Lisa stopped beside him, crouching low. Her breath hitched as she instinctively ducked, scanning the clearing ahead with a tightening chest. Through the trees ahead, a shallow clearing opened into a slope that curved gently downward into a gully. And moving slowly through the clearing, low, graceful, and powerful, was a mountain lion.
Lisa froze. It moved with the eerie silence of something born to disappear. Its tawny coat shimmered against the foliage. Its tail flicked like a rope in the wind. And in its mouth, held not by the scruff, but gently between its jaws, was a small, white bundle.