Date with a Devil

The tiger licked his lips. Then he circled the tail around. Then I knew that the tiger has found a kill. The tiger started to move in the direction it came from at the same angle as before from my tree. I did not know where it was going. But slowly slowly it started to turn towards me. I did not know what the tiger thought but it had the killer instinct. Then I realized that it was coming for me. The tiger stopped at about 50 yards and roared and ran towards me with full speed. There was a chance that I could go up a bit high on the tree, but still I would have been in tiger’s range. For some reason, neither I was scared of the tiger nor did I think about it. So I stayed put. You have to be on the edge to face such a dangerous situation not thinking of life or death. If you get scared then you die. But if you are not scared, then you have an equal chance of survival and success in your endeavour. The tiger knew what he thought. I had to fight it out on my behalf. I also had to have a killer instinct to play such a dangerous game. I forgot about the gun and instead I chose to stay there and wrapped my left arm around a small branch so that I could protect myself from falling. The tiger came running towards me and I cocked the gun and aimed for the head of the tiger and kept moving the gun as the tiger moved towards me and kept it aligned with tiger’s head. When the tiger was about ten feet from my tree and it was the last step before the tiger jumped to pick me up; I pressed both triggers. As I said, muzzle loader gun was loaded long time ago and one fired the other did not! The tiger did not jump high enough to pick me up; instead it jumped and put its steps hard on the ground just below me by the trunk of the tree. It happened in a split second. I did not know whether I hit the tiger or not. It was very difficult to think of anything at that time. The tiger pushed its paws deep into the ground and immediately turned east and ran away with the same speed. There was a small patch of dense grass about 25 yards from my tree which I was guarding for the deer to come out of. The tiger jumped and entered the grass. I did not see the grass moving any further. I did not know where the tiger went. It was a scary situation for me. 3