Tag: cougars

“Morning, Shorty. Skye’s looking good—wing’s almost healed. Think she’ll fly soon?” Aiya followed, her long dark waves pulled into a practical braid, freckles standing out on her sun-kissed face, brown eyes sparkling with that unquenchable fire. “And the lynx cubs are zooming already. Whisper nearly caught a butterfly!”

“Could be scouting for food,” Rebekah said, her short-cropped hair silvered by moonlight. “Fire season’s early this year—drought’s got the animals on the move. Bears push down from higher elevations when forage burns up.”

Shorty—whose real name was Mike Adams, though few ever used it anymore—leaned on his walking stick at the edge of the wolf enclosure, his long gray hair whipping in the wind, his bushy beard catching flecks of dust from the trail.

“Dad! Shorty!” Jess called, waving. She wore practical hiking boots and a fleece jacket, her silver wolf-paw necklace glinting. Aiya, in jeans and a hoodie, carried a backpack stuffed with notebooks.

The High Sierras had a way of holding onto secrets, whispering them through the pines and across the granite faces that towered like ancient sentinels.