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hurt Travis’s ears. The tone of savage fury in its voice was daunting. The dog was warning the unseen enemy to stay back.
    “Easy, boy,” Travis said softly. “Easy.”
    The retriever stopped barking but did not glance at Travis. It stared intently into the brush, peeling its pebbly black lips off its teeth and growling deep in its throat.
    Still breathing hard, Travis got to his feet and looked east into the woods. Evergreens, sycamores, a few larches. Shadows like swatches of dark cloth were fastened here and there by golden pins and needles of light. Brush. Briars. Climbing vines. A few well-worn toothlike formations of rock. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
    When he reached down and put a hand upon the retriever’s head, the dog stopped growling, as if it understood his intention. Travis drew a breath, held it, and listened for movement in the brush.
    The cicadas remained silent. No birds sang in the trees. The woods were as still as if the vast, elaborate clockwork mechanism of the universe had ceased ticking.
    He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas.
    Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve.
    He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves—and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big. It sounded about forty feet away, but he could not pinpoint its location.
    At his side, the retriever had gone rigid. Its floppy ears were slightly pricked, straining forward.
    The unknown adversary’s raspy breathing was so creepy—whether because of the echo effect of the forest and canyon, or because it was just creepy to begin with—that Travis quickly took off his backpack, un-snapped the flap, and withdrew the loaded .38.
    The dog stared at the gun. Travis had the weird feeling that the animal knew what the revolver was—and approved of the weapon.
    Wondering if the thing in the woods was a man, Travis called out: “Who’s there? Come on out where I can see you.”
    The hoarse breathing in the brush was now underlaid with a thick menacing gnarl. The eerie guttural resonance electrified Travis. His heart beat even harder, and he went as rigid as the retriever beside him. For interminable ticking seconds, he could not understand why the noise itself had sent such a powerful current of fear through him. Then he realized that what frightened him was the noise’s ambiguity: the beast’s growl was definitely that of an animal . . . yet there was also an indescribable quality that bespoke intelligence, a tone and modulation almost like the sound that an enraged man might make. The more he listened, the more Travis decided it was neither strictly an animal nor human sound. But if neither . . . then what the hell was it?
    He saw the high brush stirring. Straight ahead. Something was coming toward him.
    “Stop,” he said sharply. “No closer.”
    It kept coming.
    Now just thirty feet away.
    Moving slower than it had been. A bit wary perhaps. But closing in nevertheless.
    The golden retriever began to growl threateningly, again warning off the creature that stalked them. But tremors were visible in its flanks, and its head shook. Though it was challenging the thing in the brush, it was profoundly frightened of a confrontation.
    The dog’s fear unnerved Travis. Retrievers were renowned for boldness and courage. They were bred to be the companions of hunters, and were frequently used in dangerous rescue operations. What peril or foe could provoke such dread in a strong, proud dog like this?
    The thing in the brush continued toward them, hardly more than twenty feet away now.
    Though he had as yet seen nothing extraordinary, he was filled with superstitious terror, a perception of indefinable but