The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Author:Peter Heller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780307960931
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-06T17:00:00+00:00

I was wondering: Is this what it’s like to die? To be this alone? To hold to a store of love and pass over?

We almost moved here. Paonia. Some misspelling of Peony. Melissa was tired of teaching, tired of the principal and the District, was itching to try something else. Organic farming maybe. Building was a lot slower over on this side of the state but I could’ve probably pieced it together with remodels, cabinets, the odd house. First time I saw it I thought it looked like a train set. Looks like a train set still. I let the Beast fall.

Cut power and glide down the south slope of Grand Mesa, the tops of the soft aspens a few feet under our belly. Still green, the pale trunks still startling, the ferns beneath them still a thick carpet no doubt harboring deer. Whoosh off a band of cliff. And the valley opens: a green river bottom backed by a high double mountain with a swooping saddle between. Orchards, the neat rows of tufted trees on either side of the river. Vineyards too. Tall cottonwoods marking the westward twisting course of the stream. In the west, where the river flows out of the valley into a dry desert scrubland, I can see the railroad tracks, the flat topped mesas and the massing uplift of the Plateau, purple in the morning haze. And the town, more a hamlet, clustered between the river and the hill with the white stone P.

Bought groceries here often, ammo, dog food. Used to wait seven minutes at the crossing while the coal train clattered by. Timed it once, resenting the loss of daylight. Look over at Jasper’s seat.

You loved it here, huh, bud. Walk down to the river below the town park and throw the stick in the current. You weren’t too good at stick. Or swimming. Loved it anyway. We should all be like that huh?

Bank downriver and aim for the high dry plateau. Guts in a knot.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.