Endurance - Jack Kilborn [104]
Two feet away now.
Eighteen inches.
A foot.
Deb reached up, ready to grasp a crooked branch, to test to see if it would hold her weight.
The crooked branch moved.
Deb’s jaw dropped.
That’s not a branch.
I know what that is.
It’s a tail.
A crooked tail.
The tail swished, and then moved away. It was replaced by a triangular head and two golden eyes.
The cougar.
The cougar with the zigzag tail.
The same one that almost killed me when I fell.
She gasped.
Jesus Christ. It’s come back to finish the job.
And then Deb lost her grip and began to slide down the face of the mountain.
“Hey! Boy! Y’all think you a squirrel, hidin’ up in that tree?”
Felix opened his eyes to a world of pain.
His fingers. His head. His ribs. His hips. His back. Just about every square inch of him hurt. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Even thinking hurt.
Plus, he was in a tree.
He looked around, saw he was wedged in the V of a big oak. It was bright outside, the morning sun blinding, and Felix’s memories of last night were hazy. But he did recall the cougar, tugging him by his shirt collar, pulling until Felix couldn’t breathe anymore.
I must have passed out, and he stashed me in this tree.
Felix knew that other big cats often dragged their prey into trees to keep it from other predators and scavengers. Apparently mountain lions did too.
“I’m talkin’ to ya, boy!”
The tree shook. Felix chanced a look down. Though he’d only seen him before in silhouette, he recognized Ulysses, the tow truck driver. The large man was prettier in the dark. His large, squarish head had a nose that was crooked by about forty-five degrees, making it look like it wasn’t completely screwed on. His eyes were also uneven, one higher than the other. He resembled a Picasso.
Ulysses beat the tree trunk with his crowbar once more.
“I been looking all god dang night for y’all. Getcher ass down here, boy.”
Felix didn’t think that was a good idea. In fact, he was content to stay up here for the rest of his life. Felix was at least ten feet high, and Ulysses was far too big to climb up after him.
“‘Kay. You asked for it.”
The big man waddled off. Felix wondered what he was going to do.
Light the tree on fire? Chop it down?
The giant returned with a long length of chain. He wrapped it around the tree trunk and secured it with a heavy padlock.
“Tim-ber, asshole.”
Then Felix watched him walk over to his truck.
Oh, no.
Felix stared down at the ground. A painful drop if he was completely healthy. In his current condition, the fall would be intolerable.
But it beats being dragged behind a tow truck.
Ulysses gunned his engine. Felix realized that the longer he waited, the less courage he would have, so he pressed his mangled hands against the branch, whimpered at the pain in his ribs as he unwedged himself, and then plummeted to earth.
Hitting the ground was like falling into hell. The pain reached such dizzying heights that it was all he could think about, the only sensation he felt.
Then there was a tremendous cracking sound, like the world was breaking in half, and Felix opened his bleary eyes and saw the tree splitting at the base, dropping down on top of him.
His last remnants of survival instinct kicked in, and Felix rolled away before he was crushed, momentum taking him down into a ditch filled with high grass as the tree was tugged past.
Made it. They haven’t killed me yet.
He was dimly aware of the fallen tree slowing down and coming to a stop, and a truck door slamming shut. Ulysses was coming to inspect his work.
Gotta get up. Gotta get away.
Miraculously, Felix made it to his feet. He kept low, stumbling past Ulysses as the large man assessed the damage he’d done.
“Where in the heck are ya, boy?”
You want to know where I am? I’m getting into your