I Promise Not to Suffer by Gail Storey

Author:Gail Storey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59485-746-1
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

ACROSS THE MOJAVE DESERT

FROM MEXICO: 512 MILES. TO CANADA: 2,151 MILES.

We staggered into the Andersons’ home, called Casa de Luna, after dark. A dozen hikers sat outside around the picnic table littered with the remains of tacos. Terrie Anderson brought Porter and me plates heaped with fresh tortillas, beans, tomatoes, and cheese. We devoured them while the others debated the danger of mountain lions. The California population of mountain lions, also called pumas and cougars, was said to have drastically increased to at least 5,000.

“Five thousand?” I asked with my mouth full.

A cougar had attacked two mountain bikers not far from here that past January. One died.

“He was partly eaten, including his heart, and the rest of his carcass was buried,” a bearded guy said. “Cougars cache their killed prey to protect them from scavenging wildlife and birds.”

“Later that day the same lion grabbed a woman’s head in its jaws, but she survived,” another man said. “They attack if they’re hungry.”

Each male mountain lion needed about a hundred square miles to sustain himself with prey, and a female about thirty square miles. Young male lions had to stake out their own home ranges.

“We’re in their space,” a girl in braids said. “They’re losing their habitat to forest fires and urban sprawl.”

“Whatever, they got to have meat,” the bearded guy said. “Deer and coyote can be in short supply on the trail, so watch out.”

Others joined the debate, but none had encountered a mountain lion. Their voices rose, some strident with fear, others insistent with compassion, skeptical or full of bravado.

Porter and I excused ourselves to spread out our sleeping bag in the yard, under the moonlight.

“How do we feel about cougars?” I asked him.

“They can spring forward forty-five feet, or drop sixty feet and land running,” he said. “They sprint forty miles an hour after prey.”

That was so Porter, wary respect for the mountain lion’s prowess and strength.

“But what if we encounter one?”

“Don’t worry, we … ”

We what? He was already asleep.

After pancakes the next morning, we left Terrie and Joe’s. We hiked all day and spent a sweaty night on small, sharp rocks, being bitten by swarms of mosquitoes.

I awoke itchy and dirty. I reached for my clothes, then winced at how that hurt my injured shoulder.

Porter grabbed the guidebook to search for a road out. “We’re not hiking the trail any further until you see a doctor.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“An orthopedist. To find out what’s wrong with your shoulder.”

I yanked on my clothes and stuffed our sleeping bag into my pack. “I’m fine.” I loaded our seven liters of water onto my pack’s top and sides.

He took back five of the liters and kneeled to strap up his pack.

“If you carry all that,” I said, “you’ll have pain in your foot and ankle.”

“I’ll risk it if it helps us go faster.”

What to do about this seemingly insoluble problem? “Hike your own hike” was a maxim on long trails, instead of trying to go at someone else’s pace. Had we

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