Lion Head Mesa peach pit

As she descends, he rises. He becomes like a pantherine figure prowling as quickly as he can to the wall beneath where she was standing; his muscles tense, and he leaps with a scramble of claws against the wall so he is propped on his hind legs.

When she peers over at him he is there—closer but not within reach of her. Big yellow whale-eye and clattering teeth as he snaps for her.

He's a big boy; at least as big as she is, oddly. The sun ignites the browns of his coat and shows the ruddy notes, the darker sables.

When he fails, he falls back and is standing at his full height on all-fours again, pacing, with the long summer furs along his shoulders jutting up and spiking. He snorts a few times, likely a result of inhaling the red dust of the pit.