Traffic whizzed by the cougar cub as she stood, dazed and confused by the newly constructed road that was cutting her territory in half.

She panted in fear and from lack of water. A drought had settled onto the region, unrelenting, making survival difficult for animals and humans alike.

The sun began to slip beyond the horizon and now the headlights glared in the lion's face as she grew more and more anxious to cross the highway.

Tail twitching with indecision, the little lioness began pacing, her desire to make a dash, strong. She knew the others were over there, it was the direction of home. She also knew there was danger in the moving vehicles. She just couldn't know how much.

She finally ran, her instinct to dart and dodge, getting her across the first two lanes and as the horns blared and tires screeched, she laid her ears flat and flew like a bullet between an eighteen wheeler and a small sedan.

Blind with fear, she spun as the bumper of the car clipped her hind quarters, sending her thin frame flying through the air to land on the slope of a drainage ditch.

And the people in their rush, didn't think twice about the form lying broken and still, her beautiful golden eyes half closed as the small cat died.

It wasn't until the sun was gone and the moon appeared that the mother cat found her lost cub. She sat by her daughter's side, low gutteral meows asking her baby to get up and follow her home.

Hours later, the moon finally retreated into morning and as the sun came up, the mother cougar finally left her cub, to disappear like a ghost into the red hills of Arizona.