CHAPTER TEN
That night in Topanga Canyon, Lupine-boy picked up the sweet and sour scent of the female he had smelled when he first moved into the Santa Monica’s. It was strong and fresh; she was near. Luckily, he did not catch the scent of Big-Paw or another competing male, so he thought this may be his chance. Anxious to find her, he began to run.
Reaching the top of a ravine, he finally saw her; she was barely half his size with a silky clean coat, a shade lighter than his. She stood below a California Valley Oak, twitching her tail. They locked eyes, but she did not move. It was like she expected him to know he should keep moving on, but he had no intention of going anywhere.
Keeping his distance at first, Lupine-boy made a wide circle around the young female. He kept his nose high in the air, always sniffing for another male. As he moved closer, he noticed she, too, wore a collar of the two-legs. The female dropped her tail and started a low growl as she nervously followed his movements. Lupine-boy knew she was not in heat, but he wanted her anyway. As he narrowed the circle, he began a proud stiff-legged prance, letting her get a good look at his full-bloom maturity.
She snarled loudly and showed her teeth. As he moved in closer, the female moved with him, but always keeping her hindquarters away from him. Lupine-boy then made a few short steps toward her. The female raised her back and growled at him to stay away, which surprised Lupine-boy and he pulled back and crouched down.
This, the female interpreted, was preparation for an attack because she screamed louder than ever and stood her ground.
After a few minutes, she realized he wasn’t crouching to attack her and settled down to a throaty, but steady growl. Observing this, Lupine-boy did a surprising thing. He sat up on his haunches, and with casual grace, started licking his front paws. Then he yawned and preened. The tactic caused the female to stop growling and sit down and sniff toward the male. Seeing this as an overture, Lupine-boy started slowly stepping toward her again, but this time not in a stalking fashion.
She let him get within five feet of her before hissing and showing her teeth. The confident male kept approaching slowly, and finally reached out his nose to touch hers. Just as Lupine-boy hoped she was still going to let him mount her, she reared back, screamed, and with fully unsheathed claws, swiped at his tender nose. She missed by inches. The male, surprised but not deterred, sat down again; only a few feet from her in a ready-to-strike stance.
Lupine-boy was a picture of rejection, his ears lying on the back of his head. They now both sat eye-to-eye and began smelling each other. The pair then went from a dance to a conversation, sensing each other’s smells, vocalizations, and body language. The female clearly smelled that he was a newcomer to the territory and from a different family. He could, in turn, smell that she was not nursing kittens.
It was then Lupine-boy smelled Big-paw on her body—a sour, almost bitter musk beyond her sweet. The older lion marked her as his territory. Deterred by this new information, Lupine-boy decided not to try to take her that night. She smelled somehow of fear—a Big-Paw reek that lay deep beneath her fur.
Lupine-boy left her shortly thereafter, but would seek her out again someday, knowing he would mate She-Paw someday.