Cold needled my face, torso glowing with the warmth of exertion, lungs saturated with clean, brisk air. The snow had arrived late this year, choosing to hold back its full force even when it came. Still, it was enough to cloak the rugged landscape in white, its blanket swallowing the barren sounds of winter and leaving the world around me silent save for the wind, the crunch of snow beneath my soles, and my breath misting in the air.
I was not alone, although an observer might note I lacked companions. As I trod my path, there were others who crossed it, curved over it; some even followed it for a time, before deciding another suited them best. None were the thick prints of boots, but the thin trails of birds, the dual ungulate of a deer, the snowshoe tracks of a hare. Beside me, the light prints of a tit, as it landed in the snow and jumped around, uncertain, before flying away. I couldn’t say whether my fellow travellers had been present mere moments before, or as far back as Tuesday night when snow last fell; we were companions bound not by time, but by this landscape upon which we were imprinted.
Something caught my eye – an indent – and I saw it was part of a line, the sureness of its direction cutting across, ahead of my own. My breath caught as I knelt down, one knee pressing into snow. They were small, three centimetres, maybe four. Too small for a fox, four toes, no claws.
When I was young – eleven, maybe twelve – I remember hiking with my grandpa one school holiday, legs aching, his storytelling voice painting for me a picture of these wild and elusive creatures who prowl our forest, their small bodies bearing a ferocity so savage that our warrior ancestors venerated them. He’d glimpsed the creatures only once or twice and not since long before I was born. As he’d shared the stories, the weight of his words imprinted on my young mind, and I was struck by the reverence in his voice, his tone reminding me of the church elder voice he reserved for leading prayers on Sunday mornings.
I hesitated to name the tracks before me, even within the sanctuary of my mind, afraid it might somehow snatch the glow of hope from my chest, snatch the memory of my grandpa’s voice, snatch the weight from this moment. My eyes followed the line from the direction it came, to the space where I knelt, to the trees standing guard at its end. It was only then, in the presence – if only in part – of a creature so rare, so fleeting, that I let my hope form the word. “Wildcat.” It came out as a whisper, swallowed by the snow.
I rose to my feet, brushing wet snow from one knee, and breathed in the world around me. I looked towards the trees, awed, then smiled and continued along my path, grateful for this new companion.
Cover image: Victoria Tyur on Unsplash