Watchers

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