The World is Not Good Enough For Tigers

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Katia wrapped the blankets tight around her feet. She had tried to start a fire even though she had known the wood was wet. Some pine cones and kindling had burned fast for a few minutes before dying back leaving her with the candle. She still had her winter cost on but she had taken her boots off and left them neatly by the door. Neatness was a habit that had been tattooed into her with small relentless acts of violence.

Her breath was still coming fast, steaming slightly in the cold air. She had come here because no one came here. Not since Mels who had died, although not here. There were still traces of him in the cabin, empty bottles, a plate, she had heard he had left one sock behind when he ran into the snow but if that had ever been true it was gone now. She hadn’t known him, or had only known him as one of a group of almost identical men with beards and rough voices that her father would drink with.

She hoped none of those men would be willing to follow her out here, or follow her father out here. They must know which way she had come, her footsteps stood stark and guilty on the snow. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands and wrapped her arms around her stomach trying to hug in some warmth. The candle guttered in a small draft and the wind grew to a shriek outside.

Mels had been a hunter like her father, like most of the men here. He would have been a good hunter if he had drank less and he might have drank less if he had something to do but hunt. It wore on a man to spend so much time alone in the forest, and then it wore on him again to go back home to his family and all their chatter and noise and wanting. Her mother had explained this to her many times when her father was passed out, or had left without speaking to them, or the marks were still livid against her face. Mels had no family except for a nephew who had died soon after Mels himself. People claimed the Tiger could smell the relationship, that it had once again gone looking for revenge.

What had happened to Mels was in some ways quite simple but was, at the same time, the source of endless debate. That he had killed a tiger was certain, probably more than one because what else was worth anything besides eating. That he had wounded that tiger or killed its cubs or its mate - all had been suggested, held forth, sworn two by one man or another.

It was held as another article of faith that Mels had known he was doomed and had gone to his death if not accepting then unresisting. Why else would he have come out here to this remote cabin rather than stay safe in town? The people who saw him that night said he had been drunk, which was not unusual, and terrified, which made sense in retrospect. He had come here, with his dogs and his gun and then at some point he had left. Perhaps in a rush, perhaps leaving behind a single sock.

Near the cabin they had found the first spots of blood though no one could tell it it belonged to Mels or the dogs. It thickened as the men (and Katia’s father had been one of them, had come back frozen and haunted and angrier than usual) had followed it. The place they found the leg was unexpected. A large snowy clearing the men all agreed it was a strange place for an ambush - too open, nowhere for an animal to hide. In fact it had not hidden they found the place on the ground where a tiger had lain, surely quite visible, and it had lain for a long time and then the rushed tracks and a rough circle of dirt and blood the snow kicked up and melted.

Had the tiger killed a dog and waited for Mels to follow? If so why had he followed? Was Mels bleeding already? A man thought he has been limping earlier but another said no, he had just been drunk. The men pored over the tracks uneasy trying to piece together the parts of the story. Suddenly a swish of movement, they all start and become aware how quiet the wood is around them. The retreat back the way they had come, guns bristling, they do not return for several days and then at last they find what remains of Mel, his face eaten off. His nephew disappeared soon after, whether he had died or been killed or simply left depended on who you talked to.

So now Katia was here in the cabin of the dead man. Growing colder as the night grew heavier around her. She rocked herself gently hands clasped protectively over her stomach. Hush little baby, hush little baby, she muttered nonsensically whether to herself or the thing inside of her she couldn't have said. She heard a lift of voices, but they could be miles away.

She wanted to blow out the candle but looking at it gave her the illusion of warmth. She hesitated and the world grew quiet again. She must have slept a little though she hardly knew it, she could not tell if the noises around her were real or the product of her fretted dreams. The crunch of a footstep, voices, a breaking branch. At one point she gathered her courage to get up and blow out the candle but then she found herself awake again, the candle a stub but still alight - horribly visible standing in the window. Another crunch - something was moving outside the cabin though if it was human or animal she couldn’t say. Steady footsteps walking around once, pause walking again. Was that a whisper or the wind? A call that might or might not have been a bird. Katia held her breath not knowing what they were waiting for. They had come, they had forgotten their fear and they had come. She had no strength to resist them now, it was too late to run so she waited defenceless for the door to crash down for the men with guns who would drag her back to await her fate - unless drunk with vodka and power they simplified matters and ended things here in the forest.

A terrible yell startled her, she had been listening so intently that the suddenness hurt her and she covered her ears. A gun went off - close very close, more yelling and a rush of crunching feet. She hid her head and waited for and endless stretch of time. Her heart hammered so loud in her hears it almost muffled the shots that exploded around her, so loud she thought they must be shooting over her head. Were they trying to frighten her or to kill her? She was certainly frightened if not yet dead. Another shout prolonged and strangely quiet after the explosion of the guns. She raised her head cautiously. The door was still closed. The candle had burnt out but the first fingers of dawn were feeling their way through the treetops casting the cabin in a dim bluish light. She sat stock still for a long time as the light grew around her.

Later, much later, she pushed open the door of the cabin. By the door was a gun - discarded, the show was a churned mass of pink with splashed of deep visceral red. Distinctly in front of her was a trail of new paw prints, one stained a little at its centre. Katia picked up her backpack, shrugged and followed.