stepped around a weathered old snag, and a warm breeze hit his face. It was only a little after nine o’clock. There was no sign of dew. The fire danger was probably quite high.
He listened to the winds in the treetops, and stepped his eye up through the brush, past the tops of the scraggly young pines, to the ponderosa that towered overhead. It would be a shame to lose the old monarch, but if a fire were to happen now, it could happen. It could turn this area into a wasteland of barren ground and standing dead trees. Natural succession starting over, at square one. It’ll be good to get this project finished.
He marked all morning, breaking to take lunch with the crew, and then resumed, plowing on through the heat of the afternoon. As the sounds of chainsaws became more and more distant, muffled by the breezes blowing through the trees, he lost the feeling that he had to push.
He stopped at a grand old ponderosa, needles packed thick at its feet. He pressed his nose to its bark and drew in a breath. The smell of vanilla. It reconnected him to so many things—the land, the work, memories of good times.
He leaned against it, and took a moment to look and to listen—to enjoy.
Chickadees and nuthatches were doing their acrobatics along the trunk and boughs. Other birds prone to scrub or to foraging on the ground darted in and out of scene, while chipmunks rummaged through the pine cones.
He went back to work, and marked steadily until a little before four. He returned to where the crew was working.
“Let’s call it a day,” he said as he approached.
The crew followed him back to the pickups. Johnny climbed up into the bed of the crew-cab and let the others hand him their tools. “Hey, Jack, you should join us for a beer at Elena’s,” he said.
“I’ll take a rain check. I was thinking I’d stay up here tonight.”
“Didn’t you get enough sleeping on the ground in California?”
“All together different circumstances.”
Jack waited for them to drive away before pulling his backpack out from under a tarp in the back of his pickup. His destination would stay his own little secret.
He headed past the piles of limbs, and into the forest. At the southwestern edge of the plateau, he started searching, skirting the edge until he saw terraces and rocky ledges below. He found a game trail at a break in the rocks. He spun around, looking for landmarks. Nothing looked familiar, but a year ago he was not exactly in the frame of mind to make note of landmarks. It was not as if he had expected to find anything worth going back to. He was simply looking for a place to be alone. He had found it, but could he find it again. This seemed like the place.
He braced himself and lowered a foot over the edge. Then the other. Now out of the park and on BLM land, he took a step and his foot slid on sand and rock, grinding to an uneasy stop. “Slow,” he told himself. “You’ve got all night.” He couldn’t remember it being this bad a year ago, but then again, he wasn’t sure safety had been first and foremost on his mind.
The trail switched back and forth, generally in a southeasterly direction. After two hundred feet he lost sight of the trail. Then, it became distinct, cutting through a break in an escarpment. He remembered the spot. He left the game trail and worked his way down through the rocky scree to the terrace, and then, bee-lined west through pinyon pine and sagebrush.
It had to be close. Or did it? He looked upslope. Drainages and ledges lay all along the edge of the plateau. The one he was looking for was different. He could see it in his mind. It had to be along here somewhere.
The first signs of a creek. It looked right.
He worked his way down and stopped in the creek bed. No water. He pawed at the silt covering the sand. Maybe this wasn’t it. He checked the landmarks. No, it had to be. He could see the rock where he’d set up his stove, and the slide, smooth from the wash of water, where the creek poured into the pool he had skinny dipped in. But there was no water. Last year there had been plenty of flow—enough to support what had seemed like hundreds of tree frogs, all singing, catching him by surprise, making him forget his troubles. So, where was the water?
He scrambled around an outcropping and looked down on the pools. They were dry, their bottoms ringed with detritus, telling the story of their gradual disappearance.
Surely the pools would return another season, but what about the frogs? Endangered, were they adapted to such things? To swings in habitat condition and availability? He wasn’t sure. No one was really sure.
He remembered something he’d read in the scientific literature. ‘Reproductively isolated,’ it said, ‘...from both the Canyon tree frog and the Arizona tree frog.’ It wasn’t found along the bigger rivers, only the smaller creeks in and around the park. How had the speciation occurred? Somehow the little brown frog with an orange stripe across its eye, and pads for hanging onto trees—that it didn’t seem to use—only frequented the sandstone substrates along the slow moving creeks in this section of New Mexico. Nowhere else.
And it was having a hard time of it. Its population numbers were dropping, except in the park. There they were thought to be stable; elsewhere, they were in decline.
Cruel world, he thought. Mother Nature shows no favors.
And this would be a dry camp. He had water in his pack—he always did, just in case—so that wasn’t a problem.
Really odd, though. Sure, it was unseasonably warm, but it hadn’t seemed all that dry. But this was high desert, and he only had one year to compare to. Still, people weren’t talking about a drought.
Last year’s camp was now in a sickly looking fringe of willows, along a very dry creek-bed.
That won’t do. Go with sunset and stars.
He found an outcropping with a view to the west, and threw out his pad, bivy sack and sleeping bag.
A cool dip in the creek would have been nice about now. Next time—maybe even Thursday, if he could work it out—he would hike into the upper reaches of Caveras Creek. It would take a little longer, but it was said to be worth the trip.
CHAPTER 8
Jack stood by the truck, his pack stowed and sweat dripping from his brow, and watched as the crew drove up and stopped.
Johnny Reger climbed out of the 6-pack, and gave him a funny look. “Man, you look awful. About a quart low.”
“A little more coffee would be nice, but I’m alright.”
“I was thinking beer. You should’ve been with us last night. Lots happening.”
“Oh, I had a good time up here.”
“Jack, we’re worried about you. We think you’re a lonely man. We decided we’re gonna see it as our job to take care of you. We think you need a woman, or a few beers, or both.”
He frowned. “I’m going to work.” He grabbed his vest and charged off, to get away from such talk.
It was another hot day. When it was done, Jack resisted another invitation to Elena’s, but followed the crew down off the plateau.
The
