Thursday, December 19, 2013

Late Summer Evening Vignettes, Piute

 Of my twenty seasons as a Forest Service wilderness ranger I spent sixteen of them working out of a rustic old log cabin at the lower end of Upper Piute Meadow, just an hour’s walk from Yosemite National Park’s northern boundary. On a little rise above the West Walker River’s meandering headwaters I lived in this utterly idyllic setting, with a dramatic view of craggy peaks, for almost half of each year with two cats and two horses. I watched the river roll by in spring, summer, and fall; hauled my drinking water from it with two old tin pails, took cold baths in it, and was lulled to sleep at night by those gentle water-sounds.◦◦◦◦◦◦This short sketch from 1992, my fifth summer at “Piute,” is a bit cat-centric but provides a fair glimpse of what it was like to live the life of my dreams—with animals, in simplicity, beneath the Sierra crest. It was my truest home during all those sweet years and beyond.                       


The  Sunday of Labor Day week-end, just home after another long patrol, bone-weary and sore-of-back with aching knees. No kitties came over to welcome me home as I undid buckles and latigos, carried Redtop’s saddle to the porch, and heaved it up onto its rack. Grabbing the old scoop (probably older than me), I got some grain out of the bin and half-filled a feedbag with that fragrant mix of corn, oats and barley laced with molasses—Red’s reward after a hard day’s labor. Valiente had seen us cross the river from way up-meadow and soon came charging into the yard to greet his friend. I slipped the feedbag over Red’s head, tucking his soft ears under its leather strap, then went into the cabin to take off chaps and spurs and boots—ahh!—before climbing up into the loft. As expected, both cats were curled together on a pile of rolled-up sleeping bags in one dimly-lit corner. (With the big harvest moon approaching full they’ve been staying out late….) All sleepy-eyed and yawning, they started to purr as I greeted them in turn but soon were up, down the ladder, and I heard their cat-door flap twice.
My sweaty horse contentedly munched his grain while I brushed him down. To assuage poor Val (who’d been lonely all day and was jealous watching Red with his treat) I’d tossed a handful on top of the old stump where I put their salt-block. Val was licking up his last crumbs, a small flock of blackbirds at his feet. The bravest ones were jumping in right under his nose to pluck morsels from the stump’s cracks but they all rose up with a whoosh! as I walked past.
After four straight days of nonstop blowing, the wind finally dwindled and died. So I could hear the river again though it’s no more than a languid murmur. A pale moon was already well-up in the southeast. Three does and two fawns drifted off the hillside like ghosts, coming down for salt. They stood at the forest’s edge eyeing Val and me, waiting for us to leave the yard so they could get at it. The cats were already down in the meadow. Both were patient statues out in the tall sedges—more gold than green now—waiting for a vole to rustle.
At this time of year I try to notice things that have gone away as well as the things around me. Watching my two cats I mused, It must be…oh, almost two months since the Robins and Hermit Thrushes were waking me up before sunrise. And, just then, realized that the Nighthawks have left. And so have the Poor-wills…and bats. It must be a week since I’ve seen any. No surprise—they’ve all begun their fall migrations; the chilly nights here in this cold-air sink have wiped out lots of the insects. Just a few mornings back, I woke up and summer was gone. That day had dawned cool and windy, with frost in the meadow for the first time since late June. The light was subtly different and I could smell autumn in the air. All seasons turn like this—in the night, in a moment, on a rising breeze. There’ll be plenty more warm days yet in Sweet October, more flies and a whole new hatch of mosquitoes, but summer is over. How many more…for me? Here?

Several evenings ago, back home after one night out to re-supply. I’d had a bath and was sitting in my little folding chair on the porch at sunset. The horses were out grazing just beyond the fringe of pines. Noted, a bit sadly, that it was only seven-thirty; in June—it seemed like so long ago—I was granted a whole hour more light. It’d get to nine o’clock and still not be completely dark back then. Both cats were just up from another nap and Spring joined Rip on a stack of horse blankets piled on the saddle-rack. Looking over my shoulder, I saw them sitting straight up, side-by-side, fully awake and thinking about going out to hunt voles.  
They were still and calm and regal. Then something caught ear or eye and both gazed intently at a point in the meadow below. Rip, jet-black, was a mere silhouette-of-a-cat with his yellow eyes wide-open, pupils huge in the low light. Spring’s green eyes were the same but she was a cat superimposed on that silhouette-of-a-cat and I marveled at her beautiful wild-cat tabby coat—all stripey with long, white guard-hairs (normally almost invisible)—standing out against the blackness. She was juxtaposed perfectly in front of Rip’s slightly-larger outline and I suddenly saw a painting, splendidly balanced in composition; a poetic alignment of curves that could be rendered in twenty brushstrokes by a gifted Japanese painter. I gazed at them in awe, the pink sky casting a magical glow, realizing that I was witnessing an artistic masterpiece not to be captured…never to be seen by another. It was also a frozen moment in this singular time and place, an expression both of feline essence and a mood belonging to September…the mild sadness of another summer’s passing. Some other person witnessing this might’ve begun to cry softly, and for good reason. I looked intently; tried to absorb it, feel it, open to it. Another gift, oh!

The night before that I’d gotten back late from yet another twenty-mile ride, thrashed again, and went down to my sandbar for a reviving bath in the slack river. Most of it flows slowly, secretly, beneath gravel and sand this late in the season. It was getting towards dark but I had a half-full harvest moon to light me and, although I wasn’t anxious to dip in cold water this windy eve, I needed to wash off all the dirt and sweat. I sat on my folded, threadbare old towel at the edge, with willows at my back, and admired a smooth-as-glass reflection of pines and granite peaks in that low-spirited, slow stream. Hadn’t noticed how utterly silent it was until I heard an odd but familiar whistling sound that pulled me out of my reverie and I looked up in time to count ten Mallards passing overhead. Probably it was two hens (the drakes are  long gone…) and the survivors of this year’s broods beating their way north to get out of the watershed, then south for a layover at Mono Lake. I took off my filthy uniform and waded out, breaking the mirror. One after another, semicircular grey ripples spread across the silvery sky in the river. The pines disappeared in a dancing black tangle and each ripple bore its own moon, a whole line of shimmering moons moving slowly away from me.
                                                                                                                   6 Sep 92, 16 Dec 13
Copyright © 2013 Tim Forsell
                                                                                                                  

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