MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 6 (second half)

Word had gone out that we were not catching many lions. Suddenly the world was full of experts. Reports of mountain lion sign and tracks started coming in. One old boy swore he had a lion kill in the middle of his cow pasture. Since lions don't like to dine in exposed places and are quite capable of carrying their meal elsewhere, leaving a carcass in the middle of a field didn't sound very likely but we decided we'd better check it out. This was the first time he had volunteered an opinion of anything that could be verified. 

This rancher was one of a dying breed of country cowboys. He stood about 6'2" and was as skinny as the rifle he had mounted in his truck. One finger was missing on his left hand from some mishap years earlier in a bar room altercation. 

"He was a sparky 'un!" his wife later confided when she told me the story with a shake of her head and a proud, tight smile.

He heard our truck coming across the meadow and sauntered out with his shifty-eyed dingo dog to meet us. We got out of the truck and he stuck his hand out to Joe. 

"Howdy," he solemnly greeted us with a little nod. He didn't offer me his hand. Then he hunkered down on the dirty road.

"Well," he started with slow deliberation. All talk was then suspended while he drew a packet of cigarette papers from his front shirt pocket. He carefully removed the top sheet and tucked the remaining packet back down into his pocket. Fascinated by his studied concentration we watched him take a pouch of tobacco from his hip pocket, tap a little row of flakes across the waiting paper, roll it up into a skinny sausage and seal the edge with a careless swipe of his tongue. The ritual was not complete until he'd placed the sagging bundle into the corner of his mouth, casually flicked the wooden match into fire with his thumbnail and lit the nether end of his creation.

Joe and I felt rather formal towering over him so we hunkered down too. We wanted to get a look at the supposed lion kill but knew the old boy would take his own sweet time before bringing it up. Skirting the subject was a western art form and it was considered cheating to jump right to facts. We waited.

The peculiar weather, abysmal cattle prices and foolhardy politicians were all torn apart bit by bit. We wandered nearer to the subject of lions when we got to the serious business of dog training for cow dogs then on to hounds. At last we reached the eating habits of eagles, coyotes and lions but that was too close to the subject of wolves and he had an opinion about them too. We veered off and had a discussion about the possibility of reintroduction of wolves into Colorado. He swore they'd already been released and no gentle reassurance on my part would convince him otherwise. Instead of entering into the wolf discussion Joe tried to steer him back to lions. My right foot started tingling. I shifted to the left. My left leg muscles became cramped so I shifted back. It didn't help. I just wasn't used to hunkering.

Finally after several lengthy, silent pauses to roll a new cigarette we sidled up to the real point of interest.

"Yup, just last night a lion killed a deer in my pasture."

"You sure it was a lion kill?" Joe asked skeptically.

"Yup. Lion kill."

I was relieved to think we were moving on and gratefully lifted my body to a standing position. It felt good to stretch. The old boy stayed hunkered down. I was too hasty. With a mental sigh I eased back to a hunker. We still had to get through deer eating haystacks, lions eating cattle and lion hunters cutting fences to talk about. We had to reassure him that we would never cut fences or leave gates open. 

I had learned silent rule number one: act and talk like the locals because they hold the trump cards by owning the land we needed to hunt on. I stressed that even though we didn't kill the lions (his preference), without our fact-gathering lion hunting might be stopped by "them tree-huggers".

Satisfied the old boy rose. Again I tottered to a stand and leaned against the truck while my legs woke up. The kill it turned out was no more than 50 yards from us. We passed it on the way in.

Typical lion kill

Four things usually indicate a deer killed by a mountain lion. The lion doesn't harry the animal so it is a clean kill with no hair pulled out during the chase. The lion kills the deer by breaking its neck. The third is not always present but a lion usually chews the ribs down as in the photo. The fourth thing I already mentioned: it doesn't eat its kill in the open. Long before we got to the carcass we saw a scattered trail of deer hair leading up to it. Coyotes bite at the deer's hindquarters pulling hair out during the chase but lions don't. The most obvious thing about the carcass when we reached it was its throat was torn out and its hind quarters lacerated. The final fact was it was in the middle of a pasture and no attempt had been made to conceal it. It was a very typical coyote kill just as we had suspected when we heard about it.

Joe, gentle, nice man that he was, did not want to offend the old boy by contradicting him so he brought his hounds over to check the scent. That was the wrong decision; an arrogant assertion that it was a coyote kill would have been better. The old boy's feelings and opinions were iron-clad. Bringing the hounds over didn't change his mind when they snuffled around and didn't give voice to the scent because they knew they weren't supposed to chase coyotes. The stubborn old goat decided the hounds were worthless as lion hounds and spread his "knowledge" far and wide in the community. It piled on adversity to what was already a difficult season.