But the night sky made the heat and the trek worth it all. The black expanse was brilliant with stars, millions of millions, put there by the hand of God, Daddy said, put there by a Big Bang according to his teacher—who got in trouble for telling a scientific principle in a Creationist school district.
Trace kinda liked the idea of blending the two, because that would explain the light show of meteors streaking overhead. He’d called it God’s Big Bang Fart. But only to Wayman, and not at home, where his daddy might use his fists to drive the devil outta his soul. Six meteors dashed across the sky, spreading out from one another as if they had broken off a bigger piece.
“God’s farting again,” Wayman said, laughing.
Trace laughed too and made farting sounds with his mouth.
The meteor shower was supposed to be brightest after four a.m., which was long after the moon set, but they had plans to be back at the tent and the bikes by then and it was a long hike. He wished he’d brought the cooler of chili. He was hungry and his stomach rumbled.
Mama made the best chili in the state, and she was sharing her secret chili recipe with him, trading out chores for cooking lessons. Mama—Miz Lizzie to the church members—was a saint to put up with Daddy. He’d heard one of the church ladies say so. Trace didn’t know much about being a saint, but Mama could sing real pretty on Sundays, and she sure could cook.
The numbers of meteors increased, streaking across the sky, some big, some tiny, gone in an eyeblink.
About the time the silver slice of moon was setting, and the meteors were coming fast and furious, prickles started running up and down the back of Trace’s neck. Maybe them rattlesnakes he’d thought about on the trip out here. Or the owner of the bobcat paw prints they had seen. Bigger than his hand.
Trace sat up, uncertain what he’d heard. Or sensed. He picked up the flashlight and his shotgun.
He flicked on his flashlight and slowly shined it around them. Rocks,sand, prickly grasses. Until his flash caught something golden and silver on the small hillock across the wash from them. Two somethings. They went away. Reappeared. He steadied his light on the golden silver things. And realized they were eyes.
“Wayman, we got a problem,” Trace said softly, even though he’d broke out in a cold sweat and wanted nothing more than to run screaming into the night.
“What?”
“Remember the paw prints we saw down in the wash?”
Wayman sat up slowly. “Yeah. Bobcat. It was a big ’un.”
“Well, I think it found us. And it’s bigger than a bobcat.”
Wayman eased around on his butt to face the direction of the beam. His voice dropped to a whisper, as if to hide their location from the cat. “It’s a cat, though. Pretty big. Spotted.”
“Spotted,” Trace said, thinking about one particular biology class last year. “Maybe a leopard or a jaguar.”
“Cowmen killed off the last jaguar from these parts in the early nineteen hundreds, according to Grampa. Ain’t no leopards here ’bouts.”
“Too big to be a bobcat,” Trace said softly. “Bobcats ain’t got them kinda spots. Should I shoot it?”
“No. If you don’t kill it with the first shot,” Wayman said, “it might attack from the pain. We need to get back to the camp, slow and easy. Grampa said never to run from a predator.”
As he said the last words, the big cat opened its mouth and yawned, showing off big—very big—teeth. The cat licked its jaw and chuffed, as if agreeing with the statement.
“So what do we do?” Trace asked.
Wayman stood, slowly, very,veryslowly, and Trace copied his speed. Wayman gathered up their blanket and water bottles. The cat, caught in the flashlight’s beam, watched them, turning to the side from time to time, to protect its eyes from the bright light. Trace wondered if it could jump from one hillock to the next or if they were safe here on the other side of the wash.
Wayman turned on his own flash and said, “Okay. You keep your flash on the cat. I’m gonna scream.”
It was good to have the warning because Wayman could scream likea little girl, a high-pitched, terrifying sound. Wayman opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and let loose.
The big cat took off like its tail was on fire and was gone.
The scream ended and Wayman sounded spooked. “Dayum, Trace. That thing was big. That was a jaguar or leopard fer sure.”
Trace said nothing. His senses were frozen, his ears deadened from Wayman’s ear-piercing scream, his breathing fast from fear.
“Come on, Trace. Let’s get back to the tent afore it finds us again.”
They clattered down the hillock to the wash below, Trace wondering how the tent would protect them from a jaguar—if that’s what it was, and not a devil cat. His daddy’s sermons about demons who take up the form of predators and hunt humans banged around in his skull. The Nephilim and demons with huge teeth and claws. Like the spotted thing caught in his flashlight.
