she finally reached the edge of the forest, stepping out onto the wide-open ridgetop was sheer relief. She loved studying mountain lions, but she was glad to be in a place where they couldn’t drop on her from above. Maya took in the full moon beaming in the sky, tinting the grassy meadows and scrubby slopes with silver. So much moonlight, she could put her flashlight away.
They were out here too though. Mountain lions, pumas, cougars, catamounts, ghost cats, panthers...maybe the big cats had so many names because they were so mysterious. Able to exist alongside people without anyone realizing they were even there.
Except lately the mountain lions in this area had been attacking livestock on local ranches. And people definitely noticed that.
That was why Maya was here, in the coastal hills surrounding her hometown of Shelter Creek, on a two-month assignment for the Department of Wildlife. She was going to try to find pumas. Photograph them. Count and classify them. Assess the population’s overall health and figure out why they were eating so many sheep.
But she’d rather not meet any big cats out here in the dark. “Okay, pumas,” she said to the shadowed spaces just past the moonlight. “If you’re out there, beat it. I’m coming into your territory and you are not allowed to bother me.”
She was being silly. Most big predators would prefer not to run into any humans. Usually people were a meal they didn’t have much appetite for, though once in a while...
Ugh. Don’t think about that.
What was wrong with her tonight? Maya spent weeks at a time living in remote wilderness, studying predators. She rarely worried about being attacked. But tonight she was nervous. Maybe because she was used to the Rocky Mountains, and the way mountain lions behaved when they lived in truly wild places.
Here in Northern California, the mountain lions’ habitat was broken up by ranches, towns, cities, roads, wineries and farms. Pumas with limited territory were less predictable and less afraid of people, and this knowledge made every rustle of grass blown by the breeze off the Pacific travel straight up Maya’s spine.
Or maybe she was jittery because this afternoon she’d come home for the first time in thirteen years. And promptly had a huge panic attack. That was enough to make a gal nervous. To make her decide that it would be better to jump straight into work than to sit in her grandmother’s house, bombarded by memories of the accident that had changed her life forever.
The night she’d lost control of her car and her boyfriend’s sister had been killed.
It had all come flooding back today, as Maya drove past the vintage clapboard buildings and flower-filled yards of Shelter Creek’s Main Street. Each memory was etched with vivid clarity, a high-definition slide in a tragic slideshow. The click of Julie’s seat belt as she freed herself in the back seat. Her drunken refusal when Maya told her to put it back on. Her final words, “No one wants to hear Nirvana,” as she flopped into the front seat to change the music. Her shriek of startled laughter as she lost her balance and fell onto Maya. Her weight, her flailing limbs knocking Maya’s hands off the steering wheel, blocking her view of the road ahead.
Memories of panic. Of slamming on the brakes, hitting them too hard, sending them into a skid. And one final image, the single strobe-like flash of trees looming in the headlights.
Pulled over by the side of the road today, bracing her weight on the old sign that read Welcome to Shelter Creek, Maya had gasped for breath and tried to remember what a long-ago therapist had taught her about panic attacks.
Notice what’s real. Notice what’s around you.
Maya had tried to focus on the bumpy gravel beneath her sneakers. The warm, dry air of the summer afternoon. The oily, metallic smell of her truck engine, hot after three days of driving west from her home in Boulder, Colorado. The scolding shriek of a Steller’s jay in a nearby tree.
She’d calmed herself down, but she was desperate to be alone. To have quiet. She was falling apart, and wilderness, solitude and work were the glue that could put her back together.
Luckily Grandma understood. When she’d opened her front door and found her granddaughter sitting on her front porch, stuffing scientific equipment into her backpack, she’d just given Maya a giant hug and gone to pack her some food. Grandma had accepted Maya’s quirks a long time ago.
Maya scanned the moonlit landscape one more time. No critters that she could see, though surely there were all kinds of nocturnal animals roaming these fields. “Ready or not, here I come!” she called, just to make some more noise, and started out across the ridgetop, trying to relax and finally enjoy the night.
At least being home gave her a chance to walk this trail again. She’d hiked these hills every chance she’d had when she was young. Peaceful, wild places had always called to her. Maybe because her early childhood had been filled with so much chaos before she’d come to live with Grandma in Shelter Creek. Maybe because, in wild places, things were simple. One foot in front of the other. Look, listen, think. Alone in the wilderness, other peoples’ decisions, their random acts of craziness, couldn’t affect you. Couldn’t turn your entire life upside down in an instant.
Maya shook her head, trying to shake off the memories, the feelings. Think about science, think about pumas, think about this trail and what you remember about it. At the other end of this meadow, there was a steep hill, thick with shrubs. It was the perfect place for pumas to hide while they waited for their favorite food, mule deer, to leave the safety of their thickets and venture out to graze.
That interface between shrubby hill and open grassland was where she’d set up the first motion-sensitive camera.
Hopefully she’d get a few cameras up and running tonight. They’d feed into her computer and give her a sense of the wildlife in the area. No one had surveyed these rugged hills for mountain lions in years. This would be one step toward figuring out how many of the big cats were living around here.
A swishing sound sent Maya’s pulse racing. She glanced over her shoulder. Not a lion. Just the shadowy shape of an owl, launching from the trees behind her. It soared out over the ridge and circled, eerily silent. Maya pulled in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the soothing scents of coyote brush and sage. The smell was pure memory, each inhalation bittersweet.
For so long she assumed she’d never breathe this air again. When she’d bought a one-way bus ticket to college, and what she’d prayed would be a fresh start, Maya swore she’d never look back.
But last month, when her boss at the Department of Wildlife in Boulder had mentioned this job, a short-term attempt to reduce mountain lion attacks on livestock in the area, it had felt almost serendipitous.
Maya was in a lull between research projects, and she’d been worried about her grandmother, who still lived in Shelter Creek. This past year Grandma Lillian had stopped coming out to Colorado to visit Maya, saying she was tired of traveling. She’d even stayed home for Christmas and skipped their annual spring break adventure.
Clearly Grandma was slowing down. This job could be Maya’s chance to check on her, to make sure she was still able to live on her own and care for herself.
And maybe it was time to do what her grandmother had been telling her she needed to do for years. To finally face the memories that waited for her in Shelter Creek.
That part hadn’t gone so well, so far. Maya would have to be stronger, or she’d never survive the next two months.
The
