PROMPT: Eye Contact

[the_siobhan]

When Axel and I drove to British Columbia together ten years ago, we made the choice to leave the Trans-Canada and instead drive some of the smaller highways that weaved through tiny towns and farmland. It was the slower choice, but also the more interesting one. We followed roads that dipped into river valleys that wound through the plains of Saskatchewan and camped in the badlands of Southern Alberta. We crept along switchbacks through the Rockies along hundred foot drops with no barriers and slept in a forest where the birds woke us at five o'clock in the morning singing so loud we couldn't hear each other when we shouted.

We crept through one tiny town at nightfall, our car surrounded by wild turkeys. More than once we edged through herds of mule deer who blocked the road and flicked their ears at us, ignoring our hopeful honking. One morning near dawn we interrupted a raven breakfasting on roadkill and he swooped low over the hood of the car, a bloody eyeball dangling from his beak.

I was driving when we passed the brown bear ambling along the side of the ditch so Axel had to tell me all about it. Likewise he was at the wheel when something crossed the road ahead of the car, the same colour and speed as the ubiquitous mule deer but moving differently, sleek and hugging the surface of the tarmac. I looked to the side of the road just in time to see the wolf's long grey muzzle part the bushes. Golden eyes met mine for a split second and were gone, buried in the miles of road piling up behind us.