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On a ridge flanking the Eastern Sierras, a lone cougar crouched down keeping hidden from two girls who were searching for spring wildflowers. The lion, a fully grown male, four years old, sand colored with black tipped ears, watched with penetrating eyes as the girls walked along the foothills talking and laughing as they progressed. The cougar followed quietly, at first not preparing to attack, yet certainly more than curious about what these creatures were doing. It was not in his nature to let a potential threat go unchallenged. The animal stalked, gazed intently, and waited--living in the moment. Whatever happened, he always lived in the moment.

Ahead of the girls lay a wide rolling meadow of well-watered green grasses with a profusion of lavender irises, transitory and beautiful, poking above the green carpet. The cougar, keeping his long muscular body close to the ground, came down from the ridge and cautiously worked his way into the tall grass where he could watch these two noisy intruders. Their movements didn’t appear to be too threatening, still he didn’t want them wandering in territory he had marked as his own.

Stephanie McClintock, tall for her twelve years, was all elbows and knees though quite pretty, especially her brunette hair and dark eyes. Stephanie carried a presence about her which drew favorable attention wherever she went. The other girl, Adriana Kramer, blonde and fair skinned, was also an attractive girl, though she still retained some of her baby fat and worried about that. Fortunate enough to have acquired natural artistic talent, Adriana was constantly drawing or sketching with wonderful results.

The girls had already gone over a mile from their homes, forgetting about time and distance as they compared the spring flowers with those in the book of California wildflowers Stephanie carried. They were lucky because they had found a few yellow bush poppies and then some golden eardrops, those heart-shaped flowers whose petals faced upward. Adriana made quick sketches of the flowers as they identified them, but neither girl wanted to take any home because they were aware of how frail these flowers could be.

Living in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas one could feel the continent, knowing this was the last tall rise of mountains before a leveling off into rich farmland stretching to the vast Pacific in one direction and the continent reaching across plains and mountains in the other. Most people realized how fortunate they were and lived with that awareness. Others accepted the mountains and fast moving streams as features that would last forever so ignored everything except their moment to moment concerns. Not until an earthquake, an avalanche, or some other danger slid down from the high country, did they pause to worry about such occurrences. What better, more precarious and beautiful place could one find to live?

The young cougar, impelled by necessity, had traveled between the thrust of the mountains onto these eastern foothills of the Sierras. He carried his own rudimentary concerns. It had lived in this locale longer than the local residents realized. Two years earlier, the cougar had come over from the western side of the range where its mother hunted a territory within sight of the Lake of the Fallen Moon in Kings Canyon. No telling where the maverick father had wandered. As soon as he was grown, the youngster was forced to leave and establish his own territory or starve to death.

The cougar explored the area eastward toward the highest ridges, managed to cross the John Muir trail when no hikers were out, then found a way on windblown Sawmill Pass which led him across the high divide and on down to the eastern slopes. He settled on land with no recent traces of other large cats. Bighorn sheep scrambled on the steep slopes above the tree line; mule deer moved among the pines and shrubbery of the lower desert; numerous streams and small lakes offered some chance of surviving. He marked a section with scent rubbing and urine spray and felt confident he could keep the territory from intruders.

"Look over there in that meadow." Adriana pointed. "Are those poppies? What are those beautiful purple flowers?"

"I think they’re irises. Let’s go have a look."

They moved off the path and entered the meadow with the tall green grass. Stephanie paused as she flipped through her book trying to find a match for the irises. Adriana continued into the meadow to get a closer look at a cluster of pale blue flowers. She saw two dark-tipped ears above the level of the grass and could just make out the curved shape of an animal head and two eyes staring directly at her, not ten yards away. She gave out a short scream and instinctively put a hand to her mouth to stifle the scream.

Stephanie heard and saw the problem. "Adriana, don’t scream."

"I’m frightened."

"I know, but don’t scream."

"Let’s get out of here."

"Wait," Stephanie cautioned. "Whatever you do, don’t run. Watch me!" Stephanie stood as tall as she could, then raised the book she was carrying in both hands with her elbows out, making herself look as big as possible. "Grampa said people grow strong if they overcome their fear."

Adriana saw what her friend was doing, but was too frightened to move. "They can only grow if they live."

"Raise your sketch pad over your head."

"No," Adriana said, "I can’t. What if he attacks?"

"He won’t if you...just...move...back...very...slowly."

On relatively flat land where Highway 395 cut through the foothills of the Sierras, located on the stretch between Independence and Bishop, not far from the town of Big Pine, Mac McClintock ran a forty acre sheep ranch. He’d tried raising emus and ostriches on this parcel of land he’d inherited, but soon gave up on those exotic birds for more conventional stock. His wife Sarah, a local resident, attended high school in Lone Pine and Cerro Coso Community College in Bishop. Sarah loved living where her view was not inhibited by concrete walls and tall buildings. Through her kitchen windows she could see jagged snowcapped peaks of the Sierras reaching into clean blue sky to scratch the passing clouds.

Mac, at five-foot-eleven with a strong body, stout arms and legs, physically resembled a logger. Actually he was a working rancher who revered the open country with the sense of peace the space offered, but mostly he loved Sarah. From the first moment he met her when they were attending Cerro Coso College, where he studied agriculture and business, and she was considering a career in ecology, he would tell anyone anytime the happiest day in his life was when he met Sarah. At least according to Mac, she was the prettiest girl in the entire Owens Valley. He knew immediately she was the one for him. Although she did not run toward him, she certainly didn’t turn him away. Still pretty with a smooth clear complexion, though not slim by fashion-magazine standards, Sarah was now a substantial woman with normally a pleasant disposition, secure with a good place to live, a husband she cared for and a lovely dynamic daughter.

When Mac returned that morning from a quick trip up to Bishop, he’d brought with him a young border collie and wanted to show the dog to their daughter.

"Where’s Stephanie?"

"She’s with her friend Adriana. They’re out looking for wildflowers."

"Where?"

"Up by the foothills."

"Ohh! Think I’ll saddle the mare and ride up there."

"Something wrong? Your expression suddenly changed."

"No, honey, nothing to worry about. I want to give the collie a tour of the grounds and maybe surprise Stephanie."

"He’s a beauty." She scratched the dog’s ears, one white and one black. He affectionately licked her hand. "What’s his name?"

"They called him Zippo."

"Zippo? I like that. I’d take Grampa’s horse and go riding with you, but I promised the women’s club I’d do the mailing this month and I better start dinner soon."

"Another time then."

"Are you sure there’s nothing wrong? The girls are all right?"

Instead of answering, Mac kissed Sarah on the cheek and went outside to saddle his horse.

The cougar saw Stephanie raise her book high overhead. At the same time he lifted his head above the grass to get a better look. Adriana, shaking with fear, slowly elevated her arms, too. The animal remained motionless for a while to see what other strange things these creatures might do. A deep rumbling purr, sounding like contented thunder, began to issue from his throat.

Adriana, standing so close she could feel the vibrations, emitted a low moaning cry.

The cougar raised himself so that the whole of his body except for the lower legs and wide paws could be seen above the grass. He stopped purring and moved a couple of tentative steps forward, then paused.

"Ohhh, he’s going to attack."

Stephanie held her arms up while remaining very still, not actually too worried that the animal would do anything harmful. "I don’t think so, Adriana. He just stopped. Don’t make any sudden moves. Try stepping back without scaring him."

"He’s scaring me!" Adriana lowered her arms clenching her sketchbook close to her chest as she bravely moved backward one step at a time without ever taking her eyes off the lion. Every step crunched and crackled as she backed away.

The cougar had never been so close to humans before, yet he sensed a great difference between these two creatures. The one close by was shaking with so much fear he could feel it, the other seemed much more at peace with him and with herself. Aware, alert, inquisitive, the animal considered the presence of both girls and was deciding if he might go closer to the dark-haired one.

Adriana tripped and fell backwards.

That startled the cougar. He backed a few yards away from Adriana in case she made any hostile movements.

"Get up slowly," Stephanie said.

Adriana got herself to a sitting position.

When she stopped moving, the lion’s attention switched again back to Stephanie. Cautiously, he moved forward a few steps, which brought his long lithe body alongside Adriana, close enough that she could have reached out to touch him.

The lion was acutely aware of the closeness of the frightened girl, but his curiosity was still drawn to Stephanie. In the past he’d only experienced humans from a distance. These were small creatures and apparently not powerful or quick. Their actions were not as easy to understand as a rabbit or a coyote. Those either ran or froze. The signals these two emitted were slow and uncertain.

Without warning, he turned around and trotted to the far edge of the meadow where he hesitated once more and stared back over his shoulder. He was holding Stephanie with an unwavering intensity from those pale green eyes, wondering if he could approach her, when he heard the hoofbeats of a horse coming fast. He gave a disapproving growl toward the sound and immediately disappeared in the sagebrush and scattered rocks of the foothills.

The earth all about had been tossed and turned for centuries. Some of it had fallen from the mountains and was lifted again by subterranean forces, before the wind and seasonal rain shaped the rocks and gullies in ways that helped the cougar and other wild beings find places where they could not be seen until they wanted it so.

Stephanie helped Adriana to her feet before her father reached them. "Don’t tell my dad about the lion, okay? He might never let us come out here again."

"I don’t know if I want to come here anymore," Adriana said.

"That cougar wasn’t going to hurt us, you know."

Mac swung down off the horse. "Hi, Stephanie, Adriana. You girls all right?"

"Sure, Dad. Why wouldn’t we be?"

"I saw you help Adriana get up. What happened?"

"She was walking backwards and fell."

"Are you okay, Adriana?"

"I guess so. I want to go home now."

Stephanie finally noticed the small black and white collie that had followed her father. "Where did this guy come from?"

"This is Zippo, our new sheep dog. He’s a border collie. I got him in Bishop just this morning."

Zippo didn’t wait to be petted. He was exploring the flowered meadow where he clearly sniffed another animal had been.

"Why don’t you girls get up on the mare," Mac suggested. "I’ll jog along. I need the exercise."

"What about Zippo?" Stephanie asked.

"He’ll come along when he’s ready."

Adriana swung up onto the saddle. Mac then helped his daughter up so she could sit behind her friend.

Though Stephanie didn’t say anything about the mountain lion, Mac knew something had happened. He also thought eventually Stephanie would tell him. He was more worried about what his wife would say when she learned that he’d heard recently a couple of day hikers had sighted a cougar over by Tinnemaha Creek above the old mine.

Wasn’t that part of the reason he got the dog? To help alert him of any troubles? So far the cougar had not attacked any domestic animals and certainly not any humans. However, finding out one was living in the vicinity would be cause for concern for more than one Valley resident.

When they reached Kramer’s ranch, Adriana’s older brother was carrying an armload of wood he’d just chopped for the fireplace. Zippo ran up to him as though he’d found an old friend. Earl Jr. dropped the wood and greeted the dog who licked his face affectionately.

"Hi, Mr. Mac, I didn’t know you had a dog. What’s his name?"

"Zippo."

"Yeah. Hey, how ya doing, Zippo?" He matched the dog’s affection with a rare outburst of his own. He scratched the dog’s ears, rubbed his neck, and hugged him.

Mac would do nothing to stop the boy’s enthusiasm.

Fifteen-year-old Earl Jr. was already as tall as his father, but of course not as thick-bodied or slow moving as the elder Kramer. Not overly bright, he was a nice looking boy and always quite friendly.

"You get him so he could keep your sheep from running away?" he asked.

"Sure, that’s right, Earl. They call it gathering," Mac explained patiently. "You know, he circles wide around and brings the strays back to the flock. When they were training him, he learned so fast they called him Zippo."

"Sure is a nice dog. Wish my dad would get one."

Mac had helped Adriana get off the mare. She walked right by her brother without looking at him because she was afraid he might start asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

After Adriana was safely in the house, Mac set his foot in the stirrup and lifted himself onto the mare. With Stephanie still riding behind, they trotted toward home. Zippo reluctantly left Earl Jr. and followed his new owner the half mile distance, on the way discovering and learning all about this new area where he’d found himself.

"Anything you want to tell me, Steph?" Mac asked. "Adriana seemed awfully quiet. You two didn’t have a fight, did you?"

"Nothing like that."

Mac waited to see if she would explain. Zippo had caught up with them and was now running ahead of the horse.

"Do you like our new dog?"

"Yes. He’s nice, seems very smart, too."

"He’s still young, but will hardly need much more training to do his job."

Stephanie knew her father wouldn’t ask again. She also knew that sooner or later she’d have to tell someone. Finally she said, "I can tell you what happened, Dad. But I’m afraid what Mom will say."

Adriana had gone quietly into her home. She wasn’t sure if she should tell her parents about the encounter. In her case she was more worried about what her father would do. Her mother usually kept calm in emergencies. But her father! It didn’t take anything to get him riled up. Seems like from the time he woke up in the morning till he went to bed exhausted at night, he had something to complain about. Not that he wasn’t good to his family and a good provider, he just had a way of being a constant grouch.

Things had to be perfect for Earl, though he wasn’t too perfect himself. He’d inherited a small ranch. At first he leased grazing land on both sides of the highway, also let his cattle roam the rangeland. He hired a minimum crew and paid minimum wages, so was constantly on the look out for new help. With his profits from cattle sales and stud fees, he bought additional land until he owned one of the more substantial ranches in the Valley, then stopped expanding, determined never to buy another acre because he couldn’t stomach dealing with real estate agents.

Every five years he purchased a new car for Claire, even if she said that the one she had suited her fine. He bought a new pickup for himself every four years, usually one with dual rear wheels, always a Chevy or GMC. Once he bought a Ford. The battery went dead in the cold of a subzero winter. Said he’d never buy another Ford. Vowed never to touch a Japanese car with the same ten-foot pole he would not use to touch a sheep.

Adriana went into her own room hoping to avoid both parents. Her mother had seen the trio arrive and now watched from the den as Adriana crossed the living room without speaking. Adriana still felt shaky and definitely didn’t want to talk with anyone yet, so she sat on the edge of the bed and opened her sketchbook. Sometimes doing a drawing would make her feel better. This time she started to draw the meadow of flowers from memory. That was easy because it was still vivid in her mind. She didn’t draw only flowers. The field came first and then she drew the flowers in clusters just as they grew. There was no way she could avoid drawing the lion’s head appearing above the grass.

Her mother came to her door and stopped. "Adriana, do you want lunch?"

"I’m not too hungry."

"You’re not? Didn’t you enjoy yourself today?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing?" She walked into the room.

"Sketching some flowers." Adriana turned a couple of pages over the one she had been working on.

"May I see?"

"I guess so."

Claire looked at the sketches. "These are good. If you put color to them, they would look real." She studied the first few pages and stopped when she reached the one with the meadow. "What is this?"

"Just drawing what I saw."

"But this certainly isn’t a flower. It looks like the head of an animal."

"I can’t draw animals too well."

"Why would you? Wait a minute! Did you girls come across a mountain lion out there?"

"There was no problem, Ma. It just looked at us and ran away."

"Mac McClintock saw it, didn’t he? That’s why he brought you girls back."

"No. He didn’t see it. His horse scared it away before he got there. You’re not going to tell Dad, are you? He won’t let us go out in the field ever again."

"I don’t think I can keep something like this from your father. I don’t believe I’d want to."

After the girls and the man with the horse were far off, the cougar emerged from its hiding place, a shallow gully lined with a thick growth of spiny hopsage and creosote bushes. He moved higher up the long slope. Soon he was above the sagebrush, climbing between the pinyon pine and white fir. He stopped to look back down. A flock of sheep grazed in a fenced-off enclosure far below. The big cat’s sharp eyes saw the black-faced dingy wool-covered bodies. He wondered if there might be any flesh worth eating beneath the thick blanket that covered those slow moving creatures. Grazing along with the sheep was a dark, short-horned Billy goat that reminded him of the bighorn he had attempted to bring down two days before. He wondered if this animal would have the quick moves or the fast thinking of the one in the high country.

At that time the cougar had gone above the timberline looking for wild sheep which he seldom did any more because they were becoming so scarce. On that foray he saw a ram with large horns that curled backward into two complete circles. Where the rock had crumbled into soil, sweet herbs grew. The bighorn nibbled the spicy plants hoping nervously it would have time to get at most of the greens.

With stealth and patience, the cougar managed to get close enough to make a leap for the ram. When he did, the sheep surprised him by jumping away quickly to one side. It just wasn’t there when the cougar came down on the dirt and pebbles. The ram then vaulted easily up onto a low flat boulder and looked back at the cougar. Without hesitating the cougar uncoiled a tremendous leap which carried him above the bighorn. Once again the ram bolted away, this time off toward the granite side of the mountain. The cougar came down from his arc with nothing beneath him but the hard flat rock, knocking the air out of his lungs and bruising his ribs. While he was catching his breath, the ram scrambled higher up the incline. The cougar started in pursuit again with amazing agility over the rocky terrain, nearly catching his prey at the base of a cliff. The ram, with its split rubber-like hooves finding crevices and minor indentations, bounded right up the steeply slanted granite face of the mountain.

Unable to follow and heaving for breath in the thin alpine air, the cougar was left seriously considering seeking some other kind of meal.

Lester Farley was busy giving his twenty-seven-year-old horse a thorough rub down when Mac brought the mare into their barn. Lester’s gelding called Promo, shortened from Prometheus because when young he was such a fiery difficult colt to ride, turned his head and nodded, quite happy to see Mac and the mare.

"Hi, Pops, how’re you feeling?"

"Better’n most," the old man said.

"Better than just about anybody your age, I’d say."

"Where’s Stephanie? Didn’t she come back with you?"

"Yeah, she went right inside. She and her friend Adriana had a little scare."

The old man waited patiently for Mac to continue.

Mac unsaddled his horse and began to curry the mare, but he didn’t explain.

Finally Lester had to ask, "She okay? I sure love that little girl. Wouldn’t want nothin’ untoward to happen to her."

"Stephanie, both of the girls in fact, are fine. Nothing really happened."

"Saw you ride off. Seemed to be in kind of a hurry. Ain’t you gonna tell me why?"

"Sure. I just don’t know how to relay news like this to Sarah."

"Why you bein’ so secret? I taught my daughter how to handle herself. She can take whatever it is."

"I know, but she’s still a mother."

"Dammit, Mac, you can be frustratin’ at times."

"Well, the girls came across a cougar in the foothills. It came very close to them, but didn’t attack. I don’t know, maybe they were just lucky."

"Now see here, I’ve spent many an hour talking with Stephanie about just such a thing. There used to be a lotta pumas up there. Course that was a long time ago. Now the gov’mint’s protectin’ em, they’re makin’ a comeback. I, for one, am happy to see it happen. How’d my granddaughter behave?"

"From what she told me, I think she remained very calm. She had to keep her friend Adriana from making any sudden moves."

"They both okay?"

"I guess so. The lion ran off when I rode up."

"You see," Lester said, "if it had wanted to, it woulda attacked. Pumas don’t never attack without cause."

Lester, now eighty years old with skin looking as grayish-brown as mountain rock, still retained clear focused eyes which always appeared kind, though inquisitive. He bent slowly to pick up a bucket of oats, which he then poured without spilling into a long trough for both horses to eat.

"How’s the old boy doing?" Mac asked.

"You mean the horse or me?"

"I mean Prometheus, of course."

"He can still chew grain, but his teeth are worn down and his knees give him some trouble. I can ride him, long as I don’t push him hard. Tell you the truth, he’s about like me: when he goes, I’ll go, too."

Mac had heard that comment many times from his father-in-law. He didn’t like hearing the old man say it, but what could he do? "Let’s go inside, Pops, and see if Stephanie has told her mother."

An extended cab Chevy pickup truck with Adriana’s father driving skidded to a stop on the driveway beside the house.

Mac walked over to open the passenger-side door for Adriana and her mother to exit. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

Big Earl Kramer, sliding out the other side, said, "It might not be all that pleasurable."

"Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk it over?"

Earl nodded his large round head in agreement, then directed his large stocky body behind Mac into the house.

Sarah welcomed her neighbors and seated them around the large butcher-block kitchen table. She quickly served coffee all around except to the two girls who got instant hot chocolate. Though she was pleased to see them, she wondered without asking why they were there.

Earl didn’t let her wait very long. "Sarah, did your daughter tell you what happened today?"

"No, but she hasn’t been home very long. Did something happen?"

"These girls were nearly attacked by a mountain lion." Earl flushed with anger.

"No! That’s not what happened at all," Stephanie protested.

Claire Kramer interrupted, "Earl, why don’t you let the girls tell it?"

"They don’t seem to be forthcoming. You only found out ’cause you were looking in Adrian’s sketchbook."

"Is it true?" Sarah asked her daughter. "You were under attack by a lion?"

"No. Adriana and I were just walking along looking for spring flowers. The fields are filling up with beauty, and Adriana was doing some really nice sketches. She uses black pencil on white paper."

Earl let out a sigh of exasperation. "Get to the point."

"Well, we saw a meadow with these purple irises, at least I think they were irises. We never had a chance to find them in my book. Suddenly a cougar just appeared in the meadow. I don’t know where he came from. I guess he was watching us. We tried not to make any sudden moves."

Adriana added, "Stephanie was really cool. She held her book up high to make herself look big. So the cougar just looked at us like he was wondering why we were there in the first place.

"But when I think back about it, there was something strange going on. It was almost like Stephanie and the cougar were going to talk to each other. Then we heard Mr. McClintock’s horse coming, and the lion ran away."

"Even before Dad arrived," Stephanie said, "the cougar had moved off to the far end of the meadow. I don’t think he was ever going to harm us."

"You girls were just damn lucky." Earl brought his big fist down on the table.

"Not lucky," Lester spoke up. "They did the right thing by that animal, so he did the right thing by them."

"I’m not going to put up with this. Something’s got to be done, and I mean right now. How about it, Mac? You with me? We’ll get rifles and go take care of this vermin."

Before Mac could answer, Lester cut in, "Go easy now, Earl. There’re laws against shootin’ endangered animals."

"If he’s a threat, we have a right to protect ourselves and our property. How about it, Mac? The critter probably came down here looking for one of your tender young lambs."

"None of them have been harmed so far, but I have taken action to protect them."

"Action? What kind of action?"

"Got myself a good watch dog."

"You mean that little sheep dog I saw out there? Why he’d be nothing but a light lunch for a cougar."

"He’s not expected to fight the animal. He just has to let us know if there’s a threat to our stock."

"I don’t know why you’re taking this soft stand, Mac. Me, I got cattle to worry about and calves being born. The blood and afterbirth will drive those cougars mad. I say we have to take action."

Lester cut in again, "Earl, you are overreactin’. Who said there’s more than one? Pumas are loners. It might never come down this far again. I say, don’t do anything rash."

"Well, Lester, if I were your age, I wouldn’t do anything either."

"No need to be insultin’ now."

Earl restrained himself before speaking again. "You’re right. I regret that remark, Lester. But I just don’t think we should wait until it’s too late."

Mac wanted to explain himself, hoping it would ease the tension. "Let me tell you where I stand on this business. If the cougar had shown aggression against the girls, I would lead the way after it. It’s probably been around here for a little while, and it’s never bothered any of our stock. And I’ll tell you even if it did take one of my sheep or a lamb, I don’t think that’d be the worst thing in the world."

Earl looked at Mac dumfounded by his remark.

Sarah tuned in to a part of Mac’s comment which she didn’t like at all. She questioned him immediately. "You knew there was a lion up there and you let the girls go hiking in the foothills?"

"Wait a minute now! No one was positive. Besides I didn’t know the girls were going anywhere."

"You went to Bishop to get a dog. That means you suspected there was danger, but didn’t warn us."

"I didn’t want to get everyone upset over nothing."

Sarah let out a sigh and clenched her fists.

"How did you hear about this?" Earl asked.

"I was at Melford’s feed store in Big Pine a few days ago. Syd had been talking to a couple of hikers who think they spotted a cougar above the old mine taking a drink out of Tinnemaha Creek. They couldn’t really be sure. Whatever it was just disappeared right before their eyes. That’s all there is to it. No reason we have to change the way we live our lives. We’ve known about animals being up there all along: coyotes, rabbits, deer, sometimes bighorn sheep in the high country."

"None of those are threats," Earl said.

"A coyote can take down a calf."

"Well, it ain’t never happened to me, and I’m not about to let some damn mountain lion have a free lunch at my expense." He got up from the table. "Let’s go, Claire. I’ll see what the other ranchers around here have to say about this. Hope you come to your senses before it’s too late, Mac."

Earl led his wife and daughter out of the house.

Claire, feeling they were being rude by leaving so suddenly, said, "Thanks for the coffee, Sarah. I’ll call you later."

Sarah nodded, but she was still visibly upset with her husband. Even after the Kramers left, her usually clear complexion radiated an increasing shade of red. Without words she nodded for Stephanie to set the table. She served dinner, and everyone ate quietly not wanting an explosion. Yet there was no way Sarah could hold off forever. "What were you thinking, not to let us know?"

"Honey, nothing happened. There’s no reason to get excited."

"You’ve known for days now. You bought a dog and didn’t really tell us why. You were worried all right. That’s why you rode off so fast to find the girls. Well, we could have avoided this whole incident if you’d bothered to let us know."

"I just didn’t want to get everyone upset."

"You’ve already used that excuse. It isn’t good enough. Not telling a thing like that is the same as lying. I didn’t believe you were that kind of person."

"Let me explain one thing. We chose to live here within reach of these beautiful mountains. We’re bound to feel the extremes of the weather, and we might as well expect occasional visits from some of the wildlife. I still say it’s nothing to worry about."

"Sarah..." Lester wanted to bring calmness back to the family.

"Yes, Dad. I know where you stand on this. You’d have everyone leave the Valley and let the wildlife take over. Well, those days are gone."

"Sarah, what’s with you? You never tried to speak for me before. What I was gonna say was that nature has its own way of balancing things out. The few pumas up in those mountains are living mainly off the deer and sometimes bighorns. When they trim down enough of the deer, their numbers will come down, and practically eliminate the problem. It’s the small minded people who want to destroy everything. Somehow we need to keep a balance between man and nature."

"Dad, you’ve always been a dreamer. How do you know the cougars won’t feed on domestic animals and then on us?"

"That’s not their nature. Pumas are more afraid of you than you are of them."

"I guess I don’t see the big picture the way you do. Right now I’m concerned about what that animal could have done to Stephanie and Adriana. I think we should be able to take a walk in the evening without having to carry a shotgun."

After dinner, Grampa Lester motioned for Stephanie to come outside with him. They often went walking in the evening, not heading in any particular direction, rather enjoying the extraordinary scenery while remaining aware of the living moments they were sharing.

As they strolled along, Lester said, "I heard your friend Adriana saying about how ‘cool’ you were when that puma approached."

"It was weird. Somehow I knew we were not in trouble if we didn’t do anything to scare him."

"You did fine, sweetheart." He nodded for her to look toward the west. They stopped to admire the slowly moving clouds painted with rust-red.

Before the color left the sky, Stephanie asked, "Can animals communicate with people?"

"Dogs seem to," Lester replied, "maybe horses some. I know for sure Promo lets me know what he’s thinking."

"I mean wild ones like that mountain lion. That look in his eyes showed such keen intelligence. I think he was trying to connect, to let us know what he was doing, why he was there. I wonder if he might even be smart enough to tell us things about ourselves."

"Oh, I expect he has some of the answers all right. The problem is with us. We just don’t know how to listen."

They walked quietly a ways further before turning back. The clouds were quickly changing from rust-red to pale pink, and then lost all visible signs of color except shades of darkness.

"Stephanie, you might have a gift."

"Thanks, Grampa. I didn’t think you’d laugh at me if I told you what I was thinking."

Lester felt such pride and love for Stephanie as they walked along in those moments. He held an arm around his grandaughter’s slim waistline and pulled her close for a while as they walked on home.

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Cool air sliding down the Sierras mixed with the heated desert air over the dried-out remains of Owens Lake. Though anemic attempts were being made to partially flood the lake bed and grow salt grass, dust devils swirled delicately lifting a fine white powder upward into slender columns, which then mushroomed horizontally. With increasing wind, the dust devils were soon engulfed by a gathering mist. An overwhelming cloud of alkaline haze mixed with particles of arsenic rose from the sun-dried crust and moved ominously down the valley choking residents and stinging the eyes of both animals and humans.

Fortunately for the McClintocks and the upper Owens Valley, this time the desert wind carried the dust cloud southward beyond Olancha, depositing fine particles in Red Rock Canyon, over the naval weapons center at China Lake and still on as far as Mojave and Lancaster.

Mac rolled into bed on his customary right side, and as usual, placed an arm around Sarah.

She gave him a silent appraisal, then calmly lifted his arm off her body and moved it away.

"You’re not still mad at me, are you?"

"Far beyond that," she said. "Do you think I want to start another child when you won’t take care of the one we already have?"

"Sarah, you know how much I love Stephanie. No way I would do anything to harm her."

"Ummmph! I wonder."

A long uncomfortable silence followed until Sarah asked, "Will you go to the meeting tomorrow?"

Mac gave her an inquisitive look. "What meeting?"

"I suppose you don’t know. Maybe they didn’t tell you because they don’t want you there."

"What are you talking about?"

"Claire called me this afternoon. Earl has reserved a conference room at the Inyo County Courthouse in Independence. He’s been calling the local ranchers and farmers. One of the judges will be there to interpret the laws that protect dangerous wildlife."

"You mean endangered wildlife?"

"I said what I meant."

Mac grimaced. "With Earl doing the organizing, I imagine they’ve already decided the direction they want to take."

"Will you attend the meeting or not?"

"I guess someone should voice a minority opinion."

Judge Willoughby called the extraordinary meeting to order. About fifteen men were sitting around the conference room engaged in animated private conversations. When they quieted down enough for him to be heard, the judge began. "As you know I have an abiding interest in this meeting. My home is a vulnerable one up in the Alabama Hills, and though I don’t own cattle, my ranchland down in Olancha should qualify me as a member at large." A few raucous sounds of disagreement reached him, but he continued anyhow. "Earl Kramer has filled me in on the threat to his and Mac McClintock’s daughters. The questions we should put before us relate to our options and what we ought to do about them."

Paul Skanky, tall, gangly, with wispy thin gray hair, cut in, "I know what I can do. I cleaned and loaded my old trusty 30-30. That will take care of any varmint that gets in my sights."

Lester who had ridden in with Mac immediately stood up. "Don’t shoot your wad before the judge has told us the laws."

Skanky snorted, "I don’t want to hear about no laws. I got rights, too."

"Gentleman," the judge said, "let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Animal Rights Protection Act, Prop 117, was passed in 1990 by a majority of voters in the state. It bans the sport of hunting lions. You cannot legally hunt or kill a cougar. However, there are extenuating circumstances which allow for the removal of certain animals."

"That’s the ones I want to hear about," Skanky called out. "Do we have to wait till a cougar takes down an infant before we blow its head off?"

"You have to have proof that you’ve located the right animal. You don’t do the removing. That’s handled by APHIS."

"What the hell is APHIS?" Skanky said.

"The wildlife services program, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, ergo APHIS. It was developed to help solve problems like this between wildlife and humans."

"Sounds like a mouthful of words," Skanky scoffed. "Most you’d get from them would be a lot of talk and no action."

"You might be right; however, taking the wrong action can lead to serious consequences."

Lyle Grosfoot, a Big Pine resident since birth, spoke in a voice certainly too high-pitched to be coming from a wide-bodied thick-necked person, "If no one knows who is taking the action, no action could be taken against them."

Lester rose in anger. "If I interpret you rightly, Lyle, you’re soundin’ off about slaughtering innocent animals. That’s not what this meeting is all about. We oughta be here to find us a peaceful solution. Hell, we don’t even have a problem yet, unless some hotheads cause one."

"Who you calling a hothead?" Lyle’s voice rose almost to a squeak.

"Whoever’s making the noise. Right about now, sounds like it’s coming from you."

Lyle Grosfoot stood up and walked his stout body threateningly toward Lester. Mac jumped up to block his way.

With Mac in his face, Grosfoot didn’t want to press it. He turned to Mac. "Why’d you bring the old man anyhow? He’s just a trouble maker."

"I don’t look at it that way," Mac said. "I respect Lester’s opinion. Wouldn’t do any of us harm to listen."

Skanky couldn’t hold back any longer. "Not too long ago, people in this valley listened when they should’ve taken out rifles. What did we get for it? An aqueduct sucks out the Owens River and sends our water down to Los Angeles. We should’ve taken a stand then, and we should take a stand now."

Mac still facing Lyle, said to Skanky, "Not the same thing. You can’t solve the water problem by shooting animals."

Lyle said, "You don’t make no sense."

Mac faced up to him. "But you think it makes sense to use violence against a cougar that has harmed no one and probably never will."

Armando Quinones stood up. He was usually so quiet about things, everyone wondered what he might have to say. After frowning and swallowing a couple of times, he was finally able to express himself. "Why take chances?"

"What do you mean?" Mac asked.

"Well, we don’t have to shoot the animal. Why don’t we trap him and move him some place else. Maybe like send him to a zoo?"

"That’s inhuman." Lester said.

"You old fool," Lyle chimed in, "a animal ain’t human."

Lester felt his heart beating harder than it had in a long time. "I mean it ain’t a human thing to do. Caging a animal ain’t a solution. It’s the act of a coward."

Lyle tried to defend himself. "Maybe the real cowards are the ones don’t do anything."

"Right! Or the ones who hide behind laws," Skanky added.

Earl Kramer thought he’d been patient enough. He raised his bulk to his feet. "I been listening to you guys, and I don’t think we’re getting anywhere. Mac, this meeting is as much about you as anybody. Your own daughter has been threatened. It’s your sheep and my cattle that might be the first target. I, for one, do not want that to happen. I say we should take a vote and go after the perpetrator. I believe that’s the right word."

Judge Willoughby cleared his throat. "It’s the right word, Earl, but the wrong approach. No incident has taken place. A sighting does not constitute a viable threat."

"Hell, I thought you were on our side. That’s why we asked you to be here."

"I am, Earl. But I don’t want to let you get on the wrong side of the law."

Skanky jumped up. "There! You see? The law is always in our way."

"The laws are there for good reasons, Mr. Skanky."

Lyle spoke up with a voice sounding like a cork being twisted in a bottle. "Reasons don’t always work. If you owned any cattle, Judge, you might work around the law in different ways."

"I believe you know my reputation. That is not the way I interpret the law."

Lyle Grosfoot, trying to sound decisive, said, "I don’t see anything coming out a this meeting. I’m outa here." He slowly raised his paunchy body off the chair and headed for the exit. However, he stopped at the door, not quite sure if this was the right thing to do because he was having annoying second thoughts, knowing what his wife would have to say when he got home.

Skanky, not aware of Lyle’s vacillation, chimed in, "You’re right, Lyle, this ain’t going nowhere." Skanky grabbed his Stetson, set it on his bare head and also started for the door. He paused before leaving. "Earl, you with us?" Then without waiting for an answer, went out, showing the others that was the way to handle matters. Several men mumbled something to each other, got up and followed Skanky.

Earl hesitated only a few moments, then said, "To heck with it." He, too, walked out followed by Quinones and most of the others.

Willoughby tried to regain control. "Wait a minute, gentlemen. I have a suggestion."

Lyle Grosfoot, unhappy with his own inaction, and really uncertain about what he should do, still stood at the door. "With all respect, sir, we about don’t want to hear it."

He finally made up his mind and walked out of the room, leaving Mac, Lester, and about five others to speculate.

Mac asked the judge, "What’s going to happen now?"

"Officially nothing."

"I don’t trust most of those guys. Can’t you do something about them?"

"Same rules apply here. I have no authority to stop something that hasn’t happened."

Lester said, "Judge, you were gonna make a suggestion."

"Yes, Lester, I was hoping cool heads would prevail. There is something we might do. The U.S. Department of Fish and Game has a wildlife biologist working with them, an agent who is directly concerned with the management of endangered species. It is her responsibility to respond to problems of this sort, and I know she will handle them in a sensible, humane manner. Mac, I believe you’d be the right person to initiate the contact."

"Agreed. Just give me the person’s name."

Outside, Earl had gathered the men into a group behind the courthouse. They sat around one of the wooden tables under the huge Cedar of Lebanon tree. Earl spoke first.

"One of the suggestions that came out of that so-called meeting sounded pretty good. Armando, you said something about trapping. You have any traps at your place?"

"No, when I said trap, I meant to corner him; you know, surround the animal and catch him."

"Surround a painter?" Skanky butted in. "You don’t know squat. That’d be harder than catching a greased pig at a county fair. Let me tell you, when I was a kid, my uncle used to take me hunting with him in New Mexico. I know a little about taking painters."

"What the hell’s these painters you talking about? I thought we was going after pumas."

"Same thing, you dummy. Old timers thought they was panthers, they pronounced it painters. I like the old ways best. Most of the times we used dogs to tree the varmints so we could get a shot at them. Sometimes we just took the easy way; we set the traps. I got all my uncle’s hardware when he passed on."

"Will the traps still work?" Earl asked.

"Hell yes. Keep ’em all wrapped in plastic. They’re collector items. Thought I might sell ’em someday. Let’s make use of ’em first."

"Good," Earl said. "Bring them to my place. We’ll start out from there."

"Wait a minute," Quinones asked, "those traps you talking about the kind that crush an animal’s leg?"

"That’s right," Skanky nodded. "They’re the best kind, put the critter out of commission right away."

"No way, man," Quinones argued. "I don’t want no part of that. I been thinking maybe we could trap one in a pit that wouldn’t harm it none."

"You see, that shows again how dumb you are. Hell, you couldn’t dig a pit deep enough that a full growed painter couldn’t jump out of. Least ways it’d have to be so big, he wouldn’t come nowheres near to it."

"If those traps you’re talking about break an animal’s leg, I heard they sometimes try to chew it off to get away."

Skanky shrugged, "Life’s tough. They take their chances just like we do. You with us or not?"

"No, I ain’t with you. I don’t want to make no animal suffer like that. The hell with this stuff." Quinones turned his back on the group and walked over the grass and on across the highway to his pickup truck.

"We don’t need him," Skanky said. "Any of the rest you wanta take off, just go. Before we leave today, we have to settle a few things straight out."

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Chaos erupts as neighbors take sides against each other. Soon we meet Cobra Stevens, the attractive young wildlife biologist. Will she succeed in restoring peace to the Valley? --- ForemostPress.com

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