CHAPTER THREE
On the night before, high above the valley floor, another recent settler to Los Angeles started a new life in his adopted homeland. Lupine-boy, waited till dusk to explore the territory. Since he had killed a 100-pound buck and eaten it over a period of three days before he crossed the freeway, he didn’t need to search for food. His nose was most attuned to picking up the scents of fellow mountain lions, both friend and foe. Lupine-boy kept raising his head and opening his nostrils in the hopes of picking up another whiff of that female perfume. It was a strange-to-him sweet and sour smell that enchanted him.
He climbed a hill where all he could smell were the two-legs. Approaching the sharp crest of the hill, he engaged his large hind muscles, and in two almost vertical leaps, landed on top. Looking down, he didn’t see chaparral, but instead hundreds of dens for the two-legs lined up along black curving trails. The young lion saw odd trees with their straight-up-in-the-air trunks and only a round bush swaying on top. Behind the dens, he noticed small, sameshaped lakes behind some of them. He caught the faint smell of burned wood and meat as though a fire had recently swept down the canyon.
Winding his way around the dens, he heard the barks of strange sounding coyotes that sensed his presence. Lupine-boy dropped into a crouch with his hair raised on the back of his neck. Another loud bark and a two-leg shining a light toward him, shook his instincts to move away, so he bound back into the folds of the mountains without making a sound. Walking between the manzanita and yarrow of the canyon walls, he felt more at ease. He was thirsty so he followed his nose heading west where he soon came upon a large sweet water lake with a high cliff to one side. Here, he eagerly drank his fill.
Nose to the ground, he picked up the ever so faint scent of another male lion. Lupine-boy immediately dropped down into a defensive, ready-to spring and fight posture and gave out a low snarl. He processed the scent as old, but his instincts still made him shiver with fear. He lay there for a while to be sure, then fresh two-leg smells returned to his nose and he moved cautiously toward a flat treed area. On pathways among the trees were a cluster of large beasts standing quiet and not moving on their four round legs.
Nearby, he found another place where two- legs lived, but not in dens. He saw what looked like several large boulders spread apart over the ground, but they were not boulders. He saw lights in some of them and heard two-leg voices. Crawling up to a dark one, he smelled strange scraps of two-leg food and a box on legs that smelled of old fire. He slowly moved closer to the dark shape. The lion’s sensitive whiskers felt its side. The surface was not hard and flexed when his nose touched it. Through the thin material, he felt warmth radiating outward and he could hear the two-legs breathing inside.
“Crack!” His pointed ears made a quick pivot. He froze. His eyes picked up a movement. A branch snapped behind him.
Startled, he bolted in the opposite direction. After a few yards, he turned around to see a raccoon running the other way.
Heading further in the direction the sun set, Lupine-boy climbed a ridgeline and rested on top. There, where the stars ended, he could make out the vast flat span of the big water. He felt calm. Behind, he felt the soft glow of the sun on his fur and realized his long night would soon be ending. Below were two-leg dens dotting the hills with stars flickering inside. Closer to the big water, they became more dense, and at the end was a black path running along the shoreline with an occasional smoking beast running fast along it. Heading down further, he came upon a narrow gravel trail lit by the sun. He peeked through the crevice of the canyon.
She stood right there. All his senses immediately recognized a kindred spirit of his homeland—a magnificent doe—and his body shook with excitement. The deer had sunlight kissing her back as she foraged at the side of the trail. Her front hoof gently nudged the grass and her ears twitched as she chewed. Watching her carefully, the hair on the lion’s back rose in anticipation. He began to stalk. He felt the skin and fur between his webbed toes, as his paws fell silently on the ground.
He crept quietly with intense concentration from hiding place to hiding place. His hind feet stepped softly into the prints of the forefeet to lessen any chance of snapping a twig and alerting his prey.
He slowly stalked with his head between his paws, belly to the ground, ears to the front and tail twitching at the tip. Soft. Silent. He got within a few body-lengths of his favorite prey. With his muscles wound and ready to pounce, he froze. Both animals’ ears swiveled as they heard loud two-leg voices. The doe jumped down an embankment while Lupine-boy quickly moved higher above the trail. From a rock outcropping, he could see a group of two-legs walking along; some tall and some small. The two-legs held a line connected to small white coyote that ran back and forth yipping at them. Lupine-boy waited for them to pass and then decided to follow them, staying hidden. The young lion stalked them silently from the bush above.
The small two-legs entranced the young lion. They’d run and stop and jump and made squealing noises as they chased each other. They excited him somehow, and he moved in closer but remained carefully hidden in the cover behind them. He followed his all-powerful instinct to see without being seen. The two-legs didn’t look to their backs or sides, so they had no idea he was there.
All of a sudden, both the two-legs and Lupine-boy jerked to a standstill. A piercing wailing cry shot up from the canyon. They all looked down to see a huge red beast hurling fast and screaming on the black path below, light flashing from its flanks. The fearsome, smoking wailing beast frightened the lion. His heart spurred him to scoot up a draw as the two-legs stood watching. He found a hole in some dense scrub and crouched down on a leafy bed. Then, calmly licking his paws, he watched the day breaking around him. Lupine-boy felt very tired, but he would stay here and wait for the coming night to fall.