Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

We continue picking flowers until our baskets are almost full. Then, I hear a faint bleating coming from behind a stand of prickly bushes. It’s Sombrita playing, I think and I pluck another flower. But it sounds different from her normal bleating, and I realize Josefina hears it, too. Josefina stops moving, her whole body listening. Miguel is at the bottom of the slope, breaking up a large branch.

Josefina whispers to me that something is wrong. For an instant we stare at each other with wide eyes, and then she whirls around, the bright flowers dropping from her hand. We run toward the bleating, pushing our way through the prickly bushes that catch and snag at our clothes.

Suddenly, Josefina freezes. As I stagger to keep from falling, I see below us a huge tawny cat, only three feet from Sombrita. The little goat is backed against a boulder, and hemmed in on both sides by bushes. She’s trapped.

Josefina stifles a gasp. I press my hand to my mouth to keep from screaming. I whisper to ask Josefina what we do. I’m sick with fear.

Josefina’s eyes are wide and her face is desperate. I whisper that we should grab her. Josefina says it’s too dangerous. With her eyes never leaving the mountain lion, Josefina bends down and scoops up a baseball-sized rock at her feet. The mountain lion turns its head and glances at us, then he fixes his eyes on Sombrita and crouches, ready to spring. We have to do something.