Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh Page B

threatens to throw me off balance and pull me under, yet each new step puts more distance between me and the cat. Finally—drenched, coated up to my knees in muck, every bone in my body rattling with cold—I reach the far bank. Exhausted from the effort, I drag myself up, clawing at the sand and gravel bank and crawling on my belly until I reach the tall grass and take cover.
    My spear stilltight in my fist, I allow myself to lift my head. Just ten paces downstream I spot him, immune tothe swift current, moving above the water. He walks on a broken tree limb, wedged between jutting rocks on one side and red clay on the other, forming a crude bridge.
    In my panic, I’d failed to notice it. But the cat did not.
    Now, just one leap away, the cat is coming for me.

NINE
    I am out of options. He will be on me before I can make the shot with my spear. In hopes of reaching thicker cover and disappearing from sight, I turn and race toward a line of scrubby brush and stunted trees that rises from the grass just twenty paces away. My heart pounds in my chest like a drum—like the rapid drumbeat used by Urar to denote the heartbeat of the Divine.
    Let this bemy prayer. . . . Let my pounding, racing heartbeat be my prayer.
    I hear him, his feet trampling the same grass as mine, just a moment behind. I watch my own shadow running at my feet, until it is overcome, swallowed up by a larger shadow. Something heavy falls against my back and knocks me to the ground.
    I fall . . . roll . . . land on my back in time to see the eyes of the cat as he preparesto pounce. He coils back, thickbands of muscle in his legs twitching with power.
    My spear slides in my sweat-drenched hand.
    Just as he springs, I pull my spear in front of my chest. As the cat lunges—mouth open, curved teeth aimed at my throat—the spear plunges into his belly. Before the whole of his weight can pin me down, I roll to the side and he falls, bleeding, beside me.
    I scramble tomy feet and grab the knife from my belt. Remembering the chilling look in the eye of the mammoth I’d killed last year, I lean over and slit the cat’s throat with the blade to bring him a quick death.
    A horrid sound—a gurgle of fear and loss—rises from the cat’s open mouth. The sound echoes in my ears and I wonder if I, too, let out a cry. I can’t be sure. I drop to the ground, the blood-coveredblade in my blood-covered hand.
    As my own fear drains away, pain takes its place. My back throbs in stinging waves as each beat of my heart echoes in the gashes torn open by the cat’s claws.
    Fighting to sit up, I shrug off my parka and see that the back is shredded and bloody. I strip out of my wet pants and boots, and I wade back into the creek, staying close to the bank, and ease my woundsinto the water. The chill quickly numbs the pain but also brings a rapid ache to my limbs. I can’t stay in the cold water long, so I climb out again, crawling up over silt and sand.
    I want to lie down and rest, let my clothes dry, maybe eat something—but I know I have to keep moving. That cat may not be alone. Scavengers, even other predators, are likely nearby. Too weak to get to my feet, Idrag my pack and my clothes to the cover of the tree line. I allow myself the time it takes to change into dry pants and boots and do the best I can to apply salve to my wounds. I reach my hand around to my back and try to rub the grease across my cuts, but blood washes it from my fingers and my hand comes away wet and sticky. Still, I have other cuts and scrapes on my arms and chin from my fall,and as I work the salve in, these calm and cool and some of the pain eases. Finally, I pour a few drops of honey onto my tongue before I force myself onto my feet.
    I decide against pulling on a clean parka. The cuts across my back still throb with pain, and the thought of a hide pressing against them sends a wave of nausea through me. Instead I stay stripped to the waist, my tattered parka tiedabove my pants. I sling my