Tastes Like Fear

Terri lived in the hot, steamy jungles of India where there are real Indians, not Native North Americans, very near Nepal. Terri had grown up tough, on a count of his name, and although there were plenty of Tigers bigger than he was, there were few he had met that were tougher than he was due to all that teasing in grade school.
Terri lived all alone as tigers are wont to do.
Terri’s favorite flavor was fear. He would chase down small animals and then pounce on them and eat them: “Mmm, mmm, tastes like fear.” Nine out of ten cats agree, which is why they play with their food before eating it.
Terri had a less than pleasant disposition.
He also had strange dreams about naked apes with sticks that made loud and sudden noises. He was haunted by these dreams and was sure that he was meant to eat these naked apes and that they would taste very much like fear.
He decided to consult The Old Tiger In The Tree. The Old Tiger In The Tree lived cradled in the arms of a two-hundred-year-old Banyan about forty feet up. To get there, you had to thread your way silently through the thick maze the tangled roots of the ancient tree had made. The maze ended under the main trunk. There you cleared your throat three times and asked your question.
You also had to be a tiger. Well, not really, but it helped because if you were noisy there were huge constricting snakes and extremely sharp beaked birds assigned to eat you. Not to mention The Old Tiger In The Tree who might make you lunch if you weren’t tough enough or smart enough. Terri being both had no trouble.
He cleared his throat three times. “I want to know if it would be wise to try and eat the naked apes with the sticks that make loud and sudden noises.”
There was a long silence. “That’s it?” The voice came from about forty feet up.
“Yes,” said Terri in a voice that betrayed his less than sunny disposition.
“NO.”
Terri waited a long time more. “I didn’t come all this way for a one word answer,” he thought.
“Oh, all right,” said The Old Tiger In The Tree. “They’re called ‘guns’ not ‘sticks that make loud and sudden noises’ and they aren’t just naked apes they’re called ‘poachers.’ The two together though not specifically designed for it per se are very effective tiger killers. Good day.”
Terri left feeling more unpleasant than usual. He went to lie down in his favorite pond and ‘soak on it’ for a while. An unlucky alligator happened by; after a bit of thrashing Terri decided it just tasted angry. He ate it anyway.
He made up his mind to go get a poacher. After a lot of sneaking around and being silent he watched two of them with those gun things walk past from one of his favorite thickets. They smelled vaguely like fear. He stalked them carefully. They set up a blind just a few feet from one of Terri’s own walking trails; up wind.
For a long time all three kept watch, but then one of the poachers decided to take a nap.
This story has a happy ending...if you aren’t a poacher or related to one.
Terri snuck up so close that they should have smelled his breath but then again Terri was also up wind. He bounded into the blind and bit the one who was awake. He yelled but his spine broke under the weight of a six hundred-pound tiger (with a less than sunny disposition). He slashed at the one that was sleeping knocking him out of the blind and onto his feet running. Terri chased after him and caught him--gunless--a few hundred feet away. He dragged him back to the blind where the other one lay screaming, his body too broken to reach his gun.
This story has an especially happy ending for Terri: they really tasted like fear.