How to Catch a Lion

Listening in the Littlest of Places

Aug 11, 2026

I have known since I was a boy that only so many opportunities are presented in life to find out what you’re made of.

I have known this since I was seven years old and my pastor’s daughter of a girlfriend told me to kiss her in front of the entire second grade class at recess. I, being the fastest boy at school, would be remiss and shamed should I not have the balls to do so, as Abrielle Barker was quite the crooked-toothed looker.

I watched from afar as she stood there alone; her blonde hair falling down on her shoulders with her eyes searching for me as I hid in an evergreen tree, scared out of my wits, hesitant when the hour came.

And as she stood there alone, waiting, in front of 70 plus some odd kids in Red Oak, Texas…waiting for me, I knew, just like I know now — I’ll need to save the sap in the hair as an excuse, and go for it.

So I did. I burst out of that evergreen tree like a man possessed, I ran as fast as I could for that thirty meters that seperated us, then I walked straight up to her with my hair stuck to my scalp — looking a fool as all of my peers and rivals watched me walk straight up to the prettiest girl in the whole world, and plant one on her like there was no tomorrow — just like I saw Rose kissed on the Titanic two weeks prior on the big screen. How long that kiss lasted, I still don’t know, it had to of been hours, it had to of been days.

I look back and think my vision went dark, or perhaps I got lost in the moment, I couldn’t tell. This was much bigger than me, I am a seven-year-old man after all, and a grown man I would become — whether anyone liked it or not; they could watch while I learn from my girl, or they could make fun of me for not knowing how to kiss yet, but that’s all they could do — from the sidelines.

I learned, and do this before any first kiss or date now, I tell every partner that when I pick them up I’m planting one on them against their own doorframe the moment I lay eyes on them for the first time — scary for them I’m sure, but you only get so many moments in life to find out what you’re made of — I plant one on them and lift them against the frame and hold them there and let them know exactly who I am before I take them out. Usually this leads to exasperated requests to rush inside to their place — which any Texas gentleman knows — must be refused and graciously rejected. And how fun it is the rest of that first date to see my love interest bopping along on cloud nine, flustered, safe, respected, with worry and stress removed, hand in mine because I know what I’m made of from the start, and they do too.

If they don’t like the way I operate, that’s fine; they simply weren’t for me and my brazen first gaze smooches pressed high — lofted against their own door.

I learned nerve.

The sun rides high, she won’t be out at night, only her male counterparts will this time of year. I suspect she’s had a litter — I listen for their calls to their mother, softly slung chirps that keep her near while she takes care of what she needs to before reporting back to her offspring.

I don’t hear them, and I’m good in these woods, I’m even as good as some of my best friends — the Cherokee people of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the Trail of Tears ended, where all my friends have names like Painter, Sixkiller, and Longsky.

I have had a mask on the back of my head with googly eyes and a flared mouth for 2 weeks while I look for her — she’s been taking out my grandmother’s chickens, and rumor has it from my grandfather — she has an interest in my grandmother herself.

The cougar’s territory I estimate to be about 40 clicks in circumference around a small quasi-cave system above a creekbed I’m familiar with that I used to catch water moccasins at when younger.

I have my baby boy with me, he’s special needs and epileptic, but he has the nose of a God — he’s a beagle named Hank — and he’s my doppler and alert system today while I look.

I’ve made a grave mistake teaching him to control his voice and wait for me to allow him to use it, and I realize this as he keeps his bay to himself as he sniffs a small mound and his hackles stand up instead. I quickly pick him up and drop my rucksack and open the top and put him inside — he’s used to it — when I’m in the woods and storms blow in I always put him in my ruck until we set up somewhere.

She’s watching me, I can feel it, I feel for my ka-bar above my appendix and unsheathe it as I turn around, I’m not here to kill her, just find her, and though I’m a crack shot, I’m not fond of guns and animals — too unearned — men I don’t mind.

I was wrong again, she wasn’t just watching me, she was watching my boy, and she’s looking back and forth between him in my ruck and me standing in front of it as I position my back to an oak to protect my neck — her being far closer than I thought, maybe only 7 meters from me. She’s close to 115 lbs, she looks to be about four years old or so, certainly beautiful and youthful. It’s too bad I know the look in her eyes, like me — we are too close to what we both love, and like me, willing to die for it.

She bounds towards me to intimidate me — not happening, I won’t budge from in front of Hank in my ruck, there’s no easy meal here. She pivots right and screams, rings my ears, and I brace for impact as she lunges for my ruck. I tackle her as best I can while protecting the back of my neck, and her paw catches the side of my face and removes it. My ka-bar comes up into her flank and takes her lung and deflates it. She continues with me now — forgetting about my boy.

I’ve always had incredibly long K9s, and all pretenses removed now, I sink them into her as I stab repeatedly around her neck and vitals, needing maximum blood loss before I suffer the same fate. My left hand catches a socket and I dig my thumb in and remove her eye as she screams again in my ear, tearing all flesh away from my right shoulder and severing my bicep from its sheath near the joint. My dominant hand rendered useless, I sink my teeth further and grab the back of her scruff with my left and throw her away from me. She stumbles about five feet away and falls, I took both her lungs, she’s looking at me, she’s looking into the dirt. I stand up and tuck my bicep back into my shirt I’ve sat and made into a sling, as I put a tourniquet on where the head of the bicep used to be. I stand up and walk to her as she gasps and swipes at me again. And in one motion, I cry and beg forgiveness of her children — at the same time, I pay with my conscience for my error and lack of respect, and I sink my ka-bar into the underside of her neck and pull and saw towards me until it comes clean as her spirit leaves her and she rests.

I learned mercy, and the importance of perpetual awareness.

I adopted Hank when he was a puppy — no one would take him on account of his seizures, so I paid 200 dollars and took him to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where I was completing my undergrad and playing baseball at the time. He would run to me when he would experience his aura and “jump,” and I would grab him and bring him up into my arms like a baby and hold him while he convulsed and talk to him through them, speaking into his floppy ears, pleading with him lovingly to come back to me and let the tonic-clonic pass.

There was nothing a broke college student could do for him other than hold him close and hope he could hear me through his convulsions. This went on for a few years, and eventually the seizures reached a point to where I knew his life would be taken by them — and their occurrence seemed to be increasing with each passing month and year as I searched and studied and studied and searched with fervor in the background of my busy life, praying I could find some solution, as the vets’ solutions weren’t working and the only thing stopping him from his demise was Valium as a last resort, issued in a non-flattering manner.

I learned patience, diligence, and faith.

The woods seemed darker now, dusk was near, and the golden hour of light lit up my baby boy as I admired his little frame rippling with muscle from all the rabbits the spring brought, and his never-ceasing tracking of them.

I reached back and adjusted the mask on the back of my head and heard the eyes google in their casing as Hank sniffed the ground, tracking whatever he pleased within fifteen feet of me. He points and stands still and I see the tucked-away alcove above the small rock face. I could smell it too now, the sharp tang of ammonia hidden beneath the dirt, and I heard the chirps. Not only were we near, they were calling for her.

I already know as I reach down and grab Hank and put him in my rucksack, and I wait. We have been here before. What have I learned?

She screams from a distance — far worse than a vixen and with the same terror as one, a harrowing screech as my hair stands on end and I welcome the challenge, my bloodlust rising from depths my rough life taught me to access at will.

She stands in front of her alcove, her kittens safely inside, silent now.

She stares at me and I don’t break eye contact, I remove one of the two throwing hatchets from my belt and toss its heft in my hand, I unclip my ka-bar and leave it sheathed just in case. If she comes nearer she gets to meet a professional baseball player with a pair of throwing hatchets, and she’s just looking like she might.

I raise my right hand with a hatchet in it, locked and loaded — ready to go. She stares at me with hell in her eyes, and hell to pay if I step any closer.

She screams again and I just stare, unmoved by the 115 lb cat — Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. She bolts forward and backs up and screams again, testing me, I take a step towards her, she backs up.

I take another step and she charges, and I promptly launch my hatchet at 70 mph directly at her face, and I don’t miss as her skull splits in two and she drops. I feel nothing, as I walk towards her and grab the scruff of her neck and step on her throat and pull my hatchet from her skull. I ensure the job is done with two more blows of its blade. And I pick her up and carry her to her alcove. And drop her in front of her now-hissing kittens for them to acknowledge and smell the death of; and I turn and walk back to my ruck with my boy in it, safe and sound.

I learned efficiency, verdict, and judgment.

No one will listen to me, the phenobarbital isn’t working, nothing is working; the fools take my money and say the same thing with every second opinion. He won’t live much longer. He will not survive; they have become too much, I cannot take it anymore.

I drive out to the country near Prosper, Texas, and find the one vet who will listen — found through the grapevine and retiring next year. I want phenobarbital in conjunction with potassium bromide. I’ve researched hundreds if not thousands of hours. I’m not here to ask questions, I’m here to have the prescription written. I’m carrying my boy shotgun in my ‘72 C20 — and I have the pedal down as fast as she will go. I’m done with listening.

We pull up and the old man hops off his porch and walks towards me — I’m carrying Hank in tonic-clonic, his frothed spit on my button-down and my Resistol perched low on my forehead — an omen where I’m from. And I’m belligerent. I have become something that resembles wrath, but can’t remember its own name anymore. I will not lose this little being I love, he will not suffer any more.

He warns me about the hepatotoxicity there in his yard and I don’t give a rat’s ass — I already know, just write the prescription. I may as well have sounded like a drunk man until I thrust Hank forward in my arms and just pleaded for it to be written. So it was. And within two weeks, the sacred disease was snuffed out, for the price to be paid, and loan collected at a later date.

She’s here again, I’m not young like I was, neither is she. We stare at each other, and for the first time, I tell her I’m sorry, for the first time, I ask her to stop. I only want her to stop stalking my grandmother, I know she has to feed her kittens, and I know chickens are perfect, but I can’t allow it. I throw her one of the pair of sirloins I remove from my ruck as I slip Hank inside, him now confused by the smell of the steaks in the ruck, and the typical danger associated with being placed in it. I hear him sniffing in the pack, the lion doesn’t break eye contact with me. She screams — I throw the other steak up near her den and hear her kittens come alive as they innocently take it from the dirt. I slowly back away, picking up my ruck, never showing her the back of my neck where my googly eye mask sits.

Hank sniffs in the ruck, upset he doesn’t get any steak, and I back up to the draw and step my foot in the creek as I make my way backwards across it. As I reverse walk up the backside of the draw, we make it about 150m or so downwind and I quietly drop my ruck and Hank goes quiet once I thump it — I lay prone and pull out my binoculars and look at the ground where I threw the first steak. It’s gone.
Progress.

I learned delayed gratification, tact, and cunning.

Time moves quickly when life becomes placid. I pitched in front of hundreds of thousands or millions — I never kept count, I joined the Army in search of true challenges, I found them. And with every challenge I came home to a happy beagle, golden afternoons at the dog park, and Hank’s coat went from brilliant tricolor to grey without my consent. He stood still for me while love left, good men died, and life dealt me crushing blows. He never cared, he was happy to be here, and to be my oldest and best friend. He lived the same way every day, the only way a happy beagle lives — goofy and unyielding in his love for everyone. I watched him the entire time. I learned from him more than anyone else, and my heart healed through all loss because of him licking away my tears each time one of my brothers was killed, blown up, or took his own life and left me lonelier still. He was my little tether to all I had accomplished as a man, through fame, fortune, and everything between — none of it mattered, the dog park mattered, our time together mattered.

He had taught me to listen.

I made my way out of the den because I smelled him, he reeked of arrogance and pride. He is coming near my babies, and he will die for it. He stands there with some glinting thing in his hand aimed at me with his arm raised, but I bet I’m too fast for him. He makes noises at me like some monkey, filthy and not even knowing how soft his flesh is.
He kneels down, and puts something on the ground, and backs up and does it again.

I scream at him, he is huge and I will need to find the back of his neck, but he has two faces.

He backs away, he is smart. He leaves and I go back to my kittens. I smell the air and smell the food, it’s tainted with his scent but it’s right here.
He has left parts of a cow on the ground, there are many parts leading to the water.
I am no fool, I wait until the sun goes down when I can see better than him.
I take the first and bring it back and my kittens eat the cow. I go for the second and eat it myself.

There is a third by the creek hidden by the smell of the earth. I go to it to take it back to my kittens. It is in some strange cold thing, it is not natural. I leave it and go back to my den. My kittens smell it too and they begin going towards it. I go first, I step into the cold thing, and I take the cow. The back of the cold thing closes, and I hear him walking towards me. I am trapped, my babies will die.

He talks sweetly to me as he puts a blanket that smells like his small dog over the cold thing and doesn’t hurt me. He takes my babies.

I hear loud noises and other men, and the smell is not from the earth, as I scream and scream, and I am picked up and put into another cold thing with strong wind for hours.

It all stops, I am put on the earth in the cold thing, and the man takes the blanket off of the thing and lowers the back and gets in his own strange cage and watches me through glass.

I am in a new place, and he has put my babies on the ground. I leave the cold thing and do not know where I am at. But I cannot smell the chickens anymore. I take my kittens and run away. I look back, and he is picking up the cage and putting into the back of his strange box as it makes loud noises and moves away. He has put me next to a new creek, and my kittens are happy.

I have learned how to make peace.

Hank passed away from liver failure on July 29th, 2026. The phenobarbital took its toll after fourteen and a half years of life — but conjoined with potassium bromide, it bought him nearly a decade beyond the six years he otherwise had. And I will keep him with me always, forever my best, forever my oldest friend.