Sowing on the Mountain

≈ 14 ≈

Jet was still on days off, but she called Harv on the radio and they met for a conference on the Trapper situation. Harv had higher opinion of Echeverry than Jet: hardworking family ranchers, etc. He thought Trapper was hippie scum. He was wearing his revolver in a basket-stamped holster with cartridges around the belt. It made her nervous, but she didn't mention it.

Don't get him talking about guns, Jet said.

He and Jet had ridden up the driveway with the herds, going ahead to keep watch on Trapper's cabin and dogs, and there hadn't been any trouble, aside from Trapper blasting rock-and-roll on the stereo in his Suburban. Harv went off on a weird riff about hating rock and roll and negro music, which he pronounced nig-row. When he started railing about Martin Luther Coon, she cut him off and said she had to take off if she was going to make to Fish Creek Pass and camp.

He got up and shuffled out, suddenly shy after his tirade. "Don't you mind about the dog," he said, leaving. "If you need me to watch him, just call."

If he noticed her engagement ring, he didn't say anything. She popped in at the Lodge for a conference with Arlene, who filled her in on the local gossip. They'd had a few crazy dudes, but nothing they couldn't handle. A bunch from Rock Springs had taken the campsite they always used at Black Joe and trashed it. They'd gone back down and camped at Clear Lake.

"When?" Mary said. "I caught a party and ticketed them, then cleaned up their crap." They compared dates, which matched. "The site should be fine."

"It's a pain," Arlene said, "that we can't reserve campsites. When you get up there with ten horses and a bunch of dudes, and there's no place to camp, it's a problem. Where'd you get the ring?"

Mary told her about Slim and said they hadn't set a date or anything.

"Congrats. Make sure you flash it for the Wolfman out there."

Mary agreed, and ducked out. Zack, the sleekly handsome guide, was eyeing her from the shade of the horse barn, hanging onto his dog's collar as it barked and hopped: a blue heeler. They could be mean. She waved without stopping, and she and Gris stumped off across the sandy flat toward the trailhead.

The trail to Fish Creek Pass straggled up rocky ridges and moraines, forded a creek, the outlet of Meeks Lake, that she managed to hop on boulders, and then ascended a gradual sidehill slope to a pass that opened on more amazing country. Laturio Mountain, the tip of a ridge that spurred west from the Big Sandy Lake Basin, lifted a thorny head to the east. The trail dropped into Fish Creek Park, with dunes of glacial till and boggy meadows. She stopped and consulted the map. Trails forked off in several directions. To the east they went up into the cirques with small lakes and the rock spine of the Divide. The climber who'd asked her about a route had intended to come down that way. To the west, trails wiggled down switchbacks and around potholes toward the East Fork River, the next main drainage north. The Highline Trail struck north to the river and then split, the main trunk going northwest toward a high rock bench with big lakes: Silver, Cross, Raid. Jet stayed in a cabin at Cross Lake, which he described as heaven.

If there were camps in Fish Creek Park, they were well hidden— good, she thought. No recent sheep sign, also good. She decided to keep on north and find a spot with a view. As the sun approached the horizon, she passed two lakes, went off-trail to the east, and happened on a series of green pockets, hung like balconies above the East Fork canyon. East, at the head of the drainage, the Divide reared, Musembeah remote and scary in the rose-colored light. To the north, she could see up into a high valley walled on both sides, that looked both forbidding and tempting. She looked at the map: the East Fork Valley, with big lakes named by elevations, topped by Mt. Bonneville, like a stone warbonnet at the head. From the trail, given the distance, it looked lower than Tower, Hooker, and Pyramid Peaks.

Gotta go there, she thought.