Big Salmon Lake i imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory

a high, child’s scream as the last crush of the leviathan’s jaws sheared away half merrick’s left ear: an homage to his missing right eye. blood began to pour in a blinding sheet; he wailed and struggled out from under the cascade of gut-dark crimson that raked down from the man’s mortal wound.
desperately, anguished drumbeats reverberating in his skull, merrick scrabbled away from the torn wolf and hunched some feet away. his eye burned hatefully toward the creature who had humiliated him, reduced the boy to a choking, piss-fearful child; even now he quaked to think the mountain might rally.
no satisfaction in delivering a fatal blow; it had all been done in the scrape of terror, its animal reeking.
merrick; he panted and snarled, daring the tooth-scored muzzle to swing for him again.