Cougar Lane

We follow the winding road, driving Sunday slow, into the rainforest-dense overgrowth of mammoth ferns and sky-stretch cedars that compose the south-end island terrain. The homes down here are fewer and further between, the wooded acreage impervious to attempted human encroachment. Deep ravines and marshlands populate this narrow stretch of the island’s pointed-tip water surround, and it’s easy to imagine we are a hundred years away from reality: the raw primitivity of the land, though sparsely settled, speaks of a wildness – a wilderness – not known on this island for more than a century.

We pass turn-offs that lead, via private roads, to bluff-side houses, and occasionally comment on the strangeness of what we see. Telephone wires strung between stories-high poles sag low enough for a tall man to touch; an abandoned shack covered with moss is being reabsorbed – via moss embrace over roof and tree roots wrapping their limbs beneath struts – into the landscape.

And, incongruously, a wood-carved sign denoting a bicycle-narrow drive: Cougar Lane.

“That,” says my husband, nodding toward the sign, “is one neighborhood where young men are not safe.”

I nod, all faux-serious agreement. “Definitely not safe. Cougars on the prowl.”

He switches mental gears at that statement, clearly remembering the reported sightings of wild animals on the island. The bear at Rock Beach last year was verified, but the cougars remain a rumor.

“Y’know,” he continues, “I don’t think there are actually any cougars on the island.”

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. . . pause . . .

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“You’re only saying that,” I tell him with a grin…

“because none of those ladies on Cougar Lane are after YOU.”

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