The animal licked its nose and watched him, sitting patiently like a house cat. The head was enormous, topped off with symmetric ears rounded at the tips. The ears flicked to the side and then pointed at him, catching the sound of his ragged breathing. He marveled at its brown coat and thick, long tail that batted the air. Matt didn’t want to say or think the word, but yet here it was. His sore jaw opened and he mumbled the words:

Mountain lion.

Impossible, he thought. They were killed off decades ago. All the biologists said so. This was fact.

As if bored by his line of thought, the mountain lion let out a gaping yawn in the dull morning light, revealing knife-sized teeth. Next, the mountain lion gazed at the shack with what Matt perceived as hungry eyes.

He couldn’t believe how powerful the lion’s back legs were. He remembered reading that mountain lions had an eighteen-foot vertical leap and a forty-foot horizontal leap—from a crouched position. By design, North American mountain lions featured disproportionate hind legs, more so than any other wildcat. If he opened the door, the mountain lion could easily reach him in a single jump. If he decided to run, the lion would catch him. No person can outrun forty-five miles per hour.

Trapped in freaking stereo, Matt thought. Lion on the left of me, Being on the right. Stuck in the shack with you.

He coughed up a yellow hunk of phlegm and it splattered onto the camp stove. The lion’s ears twitched, then settled.

As he watched the mountain lion, the morning grew brighter, frost on the orchard grass reflecting clouds and light. Out behind the dead oak and the lion, far onto the horizon the exposed rock of the Huron’s glowed a subtle red. Matt perceived a wildness he’d never known in this country. The U.P. was always wilder than Chicago, sure, but having a mountain lion sitting here after a hundred years of supposed extinction redefined the landscape’s character. The shadows in the vegetation seemed richer, and the air crackled with possibility.

The mountain lion’s eyes penetrated him, as if it could wait him out forever. Then the lion sniffed the dead thing Matt had flung out there. After getting a good whiff, the lion backed up like a kitten surprised by a bug. The lion arched its head and sneezed. Then it slunk down into the bowl, its thick, black-tipped tail disappearing amidst the grass like a bull snake.

Matt tried to remain still, holding back shivers and a cough. He had no idea what he should do.

What you need to do is get the hell out of here, today, the little voice said. I don’t care how sick you are, Matthew. You have to do it.