48
The Silence of Wild Things Ned Weidner
The snow fell softly on the granite boulders and pinyon pines around us muffling the sound of the horses’ hooves as they touched the earth. The squirrels and chipmunks which had been busily stockpiling for the months ahead were nowhere to be seen. The jays were silent. The rustle of the Aspens quaking in the wind and creek running hundreds of feet below, the only sounds minus our heartbeats and breathe. They had to be close, the six missing cattle. I was helping my neighbor Larry round up some of his cattle for a fall branding. We figured they were laid up in some cover getting protection from the wind. Larry flipped the collar on his jacket and tucked his bare neck deeper into it. I pulled the brim of my hat lower. It wasn’t winter, but winter wasn’t far off. He pointed to large tracks in the dusting of snow. Four toe pads, a round paw pad and no claw marks. There was only one thing capable of making tracks that big. Larry reached down and brushed his 30.30 tucked in the saddle holster. We rode on and rounded a bend on the ridge. We had to be back soon, or the rest of the branding party would come looking for us. As we turned the corner, we noticed an animal, pale and brown moving parallel to us on the ridge across the creek. Larry glanced down at his holster. In the valley below us we could make out the black outlines of four cows lounging in the shelter of the manzanita. We rode down to them keeping a watchful eye on the body moving across the adjacent ridge, until we could no longer see it. When we reached them, a heifer and two cows with calves, they bellowed and mooed, clearly not wanting to awaken from their seeming oasis in the wintery brush. I slapped my chaps and yelled “Hey cow! Come on cow!” to rustle them up. No sooner did I slap my chaps a third time but a flash of yellow and brown jumped from the brush and grabbed the smallest calf by the neck. Larry swung his rifle and aimed to shoot. The cougar froze and looked back at Larry – eyes wide and hungry. The calf, neck broken, flopped lifelessly in his jaws. Larry didn’t pull the trigger. I watched him hold his 30.30 firm against his shoulder. He breathed steady.