"That's a good boy," he said slyly, coaxingly. "That's better. You and I can be 
friends, huh?"
  The dog issued a conciliatory whine, that familiar and appealing sound all dogs make to 
express their natural desire to be loved.
  "Now, we're getting somewhere," Travis said, taking another step toward the retriever 
with the intention of stooping and petting it.
  Immediately, the dog leaped at him, snarling, and drove him back across the clearing. 
It got its teeth in one leg of his jeans, shook its head furiously. He kicked at it, 
missed. As Travis staggered out of balance from the misplaced kick, the dog snatched the 
other leg of his pants and ran a circle around him, pulling him with it. He hopped 
desperately to keep up with his adversary but toppled and slammed to the ground again.
  "Shit!" he said, feeling immeasurably foolish.
  Whining again, having reverted to a friendly mood, the dog licked one of his hands.
  "You're schizophrenic," Travis said.
  The dog returned to the other end of the clearing. It stood with its back to him, 
staring down the deer trail that descended through the cool shadows of the trees. 
Abruptly, it lowered its head, hunched its shoulders. The muscles in its back and 
haunches visibly tensed as if it were preparing to move fast.
  "What're you looking at?" Travis was suddenly aware that the dog was not fascinated by 
the trail itself but, perhaps, by something on the trail. "Mountain lion?" he wondered 
aloud as he got to his feet. In his youth, mountain lions-specifically, cougars-had 
prowled these woods, and he supposed some still hung on.
  The retriever grumbled, not at Travis this time but at whatever had drawn its 
attention. The sound was low,, barely audible, and to Travis it seemed as if the dog was 
both angry and afraid.
  Coyotes? Plenty of them roamed the foothills. A pack of hungry coyotes might alarm even 
a sturdy animal like this golden retriever.
  With a startled yelp, the dog executed a leaping-scrambling turn away from the shadowed 
deer trail. It dashed toward him, past him, to the other arm of the woods, and he thought 
it was going to disappear into the forest. But at the archway formed by two sycamores, 
through which Travis had come Only minutes ago, the dog stopped and looked back 
expectantly. With an air of frustration and anxiety, it hurried in his direction again, 
swiftly circled him, grabbed at his pants leg, and wriggled backward, trying to drag him 
with it.
  "Wait, wait, okay," he said. "Okay."
  The retriever let go. It issued one woof, more a forceful exhalation than a bark.
  Obviously-and astonishingly-the dog had purposefully prevented him from proceeding 
along the gloomy stretch of the deer trail because something was down there. Something 
dangerous. Now the dog wanted him to flee because that dangerous creature was drawing 
nearer.
  Something was coming. But what?
  Travis was not worried, just curious. Whatever was approaching might frighten a dog, 
but nothing in these woods, not even a coyote or a cougar, would attack a grown man.
  Whining impatiently, the retriever tried to grab one leg of Travis's jeans again.
  Its behavior was extraordinary. If it was frightened, why didn't it run off, forget 
him? He was not its master; it owed him nothing, neither affection nor protection. Stray 
dogs do not possess a sense of duty to strangers, do not have a moral perspective, a 
conscience. What did this animal think it was, anyway-a freelance Lassie?
  "All right, all right," Travis said, shaking the retriever loose and accompanying it to 
the sycamore arch.
  The dog dashed ahead, along the ascending trail, which led up toward the canyon rim, 
through thinning trees and brighter light.
  Travis paused at the sycamores. Frowning, he looked across the sun-drenched clearing at 
the night-dark hole in the forest where the descending portion of the trail began. What 
was coming?
  The shrill cries of the cicadas cut off simultaneously, as if a phonograph needle was 
lifted from a recording. The woods were preternaturally silent.
  Then Travis heard something rushing up the lightless trail. A scrabbling noise. A 
clatter as of dislodged stones. A faint rustle of dry brush. The thing sounded closer 
than it probably was, for sound was amplified as it echoed up through the narrow tunnel 
of trees. Nevertheless, the creature was coming fast. Very fast.
  For the first time, Travis sensed that he was in grave peril. He knew that nothing in 
the woods was big or bold enough to attack him, but his intellect was overruled by 
instinct. His heart hammered.
  Above him, on the higher path, the retriever had become aware of his hesitation. It 
barked agitatedly.
  Decades ago, he might have thought an enraged black bear was racing up the deer trail, 
driven mad by disease or pain. But the cabin dwellers and weekend hikers-outriders of 
civilization-had pushed the few remaining bears much farther back into the Santa Anas.
  From the sound of it, the unknown beast was within seconds of reaching the clearing 
between the lower and higher trails.
  The length of Travis's spine, shivers tracked like melting bits of sleet trickling down 
a windowpane.
  He wanted to see what the thing was, but at the same time he had gone cold with dread, 
a purely instinctive fear.
  Farther up the canyon, the golden retriever barked urgently.
  Travis turned and ran.
  He was in excellent shape, not a pound overweight. With the panting retriever leading, 
Travis tucked his arms close to his sides and sprinted up the deer trail, ducking under 
the few low-hanging branches. The studded soles of his hiking boots gave good traction; 
he slipped on loose stones and on slithery layers of dry pine needles, but he did not 
fall. As he ran through a false fire of flickering sunlight and shadow, another fire 
began to burn in his lungs.
  Travis Cornell's life had been full of danger and tragedy, but he'd never flinched from 
anything. In the worst of times, he calmly confronted loss, pain, and fear. But now 
something peculiar happened. He lost control. For the first time in his life, he 
panicked. Fear pried into him, touching a deep and primitive level where nothing had ever 
reached him before. As he ran, he broke out in gooseflesh and cold sweat, and he did not 
know why the unknown pursuer should fill him with such absolute terror.
  He did not look back. Initially, he did not want to turn his eyes away from the 
twisting trail because he was afraid he would crash into a low branch. But as he ran, his 
panic swelled, and by the time he had gone a couple of hundred yards, the reason he did 
not look back was because he was afraid of what he might see.
  He knew that his response was irrational. The prickly sensation along the back of his 
neck and the iciness in his gut were symptoms of a purely superstitious terror. But the 
civilized and educated Travis Cornell had turned over the reins to the frightened 
child-savage that lives in every human being-the genetic ghost of what we once were-and 
he could not easily regain control even though he was aware of the absurdity of his 
behavior. Brute instinct ruled, and instinct told him that he must run, run, stop 
thinking and just run.