The first emotion I had felt when I saw him was not lust, but fear. Stark, cold, going to die fear. Moments before I had seen him, I had heard him growling in the enveloping darkness. Fool that I was, I had taken an unfamiliar trail, too close to night.

There I was in a little Cessna 172, buzzing along at 110 knots across Arizona with one of my fellow CFIs and dear friends on a beautiful sunny day in April. I was more focused than I’d ever been. Why? Because I was flying