When the bus stops I disembark and promptly hunt down some chai. It’s late evening, and the air is chilly, even (especially?) after seven hours spent in the back of a trundling, sweaty bus. Before too long I am met by the 4x4 that will shuttle me through Jim Corbett National Park and Tiger Reserve, on up to the village of Marchula. From the village, I’ll begin the two-kilometre hike to the Himalayan Outback’s riverside camp. I throw my stuff in the truck and we roar off.

A little later we stop and I realize I’ve been dozing. I also realize that we’re not merely stopped, but stranded: the engine won’t start, we don’t get cell service, and we have to walk up the road for help or reception or something.

Sometimes it pays to go with the flow, I tell myself tritely. The guy in the passenger’s seat and I set out. His name is Dharampal, I learn. Lakhi, the driver, will stay with the vehicle.

            Between our soles and the asphalt, there’s a thin layer of noisy sand. Each footfall seems to rip the night.

            Hmmm. We really are in the middle of nowhere.

It’s a few hundred metres of walking before I’m able to take stock of all that’s happening:

(1) we’re abandoning our vehicle

(2) to walk, at night,

(3) through a ‘Tiger Reserve’, which is

(4) a parcel of land in the Himalayan foothills singled out because of its

(5) exceptionally high density of tigers – the tiger being, among other things,

(6a) one of the few animals, along with the polar bear, known to hunt humans for its food and

(6b) a creature exceptionally fond of doing its hunting and other sinister activities in the night.

But tiger attacks are rare, right? My pace, along with my pulse, probably quickens with the thought. Sure! You hear about tiger attacks in India from time to time, but that’s probably only because of the sheer number of people here. In a country of over a billion, someone is bound to get munched periodically.

Holy-god-what-is-that!? Something is breaking branches in the roadside thicket! Before realizing it, we’ve made an abrupt detour toward the opposite shoulder. Then, just as quickly, we stop. Unable to go on, twenty meters from the thicket-beast, we wait for it to reveal itself:

A deer. It is a deer.

We keep walking.

“Very dangerous place,” intones Dharampal, a little breathless.

“Uh-huh!” I answer, not liking the way it sounds. I clear my throat, but don’t like the way that sounds either.

Tiger Attack. I consider the idea seriously for the first time. Statistically unlikely in the grand scheme of things, for sure.

Then, all at once, I recognize our plight for what it really is: the culmination of an unusually elaborate conspiracy with fate to be successfully stalked, killed, and ingested by a tiger. I have to hand it to myself: I’m in the best position I can be in if my goal is to get devoured.

“Adventure Land,” Dharampal adds thinly, no doubt having similar thoughts.

From out of the darkness, a dimly lit checkpoint emerges. (We’re saved!) After an unfruitful interaction with the sleeping guy in the tiger-proof hut – (they have no phone, and the truck they are about to send down-road doesn’t think we could use a ride; it rumbles off) – we are out walking in the dark again, this time back the way we came.

I try to hail a passing convoy of Land Cruisers and they nearly run us over, not slowing one kph.

Who wouldn’t stop!? We’re going to be eaten! Don’t they know this?!

“Are they tourists?” I ask Dharampal after the dust clears.

“Yes,” he responds. I imagine Indian drivers with white cargo, under orders not to render aid to any roadside ruffians, even if said ruffians’ lives are in serious danger.

We plod on.

Presently we arrive back at the truck (The Truck!). Lakhi has been asleep in the back. Just then another group of SUVs comes barreling down around the turn. I step into the roadway melodramatically.

They stop. They are Indian tourists, in open-air 4x4s, out for a night-time jaunt in their resort’s vehicles, hoping to see some wildlife. They agree to give us a ride down the road. We hop in.

In first gear, we crawl along, waiting to surprise some animals or something. The engine yells indignantly on the downgrade.

One man in the backseat passes me some whiskey, and I realize he’s drunk. He manages to ascertain my country of origin, that I’ve been to India once before, that I traveled in this state, though it had a different name then, and that I am here “for fishing.” He also manages to goad me into taking a few pulls of his dilute whiskey before I begin nodding off again.

I am awakened periodically: whenever a terrified herd of unfortunate animals winds up in our headlights (often), we stop the trucks, everyone cheers, and we watch them filter, trembling, into the woods. (This may be the moment wherein most drinking is accomplished.) I wonder how many of them are wasted – the driver? – before slipping into sleep again.

I awake to doors slamming. We‘ve parked the 4x4s, I guess, and the wildlife enthusiasts have headed for their rooms before I can say thanks. Hands in pockets, I pace the grass and dirt parking lot while Dharampal calls someone at the camp.

It’s got to be past 2am by now. I sit on the ground for a moment, but a guard I hadn’t noticed sees me and invites me into his hut. He offers me his spare plastic chair, then closes the door to the cold. We exchange a head bob as he sets down across from me.

The fluorescent light is the only sound. I pull my hood over my eyes and begin to doze.

The guard must take out a bidi and light it, because the smell wakes me. I listen to him pull air through the small cigarette: it crackles and hisses.

The light whines.

            At some point, help arrives.