Deep in the untamed heart of where Welcome Creek Trail 225 stretches its legs, beneath the tall pines standing like skyscrapers and through grasses gossiping with the wind, there I prowled, a mountain lion with a backstory as craggy as the peaks reaching for the heavens. My kittenhood memories are a mixtape of wilderness vibes, with one track stuck on repeat—the day I lost my mom to hunters, a black hole that nearly sucked the light out of my life.

Then, as if the mountain gods spun the weather vane of fate, along came Lucky Hancock, a miner chasing dreams bigger than the Montana sky. Finding me—a fuzzy bundle of claws and confusion—he did what no one would’ve expected. Lucky, with hands as rough as the rocks he blasted but with a heart of marshmallow, decided I was part of his crew. He took me in, and together we set about making water diversions and pits in his search for golden rocks. He gave me a name, though it was all Greek to me, and we became an oddball duo, blurring the lines between wild beast and human heart.

As the mountains slowly wore down, so did the path of our adventure together. The day came when Lucky had to hit the road, leaving me with a heavy heart and a stern, “Stay away from humans, kid.” But the magic of our bond didn’t fade with his footsteps.

Time marched on, and I kept my reign over my slice of wilderness, a silent guardian of its stories and seasonal wardrobe changes. It was on one of my patrols that I ran into Bud Moore, a hiker who’d taken a tumble and introduced his ankle to one of Lucky’s forgotten mining pits.

The ghost of Lucky’s kindness nudged me to help. Despite the species gap, I found myself playing nursemaid to this stranger, delivering drive-thru dinners and keeping a watchful eye, until a search party eventually showed up.

Bud Moore, forever changed by his brush with the wild, went on to pen tributes to the land that whispers of resilience, friendship, and tales too wild for your average campfire. But he kept mum about our little secret, thinking no one would buy the story of a chat with a mountain lion.

And so, my legend grew, seasoned by each new encounter, a blend of folklore and fur, highlighting the invisible threads that stitch us together across the animal kingdom.

Fast forward to yesterday, when a human duo wandered into my stomping grounds, one of them wrestling with that invisible monster named COVID, seeking the wilderness’s healing embrace.

Their journey took a twist when the virus bowled over the man, sending him into a fever dream on nature’s bed. His partner, Mo, set off to rally the troops, leaving him under my unofficial supervision. He had fallen next to one of Lucky’s forgotten mining pits.

Feeling a kinship that crossed species, I sidled up to him, not as a threat but as a guardian angel in fur, echoing the bonds I shared with Lucky and Bud, and now with him. Through the fog of fever, he caught snippets of my stories, a wild lullaby for his restless spirit.

As he regained his strength and staggered toward the safety of civilization, marked by a swaying bridge, Mo and a ranger were there to welcome him back from the brink. He glanced back, hoping for a final peek at his unexpected guardian, but I stayed in the wings, a shadowy figure in the tales of those daring enough to venture into our world. He realized he never caught my name, but in the wild, names are as fleeting as mist. I wanted to scream out the name Lucky had given me – Shadow. But the human sounds likely wouldn’t have translated, and could have only brought unwanted attention from hunters.

As he walked away with Mo into the embrace of human care, I melted back into the forest, our story now a thread in the vast tapestry of wilderness tales.

And so, the saga continues, enriched by each soul that crosses my path, a living reminder of the enigmatic ties that bind us, creature to creature, in the grand ballet of existence.