“XERO/PHYTE” *COMING 2026*

Prologue:

  Twilight begins to blanket an unnamed valley in the Santa Rita mountain range of Southern Arizona. In a secret cave hidden above a wide area of rocky talus… is La Patron, a two-hundred-pound female jaguar just awakening for her nightly hunt. The last rays of summer and heat of the day giving into warm night air, a cool breeze hinting at the mild winter coming. La Patron sticks head and shoulders out of the small alcove to scan the vale. 
  Her sallow cat eyes pan from the mountain ridge across the basin and dry hills dotted with cacti, to the more forested area to the north. She sniffs the air, opening her jaws wide allowing scents on the wind to hit the roof of her mouth… there is nothing around to concern her. This big cat is queen of the valley tonight. Two winters past she stumbled upon the stony hideaway, periodically returning on her journeys through the Park.
  Leaving her rocky hiding spot, the heavy jaguar deftly hops down the ledge and across the field of red boulders to make her way through the trees. As the great spotted cat quietly haunts the mountain trail on light paws, a hunger claws in the back of her throat. Her powerful shoulders heave as she stalks, nearly invisible in this terrain and lack of sunlight with her black-spotted coat.    
  Night falls as she makes her path… East the land rolls down, forest turns to desert hills. Far off west the high rocky ridges frame great valleys with small rivers running through, each several miles apart. Tough desert pines decorate the slopes with green amongst the red rocks and dirt. Hidden caverns and rocky hollows dot the high ground. Past the neighboring mountain range lies a maze of canyons and mesas’ extending over the horizon. 
  This land is harsh but plentiful for the right beast, the thinking predator, the huntress... A winding strip of woodland running miles south to north like a corridor for all manner of wildlife. Elk, oryx and deer roam on their migration paths. With less than a day’s march down to lower elevations, the great jaguar can awaken in a pine forest and spend the same night in a desert cave surrounded by Saguaros. The Sonoran landscape as vivid as it is unforgiving. Yellow eyes scan the trees and brush as she stalks on near-silent paws, claws hidden. The sudden scent of a passing Javelina perks her ears up.
  After determining its direction, she swiftly chooses a nearby tree to climb and await her prey. A silent moment passes, the big cat perched on a thick branch a few feet off the ground. Gold colored eyes watching in the darkness… till the wild hog, just reaching mating age, comes oinking through the brittlebushes. La Patron freezes as it walks by her tree… and without a sound she lightly leaps from her perch directly onto the boar. With a sideways roll and one harsh snap of her great jaws around the small pig’s neck, a short squeal is extinguished as she rips the swine’s throat open. Slowly she feasts on the flesh; the rest of this night will be spent patrolling her valley, the big cat needs her strength. 
  This mighty jaguar was born hundreds of miles away, in the rainforest on the border of Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico. She’s raised two litters of kittens in her extensive travels north to this protected square of land hugging the US- Mexico border. In this harsh, wild country one could be forgiven for forgetting a moment the camps of immigrants, massive protests. Huge cities that grow over the border, meeting places of nations. Unending political and social battles that go on and on over the imaginary line across the ground…
  Save for the occasional streak high in the skies of an aircraft’s trail, or the faint buzz of a passing Border Patrol surveillance drone, there is little evidence of man’s works in the vast majority of Santa Rita National Park. Here, La Patron is the queen. Here she hunts. Here she rules. For the past three winters, short but noticeable, has the great jaguar called this protected patch of wilderness in Southern Arizona her home. La Patron is an exceptionally large female, her jaws are hefty, muscles ripple along her limbs under a spotted coat. Her paws are massive, a thick black and yellow tail waves behind her. 
  Nature is a thing of wonders, a thing of coincidences. Why did she choose north instead of south? Desert valleys over the rainforests and tropical rivers her brothers, sisters and cousins now hunt. Why? How. These things aren’t in her mind. She finishes her meal leaving the small boar down to bones with strips of meat. The carcass will feed insects and desert rodents. After dawn a condor will pick the remains, another majestic beast of these strange hills… she moves on, her yellow-black shape shimmers and dances in the dark, gliding between the trees at a light pace… 
  Just after midnight the great spotted cat munches fern leaves growing by a babbling brook, a remedy to clear the hair and bone bits from her gut after a meal. The big cat wades through the small stream, flowing high from heavy rains of the past moons. She flicks water off her paws in all directions…. Until she finally comes across a small Apache trout. With a swipe of her right claws, she easily plucks it from the shallow, rocky creek. Munching the flapping fish in a few bites, she again flicks water droplets off her paws into the dark of night. With a belly half full of boar flesh, trout and fern leaves she stalks further down her path… the smell on the night air is different. She opens her massive jaws to allow the scent receptors on the roof of her mouth to do their work… then she tastes it, a scent she hasn’t sniffed in years… She can smell humans.