What Things Are Made Of

The Last Bobcat

41 The Last Bobcat The hill behind our house still wears its cape of African daisies. The poison oak hummock still thrusts out stinging green where he crouched: brown menace that made me think coyote. But the ears he thrust up were tufted, turning to cup sound. His eyes sparked green. We stared at each other, balanced between predator and prey. He could have been a lion, poised to grow full-sized in a few bounds. I shrank indoors, heart galloping. He stepped from cover then: black-tipped ears; twitching white bob-tail; tomcat face slashed with black war-paint; muttonchop sideburns swept out, downcurving to a stubbled chin. The hill absorbed him as his paws absorbed the sound of their own passing. The black splotches on his flanks turned back to rock; the tawny hide merged with brown earth. Now every time I step outside, I look for him crouched on the roof to spring, or frozen, midstalk , in the yard. His absence pads down the deer trail. His dearth shadows the poison oak. His lack can rise out of the hill at any time. Each splash of light could be his unforgiving eye. ...