees. As we got further away, the trees got larger, and the forest more dense. We traveled for the better part of two hours, I think. Dono set an impressive pace. It was all I could do to just keep up.

It took me a long time to really notice what he was doing; he was tracking something. He noticed all the subtle things that I entirely missed. There were scratches on the trees. There were subtle odors that he could smell from a ways off that I couldn’t at all. He’d finally clued in to my curiosity and started pointing stuff out to me. Still, I couldn’t smell anything unless I put my nose right into the trees or bushes: scent marks. Rank, but definitely tiger. I knew that much from my own experience with captive animals.

“We’re looking for a tiger?”

It was strange to hear my voice in the foot-deep snow and semi-open again forest. Neither of us had spoken for a long, long time.

He gave me a glance and then pointed to a log of a fallen tree that I honestly hadn’t seen until he pointed to it. I guess that meant it was break time. I could use one.

I’d certainly done my share of backpacking and hiking and keeping in shape, but I was definitely tired. Dono wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Sha-rah,” he said as we sat down. “He is my friend.”

Dono had me take off my pack - identical to the one he was wearing; it looked like an old Army pack or something - and he opened it and pulled out a pair of sandwiches. He handed me one as he reached back in and took out the bottle of water. He held it out to me too. I drank about a quarter of the bottle before handing it back to him. He drank very little before putting it back into the pack. He started into the sandwich.

Over the past two hours, I realized that Dono didn’t talk much. I really didn’t mind it. I really was learning a lot from him just by watching. He wasn’t unlike a feral beast himself. He saw everything: bird’s flying or nesting, small animal burrows and dens, squirrels in the trees. He missed nothing! I was amazed. I don’t know how to describe it short of to say, he was very tuned into his environment. Maybe it was even more than that. Maybe it was just that he was a part of it. I took a second to realize I truly envied him that.

“You stare at me,” he said, with me just then realizing he was right.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning away to stare at my sandwich.

He reached out a hand to touch my knee. He had a small grin on his boyish face.

“You have fun, yes?”

I nodded.

“You’re really amazing,” I said. “I envy how tuned in you are to everything.”

He shrugged, pulling his hand back and taking a bite out of his sandwich.

“You learn,” he said a moment later. “Is matter of just listen what forest speak. Is speak loud, if know what listen for.”

I thought about that. I’d never thought of things that way. I wondered how much of life was exactly the same as that.

We ate our sandwiches in silence, and then had another round of water. We finished off that bottle. We had three others, and six more sandwiches. As I dug through the pack, there was a bunch of energy bars in the bottom, as well as a first aid kit and an emergency blanket. One of those foil ones.

Dono pointed to the pack that he was still wearing.

“Flare and fire,” he said.

I nodded. At least it was good to know he came prepared.

“Come,” Dono said, standing up again. “He not far now.”

I was going to ask something stupid like if we were in his territory already, but I think that much was obvious already. Dono hadn’t pointed out a scent-mark for quite a while, so we were probably neck deep in the tiger’s domain already.

I just followed as Dono set out on an equally quick pace once again.

• • • • •

It was a subtle change. It wasn’t so much physical and something that you just...felt. It wasn’t a change in the air or temperature. It wasn’t that there had been a whisper of sound. It was just that I suddenly knew we weren’t alone anymore.

Dono had stopped in front of me, just about at the top of a small rise. His hand made a motion: stop. Then: come here. I did both.

As I stepped up next to him, I think it was truly the most magnificent scene that I’d ever seen.

Trees lined the entire clearing. The sun was just slightly behind us overhead. The white of the snow was almost blinding. But there he stood in the center of it all, broadside to us. He was just as magnificent as the scene.

The huge tiger was staring at us. His ears were up. His light, faded orange fur seemed to stand out against the bright white of the snow. Yet I knew that in the sparse forest, he would all but vanish.

Dono called out something in Russian to the huge cat.

Amazingly, the tiger turned towards us and started walking. Not rushed. Just an easy pace. Like nothing was out of the ordinary in his domain. Like we were welcome guests rather than rivals within his domain.

I was so stunned that I was frozen in place.

“Do not run,” Dono said to me when the tiger was no more than a hundred feet away.

The huge tiger’s pace hadn’t changed at all. In fact, calling him huge was almost an understatement. I had seen a few Siberian males in captivity. None were as big as this wild one.

“Tovarisch Sha-rah,” he said, not much more than a whisper.

The huge tiger stopped. First, his great head raised just a little as if to orient on the airwaves a little better. Then I could see the clouds of vapor from his nose as he took in our scents over and over.

“Do not run,” Dono said again.

I was about to ask what he meant, but then it was all clear.

The tiger’s head lowered again, down to that entirely predatory height and his ears perked entirely forward. Even from the distance, I could see that the great cat’s whiskers had jutted completely forward as well.

Even at the distance, there was a very primal fear that seemed to just reach out and grasp my heart. The tiger was absolutely gorgeous. But it was clear that he was readying for a charge, and my mind was in turmoil over that fact. Was I about to die? I just didn’t know. I rather felt like it.

Even when the tiger bunched his muscles and bolted forward at a sprint, I was still just frozen in place. Dono had said not to run, but he needn’t have bothered. I couldn’t’ve moved even if I wanted to. I was totally and completely paralyzed. Admittedly, it wasn’t entirely from fear. There was a very definitive sense of genuinely awesome wonder as well.

There was an almost dream-like quality to the scene as I watched the tiger on a bee-line for us. I was completely mesmerized: the perfect flowing of the tiger’s muscles, the bounding grace, the snow flying up behind him as he paws came up through it, and his tail streaming out behind him like a pennant waving in the wind that wasn’t there.

The huge tiger didn’t slow at all as he came up the small rise to where we were. He hit Dono head on. The only sound was the impact and then both the tiger and Dono hitting the snow some ten feet from where they’d left the ground. Then, the tiger was just all over him. Amazingly, short of them thrashing around, all was still quiet. I didn’t know if the tiger was attacking him or not.

I really have no idea how long I just stood there staring at the tiger on top of the younger man. But I do know I felt a profound sense shock and then fear as the huge tiger’s head went sideways and then downwards for the soul purpose of taking Dono’s neck into his massive jaws. Then, as Dono stopped moving completely, instantly, there was just hopelessness. Still, I just stared.

“Come,” came the voice.

I snapped out of my daze.

“Dono?”

“Come,” he said again.

I truly thought he was dead. Now, even with his neck still in the jaws of the huge tiger, he was looking to me and smiling.

“Is game we play,” he said, as if it were the more normal thing in the universe for a man to be laying on his back in the snow with a tiger standing over him, with his neck in that same tiger’s mouth.

“Dangerous game,” I mumbled to myself.

I couldn’t remember how many times one of the compound directors I’d worked for for several years had said that very thing. As he always said, “There are things that you do with big cats, and there are things that you don’t.” I had to think that what Dono was doing now was very definitely a don’t.

“Come,” he said again.

Somehow, I found that my boots weren’t so firmly frozen in the snow as I thought. I started taking the few, measured, extremely slow steps towards the pair.

Dono still didn’t move, his fragile neck still in the jaws of the massive tiger.

Even watching the tiger come at us, and having thought it all before, it was more massive than I had even thought at the small distance. Now that he was right there, not more than a few feet from me, I was just realizing how big - huge! - he really was. Gigantic, was probably closer to the truth of it. Even semi-crouched, still holding the young man to the ground, he was every bit of four feet tall at the shoulder.

Dono’s smile was completely genuine as he watched me. He was not panicked. He didn’t have even a thread of fear on his face. I had to take a guess that he was just in Heaven, even thought the gigantic tiger could just twist his head ever so slightly, and the man would know nothing more. He’d just be dead, instantly.

His arms came up and reached up, first touching onto the tiger’s massively muscled shoulders, and then right on upwards to his neck and then behind his ears where and started scratching. With that, the tiger’s jaws abruptly opened, as if to spit the man’s neck right out. The tiger’s head raised just slightly, and then he chuffed, pretty much right into Dono’s face. Dono chuffed right back in an amazingly good imitation. The tiger chuffed at him again. Then, it leaned back down enough to lick him, that huge sandpaper, washcloth-sized tongue just wiping across his entire face. Dono laughed, saying something to the tiger in Russian.

“Come,” Dono said again, after I don’t know how long.

I had stopped moving again, maybe five feet away from them.

“You meet, Sha-rah. He tovarisch. Comrade. He friend. You like.”

One of the tiger’s ears was still forward, listening to him speak even while the hand scratched gently behind it. The other ear had rotated all the way around to orient on me like a radar dish.

Dono said something else to the tiger, still in Russian. The tiger turned, not so much quickly as unexpectedly, and aimed right for me. Once again, I couldn’t have done anything, even if I’d wanted
to. I just had to watched as the tiger turned directly towards me, took the short step to intercept, reared up enough to put both those huge, front, dinner-plate-sized paws onto my shoulders, and then gave me enough of a shove that I was going right over backwards.

The tiger rode me down, right to impact, his weight driving me into the snow more than a little. Then, his head twisted sideways, and those jaws opened wide, and I could see those huge spikes of fangs that were each the size of my thumb! Not an instant later, those massive jaws had closed onto my fragile neck. I could feel all four of those huge canines touching the back of my neck. I had never known fear before this. As cliche’ish as it might sound, my blood did, in every sense of the phrase, turn to ice at that moment. I knew that with just the slightest tightening of the tiger’s jaws, I would simply be dead. I had to wonder if I’d even feel anything. Somehow, I didn’t think so.

It felt like an eternity before I noticed the voice. It was Russian, whispering quietly to the huge beast. Dono had come over and knelt next to me, or the tiger rather. He was talking to it. Even from where I was still pinned with my neck in the tiger’s jaws, I watched as he had one hand scratching the cat’s shoulder while the other was behind an ear, scratching.

“Is game he play,” Dono said, now looking at me and smiling.

I couldn’t even speak. I think I was still frightened to the point of being paralyzed. At least my eyes could move.

Dono let out his amazing chuffing sound, and the tiger let loose of me and raised his head, apparently just so he could chuff back. Dono chuffed again, which the tiger returned.

The tiger turned towards him and lowered his head down enough to head-butt Dono in the center of the chest. Dono went right over backwards. The tiger just stepped forward right over him and literally laid down on him. Dono let out an grunt from being shoved down into the snow.

I took the moment to realize that I wasn’t frozen any more, but that the snow was very cold after having my neck in the hot mouth of the tiger. I managed to sit up. I still stared at the tiger, who was still laying on top of Dono. Dono had reached his arms back up and was scratching behind both ears of the huge cat.

“You like, yes?”

It took me a moment to realize that Dono was talking to me. I’d thought he was talking to the tiger. Of course, he’d always talked to the tiger in Russian thus far.

I could only nod. While there was a grand lot of fear still, I couldn’t get around the fact that this was the closest I’d ever been to a tiger without there being a fence between me and it. This was absolutely awesome beyond compare! Aside from that, I’d had my neck in the jaws of a Siberian Tiger and lived to tell about it! Holy shit!

He said something to the tiger - more Russian - and then slid a hand down to pat solidly against the tiger’s shoulder. I gathered that was a signal, as the tiger stood right up to all fours, and then didn’t move as Dono slid himself out from under the massive animal. He put his face into the tiger’s neck and literally hugged him. The tiger lowered his great head just slightly, and I had to wonder if he might be returning it in his own way.

In a few moments, the tiger pulled away from him and spun back around to face me again. For the second time in so many moments, I was face to face with the huge tiger. It chuffed at me, and then let out a little moan of tiger-talk. I had to smile, wishing for a place where I might be able to understand what he was saying to me.

I dared to reach up my hand to his nose. He sniffed it. His breath was hot. He let out another tiger-talk grumble. I continued my hand on up and back to his ear. His head turned that way as if to make it an easier reach. Then, there was that entirely electric moment when I fingers first touched his fur. Then, just like Dono had done, I was scratching a wild tiger behind the ear. If I did nothing else for the rest of my life, then I still had this moment! I was in Heaven! Nothing would ever top this!

I can’t say how long we stayed like that, face-to-face with the huge tiger, with my arm up and scratching behind his ear. Maybe it was only a second. Maybe it was an hour. I just don’t know. But, like anything else, nothing can last forever, huh?

The tiger pulled away from me, taking a step back. Then, almost quickly, he whirled around putting his rear-end to me. Too late, I saw the tail hike up. I ducked my head down, but that probably
made it worse as he let out a generous jet of scent to spray me across my entire chest. I almost coughed it was so pungent.

Dono started laughing, and then so did I as the tiger shifted to try and spray him too. Dono was a lot more agile and dove and rolled to avoid it. The tiger just danced after him instead. This time, Dono sprung back to his feet and started jumping around. So did the tiger. It was almost like a close-order game of tag. They were just constantly reaching out to touch one another, dancing around in the foot deep, light snow.

Even with the rank odor in my nose and running down the front of my thick jacket, I couldn’t help but almost be envious of the relationship that Dono obviously had with the gigantic tiger. The phrase “a boy and his dog” came instantly to mind, even thought I knew it was probably closer to “a tiger and his pet”.

Dono had turned around and changed the bizarre dance to heading back my direction. The tiger glanced up to me instead of Dono, me still sitting there in the snow, and too late, the tiger leaped for me, adding me to the game. I was thankful for the snow, as I really think the tiger would’ve pounced me hard enough for it to’ve hurt otherwise.

Then, just like it had Dono, it just laid down on me, shoving me deeper into the snow. The huge tiger leaned down and licked my face. Even having felt the rough tongues of other big cats before, I was little prepared for it to come across my cheek and then forehead. Then again across my face. I guess it was good in the respect that it took away his scent that had splattered there.

It wasn’t even conscious thought that had me reaching up both my hands, one to his shoulder and the other to his closest ear, pushing my fingers into the tiger’s thick fur to scratch at his hide. He stopped licking me to chuff instead. I kept scratching, but took the moment to look in to the tiger’s face. Maybe I was entirely wrong, but I really think the tiger looked content.

“Why you here, Comrade?” came Dono’s voice.

He was standing there a few feet away, covered in the fine snow from his romp with the tiger that was now laying on top of me. I didn’t know what he meant.

“You think about while pin there,” he said bluntly. “Is test of convict to do what we do.”

I thought about that.

Why was I here? Why had I traveled away from everything I’d ever known to come here? That was simple enough.

“I came here to save them,” I said.

“No tell me,” he said, pointing to the tiger. “You tell him.”

The tiger’s eyes focused on me when I stopped scratching him. He let out a little grumble.

It’s one thing to babble something about your convictions to someone. It’s quite another entirely to say it to the emissary of very creatures that you were swearing it to. I realize that’s what Dono had meant by “test”.

“I came here to save tigers,” I told the huge cat.

His ears perked forward with my voice.

“I came here to save you,” I said again, more solid this time.

The tiger’s whiskers came forward sharply, enough to brush on both my cheeks as his head lowered slightly, putting his huge, pink nose maybe half and inch from mine.

His muzzle opened just slightly. A drip of his slaver splashed onto my chin and ran down my neck.

“Even if I have to die to do it,” I whispered.

The tiger was just frozen there for a second, and then raised his head back up. A moment later, it stood back up, took half a step back, and then lowered his head again. He twisted his head and his jaws parted again, but this time just enough to rest those huge fangs on both sides of my throat. The almighty panic welled up in my chest, only to be dispelled a moment later by the cat’s huge tongue licking across my neck. Then, his head raised again to look me in the face again. He let out a few groans of tiger-talk. I would have given anything to know what he’d said to me, but I was sure that it was important, whatever it was.

The tiger then stepped off sideways from me and just stood there. Then, a moment later, his muscles bunched, and he bounded away. Just like when he was coming towards us, watching him lope away, I think it was the most magnificent and awesome thing I had ever witnessed in my life, just to see a tiger run like that.

The huge tiger abruptly halted at the edge of the trees giving us a perfect, broadside view of his perfect form. His head turned to look at us over the distance: maybe a hundred yards or so. His head raised just slightly and I really have to think he might’ve chuffed at us. Dono chuffed back, so maybe he’d done exactly that. Then, the tiger was just gone. Vanished.

Dono’s hand was suddenly reaching down towards me. I took it and he helped me back to my feet. He smiled at all the yellowish snow on my jacket front. He brushed a lot of it off, but I was still obviously wet. I was sure that it would all freeze before too long.

“He like you,” Dono said. “He claim you as own. Is good. Better than be reject.”

I thought about that. If you got pissed on when I tiger claimed you, I’m sure I didn’t want to know what he’d do to reject you. Probably something to do with having your neck in his jaws and not living to tell about it.

Dono just stared at me for a long moment. He had a very intense expression on his face.

“Is know why you come, now,” he said quietly. “You and Sha-rah...uh...how you say? Soulmate.”

I was just confused. Certainly, I had always felt a strange affinity to tigers, but soulmates? I didn’t know.

“What he say?” Dono asked.

I could only shrug.

“Is omen,” he said. “When know, is day he die.”

I was rather impacted to hear him say that. Dono could tell.

“You think he just claim anyone?”

“You seemed to do just fine with him,” I observed.

“I just kitten to him.”

I thought about that. Could he really be right? Of course, I certainly didn’t have any reason to doubt him at his word. He seemed to have a simply uncanny understanding of the tiger.

“Come. We go,” he said. “Not want be in tiger territory when get dark.”

He took me by the shoulder and pulled me forward. A smile came back to his face.

“You think you seen dark night? Is nothing like what have here in Russia! Is just black.”

I didn’t doubt him at all.

• • • • •

Dono took us on a completely different trek on the way back. The sun was just barely visible over the trees before I knew why.

We had come to another, small clearing where Dono had stopped us for what I thought was another snack time. He’d pulled off his pack this time and took out sandwiches for us to munch on. I think I was about half way through mine when Dono quickly flopped down into the snow, pulling me down next to himself forcefully a second later. I knew why as I looked in the same direction as he was.

There was a tiger on the far side of the clearing, some hundred yards away, I’d guess.

“Watch,” Dono whispered.

I did. Moments after the tiger had become visible, two more much smaller ones romped into the snow behind it. Behind her, I guess it would be safe to say. A third one came into the group right afterwards.

“Is kitten from Sha-rah. He mate.”

He pointed to each one and rattled off their names, obviously Russian.

Two of the tiger kittens were romping about, more intent on playing than paying attention to where they were going. They romped right on into mom’s tail end, which got them both a hefty snarl
from the other end. I had to think that no matter what the species, the burdens of a mother were all the same. Sometimes, you just had to yell and scream at children to get them to behave. Even if for only a few seconds.

It was another of those priceless moments to be where I was and witnessing such a scene.

We watched them travel the entire distance across the clearing before Dono stood back up again, and pointed us homewards.

Finally, we were again at the edge of the small village, and then wandering through it towards the place that Dono called home.

His mother met us right inside the door. She reached out to hug me and then stopped abruptly. She leaned in to smell at my chest and then frowned. She burst into speech. Dono just smiled, not saying a word.

She was making motions, and I guess in any language, mom’s were pretty obvious, weren’t they? It was: take the jacket off so I can wash it. I took the pack off and then stripped the jacket off. She almost snatched it from my grasp and then turned away from me, still going on and on in Russian.

“She take and wash for you,” Dono said.

I nodded, having already guessed that much.

“Come meet Father.”

Dono drageed me into another room of the small but very cozy house, and I met his dad. Michale Minkianov. He was a big man. He looked nothing like Dono. I had to wonder about his last name too, not that I knew anything about the way Russians named their children.

His father too didn’t speak English, so over the next hour or so, Dono translated back and forth while his dad played the twenty questions game with me. He was an engineer for the government. He was very obviously a smart man. But he didn’t seem to approve of his son’s romping around for days at a time in the forests of the country side. I guess I could relate to that entirely. My father hadn’t approved of my doing that either. But I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. My father had passed away quite a few years ago.

His mother called out to us, and we all gathered into the small dining room.

I had certainly had good food before, but this was just awesome. Real wheat bread. Real butter. Potatoes that I figured were right from the ground and into the pot. And roast beef that just fell apart as you tried to stab it with the fork.

Yeah. If today was any example, this was going to be a really grand trip indeed!

Chapter Five - Of Loss and Conviction

It had certainly taken a long time, but I think I was starting to get the hang of things. Of course, there was nothing routine about any of it.

I had finally met the biologist that Dono worked with. I liked him from the start. He was every bit as passionate about things as Don and I were. That’s why he did what he did. He had studied most of his life for this. He even earned his PhD in Wildlife Biology on top of becoming a vet, just so he could come back to his homeland and try and help save his national treasure: the Siberian Tiger. But he was not nearly the idealists that Dono and I were. I suppose experience had taught him that idealism had little bearing on reality, and reality, in this case, was that we were losing the battle to save them.

Over the last three months, I had met most of the folks that were something on the order of police, but from what I saw of their jobs, they were more like game wardens. Their purpose was entirely to meet poachers head on, and if they couldn’t arrest them, then kill them outright. There had been quite a few of both.

Winter was a bad time. During the spring and summer, the tigers moved almost invisibly throughout the entire region. During the late fall and winter, the snow made it only too obvious that they were there, and almost easy to follow them. So winter meant the “police” were out in force.

I had arrived in late fall. Now, I was experiencing my first Russian winter, and even Dono had mentioned that he thought I was taking to it very well.

It had been a bad winter for the tigers. There were five breeding pairs known in this smaller region. That was a full tenth of the pairs known by all the biologists in all their studies. Early on in the winter, one of my first treks out with the Police, we had tracked a group of poachers like a pack of feral dogs. But it was still too late. It was one of the females. She was pregnant. So now they were all dead. So that put us down to four breeding pairs.

Admittedly, that first time was hard. I was depressed. I was so completely saddened by the loss. But I was also angry. Very angry. The next time was far worse though. Yesterday... I didn’t even want to remember it, but it would forever be a part of my memories, for the rest of my life.

We tracked this group the same, right on their heels. But just like the last time, we were too late.

The poachers’ target this time was one of the males of a pair. He was the youngest male of the pairs, having just taken over the territory from what was believed to be his father a single season ago. Had it not been for the poachers, the big cat probably would’ve lived out his life right here in his domain, and probably given it up to one of his own sons over time. Now, he had been deprived of even the chance to have sons. He legacy was gone, extinguished, even before it had begun.

I remember kneeling down next to the huge body, and my mind locked onto one of the tigers that I had worked with back home: one of my favorites. He’d been a Bengal but I still couldn’t help but see him lying there, crimson streaking across the entire side of his chest where he’d been shot. I wanted to cry. I can’t even say why I didn’t.

Dr. Yevgeni didn’t hold back. He put his face right into the bloody fur of the now dead tiger. First he cursed the poachers for taking the life. Then he cursed himself for not being able to save it. Then, still with his face into the tiger’s fur, he prayed for a better place, where tigers could run free and never have to worry about poachers and their guns.

I realized as I watched the man, why I wasn’t crying. It was because I was angry. In fact, it wasn’t just anger. It was rage. I had never felt anything like this before. It was entirely malevolent. I hated the men that had done this with every last fiber of my being, and I vowed then and there that I would deliver any others that I would ever come face-to-face with to the Ninth Plane of Hell for their crimes to the very universe, even if I had to do it personally, and escort them there myself!

“Come, Yuri,” Dr Yevgeni had said to me as he rose.

Even Dono called me “Yuri” even though that wasn’t my name. I guess it was a pretty great honor. It was a nickname that Dono had ultimately given me after his best friend that had died. Apparently, I was a lot like him. Dono wouldn’t tell me how, just that I was. The name caught on with
the entire group mostly because of who I was. I was surely a great and bold adventurer to come all the way from my own country, leaving it behind, simply to take up a fight that wasn’t mine, on the soil of my former enemy. So to them, I was no different than Yuri Gragarin, the famed Russian Cosmonaut and Hero, that was in fact famous the world over for being the first man in space and to make it home again. The real question was, would I make it home again? No one could answer that.

“Why you here, Yuri?” Doc asked, just standing there, staring down at the dead tiger.

“Because I want to stop this,” I said, almost through clenched teeth.

He glanced up at me. There were still bitter tears in his eye.

“Then go home,” he said. “Keep the tigers in cages alive, like you did before. Make them happy. And maybe someday, there will be a world that we can let them out of their cages into. But that is not today.”

Then, he was crying again.

He knelt down next to the tiger again, just to weep over his loss. No. I take that back. It wasn’t his loss. It was a loss to all humanity. It was a loss that put the mighty tiger one step closer to extinction, simply because humanity was both too stupid to prevent it and arrogant enough to take part in making it happen.

I stood there for a moment, and then I turned and walked away. This was a private moment between the Doc and the tiger he had watched grow up from a kitten, only to have to watch him die too.

I walked over to the small group of police. One of them put a steaming cup of coffee into my hands. It was probably laced with vodka, but at that point I didn’t care. I could probably use a stiff drink about then.

“It never good enough,” Marko said to me, one of the younger police. “Even if we find, it always too late.”

There was a lot of truth to that. The police were incredible at what they did. Somehow, in the thousands upon thousands of square miles of Russian countryside, they managed to get very close to the poachers indeed. But it was always only close enough to deprive them of their prize, but not so close as to prevent them from taking the life from it first. Tonight was the classic example of that. We’d all gotten here as the poachers were doing their deed. And while two of the four poachers were dead, another I earnestly hoped would die before dawn, and the fourth into custody of the police, there was still nothing any of us could do to bring the tiger back from the grave. Sure, his bones and pelt and other body parts would never make it into the medicinal trade, but he was still dead, meaning there was now one tiger less in a steadily diminishing population.

There was a part of me that wanted to turn right them and do exactly what Dr Yevgeni had said: to go home. After seeing my second death of a tiger, it was hard to not see reality, even through my idealism.

“What you think about, Yuri?” Dono asked, standing in the doorway to the room that I had consumed for now four months in his family’s house.

“I came here to make a difference,” I said. “And what have I done?”

He just stared at me. He shrugged.

“Is question need answer for self.”

I had tried to do exactly that over the last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t arrived at anything very profound. In fact, I had arrived at exactly the big goose egg: zero. I hadn’t done anything for the tigers. I had failed them, because I’d had to stand over them and watch them bleed and die.

“You need see old friend,” he said.

“What old friend? You’re the only one I know here.”

“Not true. Have comrade in snow that claim you as own.”

I thought about that. Sha-rah?

I shook my head. How could I face him? Hadn’t I failed him as well? Because his kind had dies, even after I swore to protect them, to save them?

“I can’t,” I said. “I failed him.”

Dono paused for a long moment. Then he came into the room and sat down next to me on the bed. He didn’t do that. Ever. The room was my sacred place. It was about territory. And you never went into someone else’s territory without being invited. It took me a long time to realize that about Dono.

“You know story of Emperor, Yuri?”

Emperor? I had always been horrible at history. I shook my head.

“Is story tell of jungle, where fierce Emperor reigh. He fair to subject. Very noble. But to enemy, merciless.”

Sounded like a very good Emperor indeed.

“Only Emperor can pardon you crime.”

It took me a long time to figure out that he was saying. Sha-rah was the Emperor. It made perfect sense.

“Come. I help you make camp. You can write you journal there.”

I nodded. I wrote every day. Over the last three months, it was my one solace in a very frustrating world.

He looked at me and smiled broadly.

“You be want come back in week.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“You see.”

He had on such a knowing smile. What was he not telling me?

“What?”

“He very social. You not get moment peace.”

I thought about those few moments that I had been a part of now all these months ago. I had loved every second of it. We had never gone back out to him again. I had wanted to so many time, but there was just too much to do.

“I thought you said to not be in a tiger’s territory after dark.”

He nodded.

“Yes. Is true. You in tiger domain in dark, and he come to you. He sleep on you if let.”

Dono was smiling again. Somehow I knew that he was being serious.

“Really?”

He nodded.

“He very social. He only go to hunt and mark. Rest of time, he be there because he like you scratch his fur. You wait. You see.”

My mind went right back to the tigers that had die.

“I can’t face him, Dono.”

He reached up a hand and squeezed my shoulder.

“You want be forgive, Yuri? Only Emperor can do.”

“He won’t,” I said solidly. “I failed him. I failed them. They all died.”

He shook his head.

“Not all. Still more. Is how I keep go and keep do what do. Poacher not win until I give up. So I not give up. Not till last one dead.”

I wondered if he was talking about the tigers or the poachers. Or maybe it didn’t matter. In either case, it would be the end.

“Come,” he said, standing up and reaching out for my hand to drag me out of my shell of depression and even this room. “We need go so have time get supply for you.”

“What if he doesn’t forgive me?”

Dono just stared at me, his face unreadable for a moment.

“Is already know answer,” he said quietly. “Emperor always forgive. Is just have to have nerve to face and ask.”

I had to think about that for a long time. Wasn’t that true of so many things in life?

“How did you get so wise, Dono?”

He gave me a grin.

“Is spend lots time with Emperor. Had lots thing need ask forgive.”

I had to wonder - not for the first time - if Dono was quite a bit older than he looked. He couldn’t really be twenty-five, could he? He seemed more like fifty at times. Way too wise for twenty- five. If only I could’ve been as wise at that age!

Finally, I took his hand that was still held out to me.

Yeah. It was time to face my Emperor. It was time to beg for his forgiveness. And Dono was right. It was only him that could give me penance. It was only him that could give my weary soul some peace.

“Come,” Dono said, literally dragging me forward. “Lots must do.”

I just got into the blizzard of activity. Like with so many other things, there’s a lot of peace to be found in hard work. Getting the few stores together, and getting them strapped onto our backs was some work. But so was the hike in getting there.

Like always, Dono set an insane pace. But I kept up just fine.

After all, I had an old friend to see. It had been a long, long time, and I was really looking forward to it.

Chapter Six - Just Getting Away for a While

I really couldn’t begin to describe the little clearing that Dono and wandered us into. It was maybe a hundred feet by fifty, with a small stream still flowing along part of one side. It was flat, with dense forest on one side and lighter forest on the other. The afternoon sun had already ducked down over the trees, but the light still streaming through them made it all look like a tiny slice of Heaven had been placed here by some angel’s hand. It was absolutely stunning.

Dono picked a particular tree to set up the small camp next to. At first I thought it just random, then I could see the scratch marks. A tiger had been here. Recently.

Dono and I had the small, single room tent put up in no time. There was a cot, a small table and chair set, and then a camp stove, and I managed to find enough rocks by the stream to build a good fire pit after clearing some snow away from the campsite.

“I come check on you few days,” Dono said, standing up from where he’d been getting a nice fire roaring away. “Bring more food.”

I thanked him for all his help, considering how much stuff he’d helped me pack in, including a week’s worth of food.

“I go,” he said. “Sha-rah be come soon. You see.”

I could only hope he was right.

“Thanks Dono,” I said again. “For everything.”

He smiled.

“Sometime just need few day to think. Make all better.”

I nodded.

Yeah. That was true. I’d used a good many weekends for just thinking over the years.

Dono said a goodbye and then trekked away and vanished into the trees. He had less than an hour before dark. I hoped he’d be fine, as it had taken us just shy of two to get here. Of course, with almost eight-pound packs, the going was a bit slower than bareback. I’d certainly worked with Dono enough over the last few months to know that he was a hell of a hiker.

I took the coffee pot over to the stream and filled it up. The water was just babbling lightly over the rocky bottom of the streambed. It was turbulent enough that it couldn’t freeze, even though it felt cold enough.

I put the percolator into the pot and set the whole thing onto the little grate that Dono had set up over the fire just for that purpose. It would take a little while, but I knew that the pot made some really dark coffee. That’s just what I needed about now to clear my head.

I went back into the tent and pulled out my journal and set it onto the small table. I had gone through three other notebooks while I’d been here: all that I’d brought with me. I’d been doing quite a few entries each day. Everything that happened, I tried to capture in my journal, whether significant or not. This next one, the one I’d just put onto the table, Dono had given me. It had a picture of a tiger on the cover of it. But it wasn’t just any tiger.

Dono had gone to college in the US. He’d studied Mechanical Engineering, and then returned home. One of his good friends from the US, who I’d met quite a few times over the years as well, worked with cats and had been his sponsor while in the States. It was one of the tigers that he’d worked with there that Dono had gotten pretty fond of. So for Dono to’ve given me this notebook for my journal wasn’t just the average gift. It really meant a lot to me. Of course, I too had met said tiger, so it was really cool for me too.

I pulled out my pen and then picked up the chair and the journal, and went out to be by the fire. The air was crisp and the fire hot, and I just wanted to be outside for a while to think.

Would Sha-rah come by? I didn’t know. How would he react to me being here in his territory without Dono? I didn’t know that either. I guess I’d worry about that when the time came.

I don’t know how long I sat there, just staring into the fire. A long time.

Finally, I opened the journal to the right page and I started to write. I hadn’t written all day, and a lot of things were on my mind, so there was a lot indeed to write about.

• • • • •

I had no idea what time it was. I had finally gone into the tent and fallen asleep, but now, something was different. I think it was about the time that I was looking at the tent flap, waving just slightly in the cold, night air, that I noticed the weight across my chest. Right afterwards, I could feel that there was something both solid and substantial pressed against my side.

With the too dim moonlight that was coming in through the flap, I couldn’t see a thing. I felt my heart quicken as I remembered very distinctly tying the flap down before I’d turned in. Uh-oh. That meant something was in the tent with me!

I slowly reached up a hand. I got it about half way up before it touched onto a large, soft- covered something, that wouldn’t let my arm come up any further.

The something against my side stirred slightly, rolling towards me. Then, there was a chuff directly into my ear. I almost started.

“Sha-rah?”

It couldn’t really be him, could it? Would he really come right into the tent and lay down next to me? Of course, hadn’t Dono said something about that.

The something chuffed into my ear again, and then rolled towards me, it’s weight increasing many times over.

“Hey! Yer mushin’ me!”

There was another chuff, and then a very wet, sandpaper slurp across the entire side of my face.

I guess I didn’t have to worry about what Sha-rah might do to me anymore. I had no doubt that it was him.

I tried to move a little, and he rolled away from me some. I rolled towards him and put one hand under his neck. He grumbled a little, but let me. His head was heavy, but I didn’t mind. I got my other arm over his shoulder and gave him a tight hug, pulling myself against what felt like his broad chest. His massive foreleg - the one not already draped across me, came gently down from somewhere and pulled under my head like a huge pillow. His other joined in as his huge paws pulled me tightly against his chest.

I put my face into the huge tiger’s throat. His muzzle came down just slightly to rest against the top of my head.

There was a part of me that had to wonder what the tiger must be thinking. This just didn’t seem like something a wild tiger would normally do: hug a human? Of course, Dono had said he hadn’t always been wild.

He’d been born wild, and no one really even knew where he came from. It was like he’d just fallen out of the sky. It surprised the hell out of all the biologists, because they kept really meticulous records. He seemed to be wandering, and at first, they though he might be looking for a territory of his own. But he would never fight with any of the resident males. He’d come across a scent mark, and then just turn around and walk the other way. No one could figure out why. And no one had ever seen a male that big, which made him a real prize indeed. And not just to the biologists.

They caught up to him again, and this time he wasn’t wandering. He’d been shot, and he came right into one of the field camps. Doc Yevgeni had been there. Doc had been the one to finally walk up to him. From the way Doc told it, Sha-rah had followed him right into his tent where Doc had gotten the tranquilizer out, and then didn’t even flinch as Doc gave him the injection. Doc’s bed became the surgery table as he got the bullet out and fixed the tiger back up. Dono had come into the scene sometime during the surgery, and had stayed with him every since. The tiger had very obviously claimed Dono as his own. Everyone could see it.

It was maybe a week after Sha-rah had been shot that the police found the poacher camp. The camp was more or less intact, but everyone was dead, all of them with very large punctures through their necks, their spines cleanly separated because of it. There wasn’t any other marks on any of them. On a whim, Doc had measured the width of all the punctures. They were all the same.
What was never written in the police report about the poachers was that, maybe not amazingly, the width of those punctures also just happen to match the width of Sha-rah’s huge canines.

Why would a tiger do something like that? Kill everyone in a camp, but not for food? No one had ever explained it. On the other hand, just the way the huge tiger interacted with everyone, was very atypical of tigers in general. I mean, even I had seen many a tiger during feeding time. But Sha-rah was different indeed. Dono had talked of many a time that he’d stuck his face right down and into Sha-rah’s feeding bowl. What did he do to Dono? Chuff at him.

So over time, Dono and Doc brought him back to health, and then worked on releasing him, but the tiger wouldn’t have any part of it. He just seemed to want to stay in captivity for a while. That was fine by Dono.

Dono had worked with him his every waking moment, slept with him, eaten with him, and damn near hunted with him. But always, he’d come back to his “home”, usually tagging along with Dono, much to the chagrin of his parents, not to mention the village as a whole.

Let’s face it, people like Doc and Dono, and I liked to think even myself, were unique. Not everyone loved tigers like we did. And while it was the greatest thing I could even imagine to have a tiger following me around like a huge dog, it wasn’t that way for the village folk. So eventually, it was “the tiger goes, either alive or dead!”.

Dono tried again to release him. Apparently it wasn’t far from the place that Dono had taken me that first hike up into the hills. So Sha-rah and Dono had had a real heart-to-heart, and Sha-rha stayed there.

Normally, tigers didn’t have territories so close to humanity. Sha-rah did. It was good in the respect that he didn’t have to fight to get his territory, but he certainly defended it now that he had one. The biologists had observed that quite a few times. And being that he was the biggest, he had never lost a challenge. Amazingly, nor had any of the “lesser” males ever been maimed seriously by him either. No one could explain that either.

So there was a lot of unexplained things about Sha-rah that we’d probably never know. Why did he like humans? No one knew. But truthfully, I could think of no place, at that very moment, where I would’ve rather been, then right there in the almost too tight embrace of the huge tiger. But even so, now that I was there, I had words to say.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him.

His embrace tightened to the point that I almost couldn’t breathe for a moment.

I tried several times to speak, to tell him how angry I’d felt to see the female laying there dead, feeling so completely depressed to learn that she’d been pregnant. I tried to tell him of just yesterday, when I had watched Doc kneel next to the young male, not just crying, but sobbing over him. I wanted to tell him how I really wanted to cry with him, but I was too angry. No. Not angry. Enraged! I had never wished death on another being in my entire life, but I had then! I still did. But worst of all, I wanted to tell him that I was so sorry that I had failed him. That I had really tried to save them, and do my part to chase down the poachers, but in the end, it was all for naught. I had failed, and they were dead now.

I hadn’t been able to cry yesterday. I made up for it in the embrace of the tiger.

I don’t know how long I cried, or even when I fell asleep with my face still pressed into the now wet fur of the tiger’s neck. But I remember the tiger moaning his tiger-talk to me amidst it all. It was always the same. It was always in response to my pleading for forgiveness. And as always, I would have given anything to know what he was saying.

• • • • •

Dono had been exactly right about Sha-rha. The only time I had entirely to myself was when he’d be off hunting, every few days. Apparently he was a very skilled hunter, and he always came back only hours later, his muzzle still semi-bloody from his gorge-feeding, and he would literally go into the tent and fall asleep for at least several hours.

There were some really humorous moments. Much to my dismay, he always followed me when I needed to answer Nature’s Call. Always after I would “mark” a tree, he would mark it generously afterwards. The same when I had to dig my little holes in the snow and dirt. I got to the point that I didn’t bother burying anything, as he would always dig down to it, add his own there, and then cover it all up to his own satisfaction. He was very thorough about things.

Even my own meal times were amusing, at least to me. He didn’t like the sizzling of meat- stuffs in the pan on the fire. But even so, he would sit there on his haunches, not even a yard away, snorting, giving a half-snarl, half-growl, or doing a flehmen. But never had he done anything else. When it was time for me to eat, he would simply shift over to the table with me, whether inside or outside the tent. He would still be sitting on his haunches, but just staring at every bite that I took. He would follow the fork from the plate, to my mouth, and right back again. I even gave him some more than a few times. He’d always open his muzzle just enough and lean forward to get it into his mouth. His teeth would close just enough to click onto the metal of the fork and he’d pull back. He never chewed. He’d just swallow. It never mattered what it was. Fish. Beef. Lamb. Chicken. Rice. Brocolli. Salad. It just didn’t matter. He’d eat it all.

I guess we went on like that for about two weeks. Dono had come up several times to bring more food, but he’d never stay long. Only long enough for his strangely violent-looking yet amazingly gentle romp with the gigantic tiger through the snow. One thing was for certain, he was a tiger like none other. I never knew that so clearly as when he was prancing around after Dono, sometimes chasing him, sometimes being chased. That was really a sight to behold! Dono chasing a tiger, and the tiger fleeing like he was about to lose his tail.

The time was like an endless summer from childhood. It was a magic time where all the days and nights blurred together into an eternal, magical moment.

l wanted it to never end.

Chapter Seven - The Emperor’s Forest

It was several hours after dark, and Sha-rah was still out on his hunt. He’d been gone for longer than usual, but I really wasn’t paying attention to time.

I was sitting in the chair at the table inside the tent as it was a bit nippy outside that night. But it was always strangely confortable in the test, especially when Sha-rah was there with me. His huge body generated an incredible amount of heat.

I’m not sure what stirred me from thought. It was like a sound, but yet I knew I hadn’t heard anything. It was just a strange stirring in my head that had dragged me from my writing.

I put down my pen and stood up. I pushed back the flap on the tent and went outside.

It was unusually dark; the only light outside was from the kerosene lamp inside the tent that shown out in an arc across the snow. I turned back into the tent and took the lantern by the handle and went back outside.

There was something wrong. It was too quiet. There were no bird chirps. No crickets. No squirrel chatter. Nothing. Just utter silence. A strange foreboding flooded over me.

The light of the lantern splashed out for many yards, almost amplified by the white of the snow. Something flashed in the distance. I held the lantern over my head. More flashed. Greenish. Two of them. Eyes? They were moving towards me. In another few seconds, I could see them clearly. I somehow knew it was Sha-rah. He was at a full sprint coming towards me. As I put the lantern back towards the ground - the light seemed to carry a lot further with it low - I could see why he was running. He was not alone.

There were two men in white cammies. The light glinted off metal in front of them and I knew they had rifles.

I can’t say if it was conscious thought or not. I just remember - almost calmly - stepping forward into a run. The tiger was ahead of them, but he was tiring. A tiger is a sprinter. Not a distance runner. I didn’t know how long he’d been running but I knew it couldn’t last. My only way to save him was to put myself between them and him, so that’s what I did.

The tiger came into the lantern’s circle of light and it was then that the poachers seemed to realize I was there. Hadn’t they seen the light? Wouldn’t it be absolutely glaring to them in the darkness? Apparently not. They seemed completely startled by my presence.

One pointed the rifle towards me and the report sounded harshly and violently in the still, silent air. My perspective changed slightly as I saw them both skid to a halt maybe fifty feet from me. One of them spoke in a language I hadn’t heard: not Russian. They looked panicked and then turned and fled. It was as I watched them that I realized that I was laying in the snow, my head tilted up, watching as they ran.

A shadow came from behind me, silent, moving quickly towards me. I turned towards it. It was the tiger, stepping between me and the lantern. Why wasn’t I carrying it anymore? What wasn’t I standing anymore?

As the tiger came around me, his muzzle came down and his nose pressed lightly against my chest. It hurt. The tiger’s face came away and his muzzle was red. Oh no! He was shot!

The tiger nuzzled me again, head-rubbing my chest. There was pain again, this dull, throbbing, but insistent pain that I’d never felt before. His head came up again, and this time, his cheek was red.

I realized then that it wasn’t his blood. It was mine. My chest hurt because I was shot.

The tiger came all the way in front of me and I could see that it wasn’t just me. There was blood running down from his chest, just off center. There was more blood behind his right front leg. I could see that it wasn’t just blood, but jagged and raw flesh: a bullet exit wound.

“Oh no!” I gasp. “Please not you!”

I forced myself to sit up and I reached out to him. He came forward, putting his head down and pushing his flat forehead into the center of my chest gently.

“No please!” I begged.

The tiger shoved me over backwards to lay down again into the snow. I didn’t fight him.

His great head raised again and I could see it clearly in the light from the lantern.

I heard several gun shots in the distance. They were followed by several more, different ones. Then more. The rifles the police used; they had a very distinctive sound. They rang out several more time.

“Good!” I hissed to myself. “Damn you both to Hell!”

I somehow knew that the police had aimed true. But still, as I looked at the blood flowing from the hole in the tiger’s broad chest, I knew that this time too, they were too late. And with that truth, was the fact that I had failed yet again in my promise, this time to save Sha-rah himself: The Forest Emperor.

“Oh Sha-rah! Forgive me! Please forgive me!”

The tiger just stood there for a moment, and then let out several moans of tiger-talk. He’d said it all to me before.

The scene suddenly changed again. I was standing, now next to the huge tiger.

“Forgive me,” I said to him again.

He looked up at me.

“I forgive you,” he said.

I had heard his tiger talk, but yet, I understood the words! Holy shit!

It was then Dono’s words came back to me, from that time so long ago now: when I understood what he said, it would be the day he died.

Oh no! That meant...!

“Come with me, Brother. It’s time I took you home.”

“Home?”

“Come,” he said in a gentle growl.

I walked forward with him, just out of the circle of light of the lantern, out of the tiny camp where I had spent so much time with him.

I turned back for a moment, just for perhaps sadistic curiosity. There was a body laying there in the snow, its eyes upturned to the sky; it took me a moment to realize it was my body. The huge tiger, Sha-rah, the mighty Emperor of the Forest, lay next to me. His great body seemed to be shielding mine from the cold. I noticed his huge foreleg was draped across my chest, as if in a final hug. Neither of the bodies were moving: no vapor of breath coming from either of them now.

Another figure came into the circle of light: Dono. He just stood there looking over both of us for a moment. Then, he knelt down, putting a hand on each of us. It took me a moment to see that he was crying.

He put his face into Sha-rah’s neck ruff. He spoke in Russian, but strangely, I understood every word of it.

“Go now, Father,” he said, almost reverently. “I think you have another kitten to watch over. I will forever miss you.”

He just sobbed there for a long time. Then he turned to me. He reached out a hand to close my eyes.

“You were a crazy Yank to come here, Yuri,” he said. “But you were my friend.”

That was a lot for Dono to say. I didn’t know him well. But I knew that there were very few people that he called “friend”. I was honored indeed to be among them.

“I will see that your things are sent home.”

He stood up and stepped into the tent. Strangely, its thick, canvas fabric didn’t block my view at all as I watched him reach out and close the notebook that I had been writing in.

“I hope they will read your journals. This story needs to be told.”

He just stared at the picture of the tiger on the cover of the journal for a moment.

“Crazy Yank,” he mumbled. “Maybe there are more like you somewhere. I hope so.”

“Come,” the voice next to me said.

He too had turned to look back at the scene and camp. He looked very fondly at Dono.

We walked out into the small, snowy clearing. Neither of us made a sound.

I glanced back to see that neither of us were leaving prints in the snow. I’m not sure why that surprised me.

As I turned to look forward again, the whole scene had changed. It went from the dead of winter to the perfect, beautiful spring in an instant. The clearing was lush green. The stream was still babbling along almost turbulently now. The trees were all there. I turned again to look back at the camp. It wasn’t there. The only things where it had been were two crosses, marking the place where two bodies had been, laying next to each other.

Had the time really passed in just an instant?

“Come,” gigantic tiger said.

I didn’t look back any more. I just followed him. He led us into the forest.

What lay ahead? I didn’t know. But I wasn’t frightened.

I was with my father; I was his kitten, and I trusted him.

I knew that everything would be just fine.