Jesse

It could have been two minutes or twenty.

I lay there and stared at the blackened window and waited.

Then the darkness pulled back.

The window returned to its normal shade of dark grey.

I heard the roof edge creak as the weight lifted.

Then footsteps on the roof, moving south.

Then the sound of something heavy dropping to the ground outside the south wall.

Then silence.

I didn't get up.

I didn't check the window.

I lay on the cot until the grey dawn light came through and the birds started up and the forest sounded alive again.

When I went outside, I looked at the ground below the south wall.

The soil there was thin and rocky, mostly gravel and exposed root.

Not good for tracks.

But the moss on the wall, the thick green carpet of moss that covered the lower two feet of the concrete on the shaded side, had been scraped.

Four vertical lines, evenly spaced, running from about six feet high down to the ground.

as if something had dragged its fingers down the wall while dropping from the roof i touched one of the lines the moss was shredded not scraped whatever had made the marks had claws or nails or something rigid and sharp enough to tear through moss and score the concrete underneath

I radioed the ranger station.

I talked to a woman named Linda who handled communications for the Kino district.

I told her I'd had an animal on the roof and asked if there were reports of bears in the area.