The Lion's Den

The phone rang early in the afternoon. Our neighbor's dog was torn in half, and there were large prints headed toward our end of the cul-de-sac. My old man was usually quick with a cynical quip, "Guess that damn dog will finally be quiet." Something grim that lacked what conventional listeners would identify as "humor." It was his way of dealing with bad news, trauma, or anything unsettling. "The more I make fun of it, the less of a big deal it is."

He held the phone to his ear, nodding and agreeing with simple "yups" and "mhmms." His next call was to Chris, who lived next door to us. "Heya Chris, how good of a shot are you? Yeah, I know you were a pilot, but they trained you how to shoot too, right? Not even sport shooting? It's too bad we didn't have more old boys like you on our side in '69. Maybe things would've ended sooner. Yeah, well, 'woulda, coulda, shoulda,' am I right? Thanks anyway Chris. No, no, Roy already called Fish and Wildlife. Alright, you take care."

Pops had already called Roy, a dedicated competition shooter, avid hunter, and the special kind of "firearm enthusiast" who makes his own bullets and slugs. He had seen the mountain lion and clocked the bright yellow tag in the animal's ear. Roy was content to wait for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to arrive and handle the situation. Unfortunately, my old man does not have a great deal of patience.

"So we're just supposed to sit around while this thing is prowling through the neighborhood? First it's Mark's dog, but what if Tim and Matty or some other kids are playing outside?" he pleaded to no one in particular. "Fuck this. Fuuuuuck this." I could hear him head for the basement, which mostly consisted of his woodworking, stonemason, and other art supplies. Though I had selfishly commandeered a cubby for my Legos, which the old man didn't seem to mind so much.

"Hey Matty, can you come help me with something?"

Down the stairs into what our family jokingly called "the dungeon," the smell of wood and soil filled my nostrils. The old man was sitting on a wooden crate that was full of vise clamps and containers of adhesives. His .45 handgun rested on one knee, its magazine in the other. He was loading his 12 gauge shotgun with deer slugs. He carefully placed the shotgun in his lap, before slapping the magazine in his pistol and pulling back the slide. It was now loaded. A small, recently opened box on his workbench read "Hollow Point."

To my fourteen year-old brain, this was a scene out of any revenge action flick; Seeing Jason Statham in a dimly lit, unfinished basement racking a .45 with a shotgun on his lap would be the coolest thing. Seeing your dad do it, while not uncool, was a little frightening. He engaged the safety on his pistol, and set it on the bench. He stood and waved me over to him, and held out the shotgun.

"There's a very sick, very hungry puma wandering around." He explained quietly. "Fish and Wildlife have been notified, but I'd be absolutely sick if you were playing with Tim or Annie with this on the loose." His eyes kept darting to the floor. "I don't wanna kill a sick animal, but maybe we can scare it away from here. Can you hold onto this for me, and watch my back while I go out and look for it?" I nodded, scared of this very serious man giving me a gun, but more so of the possibility we'd find this mountain lion.

I should probably mention here that, given hindsight, we both realized this was the wrong course of action, and a very, very stupid thing to do. It is not advisable that anyone go after a (very likely rabid) wild animal with high-powered munitions, no matter how good their intentions are. If anyone were to find themselves in a similar situation, I would advise staying indoors and waiting for the appropriate, trained individuals to come and take care of the situation.

The sun was still high when we finally poked our heads out the front door. Hot, dry wind blew through the pines. The plan was to immediately sweep the property for tracks, and see if they lead deeper into the forest. 'The guns were only for protection,' we had convinced ourselves. From out the front door, we started north, passing a collection of large boulders my friends and I would frequently jump and crawl and climb all over. I peered into the various caves that existed where the boulders met and emerged from the earth. They were large enough for kids to easily pretend to be cave explorers without risking getting trapped. I was realizing they were also large enough to hide a large, hungry predatory cat.

"Hey, hey dad." He looked back, at me, pistol pointed toward the ground and his finger laid flat along the slide. "Do...do you think the mountain lion could be in those little caves under the rocks?" He licked his lips and approached the boulders. As he got closer, he chuckled, "What, like I'm just gonna stick my face in there? Besides, there are no tracks anywhere near the rocks."

"Dad, if it jumped from the pavement to the rocks, there wouldn't be any tracks. Right?" He swallowed hard, and the color began trickling from his face. "Yeah, ya know what son, this might have been a really terrible idea. Let's quickly go around the rest of the house and then head back inside."

We had started to walk away from the boulders, when we saw a small trail through the dirt and underbrush. It almost looked like nothing, some small rocks and sand disturbed, some dry grasses slightly more flat than the rest of a patch. But it was the pattern of the nothingness, a slight disturbance with another very slight disturbance maybe three feet away. We didn't follow the trail too far into the pine forest, but we could see that it had gone past Chris' house, and Ron's house, and it was coming from the direction of Mark's house.

All bets were off, we high-tailed it back to our house. Our feet pounded the dirt and sand, shrouding us in a cloud of hot dust. My lungs burned, and the voice in my head screamed at me "Drop the gun stupid! You'll run faster!" My dad had a heart attack seven years before this, and we was never the most athletic man to begin with. I could feel him starting to drift behind me, and then I felt him drop away completely. I looked back, and through the haze, I saw my father standing stone still, staring off into the distance.

I followed his gaze, and saw the mountain lion pacing around the boulders we had just passed. Its muzzle was a dark, rusty red, and its eyes were glassy. Thick ropes of saliva came down from the corners of its mouth, and as it stalked, you could see every bulging pound of muscle through its thin flesh. The creature moved in a jerking rhythm, devoid of all the finesse cats are known for.

My dad quickly caught up with me, panting, and said "Whatever you do, stay behind me." He stood in between me and this monster, its lip curling back slightly to expose yellowed fangs. It wasn't snarling, it was tasting our smell in the air, to make sure we were food. It took several big whiffs, tongue pressed into its teeth. Then the mouth closed, and its head lowered, and it started toward us.

With his pistol leveled at the mountain lion, my dad started side-stepping in the direction of the house. Its head was low, and it prowled along the ground, jerking and twitching as it came closer. A heart stopping thunderclap exploded next to me. My dad fired off a round to scare the lion, and it flinched and ran back to the boulders. We started to rush again, but as we got closer to the rocks, we slowed, keeping our sights trained on any crevice the mountain lion could spring from. "It doesn't need to smell you, or see you, it can hear your heart pounding." The voice in my head is a dick.

We'd almost reached the steps back to the house, but I could feel eyes on us. I turned and saw the mountain lion on top of the rocks, staring down at us, mouth agape. I spun around, and fired the shotgun up into the boulder. The force knocked me square on my ass, stone sprayed up into the air, and the mountain lion jumped down and raced to the edge of the forest, eyeing us still.

My dad reached back and heaved me up, practically pushing up up the steps into our house. We were drenched in sweat, and hay-colored dust clung to every square inch of us, but we were safe inside. Until we heard a loud thud on the roof, and staggered pacing back and forth across the entire house.

I called my mom at the doctor's office she worked at and told her there was a mountain lion on the roof. She told me to smoke less weed. Fortunately, the Department of Fish and Wildlife already had a bead on this mountain lion, and tranquilized it from a helicopter while it was stalking on our roof. My father and I were roundly chastised by the rangers, but drawing the mountain lion onto our roof made for an easier shot, and neither the mountain lion nor the two idiots were harmed in the incident.

This particular cat had traveled all the way to northern Arizona from California, it had contracted rabies, and was ultimately put down humanely. In spite of how terrifying it was, I couldn't help but feel sad for the creature. It was just a sick animal. In good health it would have never attacked Mark and Tim's dog, and would have stayed far away from my dad and I if we were out poking around for it.

The experience did little to bring my father and I together; Until I moved out at sixteen I had a very tense relationship with both of my parents. Still, things are good between us now. And if I hadn't gone with him that day, he might have very well been snuck up on by a sick mountain lion. No matter what your relationship with your father is, everyone can agree that would have royally sucked.