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HONORABLE MENTION - ENTRY FEE DIVISION - 2009 FFW ANNUAL ESSAY CONTEST
The Cougar Tracks
By Barbara Ellis
The cougar tracks led away from my Volkswagon camper van. I spotted them
in the snow when I got out to pee after spending the night on a remote
desert plateau. He’d lifted his leg and marked the right front tire then
headed down the road veering off into the sagebrush in the direction of
a red rock bluff.
His pace was leisurely and easy to follow. I was still in my long underwear
covered by a down jacket with my bare feet stuffed in unlaced hiking boots.
I intended to step outside the van long enough to relieve my full bladder,
then hurry back in to make a cup of hot tea and labor again on the chapter
I was writing. Things hadn’t been going well with the writing. I’d been
stuck in limbo for months putting more energy into my difficult personal
life than my adventure travel memoir. Heartache and lassitude trumped
creativity every day. Attempts to detach through meditation, walking, or
reading did not free my mind of the internal noise that tightened, twisted
and froze my muse.
The sun came out. I knew his tracks would take on amorphous characteristics
when the distinct edges of his paw prints began to melt. I quickened my
pace as the snow sparkled and began to reflect dancing light blurring his
trail ahead. Then things changed. He had crouched low in the snow. His tail
dragged in a sharp line behind his six-foot body. I walked ahead seeking
more sign. Here, he’d sprung and leapt forward. There, he’d pulled something
large to the ground. Blood. Hair. Probably deer. I whirled 360 degrees
looking for more evidence when I spotted the carcass. Torn open, it was
still warm and partially buried. Entrails were strewn about in a bloody
mess contrasted against the white snow. The cougar had eaten, and then
attempted to hide his prey from other hungry predators before wandering
away toward the edge of the canyon.
I followed until his trail was no longer visible, then sat down to watch
the reds and golds rise on the horizon. My butt was wet and cold, but my
face was bathed in warmth. Beauty-dorphins surged through my brain. I soared
on the inspiration of a once-in-a-lifetime mini-adventure and the stillness
of a desert sunrise. My spirit shifted. In that moment I was connected to
something greater than my small life of sad drama and writer’s block. I was
cradled in the womb of living, breathing, natural wonder. I stood and bowed
with outstretched arms in gratitude to the four directions, embracing the
invisible source of all that is: the cougar, the deer, the sage, the snow,
the rock, the morning, and the muse.
Back in my cozy home on wheels I was warmed by the sun coming through the
windows and the words that flowed through my pen to paper. The illusive
chapter emerged from that invisible place that lies hidden beyond mind,
heartache and loneliness.
I never saw him, but the cougar had silently taken me where I most
needed to be.
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