The Animal Dialogues
Chapter One
ANIMAL
Animals are watching. Right now they are in the woods, many of them
looking back over their shoulders or peering down at us from bridges
of tree branches as we march below, snapping dry wood with our boot
soles and squashing soft, fleshy mushrooms.
My companion stops.
"Did you hear that?"
I stop too, listening to a chittering forest of birds.
"What?" I ask.
"Something moved over there," he says. "An animal."
We both drill our eyes through the trees.
I am sixteen years old and, like my friend, I am lost in the
mountains of western Wyoming. Not interminably lost, we just do not
know exactly where we are - besides being on an untrailed flank of
the Teton Mountains, over our heads in jackstraw timber. We had
taken off from a road at a random point that morning and barged our
way into a steep forest where no signs point the way. We wanted to
see what it was like in here. Day packs are slung on our backs,
containing water and some food. We have no maps, no compasses. No
whistles, flares, or shelters. We h ... read full excerpt from The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild ebook
