At
five John figured he'd done enough work for the day. We got into his
car and he took me about the town, showing me what was there to be
seen. Cody was once a town of the west, I mean the authentic west
before it became a parody, but now it was all fake gun shows, cowboy
cutouts, shops, and tourists.
The
main road west leads through a vast gorge, then a reservoir, and at
length to Yellowstone. He took me to the reservoir, not having seen
it himself that year, and drove us by the water, “Would ya look at
how low that is! You see the dark sediment marks on the rock? That's
how high it should be. Never seen it that low before.” The
yellow-sided mountains were like pillars in the water, propping the
sky and cradling the canyon. Waves of the green water brushed against
their base with never a thought for time. Rattlesnake Mountain curled
its sharp precipice up to the north, peeling away from the earth as
it sloped on the horizon. We turned back and John took us south of
town to show me “quintessential Wyoming.” The land changed. Vast,
yellow hills and dry plains expanded under the sky. Everything was
desolate but full, in want of no person or thing – it was complete
in itself.
We
turned around on the empty highway and went back to the town, driving
into the cul-de-sac of his friends' who'd be keeping me until my
package came in. They accepted me like a stray cat, welcoming and
feeding me when circumstance had left me on their doorstep. Pete and
Kelly had been tossed about by the whims of fancy in years past,
working fish and games jobs across the country, retaining few enough
belongings to pack into their truck and set out. Now they were
settled and had a son, Micah. His head was blond and soft eyed; his
mien was clear and sweet, pouring the bliss of boyhood into whatever
vessel he could find. At the end of supper outside on the picnic
table, he slid off the bench. His nose runny from the salsa and
chips, he wiped it across his arm and looked up patiently at his
mother, “Can I go to the horses now? I'm all done.”
“Yes,
now you can,” she said. She and Pete looked at him with admiration
in their eyes.
He
ran across the yard, stepped carefully around the water canal by the
fence, and slipped through the gate. A horse stood nearby with its
head in the brittle weeds, chewing. He took tentative steps toward
it, resisting his instinctive eagerness in order to not scare the
horse or himself for that matter. He moved his arm slowly toward it
and placed his hand on its nose. The horse took no notice of him. It
dipped its head to chew on a fresh strand of weed. Micah pulled his
hand away by impulse at its movement, struggling to balance his fear
and his adoration of the beast.
Days
went by like this, with the Wyoming summer offering hints of what was
waiting. In the mornings, by the window above my bed, I'd find deer
lying in the grass, their heads held up to the rising sun. The males'
horns were fully splayed; they were kings more worthy of the earth
than me.
My
bike slept against the sidewall of the house; my bags waited to be
packed up again and run over the land. A beatific vision went on all
the time, hidden by the Absaroka mountains, inside Yellowstone. It
goes on as if nothing's ever changed, as if everything hasn't been
broken. All in its borders is sacred. Holy mountains and woods, with
elk, deer, or bison past every tree, pool, and rock, sometimes
carrying out their mystery lives in the open, rummaging over the
evergreen land, picking flowers with their mouths, passing on
transcendent sights to the sad, ignorant eyes of our devoided age.
All of it waited past the mountains that laid on the horizon, and my
mind itched for it. But I couldn't act as if there weren't just as
much wonder in the deer that rested by the window, or the owl which
perched in the tree each evening sending its hoots out like drops
into water, or the presence of these kindest people who knew the
world and loved it. But my hungry imagination itched all the same,
working its way west, perpetually west.
I
made one trip during my stay there, taking a road that led southwest
from Cody, into a valley of farmland. The balers were plowing across
the fields. Trucks that were made to move hay sputtered on the roads,
either hauling full loads off to wherever they were to be stacked and
stored, or speeding by, empty as they rushed about to find a burden.
There rose a monolith from the valley, a tower of stone plunging
upward from the center of a hill of tumbling scree. It was called
Castle Rock, standing sharp and resolute, isolated from the mountains
which lay bulging behind. The Shoshone river slipped by between the
road and the rock, its broad, brown stream trickling on. Passing into
the branches and leaves growing on the river's stone beach, I
glimpsed the white fur of mule deer's backside. It had drank at the
water as its progenitors did before it, all those generations now
past, individuals who had birthed, weaned, struggled, and forced
themselves into perpetuity through the stern body of this deer that
now fled into the bush. I looked around and felt strange, as if I'd
been running in a circle since the day I was born.
On
the fourth day my package, a camera lens, had come to the post
office. I spoke with Pete and Kelly in the kitchen that morning as
they readied themselves for work. They'd given me a buffalo summer
sausage and a roll of crackers and cheese the night before and put
them in a plastic bag. Kelly voiced her concern for me one last time
before they left. I packed my bags after they'd gone, prepared my
bike, and shut the door tightly behind me. Then I mounted my bicycle
and made my way through the noontime streets, arriving downtown to
retrieve my package. The last thing was to check if John was at his
shop to receive my final goodbye. He was away, but I talked to the
owner at the desk who promised he'd tell John I'd come to see him.
My road led through town and wound uphill, going northward into a
stretch of plains. The mountains tarried along at the edge of barren
fields. Foothills gradually bubbled up beside the road, their slopes
forming stacks which rose in zigzagging layers until finally they
blocked the sun. A valley, filled with cyan sagebrush and wild
grasses, fell in on my right, inching up to the feet of Heart
Mountain. I'd seen the shape of this mountain since before coming to
Powell; now I was coming to it. The valley slopes built until
reaching the two nobs of the mountain's crest. These nobs jutted up
and out like the front and rear of a horse's saddle.
Farther
on, stacks of immense mountains rose up on both sides with the road
running like a black river in their trough. The valley was in shadow,
the mountainsides tinted blue by the light of the sky. Cows were
grazing on the lower parts of the mountains, looking like scattered
black ants. The last sunlight dropped off lending a dim purple to the
fold of clouds that floated among the mountaintops. The shades of
blue deepened on the banks and then faded to dark against the pale
light in the west. All light from the sun was quenched before the
stars unfolded across the sky, beginning in the east and moving
slowly across. Every star was a pinhole poked through the great bed
sheet of night, which was pulled over half the world. The blazing
glory of god shined through those holes and light filled the sky like
a wild snowstorm. Only the mountains were unaffected. Their
silhouettes loomed; their void shadows hung against the starlight.
Maybe they're gods themselves.
In
their shadows I slept, rising early in the morning before the sun. It
was a chill predawn and it ran through me as I rode. Everything was
pallid as if a haze pervaded the air. The mountains broke to the
west, opening upon an expanse which reached to the horizon. Every
detail was smoothed by the intervening air; the features of the
buttes and the bluffs were cast in a softened blue. I sat in the
pebbles beside the road with my arms draped over my knees and watched
as the sun rose. It was a sharp point of orange at first, then a
sliver on the bluffs. The circle rose, and filled in completely as it
surmounted the edge of the earth, giving shadow and form to the
valley as it cleared away the sense of dullness from me and
everything else. Heat from the light poured onto me. I lifted my bike
up onto its tires and got back on and started to pedal. The road
turned, leading me away from the valley and into the mountain's core.
-
I just read a book about writing. Hopefully my posts will be more clear from now on! Hopefully.
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