Free Fire on the Mountain by Edward Abbey Page A

aware of a deep and unexpected silence. The toads had gone silent and the water seemed to run more quietly than before. Even the fireflies had disappeared. I waited for a moment, listening to the silence, then reached cautiously for the bucket and dipped it into the water as quietly as I could, afraid to make too much noise. Looking around in all directions I could see nothing, nothing but the damp weeds, the wall of rock, the grand trunks of the yellow pines, the dusky woods. I looked up.
    I should not have looked up. On the brink of the crag above the spring I saw a pair of yellow eyes gleaming in a sleek head, saw a dark powerful shape of unforeseeable hugeness crouched as if to leap. I could not move, I could not make a sound. I stared up at the lion and the lion stared down at me. Paralyzed, I squatted by the spring, gripping the water bucket and unconscious of the ache in my muscles, and waited for death to fall upon me.
    My grandfather called through the silence, from the far-away cabin out of sight and out of reach beyond the twilight: “Billy?”
    I tried to answer but my throat was numb. The lion watched me.
    My grandfather called again: “Billy? Where are you?”
    This time the lion turned his massive head and withhis yellow eyes looked blandly, without curiosity or fear, up the pathway.
    I heard the old man’s boots scraping on the stones of the path, coming toward me, and at last the big cat stirred himself and rose and vanished, all at once, suddenly, with uncanny grace and stillness, into the night and the forest.
    Grandfather called me for the third time, coming closer, and now I thought I could answer. “Here,” I croaked. “I’m here.” I managed to stand up, the heavy bucket frozen in my grip. As the old man came toward me down the path I took a few leaden steps to meet him.
    He stared at my face. “What happened to you?”
    I told him.
    He put one arm around my shaking shoulders and with his other hand unwrapped my fingers one by one from the handle of the water bucket. Carrying the water himself, he led me up the pathway among the boulders to the cabin where Lee waited for us in the welcome glow of the lamp.
    “What’s wrong?” Lee said, wiping a tin plate with a bandana.
    “He saw it.”
    “Saw what?”
    “The lion.”
    “Ah. …” said Lee. He looked at me and smiled, his deep eyes tender. “You’re a lucky boy.” He gripped my arm. “How about a cup of your grampaw’s coffee?”
    “Yes,” I said calmly. “I can drink anything.”
    A little later all three of us went back to the spring, with both buckets, and looked around. Lee even climbed up to the ledge above the spring but by that time it was too dark to see any tracks. We went back up the trail, watered the horses, built a little squaw fire outside between the cabin and the corral, and unrolled the sleeping bags which the old man kept in the cabin. We sat around the fire for a while after that, watching the moon over the eastern ranges, and talked of thelion, the lost horse, the next day’s work, in which Lee announced he would not be able to join—he was leaving us in the morning. But he promised to come back to the ranch in two or three days.
    “What does a mountain lion sound like?” I asked.
    “Well,” Grandfather, “like a woman. Like a woman screaming. How would you describe it, Lee?”
    Lee considered.
“Compadres
, a lion does sound something like a woman. Like a vampire-woman wailing for her demon lover.”
    “Are we going to hunt the lion, Grandfather?”
    “No, we’ll let well enough alone. If we don’t hunt him, why he won’t hurt us. Besides, it’s the only lion left on the place. I can’t afford to lose him.”
    “Do you think he’s watching us now?”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
    Nobody said anything for a minute or so. The moon crept up into the stars. I added more sticks to the fire.
    Grandfather stretched his arms and yawned. “I don’t know about you men but I am tired. Anybody