There are often rumours of cougars in these parts…unconfirmed sightings, lambs taken with nothing left but patches of wool on top of bales, unearthly screams in the night. If it were Ireland or some other Gaelic country, those screams would be ascribed to otherwordly banshees, mythical creatures of dread and doom.
An old lady told me the other day that, on the plains, an old story goes that people would hear screaming in the night and think it was a woman being beaten by her husband. In the empty night, miles between everything, there could be no help for her.
But eventually, it was realised that the eerie sound was not an abused woman, but a cougar.
Or was it?
I have heard these sounds long after dark, attributed to some animal or another, maybe a bird of some kind. But I can’t say for sure what it is that screams in the night.
from the gap 