Bitten
Sarah Hinson
©
Copyright 2025 by Sarah Hinson
|
Photo by Andreas Staver at Pexels. |
They
were all frozen.
Motionless in the pine tree forest, casting shadows beneath an almost
full moon. It was as though she had walked into another
realm,
time could not keep ticking, and they all stood in silent stillness
without direction. It was not fear that she felt, though she
knew the dozens of creatures around her had tusks capable of causing
extreme damage to human flesh. In that moment, surrounded by
frozen peccaries, she remembered a childhood dream. She had
been “bitten” by a javelina that was stuck inside the
house. It chased her and bit her hand, leaving two bite marks
the size of jelly beans. She lifted her hand and was able to
look through it.
Sarah
and her friends often went
camping on the weekends. They were young, recently graduated
from high school, and the town they lived in provided little to do
for people who were not yet of drinking age. However, the
high
desert hills of Arizona provided a myriad of ways to get away and get
lost. There were back roads that would take you to other
small
mountain mining towns hundreds of miles away. Sarah and her
friends loved this one particular camping spot by a creek with a fire
pit in the center of pine trees, that seemed to form a circle.
They
were listening to music,
telling stories about their week, cooking up some food and enjoying
the summer night air. July in the southwest can cause one’s
skin to feel scorched, and one’s soul to feel reptilian.
The gift of the cool twilight air brought a levity to Sarah and her
friends. Laughter would bounce off the ridge behind them as
they all told jokes and goofed around. They camped in tents
on
the ground, bringing with them only the essentials for an overnight
adventure.
“I
am going to head over that ridge guys,” Sarah said to her
friends.
“Potty
break?” Her friend Susanne asked.
“Yep,
I will be back in a bit.”
She took
off up the ridge that
would take her out of sight from the campfire. Pine needles
crunched beneath her feet and she wove her way around the pine cones
and cacti. The moon was almost full, so no need for a
flashlight, and she smiled with her heart as she heard her friends
laughing behind her.
Up and
over the ridge the sounds
of her friends faded and the orange glow of the fire disappeared to
the cool blue light of the moon. She continued to crunch her
way towards a spot that would suit the task at hand, hidden behind a
large pine tree, just in case one of her friends had a similar need.
She
finished her business and was
about to make her way back, when saw a creature not 10 feet from
her. She stopped abruptly. She wondered if she was
imagining the scene she found herself transfixed by. Before
her were an untold amount of javelina, distanced from one another and
completely still. Never had Sarah seen javelina distanced
like
this, like checkers awaiting the start of a game. And how did
they get there? She had just walked right through where they
stood. How did she not hear them? Her confusion
caused
her to stay as still as her desert counterparts as she contemplated
what to do.
Sarah
loved javelina. They
were strange desert pigs with poor vision who generally showed a
docile and innocent disposition. Growing up in small town
Arizona, javelina are a regular site. They tended to travel
as
a family, or a few families together, and they tended to walk the
same paths in a single line. They were always seeking food,
and could be a menace to an unattended trash can.
So here
now, beneath Orion’s
Belt and the Big Dipper, Sarah stood awaiting
understanding.
She slowly looked to her right and saw they extended all the way down
the back side of the ridge. To her left, she saw the
same.
She dare not look behind her for she didn’t want to make a
sound. Why were they so still? Had she interrupted
their
disco dance party and they were feeling shy? Was she part of
a
game of freeze tag and wasn’t aware? These thoughts
turned up the corners of her mouth and she smiled. As she did
so, her feet began to move. She was certain the sound would
startle them and they would all dart off, which was usually their
way. Not tonight. They held their
positions and she
started weaving her way through them, just as she did with
the
pine cones and cacti. She held peace in her heart, hoping
they
could feel she was safe, as she passed by them so closely.
She
made it all the way to the top of the ridge without hearing anything
but her own footsteps. Back in the glow of the fire at the
top
of ridge, she turned back to see they were all no longer
there.
As if they had vanished, or had been a mirage.
“You
guys, you guys!” Sarah exclaimed as she ran back to the
fire. “You will never believe what just happened!!!!!!”
She explained her encounter to her friends and they all
offered alternatives to what she had just experienced.
“Javelina
don’t do that.”
“Maybe
the moonlight made it seem like there were more than you really saw.”
“Humans
cannot get within a few feet of javelina without them getting
startled.”
“I
know.” Sarah said. And after a short contemplation
she continued.“That is what makes is so magical.”
The
night continued on and no one
really registered that Sarah could not stop grinning. She
silently celebrated what had just happened. She wondered if
there was a message, an omen, a reason for what she had just
witnessed.
Years
later, in the Tucson desert,
she would experience this same phenomenon. Only this time she
was beneath a diamond sky collecting mesquite and other kindling for
the fire in her friends backyard. Moving through
ocotillo, banana yucca, and desert willow, she had a nice stack of
wood forming in her arms. Something in the Sonoran
Desert caught her eye and she thought, “what is that? A lawn
ornament? All the way out here?” Slowly
she
realized what she was seeing. She was surrounded again by
javelina. They were motionless, anchored, silent and
dispersed.
She again remembered her childhood dream. She
smiled as
she knew exactly how to behave this time. Peacefully and
carefully she weaved through them, silently communicating she meant
no harm. As she distanced herself from them, she
turned
back to see again, they were gone. It was then she
recognized
why this was happening.
They had
bitten her in the dream,
marked her as one of their own.
They
were her desert kin.
My
name is Sarah Hinson and I live in Prescott, Arizona. I am
born
and raised here and am fascinated by desert creatures. I love
writing and have decided to try my hand at a few writing contests,
mainly to have an external motivator help me get words on the page.
I currently work as a piano teacher and love that I get to call that
a job. I have never published any writings. These
are
true events that I experienced and it has been so wonderful writing
them down. Thank you for that inspiration.
(Unless
you
type
the
author's name
in
the subject
line
of the message
we
won't know where to send it.)
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