Cougar Adventure
by ASH Smyth
October 2024
In affectionate remembrance of Willard Price, 28.7.1887 – 14.10.1983
First Sighting
She stared at Roger. Breathing slowly, Roger stared straight back at her.
The cougar had emerged from behind an enormous yucca plant. She seemed momentarily surprised by Roger's presence, and now stood, as if evaluating him. Roger, too, was transfixed.
What an impressive specimen! Her eyes glinted keenly in the light of the late-summer evening, and the fur of her coat had a sheen of contained energy. Beneath it, her flesh rippled meaningfully.
Roger had never seen a creature of this size before, let alone a female. Back in Africa, and in Asia, he had hunted some pretty big game; but he had never been face-to-face with anything this intimidating. At seventeen years old, he was filling out into a handsome and athletic young man – if still smaller than his brother Hal, at twenty-two more muscular and more experienced than many men. But even allowing for his ten-and-a-half stone, Roger calculated that the cougar had him easily outmatched. Suddenly, he understood what it was not to be the hunter but the hunted.
He could hear the raucous noises of her young from beyond the shelter of the verdant foliage, as they fed and drank enthusiastically. He remained stock still, reminding himself not to make the slightest move in their direction. Her mate might easily interpret that as invasion of their territory.
Confident of her own security, the predator slowly stepped away from the bushes, and out into the grassy open space. She ignored the smaller animals who quickly dashed away from her, and the ornamental Samburs grazing by the ha-ha, her eyes fixed only on her motionless quarry.
Calm as he tried to appear, Roger felt entirely defenceless. He was unarmed; Hal was nowhere to be seen; and he knew from close shaves with man-eaters across six continents that the worst thing you could do in circumstances like this was to run. It only excited them.
She paused in front of him, and bent to drop the morsel she'd been eating. Roger could see fragments of her meal under her gleaming nails. Her musk was fast starting to cloud his judgement, but he had no intention of being mauled, or worse, dragged off alive. He had to think quickly.
He felt the blast of hot breath on his face, as the cougar opened her mouth. She purred.
“My, but you're a big bo–”
… and then there was a phut from the treeline, and the woman looked befuddled, and Roger saw a tiny dart protruding from her shoulder, just below the strings of her pearl necklace.
“Grab her, Roger!” Hal was shouting, as he dashed across the lawn in the now half-darkness.
Roger caught her just in time, then Hal was up beside him, and together they lowered her easily into a nearby deckchair. Hal pulled out the dart, and pushed an empty champagne flute in the woman's hand.
“It's just a mild sedative,” he assured the shaking Roger. “She'll be right as rain in less than twenty minutes.
Now run!”
