~~~
“You’re awfully quiet. Something wrong?” Michael, my boyfriend, said over dinner that night.
“No. Sorry.” I twirled my fork in the spinach fettuccine. It made spirals in the golden-green olive oil on the plate. “Thinking about my hike.”
He tore another slice off the garlic loaf I had made. “You shouldn’t go up there by yourself,” he said for the thousandth time.
“I know. You could come with me.”
“You could fall and break your leg,” he went on. “Gangs use those hills to dump bodies and do drug deals. Not to mention the kids that go up there to drag race and drink.” He was mopping up olive oil with the bread.
“I know,” I said again. “But it helps me. I need to—” My voice caught and I clenched my hand around my napkin. Forcing my voice to be even, I said, “It helps me. I promise I’ll be careful.”
“That’s good.” He gave me a smile as I started to clear the table, piling my half-full plate on top of the other dishes. I yanked the breadbasket away from him, blinking hard and forcing a smile until I could get into the kitchen.
As I ran water over the china plates, I thought about the ivory and scarlet of the cat’s fangs, the way its shoulders heaved under its pelt. Even in its stillness it had been all motion.
“You’re still going golfing next weekend at Palm Springs, aren’t you?” I called over the running water.
“What?” he shouted from the living room. “Honey, I’m trying to watch the Masters.”
“Sorry.”
~~~
I made camp by an abandoned firefighting helipad three miles up the trail from where I had seen the saber-tooth. My car was pulled as far off the road as possible into a little dry gulch where a tangle of Christmas berry would shield it from casual roadside view. Hiking is legal up here, but overnight camping is not. Fires are anathema. One spark can set the entire range ablaze, even in the spring.
Before, I had felt nothing, too immersed in the calm under the sky to fear. But this time fear had me. My fingers ached with stress as I laid out my ground cloth and slid the tension rods into the tent’s loops. Fear-sweat soaked my armpits and ran trickles down my spine, but I hurried down the trail with only a can of hiker’s mace and a cell phone in my pockets.
It has rained a few days before. At a low point in the trail, preserved in dried mud, were three perfect cat’s paw prints and my heart leaped. But they were only the size of my palm. Mountain lion prints, too small to be left by the saber-tooth I had seen. I hurried on.
Long black shadows, sharp edged in the brilliant sun, slashed across the trail. Down in the valleys it was already dark, but here on the hilltops the sun still shone. I found the same point on the trail as before, the same sage bush and tucked myself down beside it. As I crouched, the muscles over my stomach tugged, the vertical scar across my belly resisting the spasm of eager fear that ran through my body. I drew my knees up, shielding myself, and waited.
After the sun went down, the air cooled around me. The winds blew up from the valley. The stars came out. Mule deer tiptoed by, following their own path over the ridgelines. A lizard skittered onto my hiking boot to lick the dew off the metal grommets. I waited.
Finally, when the moon had risen and set, I gave up and walked back to my campsite by the light of my cellphone. There I lay the rest of the night, my hand covering the scar across my belly, listening to the rustles and yips in the dark.
~~~
After that, every time Michael went away on a golf weekend I raced my car up into the hills and hiked until Sunday evening. Then I would speed back down the winding, two-lane road to make it back in time. Except it felt more like rushing back in time. Somewhere on that road lay the invisible line between the timeless, stable hills where everything existed and the relentless forward rush of LA. In the lowlands, my past was gone, irrecoverable. My empty future blended with the unrelenting present into a featureless haze, as deadly as the Tule fog that blankets the city on cold mornings.
One Friday night, I curled up on the couch, leaning my cheek on Michael’s arm while he watched women’s golf highlights. “Are you going golfing tomorrow?” I asked during a commercial.
“Nope. I’ve got a half day in-service at work tomorrow, remember?”
“Right.”
We watched stocky women in short skirts paste the ball across brilliant green lawns. I slid my hand into Michael’s. “Want to hear about what I did last weekend?”
“I thought you went hiking.” He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Yeah.” More minutes passed. “I was careful,” I said. “I took mace. And I didn’t leave the trails.”
“That’s good, honey.”
The match ended and Michael’s least favorite commentators came on. He started scrolling through the channels. I tightened my grip on his hand. “Can you look at me for a minute?”
“Sure, babe. What is it?” He didn’t turn the TV off, but at least he hit the mute button.
My palm sweated in his and tremors ran through my bones. “Will you go to mass with me tomorrow? Please.”
He gave me a little smile and a laugh, as if I’d asked him to put on a clown’s nose. “Why tomorrow?”
“Because it’s—” I stopped myself before I said his birthday. That wouldn’t work. “It’s been one year tomorrow,” I said. “I want to go pray for him.”
He let go of my hand, half turning in his seat to face me, a patient frown on his face. “I don’t think you should keep doing this, hon. It’s not helping you let go. Why don’t you go
