Love

My boyfriend James Diamond liked the way his farcical falsetto sent the few remembered snatches of an old tune skipping like thin, flat stones over the treetops below him. "The mountain hi-i-ee-i-ee-igh-" his voice dropped, a heavy chunk of granite this time tumbling down "the val-let be-low-ho-ho." It was a human voice, even if it was only his own, and the sound helped him keep things in perspective. He wasn't a bear, a wolf, or a ram. He kept company with those creatures, but man was surely the only animal whose call of the wild was off-key rock and roll. In this western Montana wilderness. James's howl was in to class by itself. Daylight was dropping behind the blue-gray peaks, casting ripples of lavender into the puffy bellies of cirrus clouds. The log and stone cabin, tucked against an escarpment and flanked by fir saplings, was a welcome sight. There would be enough water in the holding tank for a shower, and he wanted to soak his feet.