One evening long ago I was riding my first bike to work. The bike was an old chopped Honda, and work was a drilling rig near Lost Cabin, Wyoming, about 60 miles from my home in Thermopolis. I was coming to the end of the pavement before the last five miles of gravel road into the rig. It was about dusk and my headlight wasn't very bright. I spotted 3 antelope milling around on the shoulder of the road, so I started slowing down. Sure enough, as I approached to about 50 feet they ran across the road in front of me. But to my surprise, I saw a cat jump out of the ditch, swatting at the haunches of the last antelope. I came to a stop just as the cat ran across the road 20 feet in front of me. The antelope disappeared over the hill, but the cat ran up to the top of the road cut and turned back to look at me, crouching down, silouetted against the sunset. When it ran in front of me I noticed the long tail, and at first it looked just like my house cat at home, and it took a second or two to register that, "Hey, that's a mountain lion!' The second thing I noticed was that it looked black, or a very dark color. For a few seconds I just sat there in awe in the middle of the road while we stared at each other. Then I suddenly realized that he could leap and be on me in a split second. I gunned the engine to take off and the cat spun around and disappeard behind the hill.
I was reluctant to tell anyone about my experience for fear that they wouldn't believe me. A couple days later I mentioned it to a local cowboy who I worked with, and he said it was very believable because the local ranches had been having trouble with lions attacking horses. He also said a black cat had been sited near Boysen Reservoir about 15 miles away. Then I knew I wasn't crazy. What an experience!
Cody
