Descripción o resumen: `It was a few months later on, when Samantha was twelve years old, and I was fourteen, and winter come on, and the wind was blowing a gale, and dark was a thing we dreaded, that the panther called on us again.' In the remote hill country of Texas, Samantha Shreve, the young daughter of a former slave, and her half-brother are terrorised by a ferocious panther. Orphaned, without protection or money, the pair must fight to survive against the odds. But this twelve year old girl has more than survival in mind: she wants revenge on the beast that killed her mother.