Essays

Moseying: Outdoor Recreation Activities

A kangaroo rat meets a family that camps and rides ATVs in the sanddunes

This unpublished essay is part of the Sanddunes Habitat resource library. Also, a series of questions related to this essay is found here.

“Look at the kangaroo rat!” Maria whispered to her brother Bobby. It was 10:30 at night, and the sky was full of stars, but there was no moon. The rat had moved into the circle of firelight at their camp in the sanddunes.

“It’s cute,” said Eleanor, their mother. “Don’t try to catch it – I bet they bite.” Their father, Alejandro, sat very still, as the little rodent hopped near his foot. He bent over very slowly, so he could see what it was doing.

“It’s picking up a crust of bread I dropped during supper,” he reported. The family had cooked hot dogs over the campfire. Their three ATVs reflected the light of the fire – they had spent the last two hours of daylight riding on the dunes, and had returned after the summer sun had disappeared for the day. Today had been a great day – Alejandro had taught Maria how to drive the four-wheeler. Maybe she would get her own on her next birthday.

The rat put the crust of bread back on the ground and sniffed around some more. When Alejandro moved his knee so he could keep watching, the kangaroo rat stamped his foot twice on the sand and sat up, watching. Alejandro thumped his leg with his finger – and the rat peered up and did it again. Bobby thumped his leg and the rat turned to face Bobby. Maria thumped his leg, and the rat turned again.

Eleanor was sitting the furthest away (behind the rat) and close to a box with some snack food. She leaned over and grabbed a bag of cashews – her favorite camping treat. She got a handful out, and carefully spread them out on the ground. Then she thumped her leg. The rat hopped once toward her, and she thumped her leg again. It thumped its foot twice. Eleanor sat still for almost a minute, and then thumped again, twice, and louder.

The rat came closer to her with another jump. It was too intent on looking for the source of sound to notice the cashews at first, but when Eleanor did not thump again, it looked around, and spotted a cashew. It slowly moved to the cashew, pushed it with its nose, then picked it up and held it. Then it forced the nut inside of its mouth, but it did not chew. It dropped to the ground again, and picked up another, and stuffed it in, too. Then it bounced away, to a clump of shinnery.

The family all groaned – “Oh, no, it has left and won’t come back.” Eleanor got out a bag of conchas, and gave each member of the family one for dessert, and then walked to the cooler and got everybody a bottle of water, too.

“Papi, tell us a story about when Uncle John and you were doodlebugging in the sanddunes and -- ” Bobby started to ask.

“Ran into the mountain lion? It was right before John joined the Army after 9/11. He said if he could work in 110 degree heat in the sanddunes he could fight for his country in the same conditions – and that he should go, because he would be better suited for it than soldiers from other parts of the country. We were the survey crew – I ran the instrument and he carried the pole, so that meant he was always out in front of me.”

Alejandro had leaned back in his camp chair to tell the story, and when he saw the kids point at the ground he was at first “miffed” – they weren’t paying attention. Then he looked down, and saw that the rat was back. It quickly loaded up with two more cashews and hopped away. It returned before Alejandro could start up telling his story again. Away it went again, and then came back again. After the fifth visit the kids leaned back to hear the story. “They must store food in their nest,” commented Eleanor. She spread some more cashews on the ground as he started his story. The rat came back over and over as he talked.

“Early that morning I saw John reach the crest of a dune, stop, and then duck down, and then he slid down a little ways. He started waving at me to come to him. I used my arms to ask why with a shrug and he pointed over the hill and then put his hand to his head, like he was amazed. I hollered at him and he held his finger to his lips, and put both hands up. He went back to the crest and looked over, then slid back down and waved at me again, and this time put his hands together like in a prayer, but I knew he meant, “please.” So I left my instrument and started toward him. He lay down at the crest of the hill and looked over, and then turned to me again, quickly waving his arm, and then pointing. I started trotting – he had to be seeing something really cool.”

“When I got to him, he whispered, 'I have hunted deer in the dunes for ten years, and have been told that mountain lions do too, but, look!' I lay down beside him, and in a blowout almost underneath us, I saw a mountain lion eating a spike buck. Deer love to eat the shinnery acorns in the dunes – remember we saw several deer this evening as we rode around. John nudged me. “He must have killed it less than thirty minutes ago – the blood is still liquid.”

“Put out some more cashews, querida, our friend has about run out of them.” Alejandro knew how to build suspense to a story. She was still moving around when the rat came back, but it was not scared away by the movement. “I wonder why it is not scared – not of my voice or your mama’s movements. Maybe it is used to campers – we built our fire where other people have.”

“I hope mountain lions get used to people! I was just thinking about the deer – that means a mountain lion could be near our camp!” Maria crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Weren’t you scared, being that close to the lion?”

“Well, I wasn’t while the lion was eating, but when John sneezed from his allergies and it turned toward us, I got nervous. We were looking through two big clumps of tall grass at it, so it didn’t see us, so it took a couple steps in our direction. Then it stopped, and we could see its nostrils flare – it smelled the air, but we were lucky because the wind was coming from its direction. It turned and looked at the deer, then back up the dune at our location. It took several more steps in our direction. I glanced at John – and he had a big grin on his face. You remember how crazy and goofy he could act – when I saw him pull his legs up under him, I did the same – I figured we were leaving. But no, not John – he leapt up hollering as loud as he could! That lion spun around and left in a hurry.”

Alejandro looked at the kangaroo rat and yelled and waved his arms. The rat was busy stuffing a cashew in its mouth and did not budge. “That rat is braver than the lion,” Alejandro chortled.

He then finished his story. “I went back to the instrument, and took the reading, then took John’s place on the dune, while he went ahead. He went over one dune and disappeared, headed for a taller dune. When he got there, I took that reading, and then kept on going. As I was walking along following John’s tracks, I noticed big tracks right beside his. That meant the lion was probably between us, following John. I got scared and grabbed a big old dead shinnery root and after every step looked all around me. I could not see John – and I figured the lion was hidden in the shinnery. Then the lion’s tracks disappeared. I got to the top of the hill where he had been and looked around, and saw nothing, not even John. I started hollering, worried that the lion had jumped John, and after a minute saw him coming back towards me.”

As he was talking, Eleanor decided to see if the rat would eat from her hand, and knelt down with a few in her palm. At the moment she knelt down and extended her arm toward it, it was hopping in her direction, but when she moved toward it, it was able to change the direction of its hop by swinging its tail around to change its distribution of weight. As soon as it landed it bounded off, back to its nest, without a nut.

“When John got back to me, I told him about the tracks. He laughed, “He was just making sure we were leaving – don’t worry about it.” We went back to surveying, but I was nervous until lunch when we met the chief to take us back to our truck, and we were three miles away.”

The family sat quietly for a few minutes. “We all miss my brother,” Eleanor said, and the rest could see a tear trickling down her face.

Related: Questions related to this essay