My alarm went off at quarter to five. I wanted plenty of time to shower, get dressed and cook breakfast before the deer arrived. According to the thermometer it was sixteen degrees Fahrenheit outside. Hopefully Patrick brought some warm clothes for stalking. He wandered out from his bedroom, sleepy eyed and still wearing his PJs.
“What are you doing up so early?” I asked.
“You said the deer get here at six and I am used to getting up early because the rabbits are on the grass when the sun comes up. Then after the rabbits finish, the birds visit my window. Then after the birds have been there a while, Mom wakes me up for school. I have to get on the bus on the big road at seven thirty. After the deer come can we make bird feeders?”
“Sure, or you can just watch the birds at my bird feeders. The birds are different depending on what I put out there. If I put regular birdseed out then I get the same birds you have checked off on your list. If I put out peanuts I bet we can get some Stellar’s jays, gray jays and scrub jays.”
He ran back to his room and dug through his suitcase then returned with a field guide to North American birds, a book way beyond his reading ability.
“What’s a jay look like?” he asked.
“Look for the Stellar’s Jay. The others should be on the same page. It’s blue but it fades to black at the head. It has a pointy head.”
He leafed through the book until he found the page showing the jays.
“Cool! They will come to the feeder if you give them peanuts?”
“The Stellar’s will. The others only show up once in a while. I’ll show you where the feeders are after Uncle Rusty gets up. What do you want for breakfast? Pancakes? Eggs? Bacon?”
“Pizza?”
“You want leftover pizza for breakfast?” I asked doubtfully. I’d had my share of cold pizza breakfasts but it was only because I was lazy and hungry at the same time.
“Can I? It has meat and milk and vegetables and bread. I learned that from Mom. She was eating chocolate cake for breakfast. She said it had milk and bread and eggs in it so it was just like eating a regular breakfast. Dad said it was like eating Count Chocula with extra sugar.”
I hadn’t planned on hearing the family secrets, but this was kind of fun.
“Sure, you can have pizza today. Not every day, but this morning it’s okay. Do you want it microwaved?”
“Do I have to eat it at the table?”
“It would be better, then you don’t have to worry about dropping it and giving Shadow a pizza feast.”
“Then I guess you can microwave it.”
He ran to the window but it was still dark outside.
“The deer will start moving around as the sun comes up.”
“Can I go outside for a little while?”
“You need to dress warm. It’s below freezing out there.”
“Only two minutes? I won’t freeze in two minutes.”
“At least put on some shoes and your coat.” If Jesse had been here she’d have had a fit.
He ran to his room, pulled on his shoes and coat and ran outside through the back door. He jogged across the yard, knelt in the frosty grass and stared at the junipers. He looked this way and that, while he quietly sat. He then ran back inside, obviously happy, and dropped his jacket onto the back of the couch.
“What were you doing out there?” I asked.
“Inviting the deer to come,” he said in a matter of fact manner, as if I should have known.
“How do you do that?”
“Just like you would a friend, except you don’t have to talk. You talk deer talk to them.”
“And what does deer talk sound like?”
“It doesn’t sound like anything.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“I just decided it was the polite thing to do. Deer don’t like to be told what to do, just like kids, but they like to know they can come.”
“Do you think they will come now?”
“Yup,” he said cheerfully.
I set down a warm slice of pizza and a fork.
“What would happen if you invited a coyote?”
“I wouldn’t invite a coyote if the deer were here. The deer would think I was tricking them.”
“But if the deer weren’t coming and you wanted to see a coyote, would it work for a coyote?” I was really curious now. What thought processes made him think he could just go out there and invite the deer over for breakfast?
“Coyotes don’t listen very well. They do what they want no matter what people say.”
“What about the dogs at the ranch? Do they come when you invite them?”
“No, they got used to being talked to, so you have to talk to them.”
It made perfect sense to me except for the part about the deer listening.
Pat ate the pizza, debating each time he came across a bell pepper. Holding up the peppers for inspection, he remembered he had stressed the importance of vegetables being on the pizza, so he had to eat it. This was one odd kid. When he was finished, he ran to the window to see dawn just starting to color the sky on the horizon.
“You’ve got plenty of time. Why don’t you go pick out some warm clothes to wear outside? You’ll want jeans, a warm shirt, socks and warm shoes. When you go out, wear your coat and gloves if you brought some.”
Patrick ran off, ready to start stalking, and returned wearing jeans, moccasins and a sweatshirt that read “Barn Brat”. It had a picture of a bunch of cowboys in a barn with a little kid tagging along. He ran to the window again.
“They won’t be here until it gets light,” I told him.
“They’re on their way. They’re coming. How far do they have to come from?”
“I don’t know. There’s a little meadow that they like about a mile away, but I don’t know if that’s where they come from in the mornings.”
“Well, they’re coming. I’ll see them when they get here.”
“What makes you think they’re coming?”
“I asked them to.”
Just like that. He asked politely, so of course they were coming.
“Let me show you some hand signals we can use to stay quiet, because talking will scare the deer.” I held my hand up, palm out. “This means stop.” A push down motion. “This means get lower. The more I do it the lower you crouch.” The universal hush sign. “Be quiet. Freeze when the deer have their heads up, stalk slowly and silently when they aren’t looking. I’ll go with you at first so you can copy me. If I think you are doing good and you can continue alone I’ll give you a go-ahead signal. I won’t speak unless it’s really important. Uncle Rusty might be watching but if you notice him don’t let on. He knows to stay back and out of sight.”
“Come on,” he said, pulling my hand.
“Pat, what’s the hurry?”
“They’re coming.”
“And?”
“And I want to meet them. I asked them to come and they’ll expect me to be there.”
I started to say it didn’t work that way but decided to go along with him.
“Get your coat and gloves.”
I headed to the bedroom for my own coat and gloves and found Rusty was awake so I asked him, “Have you heard Patrick talking out there?”
“No, why?”
“I’ll tell you later, after I see if it really worked.”
I gave Rusty a kiss then met Patrick back in the dining room.
“You’re sure. If we go out there the deer are going to come and they are expecting you?”
“I think so. Come on.”
“If we have to wait out there we’re going to freeze.”
“Come… on!”
“Okay! I’m coming,” I said as I followed him out the door. “Quiet, stop and look first. If you see deer, stalk quietly for the corner of the barn.”
Pausing, we looked into the junipers, glanced around, then quietly walked to the barn watching the junipers as we went. I opened the barn door slightly so we could get out of the wind.
“The deer are used to me working in here so they won’t worry if they see us coming from this direction. Are you sure you want to be out here? We could wait in the house and stay a lot warmer.”
“They’re on their way.”
“Pat, you can’t know that.”
“Shh…” All right, I’ll stand in the barn waiting for some deer to answer the call of an overconfident boy.
Peeking around the barn, his eyes suddenly lit up and he glanced back at me. He pointed the way before slipping out of the barn. I reached out to stop him but he stood out in the open showing himself to the deer. Pat then knelt down again just as he had when he first invited them over. I stood quietly at his side. A doe walked out of the trees. I half expected her to bow in acknowledgment but she bent to taste the frost-covered grass. Patrick just knelt there. When three does were standing in the yard he carefully stood and looked to me. I gave him a “ready?” look and he returned a “not yet” look. He watched the yard, waited for the deer to feed and then stepped forward, alert, while carefully observing the deer. With his eyes he pointed left. I followed his gaze. The buck.
Step by smooth and silent step we inched out to the yard, Patrick as my little shadow, copying my movements, yet somehow remaining detached. He was quick to freeze and surprisingly patient waiting for the deer. He stepped forward a little too soon and the deer’s heads all snapped up. He froze and waited for a long while until the nearest doe trotted off a bit and stopped. The buck stepped out onto the grass, making his presence known. Patrick knelt down again, seemingly acknowledging the buck’s position within the herd. Where had he learned this stuff? When Pat saw it was safe, he rose and stepped toward the herd again with stealthy, quiet steps. Freeze. Heads down. Two more steps. Freeze. The deer peered over our shoulder. I imagined them looking Rusty in the eye as he took his place in the bay window. We waited for them to accept the change and go back to feeding. I sensed Patrick’s impatience. I knew standing in the field motionless when you were literally freezing wasn’t always fun. There was no complaining or shivering allowed. Pat could have given this up at any time and I wouldn’t have faulted him for it. However, the longer he stuck with it the more credit I had to give him. I didn’t expect him to get very far this first time. The deer were still fifty or sixty feet away. He was close enough to get a good look at them and likewise, the deer could now get a good look at us. Sixty feet was plenty close. In the deer clearing near the ranch it would have taken us a few hours to get this close.
The deer took their time relaxing and Patrick was having trouble staying still. No nose itches, no sneezes, no flexing sore muscles. We had to freeze. The deer’s heads went down, step, step, pause, cautious step, freeze.
We were down to forty feet and for no apparent reason the deer suddenly had better things to do, so they wandered off. I watched Patrick as he allowed himself to relax. He walked quietly behind the deer as they moved off to their next destination. He knelt one more time and then got up and followed me into the house. We stomped around the house, hands in pockets waiting for the warmth to take hold. Rusty appeared at the end of the hall in boxer pants and a t-shirt.
He came in and took a seat on the old brown couch.
“Patrick, come here,” Rusty said. “You did great! I was watching from the bedroom window. You got a lot closer than I did on my first try stalking.”
Patrick looked thoughtful.
“I guess I can’t expect them to know me so soon,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Rusty asked.
“I talked to them. I asked them to come and they did. I guess I should just be glad they came. It’s not like they had to. They could have stayed away.”
“Patrick, whether the deer show up or not is purely chance. They come when they think the grass here is worth the trip. Sometimes we see them frequently; sometimes they stay away for a few days at a time,” Rusty said.
“Next time they will know me better. Did I scare them away?”
“Not that I could tell,” I said. “Usually, if you scare them, they suddenly look at you very alert and then they move quickly away. This time it just seemed to be time to move on.”
“I don’t want to scare them. I know what it feels like to be scared and I don’t want them to be scared.”
“The fear deer feel is different from the fear people experience,” I told him. “They don’t dwell on it. They don’t think about what could have happened. It’s more like when you are startled by something and then jump away, ‘Yikes!’ and then you don’t think about it much anymore because what scared you is gone. If you stay nice and quiet and move gently and smoothly, you won’t make them afraid to come here. If deer stayed away from any place they could meet predators, they couldn’t live in the mountains. They know dangers lurk so they stay alert but they don’t worry about things like small boys trying to stalk them in a yard.”
“What do deer worry about then?”
“Animals don’t worry like people do. They can fret but they don’t dwell on things. Deer pretty much live for the moment.”
“You make it sound like they don’t think.”
“Well, deer do think some. They know where the grass is green and where to find water. They seem to remember when a water source has dried up and will check back later, but deer don’t think like people do. There isn’t some Einstein deer out there that is going to suddenly approach some scientist and try to explain the meaning of life to them. Deer know about grass and what trees are edible when the grass is gone and how to stay warm in the snow. They are only smart in the areas they need to be. Their world is very small. Patrick, why do you worry about what the deer think?”
“Because… they matter too.”
I could hear Rusty’s dad telling me, “Every life is precious.” I guess Patrick had decided the same thing.
“I’m glad you think that way, but don’t worry about them. The deer get along fine and they will be back. Now Uncle Rusty is going to shower and get dressed in the bathroom so we can put peanuts in the platform feeder and watch the birds.”
Patrick followed me outside to where I kept the bins of birdseed. After filling one bird feeder with wild birdseed, I had Patrick put a scoop of peanuts in the platform feeder. I needed to buy suet and wished I’d known earlier how much Patrick liked watching the birds. With the right seed I could probably draw in a few acorn woodpeckers, maybe some flickers.
It didn’t take long for the birds to realize there was food out there. I set Patrick up in the bay window with his bird book opened to jays and a bookmark in place for the sparrows and finches. I went to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast. Every once in a while I went to the bedroom and put my ear to the bathroom door.
“What are you doing?” Patrick asked.
“Checking the time,” I told him. “When Uncle Rusty starts shaving I know it’s time to start making his breakfast. If I start too soon it will be cold before he finishes.” I returned to the kitchen and puttered around, waiting for the right time to start cooking.
“Ooo! Ooo!” I heard down the hall. “It’s a jay! It’s a jay! I don’t have any jays checked off!” Then later, “Darn, house finches and purple finches are both red. How do you tell light red from dark red?” And then later, “Aaaah! Aunt Cassidy! A big bird got one of the little ones!” He ran into the kitchen. “A big bird got one of the little ones!” he repeated.
“Some big birds eat little birds,” I replied calmly. “It’s just a fact of life. What kind of big bird was it? A hawk? An owl? It was probably a hawk if it was out in the daytime.”
We went back to the bay window to see if the hawk was perched somewhere close by, eating his breakfast, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you notice how big it was? What color? Any patterns, especially on the tail? Did it have a cute little mask on? Sparrow hawks have really striking facial markings.”
“I don’t know. I was so mad at it I didn’t think of finding it in the bird book.”
“Well, look up hawks and read about them. See which ones live in this area, which ones eat small birds. Maybe you can narrow it down.” And so the bird detective went to work. He sat at the dining room table poring through a book that had been written for adults. I guess he was used to not understanding all of it because he never asked questions except to get the pronunciation of the names. Rusty came into the kitchen for breakfast and saw Patrick engrossed in the bird book.
“I think you’ll have to watch and see if it comes back and then remember to watch its markings,” I told him.
“I don’t want it to come back,” he said. “Not if it eats the little birds!”
“You said you wanted to see birds. You didn’t say what kind. Hawks are like the bobcats and lynxes of the air. Just like wildcats eat rabbits, hawks eat small birds. Surely you’ve seen hawks at the ranch.”
“Mom and Dad don’t pay much attention to the birds. They’re too busy. I think they are missing a lot because they don’t bother to look around them. It’s just get this done and get that done. So I watch the birds and go stalking by myself. But it’s hard because I can’t leave the yard. It is so boring. Schoolwork and the yard, that’s all I get to do.”
I could empathize. At six, he was pretty much stuck under Jesse’s watchful eye. He wanted to stalk deer but was limited to watching birds and rabbits. I’d always pushed the rules when I was growing up, but that was the reason for much of the trouble I’d gotten into.
Rusty and I sat at the dining room table watching Patrick deeply engrossed in the book.
“How old were you when you started reading?” Rusty asked me.
“I read easy books in first grade. It was when I realized that people wrote about all the things that interested me that I really started reading. It was mostly books just like that one. Field guides, survival books, horse books. Whatever interested me at the time, I wanted to know as much as possible about it. My father would buy me the books and then my mom would hide and watch as I tried all the things I read about. Of course, the older I got the more adventurous I became. My mom was afraid to get me any more books, but my dad wasn’t. He fed my imagination with more and more adventures to try. One time I…” oops, nope I better not tell Rusty that particular story with Patrick listening because I didn’t want to try and find him if he pulled the same thing. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
“Aw, Aunt Cassidy, that’s mean!”
“And that’s precisely why I won’t tell him. Because you’d listen. And then you’d try it.”
“Try what?”
“I’m not falling for that. You think I didn’t try that when I was a kid? By the way, that works really good on Zack and Randy. Zack forgets right away that he wasn’t going to say something. Randy just likes to talk. If you do that to Old Frank he just glares at you and says, ‘I weren’t born yestidy, y’know.’”
“What does Steve do?”
“Steve doesn’t have to do anything.”
When Rusty left for work Patrick and I stood in the entryway looking at each other with a “Now what?” expression on our faces. Here we were in a nice warm, quiet house and the deer had come and gone for the morning.
“I need to get out. Let’s go visit some friends.”
“Do we have to? When Mom goes to visit friends she ends up drinking tea and I have to play some baby game with Sammy and Richie.”
“I don’t have those kinds of friends, at least not yet. Let’s go visit the rangers up in the mountains. I haven’t seen some of them in a long time. You remember Mr. Green don’t you?”
His eyes brightened at the prospect of having some guy talk. He might even get to see some more birds for his checklist.
“Bring your bird book and some binoculars. You’re not getting out of the Jeep without a coat on. It might even be a little snowy up there.”
“Snow? Yahoo!” He ran to get his book then grabbed his coat off the back of a chair while I searched for hiking boots, another coat and binoculars.
“What do you use that thing for?” he asked.
“You’ve never used binoculars before?”
“No. Why do you have them?”
“Every first-rate birdwatcher needs a good pair of binoculars. Look through these lenses and then turn this little wheel until it’s in focus. It makes far away things look bigger and you can see details. So if there’s a bird in a tree you can see it better. If you see a bird that you want to look at, tell me to stop and maybe we can get a better look at it.”
I took him to the end of the driveway.
“See that sign on the Mireau’s house? Look at it through the binoculars and you’ll be able to read it.”
He looked and fiddled with the wheel.
“Oh, cool! Can I use these? Really?”
“Yeah, that’s why I brought them, so you could see the birds. Just don’t drop them.”
It didn’t take long for me to wish I’d never brought the binoculars.
“Aunt Cassidy! Stop!” he yelled.
I thought I was about to drive off a cliff or hit the general in my Jeep or something. I screeched to a halt.
“What is it, Pat?” I worriedly asked.
“Can you back up? I think it was by that tree.”
Backing the Jeep up we watched as a quail quickly scurried into the brush and vanished.
“Patrick, if it’s just a bird sighting, don’t panic. Let’s try this. First of all watch ahead of the car. Then, if you see a bird, say ‘bird at three o’clock’ or wherever it is.”
“Three o’clock?”
“Picture a clock face. You’re facing twelve o’clock. So, as you go around the clock you have one o’clock, two o’clock and three o’clock is directly to your right. Six o’clock is directly behind you. Nine o’clock is to your left. Can you do that? Then I will know it’s not an emergency.” I pointed to each direction as I said it. The plan was semi-successful. He couldn’t think through the clock theory fast enough to stop me from passing the birds so he settled for “bird on my side” and “bird ahead” and that worked for me.
After about a dozen bird stops we pulled into the ranger station. They had a feeder filled with birdseed and Patrick watched it as we walked up, trying to decide if there were any new birds. As soon as we got close they all flew away in a flurry. We stepped into the warmth of the station but all was quiet.
“Hello?” I called out. “Anybody home?”
Paul came out of the back room. He was pudgier and balder than I remembered him.
“Cassidy! Where have you been all this time? You don’t stop by like you used to. Did you move away or something?”
“No, I’m still around. You came to my wedding and you’ve seen the news.”
“I just haven’t seen you. And, sorry, I didn’t make it to the wedding.”
“This is my nephew, Patrick. Pat, this is Paul. He’s never told me his last name so you can just call him Paul.”
“Are you a real ranger?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “There’s just not much rangering to do this time of year. We are between seasons so we do a lot of maintenance work. Usually the office isn’t even open and I guess it’s not open to the public. I just had it unlocked because I’m expecting a bunch of guys in here any minute.”
“We’re up here looking for deer and birds. And we’d like to say ‘hi’ to Kelly if he’s handy. Pat, why don’t you slowly walk up to the window so you won’t scare the birds away, then you can see if they are in the book.”
As Patrick stalked up to the window Paul’s eyes got big.
“Don’t tell me you’re teaching him to track. I swear it’s just like watching a miniature you,” he commented.
“Umm, yes and no. He just seems to take after me and I promised him I’d take him deer stalking if he touched a wild rabbit. Well, he did, so his mom brought him down here to stalk deer in my backyard.”
“Oh! Aunt Cassidy, how do you tell a Mexican jay from a scrub jay?” Patrick called out.
“It’s a scrub jay,” I said. “Mexican jays don’t live here.”
“He can read that book?” Paul asked.
“Some of it, some of it he has trouble with. Mexican is easy to sound out.”
Pat ran over and opened his book to a list in the back and checked off scrub jay.
“You might find deer, birds and Kelly all fairly close together if you head for Jasper Flats. Sometimes the deer feed in that big clearing. Kelly’s doing maintenance work on Glen Hollow Campground.”
I looked over the map on the counter and planned my route.
“Okay, thanks.”
Patrick was back at the window. He couldn’t decide if the birds he was watching were house finches or purple finches. I’d never been able to tell the difference either.
“How come scrub jays don’t come to the feeder?” Patrick asked.
“Because they eat bugs. Bug eaters won’t come to the feeders much. You have to see them in the wild. Birds eat all kinds of things. Big birds eat little birds. Some birds eat seeds. Some eat bugs. Roadrunners eat snakes and lizards,” I added. “And many birds eat fish.”
“We can’t put fish out for the birds, can we?”
“It wouldn’t work. The birds that eat fish like to catch their own. Okay, we’re off to Glen Hollow Campground. Watch for quail and meadowlarks on the side of the road. Meadowlarks have bright yellow breasts and they wear a black necklace.”
“Good luck,” Paul called out, “and don’t be such a stranger. Stop in again soon.”
“I will.”
A meadowlark and two coveys of quail later, we pulled into Glen Hollow. It was just as deserted as its name implied. We drove around looking for Kelly or his light green ranger truck and saw that the campground was in sad shape. We found Kelly hard at work painting over graffiti on overturned picnic tables. He smiled broadly as we drove up. As I got out of the Jeep Kelly’s big black lab galloped up. I jumped back into the Jeep and slammed the door shut. Kelly shot me an odd look as he leaned up against the hood of the Jeep. I leaned back in the seat and started counting to twenty. Then I looked down into the dog’s big brown eyes. Okay, Cass, you know this dog is harmless. Just get out. It’s easy. He may jump on you, but he’s friendly. I psyched myself up and then slowly opened the door. Kelly commanded his dog to sit and he obeyed, but I could sense the tension just under the surface. Friendly tension, Cass. He just wants to say ‘hi’. I slid out of the Jeep. By now Patrick had run around our vehicle and was enthusiastically petting the big black dog. I reached down and patted the massive head. Flashbacks echoed in my mind. Dogs rushing at me. I tried to put it away. I knew this dog wouldn’t hurt me. I had played with Amos many times on visits with Rusty to Kelly’s house. But right now I couldn’t. I just couldn’t force myself to be close to the dog for any length of time. I hoped that would change, but right now it was a sharp fear that made my heart pound and my flight mode kick in.
“Hey kiddo,” Kelly said. “You okay? Amos won’t hurt you.”
“I know. Big dogs just trigger something in me. Rusty doesn’t understand it either, how I always loved dogs and then after one trouble attack I’m scared of them. But he never saw the dogs the way I saw them. The fear will fade with time. I know most dogs are friendly.”
“What are you doing way up here?”
“Keeping Patrick out of trouble. He gets bored at home. Did Rusty tell you what he did yesterday?”
“No, I haven’t talked to Rusty in a week.”
“We’re up here looking for birds and deer. Patrick has a checklist and he’s found several birds today that he’d never seen before. Here, Patrick, take the binoculars and see if you can find any new birds. Just stay where we can see you.”
Patrick walked around the campground staring into the bushes and trees.
“So, now that he’s out of earshot, what did Patrick do yesterday?”
“Mark came over to the house to stalk deer and Patrick, seeing a man sneaking around the backyard, thought he was a prowler. The deer bypassed my house, maybe because they saw Mark there. Anyway, Patrick grabbed my cell phone and called 911 as he followed Mark home. When he got to Mark’s house he read the address off a sign on their house. I tracked down Patrick right before the police came screaming up the road. It was embarrassing. I was glad both officers knew me.”
Kelly laughed loudly. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing, I couldn’t fault the kid for doing what he thought was right. He thought Mark was a bad guy stalking me. What’s a kid to think when bad guys regularly do stalk me? It was the logical conclusion for a six-year-old to reach. He’s heard all the stories. How was he supposed to know that some men sneak around my backyard and are welcomed there?”
“Is everything okay at the ranch? Why is he here?”
“He tagged a rabbit.”
“Already?”
“Yup, surprised me, too. I thought it would be at least another year before I’d be taking him deer stalking.”
“Aunt Cassidy! Can you still see me?” Patrick called from a distance. I looked around. No Patrick.
“No, Pat, stay closer.”
“Aw, how come, I can see you!” he called back.
“Where are you?”
“Look up!”
My heart skipped a beat. Oh, hell. “Patrick! What are you doing way up there? You get down here, right now!”
“I’m stalking a bird. A little brown bird that goes hop, hop, hop around the tree. Can you find it in the book? I couldn’t climb with the book so I thought I’d see it real good and then look it up after I get down.” He struggled to hold onto the tree and the binoculars at the same time. Kelly gawked up into the tree, then shot me a worried look.
“Get down now! If your mom saw you up there she’d strangle me!”
“Okay!” Then suddenly, “Ahh, I can’t!”
Sigh. Kelly and I exchanged glances.
“Got a rope?” I asked.
“I always have a rope.”
“Can I use it?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to climb up there, fashion a harness out of the rope and then lower him down to you.”
“No way.”
“Why?”
“Because if Rusty saw you way up there he’d strangle me.”
“We won’t tell Rusty you were here. Besides, your paint is drying.”
“To hell with the paint. Paint is supposed to dry eventually.”
“Not in the can. I’ll be fine.”
We found the rope and Kelly followed me to the tree.
“Kelly, no, look, he’s my responsibility. I’ll get him down.” We had a short stare down. I stood tall and put all my twenty-six years of being daddy’s girl into it.
“Cassidy, how do you do that?” he asked, backing down with a sheepish grin on his face.
We coiled and tied the rope so I could wear it and still climb. I draped it over my shoulder and started climbing. I was maybe six feet off the ground when I noticed I was covered in sap. Anything that came remotely close to touching the tree became sappy.
“Patrick? Did you get sap all over you?”
“What’s sap?”
“Sticky stuff.”
“Yeah, it was on the tree.”
“Oh, Pat, that stuff doesn’t wash out of anything. We’re both going to be sticky for the rest of our lives.”
“Can I go to school sticky?”
“Yeah, but you might stick to your desk and then you won’t be able to go home.”
“I better not go to school. I might get the other kids sticky.”
“Sorry, buddy, sap isn’t an excuse to skip school.”
“How come the birds don’t stick to the tree? I remember Dad put up this sticky paper and flies got stuck to it. It freaked me out hearing the poor flies stuck on the paper, buzzing until they died there. I felt sorry for them.”
“The birds know where to go so they don’t get sappy.”
Kelly laughed quietly at the bottom of the tree while I climbed higher and higher.
“How did you get this high up?” I asked Patrick.
“I told you, I followed a little bird. I wasn’t thinking about how far it was.”
The branches were bending uncomfortably now. Patrick was able to climb higher because he weighed less. I stood on a branch looking for a sturdy way up and it broke out from under me. I grabbed the next branch on my way down and pulled myself up, unsteadily. I sat on the branch catching my breath.
“Kelly?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to do a sort of belay.”
I tied the rope around my waist and formed the rest of the rope into a bundle that I could fling over a sturdy fork in the tree above where Patrick was stranded. I tossed the bundle up and over Patrick’s head. When it finally landed on the other side, I pulled in the bundle of rope and untied it, lowering the end down through the branches to Kelly.
“Just take up the slack as I climb,” I called down.
I climbed up to Patrick’s level holding onto the sturdy middle trunk, then inched out along the branch. Kelly reluctantly fed me more rope.
“Pat, I can’t come any further without breaking the branch. You know what it means if the branch breaks. Reach out to me. When you do, grab my wrist, not my hand. Grab the wrist. Got it?”
Six inches. Four inches. With each movement the branch bobbed more and more. I leaned out, grabbed Patrick’s wrist and pulled him to me. With that, the branch snapped and fell tumbling downward, bouncing off lower branches as it went. I instinctively grasped Patrick’s wrist and held on as we rode the rope straight into the trunk of the tree.
Patrick yelled, “Ahhhhhhhhh,” as though he was falling off a cliff but the bounce off the trunk stopped him short. I took the brunt of it, having been on the inside of the fall.
“Cassidy! Are you okay?” Kelly shouted up the tree.
I finished bouncing and swinging around before I answered.
“Yeah, give us some rope.”
He slowly lowered us to a sturdy branch where I untied the rope and made a harness for Patrick.
“Use your hands and feet to ward off the branches and just ride it down,” I told him. “Ready?” I called out to Kelly.
“Ready,” he called back.
I lifted Patrick and lowered him over the branch.
“Take up slack,” I called down.
When the roped felt taut I released Patrick, and Kelly lowered him to the ground. I began climbing down. Kelly would have lowered me down too, but I didn’t feel like accepting any more help today. When I had my feet safely on the ground I glared down at Pat.
“New rule,” I said. “Keep your feet on the ground unless specifically told to do otherwise.”
He stared at his feet. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said softly.
“Okay, now that we got our daily disaster over with let’s look up that bird. I know what it was but you need to figure it out for yourself. I’ll give you a hint. Look in amongst the birds like the nuthatch. It should be close to those birds in your book. Remember, it looks like tree bark and it has a long curvy bill so it can pick bugs out of the crevasses of the bark. The name starts with a B.”
“Cassidy,” Kelly said, “you have the patience of an angel. I would have tanned his hide.”
“You never tan my hide,” I replied and blushed after realizing what I’d said. “I mean…”
Kelly was smiling broadly, enjoying my predicament.
“He was just doing what I would have done. Now he knows not to go so high. Why punish him more?”
“Here it is,” Patrick said. “A brown creeper. I would have named it a bark backed beaky bird. I don’t get some of these names. I get why they named this one a brown creeper, but, what about the gallinule? Who thought up that? And why did they think gallinule when they saw a bird?”
“I don’t know Pat. If you become an ornithologist and discover a new species you can name it whatever you want.”
“I could?”
“Yeah, it’s just really hard to discover new species because they may have all been discovered already. You’d have to go to college and get a degree in ornithology and then travel to some remote island where nobody has seen birds yet. After that you’d have to actually find one that hasn’t been categorized yet… it’s a hard job to discover a new species. Now, let me see you. Any scrapes we need to doctor? Nope? You were lucky. I think our trip to the mountains is over for today. We should go home to try and wash off all this sap. We can’t do much of anything with all this sap on us.”
“Aww, I don’t want to go home.”
“We need to get back before four o’clock anyway just in case the deer come down to eat. After we’ve had our baths maybe the deer will come. I’ll take you to town and get you some greasy fast food on the way.”
“Do we have to?”
“I guess we don’t have to right away. I’ll give you half an hour to find another bird for your checklist and then when I say ‘load up’ I really mean it.”
Pat started to race off. “Stay in sight, no climbing!” He began prowling through the brush scaring off every bird within half a mile. I visited with Kelly while he finished painting the picnic table and trashcan.
“Want me to pull it back over with my winch?” I asked.
“It’s gotta dry first or all the dirt stirred up will stick to it.”
We heard giggling from the brush. “It’s an Austin Powers bird!” Patrick laughed. He flipped this way and that in his book. Kelly and I looked at each other again. An Austin Powers bird? What in the world was an Austin Powers bird? I snuck through the brush.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“It’s a flicker,” I laughed. How appropriate was that? “Is it a red shafted or a yellow shafted flicker? When it flies and you can see it’s under parts that will tell you.”
He rattled the branches and the flicker flew away, revealing red under parts.
“It’s a red shafted flicker,” I informed him. “It’s a kind of woodpecker.”
We crawled out of the brush. Leaves had stuck to the sap. I tried to brush them off but they just broke off, leaving little bits of leaf imbedded in the sap.
“Why do you think it’s an Austin Powers bird?” I asked.
“It has a big black spot on its chest just like Austin Powers.”
Kelly roared with laughter. He seemed to see the humor in everything. “It makes as much sense and it’s just as good a visual picture as red shafted flicker!”
“Only if you’ve seen Austin Powers without a shirt on,” I added. “Was that a new bird too?”
“Yeah! I checked off western meadowlark, California quail, scrub jay and red shafted flicker today!”
“And brown creeper,” I added. “You don’t want to forget that one after all the trouble you went through to see it.”
“Can I call Mom when we get home?”
“What are you going to tell her?” I asked, wary about what a call home might entail.
He thought for a minute. “Maybe I better not.”
“She’d love to get a call from you. Just tell her you got to stalk the deer and you went bird watching and you saw some new kinds of birds. You don’t have to tell her everything.”
“If I tell her I got to stalk the deer she’ll want me to come home.”
“I can’t take you home until Friday, that’s settled. You’ll have more chances to stalk deer. Especially if we go home and get cleaned up.”
We pulled into the Carl’s Jr parking lot and both of us jumped out of the Jeep ready for a Western Bacon Cheeseburger, but I took one look at Patrick and stopped.
“Look at you, you can’t eat in there looking like that.”
“Why?”
“You look like you’ve been tarred and feathered!”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’ve got leaves stuck all over you. And I have little leaf bits stuck all over me too. We’ll have to use the drive through and eat at home.”
“Aww, I wanted to crawl around in the play place.”
“You’d stick to it and then you’d have to live at Carl’s Jr forever.”
“Okay!”
“Not okay, Rusty and I would miss you. So would your mom, dad, Wyatt, Grandma and Grandpa. Come on, we’re driving through, eating at home and taking a long bath to get rid of the sap, then we’ll watch for the deer.”
“What is sap?”
“It’s like tree blood.”
“Ewe, I have tree blood on me?”
“Sort of.”
“Why was the tree bleeding?”
“Trees just do that. It doesn’t hurt them. Okay what do you want?”
“What’s the kid’s meal prize?”
“Pat, you don’t choose your meal according to the toy you might get. If you can eat a big people’s meal, I’ll buy one. If not, we’ll get you a kid’s meal.”
“Can I get a kid’s meal with a Jr Bacon Cheeseburger?”
“I’ll check.”
Patrick’s lunch was eaten before we were half way home. I heard about it each time he found a perfectly cooked French fry. I ran a bath for him when we got home and he closed the shower curtain and played in the water while I ate my lunch.
“Use soap!” I called out.
“Aw, rats.”
“Shampoo too!”
“I always get it in my eyes.”
“I’ll help if you don’t mind me coming in.”
“I’ll try.”
“If you feel it running down your head, catch it with the washcloth.”
Just monitoring the kid’s bath was wearing me out. A hundred questions a day. Discussing the merits of a kid’s meal. And just think, if I were his mom I’d be in there shampooing his hair. Keeping track of his whereabouts twenty-four/seven. I wasn’t sure I could handle real parenthood.
After his bath, we looked at the platform feeder and found it empty. We put another scoop of peanuts in it and I left him with orders to stay in the house while I showered. Then I took the fastest shower I could remember outside of the Marines.
“Are you still as sticky as me?” I asked after I showered and dressed in the bathroom.
“Yeah, will we really be sticky for the rest of our lives?”
“No, but we will for a few days anyway. At least we will smell more outdoorsy for the deer.”
“Except for the soapy smell and the shampooy smell and the fabric softener smell from the towel.”
“Well, yeah, there is that. Should we go roll around in the dirt?”
“Yeah!”
“Then you’d need another bath tonight. Have you read a book today?”
“The bird book.”
“Okay. Just so you read a little bit every day.”
“How come you want me to read but you don’t care if I do math?”
“Because you do math anyway.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do. You were doing math when you were trying to figure out the clock. Here, stand up. Show me where three o’clock is.”
He thought for a second.
“Twelve is straight ahead?”
“Yeah.”
“Then three is that way,” he said, pointing right.
“Good, where’s six o’clock?”
He pointed behind him.
“Where’s four o’clock?”
He pointed to his right and slightly behind him.
“Good! All that is math. It’s like a circular number line. How many birds did you see today?”
“Lots!”
“How many did you identify for your checklist?”
He counted. “Five.”
“And how many got away before you could figure out what they were?”
He thought a minute. “Six.”
I thought it was more than that but I just needed a number.
“So if you had identified all those birds how many checks would you have in your book?”
“Six and five?”
“Yeah.”
He thought while counting and decided he didn’t have that many fingers. “Eleven?”
“Right! And now you just did math again. You did math the whole time you were measuring ingredients for the cookies. That time you were doing fractions. When you were stalking the deer you were thinking about how far away they were and how much distance you still needed to cross. All that is math, too.”
“What about science?”
“You learned science today too. You know birds eat seeds, bugs, smaller birds, snakes and lizards. That’s all science.”
“What about history?”
“You made your hamburger history. So see?”
“I don’t think that counts.”
“Well, you’re on vacation. I don’t expect you to do all your subjects each day you’re on vacation. Tell your mom you studied ornithology today. She always likes when you use new words. I bet she doesn’t even know what ornithology is.”
“What is it again?”
“The study of birds.”
“Oh, yeah. Can I call her?”
“Sure.”
I tried not to listen as Pat spoke to his parents, but I was worried that he’d go into detail about the past two days. If Jesse really knew what had happened, she’d be down here before nightfall.
“Mom wants to talk to you,” Pat said when he was finished.
Gulp. “Hey Jess! Is your house really, really quiet?”
“You wouldn’t believe.”
“Yes I would.”
“Pat is having a great time. I hope he isn’t too much trouble.”
“No, not at all. Hopefully he’ll have better luck stalking the deer this afternoon.”
“He was really proud of the fact that he got to have pizza and fast food two days in a row.”
“That’s a kid for you. I assure you, though, he’s been eating other things too.” I think. Okay, maybe not yet, hmmm.
“Do you have to teach him big words? I’m not going to be able to understand him when he comes home. What’s orthinology?”
I laughed. “I didn’t do too good a job. It’s ornithology. The study of birds. He’s been working on his bird list.”
“Oh yeah, that. I don’t see what he sees in it. He spends hours sitting at his window and checking that book.”
“It’s good for him. It improves his memory to keep track of the bird’s markings. It involves categorizing and reading. All those things are important.”
“Cassidy, you really should be a mom and have your own kid to teach.”
“Me? A mom? I don’t think so. I think I’ll stick to being an aunt.”
“No, you need a baby. Mom needs a new grandchild. Rusty would make a great dad, too.”
“I don’t need a baby and I wouldn’t know what to do with one. I’m perfectly happy the way things are.”
“Okay, you don’t know what you’re missing, though. A baby would help keep you out of trouble too.”
Yeah, I thought, I’d be too busy explaining things to the police and climbing three story tall trees to get into trouble.
“Patrick can call you whenever he wants. He was excited about seeing new birds today. He wanted to tell you about it. Are you going to survive until Friday?”
“Yeah, but it sure is quiet. I have too much time on my hands. I didn’t realize how quiet Wyatt is until Patrick was gone. Sometimes I even wonder if Wyatt’s still in the house, he’s so quiet.”
Yeah, I had wondered the same thing about Pat, except during those moments he usually wasn’t in the house!
“It’s almost four o’clock, time to start the next deer watch.”
“Okay, see ya Friday?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
Whew! Patrick was smarter than I thought. Either that or Jesse was testing me.
“Are the deer coming?” Patrick asked as I hung up the phone.
“We just have to wait and see. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Did you invite them?”
“Yeah, I asked them to come back this morning but they didn’t say anything.”
“They acted like they had other things to do. Hey, maybe they took off this morning for reasons we don’t know about. Maybe if we go back in the trees we’ll find out there were predators out there that the deer needed to get away from. If we’d gone to look this morning we could have done some tracking.”
“I’m glad we went to the mountains but wish I’d seen snow. I’ve only seen snow falling. I’ve never seen it all over the ground.”
“I sure have. Once the rainy season starts, the mountains get a lot of snow and then skiers get lost behind the ski resort and I help find them. We wear snowshoes and heavy coats and sometimes our gear freezes. Most people think southern California is all beaches and sunshine, but believe me, it gets cold in spots. Go see if the deer are coming yet.”
Patrick went to the den window and peeked out, then he ran to the bedroom and sat in the bay window watching the bird feeder and the hills. When the deer started coming I didn’t tell Patrick about it. I wanted the deer to gather outside and get settled before we went out. If everything was calm and settled before leaving the house we’d have better luck. It didn’t work. Pat saw the deer coming, too.
“Shoes, coat and gloves,” I reminded him. Then I took my time finding my own coat.
“Come on, Aunt Cassidy!”
“Pat, one of the things you need to learn in stalking is patience. If you rush things you’ll push the deer away. The more settled you let them get in the yard, the calmer they will be when you stalk them. Try it this way just once, and if it doesn’t work better than yesterday, we’ll go back to your way. Have a cookie while you are waiting. After we go stalking I’m going to make fudge. And we need to cook dinner and have vegetables tonight. You told your mom you’d been eating pizza and fast food so now she thinks I’m spoiling you. I’ll make spaghetti. You like that, right?”
“Yeah!”
I looked out the back window.
“Just a few more minutes. The deer are doing good. There are four of them out on the grass and I bet there’s another couple still in the trees. Paul was pretty impressed when he saw you sneak up to the window at the ranger station. He thought you’d be good at stalking because of the way you snuck up to the window.”
Patrick gave me a surprised look.
“The ranger said that?”
“Well, what he really said was that you stalked like me, but he was impressed or he wouldn’t have said anything at all.”
A cold wind had come up while we’d been in the house and it was freezing as we stepped outside to stalk. We started out from the back door this time, since the deer took note of us as soon as we stepped out. Crossing the patio was easy. We just waited until the deer were distracted and quietly skimmed over the cement before we stopped at the grass. This angle proved to be easier than starting at the barn. We could use the house and some bushes for cover before actually standing out in the open.
The deer seemed very intent on eating which made me wonder if bad weather was coming. In Joshua hills the winter weather pattern was three days of sunshine followed by several days of wind. The wind would blow in a storm. The high desert version of a storm could be anything from a light drizzle to a hard downpour. If it came out of the east, we’d have rain. If it came from the north, there was a chance of a snowfall. If it came from the west, we’d probably get snow in the foothills but none would fall in town. If the wind was blowing in a storm, the deer might be preparing for it. We might get a real good stalking day in if the deer had a plan.
Now I’m thinking like Patrick, I thought. The deer have a plan; yeah, right. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that animals did prepare for bad weather.
I watched the deer. Their heads stayed down so we inched closer. Heads up, freeze. The deer stared at us, daring us to try anything, then they relaxed and looked around for any other dangers. One by one they went back to feeding so we took two more long smooth steps. I signaled Patrick to get down, down, down. We knelt in the grass, just watching the deer. I thought maybe if he rested his legs in a sitting position, he’d have more patience in long still times later in the stalk. Suddenly his expression brightened. He had an idea, but he knew not to share it now. He looked at me and his movement caused the deer to startle. They all jumped slightly and Patrick checked himself, embarrassed that he had slipped. We had to wait for them to settle down again before we smoothly went from our sitting position to a low crouch.
Click, buzz, click, buzz. Mark was here, behind the barn. I hoped he knew to stay out of sight. Patrick didn’t seem to notice the camera noises, but the deer did. They stared at the barn, which allowed us to get another step closer. Inch by inch, we crept closer until I noticed a movement in the trees. Now it was my turn to stare off in distraction. What was it? It didn’t move like a deer. It was too big to be a coyote. I’d never seen a wolf in the foothills. I’d only seen coyotes and…uh oh…and a mountain lion.
“Pst,” I signaled Patrick quietly.
He waited until the deer were distracted then looked at me. With my eyes I signaled, “This way.” He gave me a look that said, “Aw, why?” I stared at him with a “Don’t question me” look and he replied with an “Okay” look. We stalked over to the side of the house and found a place against the wall. Patrick didn’t understand my actions at all. We probably left Mark puzzling about it too. I was hoping my instincts would prove valuable. I signaled for Pat to sit next to me. We curled up small just watching the deer. I saw the movement again and pointed it out to Patrick. He gave me a “What is it?” look and I signaled to just keep watching.
The big cat crouched behind a juniper, watching the deer. Patrick’s eyes got real big. I gave him the “hush” signal. The mountain lion was silently planning his stalk, singling out one deer, the weaker one. Patrick gave a “No!” look. He didn’t want the mountain lion to catch a deer. I didn’t blame him, but mountain lions have to eat, too. I wondered if Jesse would want Patrick to witness the attack but decided to wait and see what happened. If I stood up at the last minute it would throw off the cat and the deer would run away. I felt a little sorry for Mark, missing a great photo opportunity. Before I could decide anything, the huge cat rushed forward. At the same time, Patrick jumped up and yelled “No!” The deer all scattered and the mountain lion bounded after his target doe. “No! Leave her alone!” he wailed.
We never saw if the mountain lion got dinner that day. Patrick was upset. The deer were gone. Mark came out of hiding, disappointed but elated at the same time.
We were freezing so we all went back inside and I started heating water for hot chocolate.
“That was awesome!” Mark exclaimed.
“Did you get pictures of the mountain lion?” I asked.
“You know how that is. I’ll develop them and let you know. I want to give you the pictures of Patrick so he can take them home with him. Moms like pictures of their kids.”
“Mr. Mireau is a nature photographer,” I told Patrick. “There are posters and calendars and note cards with his pictures on them. He even has a studio in Toronto where he sells prints. He took the pictures in the living room on a trip to Santa Cruz Island.”
“I thought those pictures were of you,” Patrick said.
I paused. It was odd that Patrick knew the pictures were of me, especially since adults usually didn’t recognize me in those pictures.
“They are,” I told him. “I was on Santa Cruz Island, too. Pat, you can’t get upset whenever you see an animal hunting. Mountain lions need to eat too, you know. How is a mountain lion supposed to eat if it can’t catch a deer?”
“I just hate to see one of them die.”
“I know, sport, but it’s just the way nature works. I was really excited to see a mountain lion. I’d only seen one once before. Do you understand now why I called off the stalking?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I didn’t want the mountain lion to decide you were easier to catch than a deer. Now that we know there’s a mountain lion in this area, you can’t play outside by yourself. Mountain lions are too dangerous.”
“Do you think he caught one of the deer?”
“I don’t know, Pat. If you really want to find out we can track him tomorrow. I don’t want to track him today because he might still be close by. In the morning, we’ll see if we can track him.”
“What if we see a dead deer?”
“We don’t have to track it if you don’t want to, but I’d like to anyway. I don’t get to track mountain lions very often.”
Mark perked up at the mention of tracking.
“You’re going to track the cougar? Can I tag along?”
“Sure, what time can you be over here?”
“Nine?”
“Okay, we can stalk deer in the morning, get Rusty off to work, and then track the mountain lion.”
Patrick wasn’t sure he wanted to track the mountain lion. His mind was still on the deer. I puzzled over what to do. I didn’t want to leave Patrick home alone while I went out tracking.
I started a pot of spaghetti sauce. It was simmering nicely when Rusty arrived home a little early. What a break!
“Can you watch Patrick for about half an hour?” I asked him.
“Sure, I guess, why?”
“We had a little adventure today and I want to see the results of it. Can I borrow your rifle?”
My words brought raised eyebrows.
“I don’t expect to use it but my 9mm would be useless.”
More raised eyebrows.
“I’m tracking a mountain lion just to see if Patrick can try tracking it with me tomorrow. He doesn’t want to track it if he has to see a dead deer so I’m tracking it a little ways to see if the deer is out there. If it’s not, then I’ll take him with me tomorrow. If it is, we’ll skip the tracking. I’m only taking the rifle to be on the safe side.”
I called Mark. “I’m doing some pretracking tracking. Want to go? Get over here before it gets dark.”
Mark drove up as I was pulling the rifle out of the Explorer.
“And we are doing this, why?” he asked.
“If it’s all clear, I’ll let Pat do some tracking tomorrow. If there’s a dead deer out there, Patrick doesn’t want to go.”
He followed me to the backyard and I quickly found the place where the cougar had crouched. I pointed out the big cat paw prints in the sand. The tracks showed up well in the evening light.
“Put your hand next to the track so we can get an idea of the scale,” Mark said and then photographed my hand next to the paw print in the sand.
I heard the frequent click, buzz of Mark’s camera as I tracked the cougar. It had chased the herd past the corral and off into the junipers towards the Mireau’s house. Then the trail turned downhill and into more open ground where the deer could bound. It didn’t take the cougar long to give up the chase and this now seemed like a good trail for Patrick to track, so I happily returned home to report that the deer had gotten away. Patrick brightened noticeably when he knew the deer were safe. Rusty however wasn’t as pleased.
“Take the rifle when you go out tomorrow. If there’s a hungry cat out there, I don’t want you relying on that pistol.”
“You might need it for work,” I protested.
“Take it, or you’re not going out. I won’t need it tomorrow. The day is pretty much set.” I recognized that tone of voice. He seldom used it with me, but I knew not to question it.
When Patrick was talking and tracking, I had to remind myself that he was only six. When he was eating spaghetti, however, it was a different story. He placed a mound of spaghetti noodles on his plate, hollowed out a hole in the middle and poured the red lava into the noodle volcano until it overflowed and wiped out a forest of asparagus. Rusty and I watched him, wondering how he would manage to eat even half of the food on his plate. He ate a few trees just to say he had vegetables and then started on the volcano. When Rusty and I had clean plates he still had a mountain of food.
“I’m full,” he complained.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to eat it all. I thought you took more than you could eat anyway.”
He seemed relieved. After dinner he was bored. It sure didn’t take kids long to get bored. I wondered what I did when I got bored and realized I couldn’t do that with Patrick around. When Patrick wasn’t around I visited with Rusty and then one thing led to another and pretty soon we weren’t bored at all.
“Patrick, why don’t you tell Uncle Rusty what you did today?” I suggested.
“Do I hafta tell him everything?”
“He’s not like your mom. Besides, you didn’t break any rules. You just… well, tell Uncle Rusty about it.”
So Patrick went into a long monologue telling Rusty all about his day and recounting each bird sighting and how he followed the brown creeper up into the tree. He ran to get his bird book and showed Rusty all the new checkmarks, which, oddly enough, looked a lot like the old checkmarks. If there was one thing Patrick could do it was talk and that seemed to be the one area where he took after his mother. When he got to the afternoon’s deer stalking, he became very quiet and tense. The mountain lion had scared him. I wasn’t sure if he was scared for the deer or for his own safety. I also wasn’t sure what exactly he had seen as we sat next to the house. I personally saw a huge tawny cat bounding across the yard and startled deer leaping away. A tan blur went by, but everything happened so fast I was only able to capture a quick snapshot in my mind. Patrick’s snapshot could have been totally different from my own. I soon realized how strongly it had affected him when he ran crying from his room in the middle of the night and launched himself onto our bed. Rusty awoke in action mode, and found himself instantly standing next to the bed.
It took me a few seconds to figure out what had happened. Patrick was frantically burrowing under the covers, hiding from the thing in his dream. Rusty was standing by the bed. I reached over trying to determine which end of Patrick was which.
“Pat, it’s okay, come here. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“The mountain lion came again!” he cried. “It was killing all the deer and I couldn’t stop him! He was after the deer and they were running all over the place and the mountain lion was just catching them all.”
“It was just a dream. Mountain lions don’t really hunt like that. They only get one deer and that is their food for the next few days. They don’t kill just to kill. They only kill to eat or defend themselves.”
“I don’t like them, they’re scary!”
“I know mountain lions look scary. They are big and powerful, but they are just a part of nature. They have to eat, too.”
“Nature is mean! Why does it have to be mean?”
Rusty finally relaxed again and sat next to us on the bed.
“It just seems that way to you, Pat. When you have to chase down bad guys who do terrible things for no good reason, nature doesn’t seem so bad,” Rusty said gently.
“Now that you know it was all just a bad dream, let’s go back to bed. If we’re going to stalk deer in the morning, you’re going to have to get up early.”
“What if the mountain lion comes back?”
“It won’t hurt us. I’ll have the rifle.”
“You can’t shoot it!” he cried.
“I wouldn’t shoot it unless it came after us.”
“What if it came after the deer? Would you shoot it?”
“No, it has to eat to survive. It can hunt the deer.”
“Then I don’t want to stalk the deer. If the mountain lion is going to come, I don’t want to see it hunt the deer.”
“Come on, let’s go to bed. You’ll feel better after a good night’s rest.”
“Are we going to stalk the deer tomorrow?”
“Only if you want to. I won’t make you. I’d like to show you the tracks though. You could learn a thing or two from the tracks.”
“How come you like nature so much if there’s scary things out there?”
“Lay down and close your eyes and I’ll tell you. Now relax. I like nature because it is peaceful a lot more often than it is violent. I like to lie in the grass while the deer graze around me. I like to watch the squirrels playing in the treetops. I sometimes like to sit under a tree holding nuts in my hand until a chipmunk gets brave enough to eat right from my hand. I like colorful birds and I enjoy following a little animal when it runs under the brush where mice and voles live. And I like listening to the coyotes or wolves at night. If I could visit other countries I’d want to follow giraffes through the savannah. I think they are so funny looking. And I like foxes. They try to act dignified like a wolf but they are actually quite funny and more playful like a kitten. I’ve seen dolphins leap out of the water once and watched seals and sea lions too…” I rambled on and on until he started getting drowsy from the monotone and the repetition and then I quietly said good night and slipped away.
“Do you think he’ll stay?” Rusty whispered.
“Shh, not if we talk.”