Sound Bite

I heard a mountain lion last Saturday.

At first I thought it was a drunken snowmobiler. Then I reminded myself there are no drunken snowmobilers up around The Cabin, due to stalagmites from the 4-billion-year-old Canadian Shield jutting up out of the bedrock like teeth, as if Mother Earth was just hankering to swallow some asshole on a Polaris 700 Dragon Switchback whole. Chomp, chomp, that's all she wrote.

The absence of drunken snowmobilers is one reason we continue to cling for dear life to our little neck of the woods. That, and the Wolf and the Raven and the Bear and the Deer and the Big Sea Water. And now the Mountain Lion.

Mountain lion, puma, cougar, panther, it's all puma concolor to you.

I didn't actually see the mountain lion, I heard it. Afterward I looked it up in Peterson's, the Bible of Pantheists Everywhere, and was told the voice of a mountain lion is "indescribable," followed by a few descriptions: a woman screaming, hysterical laughter, machinery vocalizing. Huh? The book went on to mention the myriad sounds a housecat makes by way of comparison.

Hold the phone. Whoever came up with the term housecat? Is that, like, the same category as housewife? houseboat? I don't think so. Cats only live in your house because there's no velvet upholstery out on the back forty, or to use your BlackBerry. Although the myriad sounds part is right on. A dog will follow you from room to room panting unintelligibly just to be in Your Holy Presence, while a cat will stand in the front hallway and, in the voice of your eighth grade gym teacher, command you to Quit Wandering Around Like An Asshole And Get Me A Sandwich Now!! If I had to translate what the mountain lion was saying on Saturday, it would be something along the lines of Quit Shitting Your Pants Like An Asshole And Get Me Some Venison Now!! 

Here's what happened:

The husky and I were at the cabin window, enjoying the thin February sun, watching a half dozen deer at the feeder in the clearing. Suddenly the deer stopped eating, raised their heads in unison, and stared into the woods. Then they turned en masse and bolted toward the lake and were gone. Just like that. You know how a deer will freeze, unmoving as a statue, all its senses riveted? Followed by a hasty departure, as if some All Powerful Deer Cop has commanded them to Get The Fuck Outta Dodge NOW I Mean NOW!! 

The husky and I stepped out onto the porch, and that's when we heard it. The drunken snowmobiler. The hysterical laughing mechanical woman. Loud, amplified, echoing. A voice which ricocheted so wildly I wasn't sure where it came from. Only that it came from a living being, and not one I had ever encountered.

The voice continued for maybe twenty seconds, then abruptly stopped. Complete stillness. An absence masking a presence. We stood for some time, unmoving as statues, all our senses riveted. Until something palpable in the air began to fade. And then once again it was cold, and the chickadees chattered, and a draft of woodsmoke from the chimney descended into the clearing like a mirage.

As the hours passed and the sun went down, doubt set in. What had I actually heard? Could I have been mistaken? But then I'd remember how the deer had disappeared, how the husky's fur had stood on end.

In the morning the deer were back. I filled the feeder, made coffee, stoked the fire. I was headed across the yard with the ash pan, when I saw them: there in the snow on the Dead End road that runs past our door, a fresh set of tracks leading down toward the lake. The tracks of an animal with enormous paws. An animal who, unlike a wolf, walks through snow with its claws retracted. Just like Peterson's said.

So how was your weekend?