Scout, whose family had owned and ranched the land there for five generations, turned out to be a font of wisdom about the locale. Over coffee and some delicious homemade cookies, he told me all about the historic land disputes in that area between the Spanish and the Indians, and later the Anglos—including his ancestors. “That ruin out there looks just like a castle from a ways off,” he said. “You can see it from miles around, perched up high on that rim like that.” “That’s where the cougar had her den,” I said. “There must not be any human traffic in that area, or she wouldn’t have put the cubs there.” “I don’t think anyone goes out there,” Scout said. “It’s landlocked on three sides. And if someone had to come in from the west, that’d be pretty tough. It’s a long piece to the nearest road out that way. It would be days of harsh badlands hiking.” Lorena, who had been in the middle of baking when I arrived, returned from the kitchen with another plate of cookies fresh from the oven.
