This happened around either May or June of 2010.
I was spending the day with my future wife (who unfortunately passed last year) and her family on Mount Lemon, which is north of Tucson, Arizona. There’s a road leading up to a town that’s about 25 miles long and has a fairly steep grade. Along the way the land changes from desert to pine forest. It’s absolutely beautiful and one of the most challenging cycling routes in the world. Our day, however, was to go geocaching using a small GPS that only told direction and distance to the cache.
After several hours of stopping along the road, hiking a bit and finding several of these geocaches, we made it to the small town at the end of the road. We had a late lunch and we planning to go back down but my wife pointed out there was still time to find one more cache before it got dark. All of us agreed and saw there was one fairly close, less than two miles away. Her family had a small sedan at the time and when we saw it was down the dirt road on the backside of the mountain, we parked and started walking there. It was only a little over half a mile at this point so we didn’t think anything of it.
This “road” goes along a fairly steep section so there are lots of switchbacks. After what was probably an hour the GPS said we still had just under a quarter mile to go. My wife, her father and I were having no trouble, but her sister who was 13 or 14 at the time and her mom were not as fast so the pace was quite slow. Finally we got within twenty feet of the cache. A dense patch of forest with lots of fallen trees and underbrush. The sun was really low now, maybe even already setting. It was getting dark, fast, and we still hadn’t found this cache.
I looked at my wife, pointing out we didn’t have any flashlights and that we really needed to head back. She nodded and told her parents with her mom quickly agreeing that we all needed to head back. Somewhat dejected the five of us started back up the road. It was even slower going than when we were going down and soon the dark closed around us. Luckily there was enough moon light to let us see a few dozen feet in front of us but not much else. I kept trying to push the pace even though my wife’s mom and sister were struggling, telling them it’s just a bit further.
My wife came beside me, holding my arm and pressing against me, “please be nice, my sister is really scared.”
I told her okay and apologized to her sister, saying that I’d walk more slowly for them.
At this point I was leading us, my wife still holding my arm and her sister’s hand, with her mom and dad right behind us. A weird sensation started running through me then. I told my wife to stay right behind me because I needed my hands to be free. My gate lowered and widened. Every noise from the dark caught my attention. I didn’t move my head, only my eyes. It didn’t matter. Everything was dark except the faintest outline of trees and the occasional boulder. I couldn’t see much of anything, but I had to look.
“I need a knife.”
My wife made a sound which I took to be a question to my statement.
“I need a knife,” almost grunting the words out, “a big fucking knife!”
“Why do you need that?” Her mom asked just above a whisper.
I shook my head, barely moving it at all, “I just do.” Every hair on my body stood on end. That primal, animal instinct that takes hold with either fight or flight. I was ready to fight.
The forest was quiet now, not even the sound of wind through the pines. I remembered hearing somewhere that when a predator moves nothing else makes a sound. All I heard was the soft crunch of gravel beneath our feet. Not even breathing. I’m not religious at all, in fact I’m a borderline Atheist, but at that moment I was praying to the spirit of the forest, the mountain, sky, anything that would listen that I was that predator.
After a few hours we finally reached the main road and we relaxed. Got into the car and drove down the mountain in silence.
The next day we went back to her parents’ house to visit. Nothing exciting, I was watching an NFL game and having to explain everything to my wife’s mom which was fun, especially the yellow line that she didn’t know was superimposed on the broadcast and not actually on the field for the players to see.
At one point it was just my wife, her father and I sitting alone in the living room and I started talking about how weird I felt while we were walking back to the car last night. Telling him everything.
“Yeah,” he looked at the two of us, speaking in his deadpan manner, “I really wanted a big fucking gun but I didn’t want to scare your mother and sister.”
“Why’s that?”
He looked at both of us, “there was something following us, some sort of predator.” This wasn’t deadpan. He was serious. “I looked back a few times and saw eyes. Big ones.”
That primal feeling took hold of me again, even inside a house during the day.
“It was big too,” his gaze went into the distance as his mind replayed what ever it was he had seen. “The first time it was on the ground, maybe fifty feet away. Then it was up in the trees, and I mean up in the trees!”
My body shook with every beat of my heart.
“The last time I saw it, it jumped from the ground into the tree tops and was keeping pace with us there. Hunting us from above.”
I kissed my wife, the first time I had ever done so in front of either of her parents, and told her I loved her more than anything.
None of us ever spoke of it again.
I still go hiking, even more so since my wife passed. But now I have two rules.
I only hike during the day.
I always carry a big fucking knife…