We drove
down to the Alabama Hills one afternoon with an actual goal, for a change. I’d
recently “discovered” a tiny, secret valley tucked away on the northern
shoulder of Cobblestone Mountain (my name for the colossal stone hill that hems
in Movie Flat on its west side). That whole mass is just an immense heap of
gigantic boulders weathered out of granite bedrock—a place unsuited for
strolling…any forward progress being half upward and dearly gained. Mostly I’ve
just poked around its edges, where a lot of the best rock climbing routes are,
and only once scrambled to the summit (which proved to be a major undertaking).
Several days ago, having climbed a technical route up a big granite pillar for
the first time, I was surprised to be looking down into a completely hidden little
amphitheater; it was so well-concealed, I’d somehow managed to miss discovering
it despite all the other climbing and explorations thereabouts.
Of
course, I wanted a real visit and was happy to be going with my partner, Diane,
to see this brand-new place. So we parked in one of those natural enclosures
out at the north end and in minutes were scrambling up a deep chimney choked
with big blocks. After a few tricky maneuvers getting over or around
chockstones the narrow passage opened, abruptly, into space—an amphitheater strewn with rounded boulders that had fallen, rolled, and were piled like giant
marbles in the little flat. It was a place that felt “close,” a place that
echoed like an empty room, inviting visitors to speak in hushed tones.
Bisecting the flat was a dry brook-bed that flows only after cloudbursts. Following
its advice, we walked on its coarse sand and wound our way under, over, or
around the boulders in deep shade punctuated by shafts of afternoon sunlight—all
that the tall cliffy walls let in. Had I been by myself I would hardly have
noticed the soft lighting peculiar to that season and hour or the sweet desert
silence.
That stillness was abruptly spoiled
by the sound of some jeep or truck revving its engine. We weren’t actually too
far from a road but it was strange to hear the sound so clearly and my first
thought was that it was some deal where distant sounds are reflected off the
rocks in such a way that they’re amplified. (I’ve experienced such things
before around big cliff faces, which can act like parabolic reflectors.)
Right
then, clambering over the top of a car-sized rock, I discovered the source of
that engine-noise before there was time to wonder about it further. A movement caught
my attention and, turning my head, I locked eyes with a bobcat. Only ten yards away, I knew it was a “she,” and she was a
mother, when one tiny brown thing dove under a boulder just as another buried
itself beneath a leafless shrub. There could have been others, already
hidden. As Diane stepped up behind me the mother was watching us like a hawk,
her short tail twitching angrily, and the intense look in those fiery eyes said
plainly enough that if there were just me, and I was no more than twice her
size, I’d be dead. She would kill me if
necessary. My skin crawled as if I were facing down a rattlesnake but instinctively knew that Diane and I wouldn’t be attacked or even threatened—this was a
standoff. Though rigid with attention, I relaxed to enjoy our meeting. When you
meet the wild ones like this, something special happens.
I hadn’t seen a bobcat in many years;
never this well, and never in a situation where I had so much as time to
realize what I was seeing before the encounter was over. As it was, there was
time in abundance to take in that deadly glare, which contained the distilled
essence of every mother’s imperative to protect her young. That lean brown
body, exquisitely camouflaged against stone and sand, was motionless aside from
the twitching, stumpy tail but her presence and intent captured all my senses
and I stood motionless (in lieu of having no tail of my own to wag). Diane’s hand
was on my shoulder and I knew she was the same. Then the wild cat grudgingly
slid away into a crevice where I couldn’t see her eyes on me. But I could still
feel them, oh yes. Don’t worry, mom—I
won’t eat your babies!
Out of the corner of my eye, I’d
seen where one kitten had scrambled under a bush. My partner, a mother herself,
didn’t want me terrifying the children and causing further stress but I had to see this…just once! I scrambled
down into the fine gravel of the little creek bed, and soon spotted an inert
clump of beige fuzz blended between twigs and sand, a thing human eyes would
never perceive without prior warning. I approached warily and ever-so-slowly
knelt down until I could’ve reached out and stroked the silky sand-colored
fur—a thing I was sorely tempted to do. Like a fawn in hiding, the wildling
remained a living statue, eyes fixed on some distant point and filled with a helpless
terror that amounted to its hunger to continue being alive. I saw the gray-blue
eyes that had only opened to the great world days before; they were the eyes of
any kitten, not their true color yet. They’d be just as cute and innocent were it not for the sheer ferocity that was in
them: an ineffable thing that no tabby possesses. I
wanted so badly to touch—to hold it—but was afraid. Of a cute little kitten!
And, for good reason: that one-pound infant, on perhaps its first foray into
the lighted land, would’ve done serious damage had I tried to cuddle. This I
knew for certain when I finally got too close, spreading the shrub’s branches
aside for a better look, and the kitten abruptly wheeled, suddenly twice as
large, pumped full of adrenaline, and "spit" at me—Phttt!! I backed off, humbled and exalted both, laughing out
loud. (Out of nervousness, mostly, but it was
funny in some way.)
I looked up at Diane, grinning like
a fool, while she cast me a reproving look, and beyond her I saw the other mom
who’d circled 180° and was peering at us from under an overhanging rock, forty
feet away, with that same impotent but defiant glower. My skin crawled anew. I
was pumped up as well, in my own way. Diane, watching us both, whispered,
“C’mon! Leave it alone!” The kitten had gone back to being a pale clay figurine. Its fur glistened faintly, ears a miniature of its mother’s—black
stripe, white stripe, black tip—and those tips were long black tufts. A perfect, complete little creature-of-the-desert. Grudgingly, I backed off. The
girl and I walked off in respectful silence until it seemed, when far enough
away, that we could talk out loud again. Still outside myself, full of raw
joy—like a child on Christmas morning—my first words were, “That’s one of the
best nature-things I’ve seen in my entire life!”
©2015 Tim Forsell 12 Jun 1995, 20 Apr 2015
