Slickrock (Gail McCarthy Mystery) (9 page)

He turned, holding Gunner's reins with one hand, and hugged me roughly. "Have fun," he said. Then he handed the horse to me. "You'd better get going."

I smiled at him, knowing from long experience that he disliked protracted farewells. Well, so did I.

Setting my foot in the stirrup, I swung up on Gunner. Lonny put Plumber's lead rope into my hand and our fingers touched. He met my eyes, and his own eyes crinkled at the corners. "I envy you," he said.

I smiled. "See you soon." Taking a half turn around the saddle horn with Plumber's lead rope, I clucked to Gunner and called Roey, feeling slightly light-headed. Here we go, I thought, here we go.

The sun shone in my eyes as I rode out from under the pine trees; I was headed east. I turned to wave good-bye to Lonny, saw him standing in front of the old corrals, waving to me, and my heart twisted. Why so many choices, I wondered, not for the first time. To fulfill my dream, I had to leave Lonny behind. Just as he'd had to leave me behind in order to fulfill his. Why did life have to be like this?

I didn't know. I only knew I was riding down the trail on a bright summer morning in the High Sierra, headed for Snow Lake. This was the here and now, the present moment. It was time to toe that line.

Relief Peak glowed ahead of me; the ridges rose around me. I was where I'd wanted to be for so many years.

I reached down and smoothed a strand of Gunner's heavy black mane over to the right side of his neck. He walked down the trail, looking alert. Roey swished through the meadow grass beside us, a wide grin on her face. I grinned back at her.

So here we were. I began, slowly, to lapse into the trail rider's mind-set. Part of my attention stayed on the horses; I guided Gunner to the safer, easier parts of the trail, looked over my shoulder every few moments to take note of how Plumber was doing. I admired the scenery meanwhile, watched the dog scampering through the rocks, enjoyed the sun on my face. At the same time my mind drifted, going over the route ahead, touching on Lonny, wondering briefly what was happening back at the veterinary clinic.

In this way we progressed uneventfully up Camelback Ridge. I felt some trepidation as we approached the bridge, but did my best to hide it, knowing my own attitude would influence my horses. I talked out loud to the dog as we neared the spot, speaking in a light, conversational tone as though I were talking to a companion about the weather. Nothing settles a spooky horse better than the sound of his rider's voice sounding happy and unconcerned.

So I told Roey what a nice day it was, and sat easy and relaxed in my saddle, and though Gunner hesitated briefly and snorted, at a gentle thump on his ribs, he stepped forward onto the bridge. Snorting again and cocking a watchful ear at the odd-sounding thunks his hooves made on the wood, he tiptoed forward, as if he were walking on eggs.

But he went. Plumber followed. They'd been over this bridge before. They knew it could be done.

Once we were on the other side I heaved a deep sigh of relief. There was nothing too scary ahead, as far as I knew.

Upwards, ever upwards we went. Then, topping the ridge, we came down to the trail fork that led to Wheat's Meadow. I let the horses and the dog drink at the creek and then continued on, headed over the next ridge.

I was starting to relax now. The horses' necks were slightly damp with sweat; they appeared to be handling rocky areas easily and confidently. We climbed a small area of switchbacks that had been dynamited into a solid granite face, and despite the rock and the exposure, neither horse hesitated or slipped once.

Good. Very good. I let my eyes wander over the rock-and-pine-tree country spread out around me. In some ways, the Sierras, through dramatic and beautiful, were repetitive; how many ways can gray stone, blue sky, green pines be arranged? The tumbling streams and startling lakes and meadows were a motif constantly repeated. Although I never grew used to the flicker and dazzle of the aspen, or the human-sounding voices in the white water, or the stark moonscapes of the granite passes, they became familiar.

We were approaching a small meadow called Saucer Meadow. Relief Creek ran along the far side of it, and the whole thing was a blaze of brilliant wildflowers. Bright red-orange, sharp yellow, deep blue-violet, brilliant magenta pink. As the trail dropped into the little basin and flowers were all around me, I could identify some.

Lupine and paintbrush and asters in impossible profusion, wild columbines and leopard lilies, penstemons, larkspur, and monkey flower-to name only the ones I recognized. Arranging themselves in perfect harmonies and rivulets of color along the stream, colonizing a fallen log, grouped around a solitary gray granite boulder. I stopped Gunner and stared in amazement and delight.

There were no more flowers than butterflies. Small brown ones and blue ones the color of forget-me-nots, slightly larger ones like bright orange mosaics, large black-and-yellow striped swallowtails, and lots of monarchs. In the mid-morning sunshine, the meadow was a blaze of green, slashed with colors and flashes of colors.

Roey was delighted. Despite the five miles or so she'd covered already, she gamboled about, showing me the proper way to appreciate a meadow. Rolling in the long grass, wading in the creek, chasing and bounding after the butterflies-I laughed out loud to see her.

Gunner gave an impatient tug on the reins. Either let me eat some grass or let's get moving, he said. I thought about it. Saucer Meadow was lovely, but we still had roughly fifteen miles to go. I had planned to stop for lunch at the aptly named Lunch Meadow, another five miles ahead. Better keep moving.

I clucked to the horses and rode on. The breeze brushed my face gently, as I tried to take it all in. The sunny expanse of green and flowers, with the wind blowing through the willows and cottonwoods that fringed the stream banks. Such warm, open, friendly greenness, so free and full of light. It was an amazing contrast to the hard stone country all around it; it seemed almost magical.

I looked over my shoulder as we entered the pine forest once again, saying good-bye.

Another rocky ridge ahead. Pine trees and granite. The wind moved, that clean, lonely Sierra wind that blows in the pines. Around me the rocks seemed to tumble in a frozen cascade, a jumbled silver granite landscape ever restless in its heart. The meadows and lakes were tiny flecks of stillness in a great, rough tapestry of hurled rock.

I rode on. Slowly the feeling of being alone in these mountains was coming back to me. Each mile that took me farther from the pack station, from civilization, from my real life, brought me closer to that old feeling, that elusive sense of place.

I’d been here alone before; I knew these mountains. They weren't a place of close, warm, familiar beauty, they won't cuddle up to you as some gentle hills and pretty valleys will. I felt dwarfed, always, by the roughness of this place, by its indifference.

And I felt honored to be here. To be tolerated by these bizarrely lovely mountains-this place not made for man. Only in the meadows, and in those little pockets of meadows on the shores of the lakes, did I ever feel briefly at home, as though perhaps I could really live here.

I clucked to the horses, called to the dog. For now, I was a sojourner; for the present moment, my home was on my back. Or, more literally, on Plumber's back.

I was getting hungry. By my reckoning, it was almost noon. Reckoning was all I had to go on; I hadn't brought a timepiece. By choice, not error. I'd learned from my solitary backpacking expeditions that I could tell time well enough for my own purposes by the sun, and it was an extraordinarily freeing feeling to do without a watch.

We should hit Lunch Meadow between noon and one, I thought. I would eat there and let the horses rest for half an hour, then push on and hope to reach Snow Lake in time to make camp before dark. Today's ride was the longest one I had planned for the entire trip. But I felt that the horses were fresh, and I wanted to get as far into the backcountry as possible right away.

The farther I went, the fewer people there would be. More or less. As a matter of fact, the way to avoid people was to avoid the lakes and the big meadows with good fishing creeks. The trouble was that like most of the other folks in the back-country, I really liked the lakes. And I needed to camp where there was plenty of feed for my horses. So I was liable to run into a few other travelers.

Amazingly enough, I hadn't seen anyone yet. This was probably because it was Monday. Weekends in the mountains were a lot more crowded than weekdays.

The trail was following the banks of Relief Creek now, and the terrain was leveling off. I passed the old Sheep Camp, knowing Lunch Meadow wasn't far ahead.

It was getting warm. I’d shed my jacket several miles back; now I took off my overshirt and tied it around my waist. The sun felt good on my bare arms. Absently I brushed flies off Gunner’s neck.

The landscape was opening up and I could see the wide spaces of Lunch Meadow ahead. I rode until I was out of the forest and then sent the horses off the trail to a pocket-sized hollow by the creek. Here the water made bathtub-like pools in the rocks, perfect for soaking feet.

Dismounting stiffly, I tied Gunner and Plumber to trees, and hobbled around, taking saddlebags off and loosening cinches. Damn. I wasn’t used to riding this many miles. God knew how stiff I would be when I got into camp this evening.

Settling myself by the banks of the creek, I cut hunks of dry salami and mozzarella cheese and rolled them in a flour tortilla. Humble but very satisfying. Long swallows from my water bottle washed it down. I eyed the icy cold water of the creek, but didn’t drink it. Giardia, an intestinal parasite, was a problem in these mountains. I would only drink from springs that had not had a chance to become contaminated. Either that or pump my drinking water through the filter I’d brought.

Once my hunger was satisfied, I took off my boots and socks and soaked my feet in the creek. The water was so cold it hurt, but my skin tingled and I felt invigorated. I let my feet dry in the sun with my soles pressed against the warm, scratchy surface of the granite.

Time to go. I put my boots on, tied the saddle bags back on the saddle, and tightened Gunner’s cinch. Plumber nickered at me. I looked him over carefully. The sweat had dried on his neck and flanks and his eye was bright. He was my chief concern on this trip. I had used Gunner a lot in the last couple of years, and knew him to be a trooper--a horse who traveled well and was tough. Plumber was more of an unknown quantity. Younger, smaller, and perhaps less tough-minded, he was also somewhat inexperienced. Although he’d been shown quite a bit as a youngster (by someone else), he’d spent his last few years turned out because of a lameness. Since he’d been sound, all I’d done with him was some gentle trail riding and the legging-up necessary for this trip. I wasn’t sure how he would tolerate it all.

He looked okay, for the moment. I untied both horses, climbed on Gunner, and headed off across Lunch Meadow.

It was really more of a desert than a meadow. A big, open flat, covered with low-growing, scrubby sagebrush, Lunch Meadow had been decimated many years ago by sheep. The four-footed locusts, who were both tended and decried by John Muir, had spent many summers here, while their shepherds relaxed and played cards at nearby Sheep Camp. Too many. Overgrazed and beaten down, the meadow had never recovered.

I rode across it, thinking about the ecological issues the sheep brought to mind. For the subject wasn’t ancient history—far from it. Sheep were no longer pastured in Sierra meadows, but cattle, Ted’s cattle, for instance, were. And there was a vociferous group of folks who thought that this should not be so.

An even more extreme contingent wanted to ban livestock all together, including saddle horses and pack horses. Their thinking ran along the lines of preserving the meadows, and looking at the waste of Lunch Meadow, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for their position. Trouble was, they didn’t seem too long on facts.

I’ll admit I’m prejudiced. I like horses; I like riding in the mountains. I’ve backpacked a fair amount, and I prefer taking my horses. These issues aside, I didn’t see that the occasional use of livestock to travel through the mountains was likely to do any great and irreversible harm. Pasturing them in the meadows for the summer was another thing altogether.

Though Ted would hate to hear me say it, I’d several times wondered if his contented heifers were slowly turning Wheat’s Meadow into the desert that Lunch Meadow had become. I didn't know. I was pretty sure Ted didn't either.

I could see the steep slopes of Brown Bear Pass in front of me; my horses were on rock again. Red-brown lava rock now, rather than silvery granite. Brown Bear Pass was hot, dusty, exposed, and bare, the long slog up it a matter of plowing steadily through the scree. The trail was good, though.

Stopping to let the horses rest a number of times, I progressed steadily toward the ridge line. No trees up here. Several small, chattering creeks made green rivulets. Wildflowers clung to the dusty slopes-blue flax, white yarrow, bright red California fuchsia-all lovers of dry, well-drained places.

Everything was empty and quiet. A hawk circled in the blue. Gunner snorted. Roey trudged behind the horses, starting to look tired.

The jagged red-brown crags around us were peaceful with the peace of supreme unconcern. These constant, ever-changing, ever-similar vistas-stone in sunlight-seemed prehistoric in their inviolate purity.