NSummer by Never Summer (retail) (epub)

Author:Never Summer (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-10-31T15:35:54+00:00

TWENTY EIGHT

A lone dot circles in the vault of sky. Soundlessly. For several seconds it disappears, lost in the blue vastness. There it is again, a winged phantom on the silent edge of a long and lazy arc. It’s a Red-tailed hawk, soaring skyward on a late afternoon thermal. The raptor’s flight is graceful, effortless. It floats as if suspended, as indeed it is, on a rising column of warm air, a sky-bound elevator. Now, its wings bob and dip, turning and wheeling about, feathers ruffling in the breeze.

The hawk catches a fresh updraft and rises fast; but its eyes remain grounded on earth far below. The hawk is on the prowl.

From this great height the view is unobstructed for many miles in every direction. Two rugged mountain ranges dominate the landscape, each glistening under a snowy white mantle. To the east is the imperious white wall of the Front Range, several of its peaks clawing more than 14,000 feet into the sky. Nearby, just ahead, lies the jumbled spine of the Never Summer Mountains, the southern extension of the Medicine Bows.

Now, the aerial hunter drifts laterally and generally southward, crossing ridge after ridge. As it does, its sharp eyes scan one alpine valley after another. Each of the forested valleys is a patchwork of unnatural disturbances. Some of the scars look recent. Several were not in evidence a few weeks before, when the hawk last passed this way on its semi-regular hunting rounds. In this high mountain fastness, where hundreds of feeder streams swollen by snowmelt come crashing down from the surrounding heights to nurse the great rivers of the continent, conifer green is giving way to ruddy brown.

Presently the hawk hears a faraway noise carried on the late afternoon breeze. It’s a low mechanical sound, faint, a distant low rumble. But the sharp-eyed hawk has no difficulty identifying the source. Far below, nearly a mile away, a tiny yellow machine crawls like a bug along the margin of an eviscerated forest. The yellow object slips from sight, hidden by a fringe of trees, then reappears and emits a tiny puff of black smoke seemingly disconnected from the sound.

Circling, the hawk studies the strange object. After awhile though, it loses interest and moves on.

Heading east, the Red-tail leaves the scars behind and passes over the north-south backbone of the Never Summers. The hawk has crossed the great divide and now soars above a wide green valley, the headwaters of the Colorado River. The valley is flanked by massive escarpments, U-shaped lesser valleys and ridges fanning out from the snowy heights. Gentler landforms attenuate the harshness of rocky uplift and ice.

The floor of the great valley is mantled by a coniferous forest that stretches unbroken, save for a few scattered lakes, occasional meadows, and outcrops. The forest remains much as the Creator made it, nearly untouched by human hands.

Presently, the Red-tail loses elevation as it glides toward its destination, a meadow not far from the great river where on innumerable previous forays the hawk has hunted up its supper.

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