Gilbert was awaked suddenly by a crackle of twigs close to the camp site. Sarah's snores reverberated into Gil's ears letting him know she was still asleep. As Gilbert opened his eyes in the deep darkness he could see nothing for the few seconds until his adjusted. When they did he glanced at Sarah and saw an open bag of jerky lying on her stomach and just beyond her he saw something creeping through the night towards her hammock. Gilbert slowly moved his right hand off of his chest and toward his waist, he took his bowie knife out of its sheath and brought his knife-clutching hand back to his chest. He waited in silence as the adrenaline began pumping through his veins.
The form crept out of the darkness and closer to Sarah until the moonlight illuminated the smooth fur of the mountain lion. The animal stopped next to Sarah's hammock and started sniffing it right to left until it found the bag of jerky on her stomach. The mountain lion raised its paw, laid it on the bag, and started tugging it to the edge of the hammock and onto the ground where all of the meat spilled out. Gilbert turned his eyes from the beast back to his sister who was now laying perfectly still as if asleep but with her eyes wide open. She flicked her glance toward Gil at the same time the mountain lion finished off the jerky. He was still hungry. The mountain lion resumed its sniffing of Sarah's hammock and this time put both paws on her stomach and attempted to climb in. On the first try the mountain lion made it into the hammock. Gilbert could see pain in Sarah's eyes as the beast's weight rested on her own.
Suddenly, the hammock strap near Sarah's feet snapped and she let out a scream. The hammock's two occupants fell to the ground landing on the bumpy tree roots. Now the mountain lion was angry because of the disruption in his examination of a new food source. Both the mountain lion and Sarah got to their feet. Sarah began slowly backing away out of Gilbert's sight and the mountain lion followed after her. Gilbert turned his head to the left side of his hammock where he could see Sarah slowly walking backwards toward the fire. The wild creature continued following her. Gil slowly got out of his hammock doing his best to not draw attention to himself as the lion and Sarah approached the edge of the mountain. Gilbert looked at the fire hoping to see a glow from embers of their fire earlier in the night, he was disappointed. He slowly crouched, grabbed his fire starter from the side pocket of his pack, and tried to catch some tinder on fire. It just a few seconds but felt like an eternity, finally he saw the twigs begin to burn and pushed them under some of the logs that remained in the fire pit.
As the cougar and Sarah reached no further than five feet from the edge Gilbert yelled to get the animal's attention. "Hey, look at me, look at me not her!" The cougar swiftly turned its head around toward Gil and began slinking its way toward him. "That's right, come my way." Sarah stepped away from the edge and toward the fire that was now growing and had caught the bottoms of some logs in the pit. She bent down and grabbed a log's end that was sticking in the air. Slowly, she approached the mountain lion from the side. "Keep comin', keep comin' big boy. You're hungry, come eat." Gilbert said to the prowling beast with his knife stuck in front of him blade up. Finally, as Gilbert was nearing the edge of the clearing the animal leapt toward him. Gil swung with the knife but his strike was swatted away by the big cat's paw as they hit his chest knocking him to the ground.
As the gnarled tree roots dug into Gilbert's back the cougar shot it's open mouth out toward his neck. Just before Gilbert's life was ended, a fiery log slammed into the side of the cougar's head and knocked it off of Gilbert. It rolled once on the ground and before it could get up off of its back Gilbert took his turn pouncing and drove his bowie knife into the beast's chest, withdrew it and repeated the action several times before finally slitting its neck.
