Читать книгу How Far the Mountain - Robert K. Swisher Jr. - Страница 13

On one side of the small clearing is a thick stand of aspen trees. The green and vibrant leaves chattering like chipmunks in the June breeze. Coming out of the aspens is a seldom used trail, carpeted with last year’s rotting yellow and orange leaves. On the north side of the clearing, a thick stand of pines grow, so thick the sun never reaches the pine needle covered earth. Around the pine trees, patches of snow cling to their last gasps of life. During some winters the meadow is under twenty feet of snow. After these winters, the summer sun will not completely melt the snow in the pine trees.

On the eastern side of the clearing, a spring bubbles out of the ground at the base of a car sized red rock that was left behind eons ago by a glacier that grew tired of its burden. The spring forms a clear pool no more than four feet across and six inches deep. The top of the rock is covered by droppings from gray camp robbers that sit on the rock waiting patiently for bugs to hatch from the swampy earth. In the rich wet ground by the spring, delicate pink elephant’s ears sway in the breeze. In the drier soil, red and orange fire brush bloom.

A trail cuts directly through the center of the meadow and exits through a stand of virgin growth spruce, their silver edged needles glistening like frost during all seasons of the year. Here, deer hide, listening and smelling the air, before cautiously tip toeing to the spring to drink. Here, also, elk rest on their yearly migrations up and down the mountain. Occasionally a black bear skirts the meadow, never brave enough to show itself in the open. There have been too many close calls—safety is only in the dark heart of the trees.

In the middle of the meadow, not far from the trail, the bones are scattered—white, sun bleached bones, bones now devoid of any flesh or hide, showing the teeth marks of skunks and badgers and porcupines and mountain lions.

The skull rests in a clump of blue mountain iris, several yards away from the spine and leg bones. Tiny blue flowers, no larger than a baby’s fingernail, bloom through the eyeholes of the skull.

The spine, leg bones, and other bones are covered by tall swaying grass. A person walking or riding through the meadow would not easily see the bones.

At times the camp robbers sit on the bones, even roll over the smaller rib bones and disjointed back vertebra to look for grubs or worms, or maggots. At one time, when the flesh still clung to them, the bones had been feasts to hawks and buzzards. Now they are merely bones; dry, white, bones—bones like old and weathered headstones in graveyards.

Not far from the bones, on the side of the meadow that catches the morning sun, and back in the trees, are cut pine poles over twelve feet long. Poles used to erect a wall tent. There is also a round grill used to place over a fire and support a heavy coffeepot. Partially covered by tall grass is a fire pit with its circle of rocks. Now, tiny white flowers, the size of ice crystals, poke their way through the charred earth. On the edge of the trees is a half rotten stack of cut and split firewood, piled up for another planned trip—a wasted effort, as though one had kidded himself and felt he could foretell the future and plan.

It is a beautiful mountain meadow. But there are the bones. The white, dry, gravestone bones.