Grace

When I first met you, you were so much larger than life that the term rockstar would have been an insult. You were my hero and guru. Somewhere along the line, our roles got reversed and I was never sure of how to approach the subject.

Twenty-four years we knew one another. In that time you watched me grow into the person I am now. I saw you be diminished slowly, like sandstone whittled away by desert winds. Your death, whilst it elicited an emotional reaction from me, was, in the end, not shocking. Sadly, I saw it coming.

After I learned of your death and its cause, one question still remained; when did you lose your grace? I am not one to leave such a mystery unsolved. I began to dissect. It is my nature to do so. Were I to give it a date in clumsy timekeeping of Man it would be June twenty-first, two-thousand seven. That was the day you told me you were getting divorced.

She was your high school sweetheart. The one who got away. When you told me you found her again, that you were going to marry her, your smile threatened to swallow the rest of your head. When the end came to your love story, it broke you.

That is when you gave up...

First you lost the home your father left you. Once the divorce was done you were sentenced to a one-bedroom apartment with barely a couple coins to rub together. Somewhere in there, you decided to stop taking your insulin. To say your health suffered because of it is as blindingly obvious as the direction of the rising sun. Your body began to betray you, soon making it that you could not earn a livelihood.

There were the amputations. First, a finger. Then, a toe. Your foot. A leg. They were going to take the other leg when you had your septic stumble and all fall down. It was as if that deity you so zealously believed in, to the point of being born again-because the first time didn't work out so great?-was taking you a piece at a time.

I watched you move from one toxic situation to another. When you moved down to Arizona, I though you might get things turned around, but you fell into your pattern pretty quickly. Almost like habit. You once told me you saw yourself as a knight, owing to your time in law enforcement and security work. Did you really think you were going to save any of those cats you fell in with?

"The fact you have fallen is interesting. The time you remain down is important."

You said that to me once. I was going through my divorce, sitting in coffeehouses scribbling bad poetry to a backbeat of Nine Inch Nails. I was in pain, certainly, but I got up. That was when I decided nothing would break me. That is when I decided not to bare my jugular to anyone.

No matter how many times I said that to you, you never got up. You never even tried. I am not a saint or a superhero, but you showed you cannot save someone who had no desire to be saved. You lost your grace.

The last time I spoke to you was shortly after the leg amputation. Whilst you glibly said you were glad you did not have access to a firearm, you sounded relatively cheerful. That was the thing; no matter the drama or tale of woe, you knew there was no one to blame for it than yourself. You may have been beyond grace, but you knew how you got there.

You left rehab in anger, without medications of any kind. Without crutches. You stopped talking to everyone; your  sister, your favorite cousin, even me, supposedly one of your best friends. The mental image of you crawling on your hands and knees in a manure lagoon is seared into my mind's eye. I would rather remember that picture of you when you got your Harley, your smile threatening to swallow the rest of your head, or any other moment in the twenty-four years we knew one another, but that's what I keep seeing.

Your sister told me, like an animal, you chose to die alone. That you gave up. I know that. We just have different idea of when you gave up.

And, oh, how she raged. After the two of you buried your father, that was supposed to be it. She didn't want to be the last one. Part way through, she stopped herself and apologized to me for unloading.

"No, you need to do this. You may need do it a few more times before you truly work through this," I said, not out of empathy, but honesty.

Once, when relating a bit of trauma, you said your life should serve as a cautionary tale to others. You may have gotten your wish. There was this one last lesson for you to teach me; never lose your grace. Never, ever, give up. Once you do, although it might take years, it's lights out, and it will be lonely, and cold, and disgraceful. You must keep raging.

Keep raging...



You loved to quote this jam when we would speak;

"No one told you when to run
you missed the starting gun..."

Holiday Meditation

Get to know me well enough, and you realize I don't get into holidays much. At some point, I began thinking of them as a sham. Why should one day have greater importance than another?

This time of year, especially, has had a tendency to fill me with a special kind of vitriol. The hypocrisy of goodwill and thinly veiled cruelties. Blatant materialism. On a personal level, I've gone through bad break ups, deaths, and drama, both with blood relatives and social acquaintances, this time of the year that have left a fair amount of psychic scarring.

For those just tuning in, the day after Thanksgiving, for twenty seconds and four chest compressions, I was an orphan, My father, with pneumonia and septic shock was sentenced to the sickhouse. Now, that would plumb rattle some folks. Me? I kept my reptile zen, because someone had to. My sister has her moments of melodrama and my brother has his moments of jerking his knees, which can make you go blind, because when you knee-jerk, you do not see reason. Someone had to talk to doctors and nurses and sign forms and make grotesque decisions. That someone ended up being me. I have been lauded for it, but I'd rather never go through it again.

Three, getting close to four, weeks later, my father is home. He is on the mend. Trained medical professionals are dazzled by his recovery and drive to walk in the lands of the living. One of my southern relatives says her prayers were answered. My father will say it wasn't his time, but god taught him a lesson. I call it luck. In a cases of twisted symmetry, three doors down in the MICU was the loco drunk I called EMS on six days prior. Both men left the unit on the same day, the difference was my father went to MedSurg. The loco drunk was in a box.

Christmas is in three days. For the first time in so-long-I-can-no-longer-remember, I am looking forward to the holiday, We mean to gather at my sister's house. She's got the biggest place and it is the most centrally located. We shall eat, drink, and antagonize one another, because that's what we do when we get together.

At one point, I shall contemplate whiskey with my father, because that's what we do when we get together. Perhaps we shall toast, or maybe we'll talk about music and a thousand memories from forty-four years of acquaintance. It doesn't really matter. When it gets down to brass tacks and bedposts, it will be a good day.

    

Dead Man Walking

The loco drunk said he was sick, his face ash gray, his countenance that of a dying man. Two former nurses were about, one, saying his pulse was thready and breathing labored. He was refusing help, just wanted a case of water and to go back to his camp, a burned-out trailer up the mountainside.

We debated and agonized on what to do. Since he was refusing help, should we ask for it anyway? They looked up to me, well, because I am six and a half feet tall, how could they not? In the end, I called senpai for advice and he said unto me to call EMS with the disclaimer the loco drunk could refuse treatment. When I told said loco drunk that, he spoke of someone helping him.

"That is exactly what we are doing, Sir," I said as I went to call EMS, my voice reptilian, detached, cold as the airless void between the stars. Hou lain, hei tsin-thick face, black heart-ask Sun Tzu.

They could not even find a blood pressure, and, thus, took him away. My documentation took me back to days as a triage coordinator in the field of transplant. The feeling-more than a feeling-I have is we will be burying someone from our community very soon. I hope I am incorrect.

Here and now, I meditate upon the reptilian...

Two Minutes

Jibril looked the age he would be now. His hair was long than he kept it around the time he died, but shorter than when we first met. Being two years my senior, the sandy blond had faded to a dusty Grey. His savagely intelligent eyes were framed by lines that read like esoteric charts to forgotten lands. His suit was not as tattered as the one I remember him wearing in his last days.

We were at some evening gathering where Tich Nhat Hanh was supposed to speak, but he did have that stroke, and, instead was on side-show display. His spasmed movements spoke of severed and damaged brain wires. There was no serenity to be offered by this. Outside, the world was starting to burn down.

"As you can see, I'm still alive," Jibril said as we attempted to look away from the spectacle before us. "But they're coming for me tonight, and then it will be the End of Days."

"You know I don't believe in that shit," I said with a bit of a snort. In the years since my mother's and the bruja's  respective deaths, my ability to take anything on anything other than analysis and inquiry had dropped drastically.

"The Universe doesn't care what you believe," Jibril said coldly. A mantra I've heard on both the science and religious sides of the aisle.

Two minutes left and the world is gonna end...

Headlong Flight

Context...



A tragedy that occurred the day we left. The gypsy called me twisted for telling her I had an airtight alibi. The nerve... 

DIA;

Now, the shit gets real...

I am seventy miles and ten days from home. Within the next day, the miles will increase, but the time will decrease in strange temporal ways before the wake up. Small comfort.

For ten years I lived in a big city. Most of it in the shadow of the monoliths of downtown. As we first entered into those borders of neon, I wondered how all these people do it. How I did it.

I cannot see stars. The air stinks of exhaust and sewage and thousands of millions of bodies both unwashed and overly perfumed. When I was younger and more foolish and wanting to escape the badlands of eastern Colorado, this held promise and adventure and yet unnamed treasure. Having left that all behind so many years ago now, this is a form of perdition that would make Dante and Milton cross their legs and blush.

I do find myself grateful we left when it was dark. The stars shone with dazzling brilliance, but the mountains were shrouded in new moon shadow. I think my ire would be worse having watched familiar peaks recede in the distance. An upside is we will be returning home during the day and that first glance of the Roof of the World coming out of the greater metroplex is is cathartic to someone like me.

So, I am trying to focus on the journey ahead instead of what I feel I've been forced to leave behind. The mantra of ever forward can be difficult when having left a Kashmir. I keep reminding myself I'll be back soon enough, but part of me-a very large part-is aching for the peaks and rocks and the adventures contained therein.

Yet, I am starting upon a grand adventure, so I should just let go and let the good times roll...

***
San Fransisco...

I have spent four hours of layover and didn't meet any gentle people. There was only one cat with flowers in his hair, and I'm guessing he was coming back from where we're going. I'm kind of disappointed. The old song lied-lied!-to me.

A belly full of Japanese and a beer from the same place. A reward for surviving the first leg of the journey. Because of the airline overbooking we lucked into catching a later flight and missing our first layover. However, neither of us are too keen on this flying thing. The air over Colorado is always turbulent apparently, which was less than thrilling. These vehicles do not seem to be made for someone with my measurements. I get cramped and crushed for hours on end.

The next leg is five hours and change, which I think borders upon grotesque. Then a two hour drive to where we're staying. In the last twenty-four hours I've slept somewhere between forty-five minutes and an hour. Here and now, I am too wound up to increase that period of rest.

***

Between;

It was something to see the Pacific rolling and roiling against the California coast from the air. We were already high enough that the city we left had been reduced to toy-scale miniature, and yet the ocean is still massive. The largest body of water on the planet. Somewhere out there is Challenger Deep, the lowest spot in the world.

And we get to fly over this body of water...

For the most part, we've been either over or through clouds, chasing a setting sun. I watched the twilight dapple light and shadow upon the shifting forms of the clouds. Occasionally, I see breaks down into the ocean, It occurs to me this leg of the journey is a study in air and water, both as liquid and vapor. It is a void in which time will fall back three hours from home.

More by exhaustion than relaxation, we manage to catch a couple of catnaps. Mine have been shorter, I notice. I have no idea the distance we've crossed. Time is nigh on impossible to figure in the void. We will be touching down on what is arguably called the most isolated island in the world and I find myself eager to be upon Terra Firma once more.

***

Kona to Pahoa;

I was reminded of North Carolina what for the humidity. It was the first time I'd ever exited a plane in that fashion, going directly onto the tarmac. Sabina remarked it was very Casablanca. Apparently, in Hawaii, you no longer get flowers draped about your neck upon arrival, unless your in-laws decide it would be a cute and otherwise corking idea. I was not terribly excited. We ate pizza in the parking lot, though, I was so hungry I question whether or not I actually tasted anything.

On the way from the airport I tried to make a brave show of it, but being up for a day and a half with a handful of catnaps hit me like a two-ton heavy thing. I guess it speaks to how much I trust the company I have found myself in for the next ten days. One of the last times I saw Sabina's parents, her mother said I was good for their daughter. Given I am usually tolerated, if that, by parents, this a great honor.

There is very little light pollution, making the stars deliciously brilliant. Because there are not eleven and twelve thousand foot peaks hemming us in, there are more of them to see. I wish I had a telescope.

From open windows I can hear the ballads of frogs and a hymnal of surf. Occasionally, a chicken crows in the small hours darkness. I have some vodka to unwind. Sleep is in order. In the daylight I shall walk to the ocean.

Two Minds

When at obligations, if the sun is out, the temperature is above roughly thirty-five, and the wind's not howling, I tend to eat outside. The bench I sit at is referred to as the veranda. In my direct field of vision, is a tree, which, at this time has begun to leaf out. Even in town, six-hundred vertical up, I see evidence of the deciduous trees getting ready to sprout leaves. Insects dance in the lazy afternoon and early evening light, omens of warmer times.

The part of me that likes to spend late spring through early autumn living in shorts and sandals is excited by everything being flung a month ahead-even meteorological prophets are echoing this. The part of me that watches the state's snow pack and has found enjoyment in snowshoeing in a late-season blizzard through town to check the post knows it's too soon. I wonder about wildfires and worry about the river rafting season.

Over the last few weeks, the pattern has been warmth from the weekend through mid-week, then, weather comes in. At first, it is prophesied to be impressive, but as the storms get closer, they seem to fall apart, leaving just a dusting and a cool, breezy day in the afterglow. Once more, a storm is foretold, and it is supposed to be impressive. Part of me is cynical, but another aspect holds out hope. Whilst I am anxious to be able to go further into the Backcountry without snowshoes or fear of avalanches, I know those deep drifts are our world's water towers.

A few weeks ago, whilst day tripping to Leadville-at ten-thousand two-hundred-we were greeted with a rainy afternoon. I really do enjoy rain, whether it's a gentle shower or a powerful thunderstorm. At that moment, I felt the fear and loathing reserved for the characters in Lovecraft stories, knowing the rain is damaging to the snow pack.

Part of me looks forward to planting at the community garden and soaking my feet in the river after walkabout. Part of me wonders if there'll be enough river water to get my feet wet. Rain keeps the fire danger down, but does not do much for the water table. Whilst part of me is cynical about the coming weather, part of me waits with a glimmer of hope that it will help, rather than hurt.  

The Fast

"Rather three days without food, than a day without tea..."-Chinese proverb

Jazz plays on the morning radio and there's a fire. Otherwise there's a curious silence about the house. I sip water, the only thing I am allowed to have for the next three and a half hours.

For the first time in five years I am going to see a doctor. Just an annual checkup, Sabina's idea. That whole thing of we've been paying for insurance and should reap the benefit of a free checkup. Nevermind the rare as hen's teeth occurrence of me taking ill.

Practically speaking, it can't hurt. My father would growl that my mother did not get herself checked out regularly. When she finally did go to the doctor after noticing something was amiss, the cancer that would eventually eat her alive was in its second stage. Granted, it was cervical, and, unless we are speaking in vertebral tongues, it is anatomically unlikely I could get the same strain.

So, I would say this is no biggie, but it is. See, we must fast for up to twelve hours. Nothing but water. I don't mind water at all. However, I cannot have tea.

I tried to lament this circumstance to Sabina. Don't eat? Okay, I probably need to watch my slim and girlish figure, after all, at nearly six foot six I have gotten up to one-hundred and sixty pounds. I might get a gut. No coffee? I can take it or leave it. No wine or beer? An indulgence.

But no tea? Madness! This is catastrophic.

"Oh, just pretend your the Dalai Lama and drink hot water instead of tea," Sabina said when I tried to explain my devastation.

"And shall I shave my head and wear yellow and saffron robes as well?" I asked, and she had the outright audacity to shoot me a look as though I was being melodramatic.

"It's just blood work," she said.

No sympathy at all. Clearly, she doesn't understand. Fucking woman.

Waterline

It was with a sense of morbid joy I noticed the standing water in the freshly turned earth of Whistler's grave has all but gone away. By the willow, where the water is at its deepest, the yard Buddha we have resting in its hollow sits upon a patch of moist ground and saturated grass. Omens of runoff truly being done and over. Just in time for the monsoons, which is curiously funny if you think about it. A week ago, a neighbor referred to the standing water table as melted permafrost. I bit my tongue from asking how in the name of almighty fuck could it be permafrost if it melts every spring.

Grizzly Gulch is a trail sculpted by water, the level of which determines how one dresses when walking it. In autumn, boots and gaiters. Winter is when snow pants, taller boots, and either skis or snowshoes are in order. Come summer, even and especially as runoff abates, I walk the trail in sandals. At two of the water crossings it was knee-deep on me-some of ya'll may have needed full-on scuba suits-and that's the point where gaiters are useless and I'd rather have wet feet in my sandals than squishing in socks and boots.

I once read how you can have the latest and greatest gear as advertised in tabloids like Outside or Backpacker, but if you don't know what you're doing, at least the corpse you leave behind will be fashionable. Personally, I've never been good at, nor have I ever cared to be, fashionable. Despite the fact I was walking a High Country/Backcountry trail in sandals and cutoff BDUs, I had my layers and other necessities in my pack. I had no intention of walking all the way to the basin of Grizzly Peak. Even just past the first water crossing there was still snow, and the peak itself had some decent looking fields upon it. I deduced it'd be a given the trail would be covered by snow before treeline, and I'd be post-holing.

That snow I figured on was about a half mile from the third major water crossing. Between the second and third crossing is an avalanche chute. The bones of trees from a long ago slide still litter the drainage of the gulch and the sides of the trail. During the winter, this is pretty well the place you want to turn around.

If not...well, hope all's well between you and whatever it is you prey to and upon or try to ignore...

I could barely make out the still-deep snow where I got stopped. What got my attention more were the twisted and snapped and ruined remains of so many trees. This had happened recently.

"Oh, fuck me..." I whispered in a combination of shock and awe.

  
That's Grizzly Peak in the distance...

Colorado does not get tsunamis, what with being a land-locked state. Well, if one went back a couple hundred-million years ago when this was an inland sea, then maybe, but now we're just splitting hairs. An avalanche strikes me as the closest thing a tsunami in these parts these days.

A walked over snow and downed trees to about the center of the slide area, mesmerized by the sheer scale of the destruction. The dark clouds building over nearby Gray's and Torrey's Peaks and the chill on the wind of an embryonic thunderstorm gave a certain sense of macabre to the scene. It was more from some strange sense of respect for the dead than the snow under the broken trees that got me to turn back.

This was as far I was going, conditions not withstanding, it wasn't the time to go further...

I figure later in the summer, when the waterline is even lower, I'll make my bid for the basin of Grizzly Peak. One of my favorite spots in our Sahel. The snow will most likely be gone from this newest avalanche chute, leaving only the twisted and snapped and ruined remains of so many trees. As I walked by down, part of me morbidly wondered what else I might find twisted and snapped and ruined there, having been drowned by that tsunami of frozen water.

A Walkabout, A Roadtrip, and Omens of a Meal

Some mood music...

It is possible runoff has peaked. The river does not roar quiet as fiercely at night and my oh fuck! rock becomes steadily drier. I've gotten back my creekside footrests for when I go to watch the water. This makes me happy. I only hope the standing water out back begins to abate soon. It is doubtful Sabina has enough ammunition in her pistol to deal with the mosquitoes that may be born out there.

***

I had been promising Milarepa a walkabout with me for almost a month, but had not gotten around to it. This will not do. Not keeping a promise, whether it's to something that walks upon two legs or four, is a bad scene. It'd been at least a year since I'd walked as far as Pavilion Point up the Argentine trail. Milarepa very excitedly walked with me up the trail.

The intrepid mountain hound in question shooting me a downright adorable look at the ruins...

All that's left of the old dance hall is a chimney. That's not stopped it from being a popular place to hang. Any time I've been there, I've found empty beer cans and spent bullet casings. I noticed a fresh windbreak erected of the chimney and some stones set up like a bench, making it look like more the party place.

I'm all for a funky place to camp or drink a beer in the shadow of a bonfire, but this kind of bothered me. Perhaps I wondered how long it would be before pot hunters started disassembling the chimney brick by brick. I question when that hilltop will catch fire from the carelessness of some revelers. 

***

Further meditation, debate, and discussion on self-inflicting my phobias;

Mount Evans is something of anti-climatic fourteener. Like Pike's Peak, it is one you can summit without climbing. Well, not climbing in boots, if you dig my meaning. The Mount Evans Road was suppose to be part of a link in the fourteener chain between Pike's and Long's Peaks respectively. Obviously, that never happened, and this stretch of tundra pavement stands as a testimony to that endeavor. The highest road in the whole of North America.

You probably remember me mentioning my issues with heights. So how, out of nothing other than something to do, driving up a narrow, steep, winding mountain road with no guardrails and thousand foot drops had become a good idea seems more than a little daft. Even and especially when a storm battered the mountain with wind and sleet. White-knuckled, reciting every mantra I knew, I pressed on for the summit. Tenacity kept me from turning back. Turning back would've been failure.

The true summit of the mountain at the end of the lot...

"Are you going to be okay?" Sabina asked me at the top. "Should I drive down?"

"'I must not fear...'" I whispered to myself. "No, I know my vehicle, like you know yours. I'll handle it."

After all, you don't climb up something you cannot climb back down...

The clouds broke and the sun shone across the tundra once more. It was striking, as were the views. There was something so very primeval about the landscape. A strange mysticism that grabs my attention about the alpine. As if one could be forgiven for expecting to see long-extinct megafauna around the next bend. 

We wandered around and took a few pictures. I got into Old Scratch and started the engine. With a deep breath, I prepared to head back down. I recited cartoon litanies to myself;

Sheer drop off? Yeh. Jagged rocks? Uh-huh. Certain death? Yep...

"Bring it on," I whispered to myself as placed my foot on the accelerator. "Muthafucka..."

***

It is official, my daughter's making an effort to come up for the Hallmark that is Father's Day. One never knows, what with her mother, but that's another story. For the occasion, I pull a leg of lamb I acquired out of the freezer. It'll get rubbed with some salt, pepper, and Moroccan spices and let sit a few days. A simple something, of which I salivate about when I think of it.

She's hoping to stay a few days. I mention the possibility of either Kearney Gulch or Mount Bierstadt for a dad and daughter adventure. She expresses excitement at both. The fact she's coming for dinner is thrilling enough. Either possible walkabout is just an added treat.

Pet Cemetary

Oh, c'mon! It's the Ramones!

We'd only been up here but a few months when my cat, Judas, the niger daemonium feles, had his kidneys finally fail. A six year long battle I fought along side him, which he lost. A devastating defeat because it seemed we had the problem licked. I got good and drunk and buried him out back. Sabina had a stone made to mark the spot. A sweet gesture, but would've known where it was even without a marker. I'd have never admitted it when he was alive, but we had a bond.

A couple years later, Mom Cat Luna French Kitteh gave birth to a litter of four kittens, one of which died the first day. Whether stillborn or accidentally crushed by its mother we never bothered to find out. I put the body in the freezer to be taken out with the trash, what was done with stillborn puppies on the farmsteads of which I grew up. Both my daughter and Sabina wouldn't stand for it, insisting I bury the kitten they'd named Ickle Meeper-something I found only slightly less absurd as human mothers naming their miscarriages things like Nevaeh. With a garden trowel, I put the feline body not far from where I'd buried Judas.

There was the unfortunate events of a couple weeks ago. Something I still catch myself thinking isn't quiet real, despite the very vivid reality of it all. I watch Chevy arthritically trundle about and Milarepa spasmodically frolics. The cats play, hunt, and rest. My eyes drift toward that spot out back, by the square of granite, and I think of the rudimentary necropolis I've assembled of passed on familiars and failed offspring. I used to tell my mother she could bury me out back, should I get bored enough to die.

The swampy conditions of a truly impressive, and, somewhat frightening, runoff continue to advance. The ground in front of the willow that is not underwater makes squishy sounds when a foot falls upon it. Water sneaks up through the grass briefly at those points. I can see standing water in the freshly turned earth by that granite slab.

When I first started dancing with dead for money, way back then, Job remarked that he always saw me as possessed of a curious and questing nature with an underlying sense of morbidity. In his estimation, triaging potential organ and tissue donors was perhaps one of the best ways for me to make money, and I did find the gig savagely interesting for the five years I did it, even if I fought almost daily with the bureaucracy that ran it. As I watch the water rise out back, I morbidly wonder if hundreds of thousands of years from now, when archaeologists are excavating the bones of this little 'berg, if they'll come across the remains of my buried familiars. Preserved, like peat-bog mummies.    

Here to Go

From back before they became a sellout band, and hearkening back to those badlands nights when we would burn fuel for want of anything better to do. Contextually, given the divergent paths our lives have all taken, it fits...

There is green amongst the grass and the tulip bulbs are popping up along the east side of the house. We were finally able to get into the back folly and reacquired my bicycle from its long winter's nap. I rode a few laps around town before going on walkabout. Muscles I'd not used since autumn for riding made themselves known. So it goes.

It is a given there's still snow. Mountains. Meteorological prophecy foretells of upcoming dustings, and perhaps one last major storm before it's all said and done. Mei fei tsu. The weather's the weather, and it's here until it goes. I sometimes apply that mantra to myself, and you'd be amazed how much brain damage it's saved me.

Out on the trail, I encountered a young lady who said it felt so wonderful to be outside. I accepted this salutation with a smirk and inclination of my head. Flippantly, I could've asked when isn't a good time to be outside-no bad weather, just the wrong clothes-but I thought better of it. I slogged through some knee-deep drifts and followed running water upstream. There was a ruin at the end of my rainbow, one I'd not seen before. A good way to spend a late morning and early afternoon.

***

I have burned bridges. Sometimes, it's quite accidental; life happens, orbits and taos drift apart, I'm sorry and I hope you are too. There have been others, in which I have been vicious about it. To the point of napalm-why fuck about? The auspice of going in the general direction of away. Here until I go. High school, and some of the years shortly thereafter being grand examples of said viciousness.

You can imagine my surprise when my phone rang from my daughter. Between her schooling and our respective lives, we don't talk nearly as much as we'd like. She sends me a text if she's coming up the hill. With a hearty swig of afternoon tea I picked up, anticipating the worst.

A friend from high school, one whom had tried to get my x-wife in bed before she decided the lithe-as in emaciated-guy with long hair was a much better way to piss off her suburban Catholic parents, was trying to find me. It was important, not nostalgic shit people use social media for. This involved another friend of ours. The same one who, a week before our ten year reunion, I told I graduated high school so I'd never have to go fucking back there again.

Have I ever mentioned the look someone gets in their eyes when they've been broken? It is another story.

Madness, or that sense of savage curiosity, which has gotten me into all kinds of trouble or been the stuff of grand adventures in the past, seized me and I dialed the alien number my daughter gave. Seeing as I was speaking to a ghost from my past, perhaps an ojai board would've been more appropriate.

I got this long gone friend straight away. We played a slight amount of ketchup, but neither of us were there for foreplay. The other friend, the youngest of the three of us, has been sentenced to cancer. The primary site is the esophagus, but it has metastasized to his liver and lungs.

Fucking perfect...

I have played these games before. Both professionally and personally. He is going to die. It is not going to be pleasant. There might be grand efforts made and glimmers of a fool's hope, but, when it comes down to brass tacks and bedposts, it's not if, it's when. He's only here until he goes.

And so it goes...

The friend and I chatted a bit more. Names were mentioned and a few memories ruminated. We said our farewells with that hollow promise of keeping in touch. Whether a lie or truth is a roll of the bones. Here and now, I question whether or not I'll ever learn how it all goes down. I question whether my curiosity will seize me, and, with a metaphoric ojai board, I will make an effort to speak to this other ghost of my past before he is swallowed by oblivion.

It's Just Another Day

When it occurred to me that this was to be the first Friday nothing was going on in four weeks, I have to admit I was a bit shocked. No historical presentations, birthdays, free film showings with receptions, or concerts. To have such a day free, which really equates to something of a socially constructed Tuesday in my personal construct seemed a little queer. It didn't last long; Fridays are Fridays, just another day. I have come to appreciate having my free days in the middle of the week.

Weekends, like straw cowboy hats, are for tourists...

It was a lovely spring afternoon. Early sixties; y'know, the Beatles, JFK, and the beginnings of the space race. Well, maybe not so much, but that's what the mercury read in quaint 'Merican degrees on the fahrenheit scale. Outside of professional obligations, nothing was going on and nowhere to be.

I have a friend who once thought that would be a great way to set up some dysfunctional dramatic macabre; nothing going on. No damage control, no comedy, drama, tragedy, irony, agony, ecstasy, or other form of complication. This is the same cat who nightmares about mundanities and rings me up for what he perceives and so names passionate conversation.

One of the grand hypocrisies of my existence is, despite my refusing to allow myself to fall into bordom and endeavoring to live life as a series of grand adventures, I do not do drama or complication. Fuck that noise. If I want drama, I read Shakespeare, and watch French films if I want complication. When such occasions arise, even and especially if someone tries to drag me into it, I go in the general direction of away. Quickly. It is a sad testimony the amount of former friends and lovers I have because of that, but I suppose it's not my fault; I did warn them, and I do not say such things to hear my head rattle.

I came home and put my whore red kettle on the burner. A phone call to my father confirmed my family's not getting together for Easter, which is not overly heartbreaking, if, for no other reason, my heart has no bones. I invited my daughter up for a Sunday dinner of Greek-herbed lamb and potatoes. Maybe one of my bottles of tempranillo I've had squirreled away for a bit. Nothing special, but I'll get to see my girl for the first time in a month.

The brazen hussy of the stovetop began her siren's song and I set my tea to steeping. Out on the porch, I sat down with one of the three books I'm reading presently; the one with a Buddhist monk and an astrophysicist discussing quantum mechanics and impermanence. A little light reading on a warm spring day with a cup of young green hyson tea.

Clouds started to roll in and the breeze kicked up. Omens of a minor disturbance, which may bring rain to our Sahel below ten-thousand feet for the first time this year. Reaching a stopping point, I headed indoors. Jazz was on the radio. My daughter set us up a Netflix profile and I've been slowly reacquainting myself with the rollicking adventures of Farscape.

A little later, I'll start up pizza crust. See, Friday night is pizza night at the House of Owls and Bats. That factor makes the day remarkable, I suppose. Otherwise, it'd be just another day.    

Winds of Change

It could best be described as spring fever, or perhaps seasonal burnout, my mental state as of late. I've been loath to don a jacket of any kind, and even a vest has been an imposition. There has been a deep-seated desire, bordering on a junkie's need, to go to the Alpine Garden Center. Never mind starts won't be available until early May and we've yet to renew our community garden plot, I want to go poking around. My rationalization to Sabina is perhaps we can at least acquire further ornamentation for the flower beds and around the property, to help with its sense of funk, because you gotta have the funk.

It's boggy mud and crusty dirty snow around town. More and more yard becomes visible. Daily, I find myself excavating evidence of the hounds from bygone blizzards. Something I dislike about this time of year, I admit, but waiting everything is fully thawed and melted is a sense of macabre I dare not even contemplate, and I'm a contemplative kind of guy, if you've not noticed.

The trails are studies in mud, ice, crusted snow, and bare rock. This is the time of year, when going on walkabout, sometimes you carry the snowshoes with you and perhaps end up not using them. Depending upon the face, skiers and boarders bitch about how the occasional fresh powder we get does little to cover the freeze-thaw crusts. The cast of light has shifted from winter's harsh and distant glare. It's so blissfully warm one day and snowing the next. The face of springtime in the Rockies.

The winds have howled through our Sahel, sculpting the snow in interesting ways. When going up the 730 the other day, I paused more than once to watch the snow devils dance across the high peaks. Phantasmal colossi, stretching into the jetstream, leaving their fragmented remains across the mountainsides. It is something I find fascinating.

Sabina mentioned a jones for sandals, and I do empathize. I'd like to wear shorts and ride my bicycle again. Of course, my bicycle is in our back folly and the door is behind what is easily a five foot drift of snow. So it goes. This gives me perspective; in order to get to my bicycle, or to gain access to the folly, I must be patient. The same can be said for wearing shorts and sandals.

My patience is formidable, not infinite, but formidable...

At the Cabin Fever Dance we spoke with some fellow drop-outs from down below. Cats we were acquainted with back in the greater metroplex, although, Sabina moreso than I, but she is more outgoing. We spoke of the differences between that urban existence and the pace of life up here.

I mentioned how I am not nearly as nocturnal as I once was. These days, midnight is late enough for me. Of course, I grew up in rural environments on a farm, my happy-waking-up-of-my-own-power time of nineish would be considered sleeping in, and, depending on what I'm doing with my day, I see it as such too. How things change.

Of course, any time I get too suckered into how much things have changed in the course of my forty-one and change years, I take a good long look in the mirror at the aberration staring back. Too tall, too skinny, with eyes too big for the rest of my face. Long, thick, wavy, bordering upon curly hair, tattoos and piercings. It's then I ask myself what really has changed.

Lots of things. A fair amount have stayed the same. Mei fei tsu. It's a matter of balance; light and shadow, fire and water, chocolate and peanut butter. One cannot exist without the other.

A warm breeze blows and our tiny world thaws every so slowly, changing from deep winter to early spring. Mud. Meteorological prophecy foretells snow, but that's the way of it. The cyclic wheel turns and I sit back, sipping my tea, listening to the rhythms and rhymes of the cosmos, content with my part in it. Soon enough, there will be shorts and sandals, I just need to be patient, but that's not a problem. After all, my patience is formidable.    

Stalker in the Mirror

The memories are still so real and vivid, it could have been yesterday. It could've been a heartbeat ago. You were watched. Every move scrutinized. Preyed upon.

Nowhere was safe. Those eyes found you. Venom-laced whispers recounting every action and event to the smallest detail. Even in sleep you caught yourself looking over your shoulder, running, but unable to truly hide.

Eventually, you did break free, the details of exactly how blurred by the stain of the psychic violation you endured. Although, no distance seemed great enough in making your escape. It took years to regain your courage. To not constantly be looking over your shoulder, to not almost think you heard those venomous whispers.

Once that happened, you began to look back. You knew their every move. You watched them to make sure they were no longer watching you.

Late at night, when the demons come for tea, a single question is asked;

"Are you really that different?"

The answer stares back at you in the unyielding truth of a mirror, though you loath to acknowledge it; you are one and the same.

Days of Bitter Strength

Okay, it's their most poppy song, and I lack ganja to fully appreciate this band, but the lyrics speak profound truth.Besides, I'm sucker for a touch of Grey...

I was at the local watering hole early in the evening on Día de Muertos drinking lemonade and reading the bible. Some might argue, in context, me saying I was drinking lemonade and reading the bible means I was having a pint of stout beer and tumbler of whiskey. Even if such a baseless assertion was true, both libations would've been locally made, and if I'm going to be a locavore, I'm going to keep the shit real. Bordering upon surreal.

"You ready for winter?" The man sitting next to me inquired. Outside, flurries of soft flakes wafted down in the manner of soft down feathers and willo'-the-wisp.

"'Ready' has very little to do with it," I replied. "It's November; winter's inevitable." 


We talked about trails; ones he Backcountry skis and I snowshoe. My eyes would drift outside to fading light, watching the snowflakes dancing upon the wind. I caught myself smiling bittersweetly. Simultaneously I look forward to the coming season and dreading it.

Superstition dictates that the recent holidays of Samhain and  Día de Muertos are the times when the veils between the lands of the living and realms of the dead are at their very thinest. On those days, they touch and maybe even kiss. Maybe with a little tongue.

November in our Sahel is when the veils between seasons, between light and shadow, are at their thinest. Hours, both in terms of sunlight and professional obligations, reduce. Things slow down. It's colder.

A contemporary of mine despises the month of April. I wrestle with November, when my reptile zen and crippling depression crush up against one another like glacial ice across bare rock. The direct sun is gone by mid-month and I always remember Thanksgiving as the last holiday with my mother before those last seventeen days in the sickhouse. The bruja and her unborn babe died this month, and one of my neighbors has just been introduced to the macabre of having to bury one her babies. It was strangely flattering that she asked me for Buddhist prayer for her recently departed daughter. 


Both my daughter and father have birthdays in November. Thanksgiving, for all its personal melancholy and socially expected gluttony, is the time I am most likely to see my brother, sister, their spouses, nephew, and niece. Trails, even the whore ones, become less crowded, blessing me with deeper solitude, even when only a little ways from home.

Some of the first real snows fall in November. Sometimes quite viciously. As I've watched the first flakes fall, coating the high peaks, I've caught tings of excitement, visions of snowshoeing dancing in my head.

Sabina's birthday is on Boxing Day, and, in the years we've lived here, have gone snowshoeing to celebrate it, much like we grill for mine. This birthday is a big one, and we mean to snowshoe to one of the Tenth Mountain Division Huts and spend the night to mark it. The snow means a new adventures on several levels. I find myself barely able to wait.

November is this time when we cross the veil. Into the darkness. Into the cold. Into the snow. This is the way of things here in our Sahel. I fight to maintain my equilibrium, knowing, despite my psychic scars from this time of year, this is the way of things. One must have the dark to appreciate the light, and light without shadow is blindness.

A touch of Grey, if you will...

It has been a chilly mountain autumn day. A thin dusting greeted me upon waking. The high peaks have been muted by phantasmal curtains of blowing snow refracting the pale sunlight. There is a bite to the breeze, which made my fleece and beanie a good idea when I wandered the Bull's Head.

I looked west, toward the Roof of the World, seeing the snow clouds churn. Despite myself, I thought of Yuki-Onna. The seasons were changing before my eyes.

"Are you ready for winter?" I was asked.

Fucking bring it...

The Damsel and the Dragon

During the altercation at Ira Milligan’s café, her lower right arm was broken by the baseball bat, which Christopher took with him as a weapon. Taking her jeep, they drove to far edge of Gaia’s Backbone. She overheard the Wolffe brothers talking about making for the old ghost town of Hell and Gone. Lankin had told her about the place once. He promised to take her there someday.

Exhausted, they stopped at sunset, the Dragon’s Teeth only a few miles away. Strangely, Sydney was not truly afraid. She had been truly afraid before. By way of comparison, her situation was merely worrisome. That was probably why, coupled with the exertion of their hike and the pain of her broken arm, she found herself drifting into sleep.

***

When she saw the familiar face, the familiar set of reptilian amber eyes, swaying before her, Sydney moaned audibly. If Darcy was at all offended she made no indication. Instead, she pushed herself closer, pulling herself on top of Sydney.

“Hello, jackrabbit,” she hissed.

“Oh, fuck you! Fuck you!” Sydney snapped. “Like I need you showing up in my dreams right now! If I ever doubted it, this proves it; there is no god!”

“My, my, jackrabbit, you’re awfully riled up,” Darcy persisted, pushing Sydney onto her back. “You’re in trouble again. Trouble seems to love you.”

“Oh, you’re an observant one.”

“You know he’s coming for you,” Darcy said coldly, leaning closer. Her wieght and the heat of her breath was so very real. “An Interested Party. I’m sure that excites you.”

“Fuck you!” Sydeny spat squarely into Darcy’s face. “Yes, I know he’s coming, but it has more to do with what those fuckers did to Will and Ira than with me.”

“Does that hurt your feelings?”

“Why should it? I didn’t enjoy being a victim when you found me in Leeds, and I don’t like the idea of being the victim now.”

Darcy’s face hardened and then screwed into a malicious smile. Sydney felt a hand being jammed up her shirt and another working its way into her pants. Darcy leaned in so close their lips brushed together, her breath stank of cheap liquor and rotten teeth.

“Then pull yourself together, jackrabbit!” She hissed. “Stop being the damsel in distress and become the fucking dragon!"

***

Her eyes flew open to Thomas Wolffe on top of her, groping at her. She spat and screamed. Her right fist connected firmly with his jaw, sent him flailing.

“Get the fuck off me!” She shouted, biting back the exploding pain shooting up her arm. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me!”

Before Thomas could do much more than wipe the blood from his mouth, Christopher was between them, flanked by Byron. He regarded Sydney with twisted arousal as she tried to readjust her clothing.

“I have dibs, Tommy, we discussed that,” Christopher said calmly, not even offering his brother a sidelong glance. Slowly, he stepped forward. “Spunk, fire, that’s what you got. I like that. A lot.” He licked his lips. “When we get to Hell and Gone, me and you…”

Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by the impact of the toe of her boot against his testicles. Even as he doubled over, Sydney pushed him into Thomas, who then rolled into the fire. She didn’t see what happened next. Before she even fully realized it she was running through the new moon Backcountry shadows with the sounds of the Wolffe brothers howling and yipping behind her like feral dogs.

Dysfunctional Portrait of Father and Daughter

The first time it really happened was when she was five. We were in line at a souk, getting what, I hardly remember. Probably things for dinner, and, back then-unfortunately-cigarettes. There was a positively ancient woman in front of us who turned to look at me. That day, a chilly one in late February, I was wearing a wool/cashmere overcoat, an army-issue button-up over one of my ragwool gray I-Don't-Feel-Pretty sweaters, combat boots, and jeans. My hair was down, and, back then, dyed burgundy-hey, I got my first gray hairs at twenty-five, and, unlike my father, did not want ice-white by thirty.

"You look like someone out of those movies they play at the Mayan or the Esquire," she said, citing two of the art-house cinemas. This was not the first time something like this had happened; because of the length of my hair or something I'd been wearing, I'd been accused of being a musician, a thespian, artist, or someone famous. It was what she said next that gobsmacked me; "Well, at least the little girl with you is halfway normal."

"What the fuck?!?" The moneychanger at the head of the line snapped at the woman before I had time to open my mouth. "That's an evil thing to say! Even in front of his daughter!"

The woman stormed out in huff. The moneychanger got verbally disciplined in front of everyone for being unprofessional, despite me trying to talk to her overseer. On the way home, my daughter placed a warm hand on my arm.

"I think that lady just wishes she had a dragon for a pet like me." I had gotten her a bearded dragon that previous Christmas. Fucking what? She asked me for it.

***

For her sixth birthday, she wanted a tarantula. I got her one without hesitation. Her mother, of course, was mortified. Tried to tell me it was a big mistake. When I showed my daughter on her next visitation, she asked if she could keep it at my place and name it Zoe.

"Of course, sweetheart," I said. "You think I'd trust your mother to care for one of these? I used to be the one who watered the plants."

My daughter gave me a hug and told me she loved me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised; my x-wife was rebelling when she met me. She figured when our daughter was born we'd get lobotomies, real jobs, and move to the suburbs.

Comic book mantra;

"Suburbia is failure. Accepting suburbia means accepting less. It's a tiny slice of comfort. A rose from Lucifer, meant to buy you off. Rome is burning, and true comfort lies beyond the flames..."

Is it any wonder we split up? I mean other than I'm a heretical Tibetan Buddhist who goes his own way and she was a rebelling Catholic girl who suddenly found god-didn't know it'd gotten lost-upon having offspring? Opposites can attract, certainly, but they will also repel with a ferocity rarely spoken of in anything other than hushed tones. I know this quite vividly.   

***

Two years after that, the 'merican Empire was up in the environs of Babylon doing some shoot-'em-up cowboy diplomacy that really had nothing to do with the parties who brought down the two towers other than the color of their skin or how they addressed their deity. I was a professional propagandist and spin-doctor for a particular telecorp I'd rather forget about. It was the day most major media outlets were placing the bloodied and ashen corpse images of Saddam Hussein's boys on the television screens to prove we got the bastards.

That day, this one woman I knew, who was into autopsy shows, was going on about how glad she was to see those two dead and on display. She'd have loved to watch their autopsy, although, the cause of death would've been academic.

I was, a few desks away, telling someone how my daughter and I liked to watch nature documentaries. We'd root for the predators-hey, even a crocodile's got to eat. I mentioned our excitement watching a moment of hunter and hunted coming to fruition.

"Excuse me," the autopsy woman broke in. "Do you really think your eight-year old daughter needs to be seeing that? Is that appropriate? Just what kind of a father are you?"

One who grew up on a farm and first began to understand the natures of life and death at age six, though I was not nearly that articulate. After all, she made me angry. Anger can cause one to say harsh things.

"And excuse the fuck out of me, but you are about masturbating to those corpses on that television screen there, and you're into autopsy porn, but I'm the bad guy for educating my child in the ways of the food chain?!? Maggots eat your eyes!"

"But..." she started.

"But nothing!" I snapped. "Save some oxygen and don't talk to me!"

"But..."

"As in close your mouth and save your teeth! End of chat."

And that was when I first heard the term hostile work environment. Although, it was merely a verbal warning. To this day, I don't feel bad about it. I was being fucked with about my daughter and how I was in my parenting. I make no apologies for taking umbrage.

***

When I was dancing with the dead for money and had just published my book I was at a piano recital for my daughter. She was so excited to see me, which made me smile. I was surprised when she drug me to meet a couple of her friends and their parents', all suburban and clean-cut looking.

"This is my dad!" My daughter said excitedly. "He just published a book about angels and demons and he works in transplant, so he deals with death for eight hours a day!"

What do you say after that? Hi seems kind of hallow.

***

I have questioned my bearing as a father. My daughter has never had an ill thing to say of me, but, still, I wonder. At almost forty-one I have long, thick, wavy hair-with a kind of cool/interesting white blaze snaking down the right side-tattoos, and a nose ring. I've been friends with pagans, punks, a tattoo artist, an x-constable, not to mention the colorful characters here in our Sahel. I listen to punk rock, blues, Americana, and African-although, that's all punk rock if you think about it.

By the social construct of reality, a man my age should be settled down somewhere, perhaps a little less fantastical. I should be stable and established. Not misanthropic.

I suck at the social construct of reality, and yet cannot be convinced to feel bad about it...

***

It was the last day of my daughter's latest visit up. She had to leave by early afternoon because of piano lessons and other obligations. We wanted to do something.

Torrey's and Grizzly Peaks as seen from the summit of Mount Sniktau...

So we climbed a thirteen-thousand foot mountain. It was something to do. The whole time, I could not help but think of how our daddy/daughter adventures have rarely been what the social construct of reality would term normal.

Of Course she had to snap this shot whilst I was fishing a rock from one my shoes. Cantankerous child...

We came up via the summit of Loveland Pass, pretty well twelve-thousand feet-eleven-thousand nine-hundred ninety-two, to be exact, but close enough for rock and/or roll. Upon the summit, we encountered a group of three who were mid to late sixties. Their decent was straight down, into Loveland Valley-around eleven-fiveish-though, they'd done the usual way before.

"Gods and bodhisattvas," I muttered as I watched them clamber down. "I am such a pussy."

A lithe arm wrapped around my waste. I felt a familiar head upon my shoulder. I turned down to kiss her crown through a tangle or brunette waves and curls-yes I know where she got those from.

"Don't worry about it, Dad," she said. "That'll be you in a few years."

And we had a good chuckle. I might question how good a father I've been in the social construct of reality-though I do suck at such wackiness-but it was agreed I might one day be perched at the end of a trail with a bomber of dark beer, getting ready to take a road less traveled, chiding those who come up.

"Oh, you went that way? That's for amateurs! It's okay, you're still young, you'll figure it out. Bet you pay full price for your gear too."

Laugh if you you will, but it's possible. And, I'm willing to bet there'll be this girl, twenty-two years younger than me, but bearing a little bit of a resemblance, along for the ride. I've always thought she was fucking magic, and, sometimes, listening to her, it would seem she thinks the same of me.

Declarations

A few weeks back now, about a week or so before the end of the Long Dark, I was out back with hounds. It was a mild night; no wind and the ambient air temperature closer to freezing than not. The stars shone in their ice candle brilliance, and I took time to convey unspoken greetings to Orion and the Pleiades. A January full moon gazed down like the cold unblinking eye of serpent, lighting up the snow striping the avalanche chutes along Pendleton and crowning my person Kilimanjaro in a way that gets me to think of diamond dust. I caught myself smiling at the moment.

Yet, for the zen perfection of the moment, there was an undertow of macabre. Such is way, a sliding scale of paradoxical balance; for every perceived blessing there is a corresponding curse, and even good deeds have their consequences. Barely a few inches of snow covered parts of the back, and there were patches were winter-browned grass was plainly visible. The mild countenance of the evening spoke more of February going into March, or perhaps giving that month a miss and barreling straight toward April, than January getting ready to slough its calendar skin to February.

"This might be about the best we can hope for," I whispered to the night sky. Chevy, standing by me, took in a mouthful of crusted snow as a bit of a dysfunctional snack.

"You know when winter was?" Miguel Loco asked me a few days later when I spoke with him on the subject. "It was Christmas and right after New Year's. This is pathetic."

It was then we decided, winter was over and done with in the High Country. Or at least here in our Sahel. More than a month early, we were starting toward mud season. This has seemed to be something of a motif lately; being either a month ahead or behind in terms of the climate. We work to adapt to the new paradigm.

In some respects, it's not as bleak as last year, however. There's been snow up high. Loveland has had a total of one-hundred eleven inches this year-last year at this time, they were at sixty-seven-and the snowpack total for the state presently hovers at seventy-eight percent of normal, which is seventy-three percent of average. I do not know what it was this time last year, but I remember Miguel Loco saying it was pretty frightening.

Still, the drought isn't over, even if it would seem winter is. Even the recent dustings-and that's about all we got in our Sahel-have felt more like March snows than those of deep winter. I am not optimistic about us getting a major dump, which leaves the ski areas with plenty of snow and the river-feeding rafters and farmers-with plenty of water.

Part of me feels bad, because part of me wants it warm up more. To be late spring going into summer. I catch myself longing to ride my bicycle and wear shorts on walkabout. We received our first correspondence from the community garden, and I want to look at starts. My daughter might help us more on our plot this year.

Selfish, ridiculous thoughts, I realize...

Here and now, I watch. I like to watch. Later spring and summer will be here very soon indeed. Right now, earlier than anticipated, it is early mud. I listen to rhythms and rhymes of the cosmos, wondering if one of those celestial melodies will sing of at least a little more moisture to keep us from catching fire once it gets hot.

Epilogue; The Custodians

Trace was taken down from Phantom Peak without further incident, just questions racing through his mind. That night, the storm moved in. A dusting of a few inches of snow coated the higher peaks. Had he not been found, he would’ve died of exposure, becoming a meal for the scavengers and bleached bones upon the tundra. Another victim of the mountain locals called haunted or cursed.

It was only when the doctors began to examine him that he really felt he had gone downhill. The skull fracture had caused swelling to his brain, which had damaged motor skills to his right side. Not that it really mattered; his right collarbone was broken in three places and his right forearm in six. He had broken his back, as was well his pelvis. His right leg was not so much shattered as ground into powder.

He would live, but it was questionable how well he would be able to function, let alone walk. Trace wondered if being told he’d survive, given the damage, was really good news after all. Maybe exposure was the better option.

“A few years ago, Lazarus’s big sister was in a rollover up Deneb Gulch. The doctors said she’d never walk again.” Ian said a few days later. “Six months later, she was dragging herself along through Leeds’s town park with a set of crutches. She’s determined to summit the Death’s Head in the next two years.”

Trace knew his cousin was trying to help. Telling him not to give up. The pain and the surgeries and talk of therapy made such pep talks sounds silly. A few days after Ian’s visit, a card arrived for him. It was a picture of some nameless snowcapped peak with a very brief message written inside;

If you give up now, then your injuries have beaten you. Bear that in mind.

-L. Lankin

***

It was the middle of March when Ian brought him up to Marrakech. His leg, precariously held together by pins, like a few other parts of his body, was encased in a brace and he hobbled along with crutches. One of his doctors remarked how proud he was of Trace’s progress and he mentioned the name Bast Lankin. The doctor chuckled.

“Her stubbornness is contagious,” the doctor said.

A fat full moon shone down upon the fresh fallen snow across Gaia’s Backbone, making the high peaks look like they were encrusted in a blanket of cut diamonds. Warm light and jovial voices spilled out of Magpie Jack’s. Trace smiled weakly to himself. It had been six months since he’d had a beer, and he intended to buy a glass of wine for the man who pulled him off of Phantom Peak.

Lankin was sitting with Bast and a brunette girl who was introduced as Sydney. He traded civilities with Ian that seemed strained at best. Even so, it seemed the two men respected one another.

“And how long before I pull you off another mountain?” Lankin asked Trace with a smirk that was rather predatory.

“Hopefully never again,” he replied. “But I want to start hitting trails again by summer. My girlfriend’s been taking me to Denver’s City Park to try walking a little more outside of PT.”

“That’s good. You’ll recover. Give it a season, you’ll be hitting the Backcountry again.”

“I’m hoping so,” Trace said. “I don’t know that I’ll be trying another shot at Phantom Peak.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Lankin mused.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened up there,” Trace said. “I swear I heard laughing and voices. I swear I saw a girl, and maybe even a guy, not a stands of aspens. And the mountain lions? Was I in shock, or did you really call them Mother and Father?”

Lankin’s gaze hardened. He seemed to be restraining something. Trace noticed how Bast was eyeing him strangely. Both Ian and Sydney seemed uneasy at the Lankin siblings’ reaction.

“Let’s go up to the bar and get a drink, Trace,” Lankin said suddenly. “I owe you a beer from our first meeting, and I’m sure Grizz would be interested to hear of your trials and tribulations.”

“Oh, sure. Let’s go.”

The others watched them go up to the bar. Grizz made an excited greeting at receiving his company, calling for a round, on him. Ian looked over at Bast, but quickly averted his gaze, going back to his beer. Sydney started to open her mouth, but was silenced by gentle squeeze to her wrist.

“Were you to ask some of these old-timers, like Grizz, we Lankins don’t die, we just disappear,” Bast began, as though in a trance. “That we haunt the wilderness, as it were. There are other old-timers who say our parents are shape-shifters. Some will claim to hear their voices on the wind and others say to have seen them just as they must have looked the day they left Lazarus and I.” She looked away, almost wistfully. “Then, there are those who say they appear as two groves of aspens; one with yellow leaves and one with red, far closer to tree-line than normal. And, of course, the mountain lions…

“They watch. Perhaps it is they are the ones who decide who comes out of the Backcountry and who doesn’t. Some would call it all ghost stories, and there’s a logical explanation. But they’re up there, and they’re always watching.”

Watcher Upon the Rocks

For Trace, all he had were the moments. Moments of pain. Moments of cold. Moments of hunger. Moments of thirst. Moments of fear. Moments of anger. All of these were shrouded in intervening moments of blackness. He really had no idea how long he’d been where he was. Although, once he woke to the sight of the moon staring down at him like a cold half-lidded eye against phantasm clouds, giving him the impression at least one day had passed. Beyond that, time had little meaning. With what had happened to his right arm, it’s not like he could check his watch or reach for his phone to pretend to call for help.

He assessed the damage in stages. For every bit he discovered, the pain sent him back into the black. First, was his head, which had been wet and sticky on the left side. When he tried to touch it, it felt like something that was supposed to be solid gave way. He might have screamed before he passed out. Next, was the realization he could not feel his right arm, and it looked like his collarbone might even be sticking out of his shirt. Finally, he was able to lift his head up just enough to see his right leg was at an odd angle and partially buried.

First, he was terrified. Injured, half-buried under scree, this was not good. He was in no condition to move and it could be days before anyone even thought to look for him. Then, the anger came. He was angry that he thought he could beat Phantom Peak, that he let himself get caught in this situation, that he didn’t listen to the stories, that he’d stupidly left his pack behind when he went scrambling across the scree.

He was going to die. That much was obvious. He had no food or water with him and he was injured. What was worse about this realization was the knowledge that it was not going to be a quick death. Ravens would probably be picking at his flesh while he would still be alive to feel it.

The rain brought him back. Cold drops pelting his damaged frame. He opened his mouth and greedily gulped at the little bit of water falling from the sky. The breeze chilled him. He could already see the sky clearing, even if the clouds overhead were so ominously black.

Something was watching him. There was no doubt about it. He could feel the eyes burning into him. Slowly, despite the pain in doing so, he turned his head slightly to see what it was.

The mountain lion laid passively just a few yards to his right, its tail moving slightly. It didn’t look like it was going to pounce just yet. Instead, it just watched him. Only when another, far larger, cat walked up, did the first one stand to stretch. Trace swallowed back a hard lump just hoping they’d make it quick.

“Hello, Mother. It’s been a bit.” The voice sounded familiar. “I was just telling Father I was up here looking for someone that Bast said was in need of help. I’m sure she’ll just be positively tickled to know I reached him in time. Thank you so much for looking after him for me. It appears I have a new place to look for the lost here now.”

Both mountain lions were standing and watching. Then, they turned and began to walk away. Perhaps under normal circumstances, Trace would’ve been surprised beyond all reason, but he was on Phantom Peak. His experience here had taught him reason didn’t readily apply.

There were people checking him. He looked up to see a pair of familiar feline gray eyes framed by a mane of rust colored dreadlocks. The wine guy from Magpie Jack’s. Something that looked like a smile crossed his face.

“It’s alright, you’re okay,” he began. “You’ve been injured, but I’m here to help. My name is Lazarus Lankin. Can you tell me your name?”

“Trace…” He wheezed, his throat was so dry it hurt. “Trace McAlester.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Trace, Trace McAlester.”

“Just Trace,” he said, almost laughing.

“I know a girl named Just Sydney,” Lankin said in a friendly tone. “She’s yet to tell me the etymology of her name, though I think it’s Farsi.”

This got Trace to laugh, but then the pain seized him.

“Hush, relax, and save your strength,” Lankin cooed before looking over his shoulder. “Help me get his leg uncovered, then you haul ass back up to the summit to radio Connelly.”

“Do we have to worry about your…parents?” Ian asked as he started to remove rocks from around Trace’s leg.

“No.”

“I never imagined you as the superstitious sort, Lazarus,” Ian mused. “Always living by that rule of respecting the Backcountry or it’ll kill you.”

“I do live by that, but you are up here because of a premonition from my sister,” Lankin said. “I allow for the possibility my parents have turned into a pair of mountain lions.” He shrugged. “It’s a leap of faith.”

“Isn’t a leap of faith the same as superstition?”

“Not really,” Lankin said casually. “Every moment here in the mountains is a leap of faith, and in the Backcountry? Doubly so.” He paused to chuckle. “Really, Deputy, I thought you’d know that by now.”

They worked in silence to get Trace’s leg uncovered. The sun came back out, warming things once more. Ian then began to hike back up to get a signal to contact Connelly. Lankin set about making sure Trace was stable enough to transport.

“You’re doing great,” he said in a warm tone. “We’ll be getting you out of here soon. In fact, we should be down in time for trivia at Magpie Jack’s, and you’re young and strong, you’ll be better and back to getting into Backcountry trouble before you know it.”

“I thought I heard someone,” Trace said weakly. “A girl. Thought I saw someone too, but it was just a tree.”

Lankin looked at Trace a moment before looking down toward tree-line. Along the krumholtz, the mountain lion pair stared back, before melting into the shadows once more.

“How interesting,” he muttered.