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"As a Park Ranger I will protect and serve you." She talked to the creature from a safe three yards away. "But we'll never be friends. Is that going to be a problem?"
The tarantula stopped, its front pair of legs feeling the air. Then it turned and walked slowly toward her, each of its legs appearing to move independently of the other seven.
"Yes. I see that it is." Glad there were no visitors to witness her absurdity, A
Half a mile further down the canyon the walls began to narrow around boulders the size of Volkswagens. A
The sun slipped lower and the canyon filled with shadow. In the sudden cooling a breeze sprang up, carrying with it a new smell. Not the expected sickly-sweet odor of rotting flesh, but the fresh smell of water, unmistakable in the desert, always startling. One never grew accustomed to miracles. Energized, A
The walls became steeper, towering more than sixty feet above the creek. A rugged hillside of catclaw and agave showed dark above the pale cliffs. The boulders that littered upper McKittrick were no longer in evidence. In the canyon's heart, A
Not a good place to be caught during the Texas monsoons in July and August. Each time she walked this transect in search of cougar sign, A
The smell of water grew stronger and, mixed with the sighing and sawing of the wind, she could hear its delicate music. Potholes began pitting the streambed-signs of recent flooding. Recent in geological time. Far too long to wait for a drink. Some of the scoured pits were thirty feet across and twenty feet deep. A litter of leaves and bones lay at the bottom of the one A
This was a section of the canyon that A
She crawled the distance on hands and knees.
Even heralded by perfume and music, the water took her by surprise. Sudden in the bleak bone-white canyon came an emerald pool filled by a fall of purest water. The plop of fleeing frogs welcomed her and she stopped a moment just to marvel.
Aware of the ache across her shoulders, A
They didn't fly far, but settled in soot-colored heaps along the ledges, looking jealously back at their abandoned feast.
A
Saw grass, three-sided and sharp, grew nearly shoulder-high along the ledge beyond the pool. From a distance the dark green blades, edged with a paler shade, looked soft, lush, but A
The sand-colored stone above it was dark with seeps of water weeping from the cliffs face. Ferns, an anomaly in the desert, hung in a green haze from the rocks, and violets the size of A
In the grasses then, protected by their razor-sides, was the carrion supper she had stumbled upon. Not anxious to wade through the defending vegetation, A
Balancing easily on the sloping stone now that the drop was softened with a shimmer of water, A
The sharp grasses snagged at her trouser legs, plucked her shirt tight against her body. It matted underfoot and, in places, grew taller than the top of her head. Her boots sank to the laces in the mire. Water seeped in, soaked through her socks.
A high-pitched throaty sound grumbled from her perching audience. "I'm not going to eat your damned carrion," A
She must remember to ask Molly.
At the next step, stink, trapped by the grasses, rose in an almost palpable cloud. Death seemed to rot the very air.
In a sharp choking gasp, A
Crumpled amongst the thick stems was the green and gray of a National Park Service uniform. Sheila Drury, the Dog Canyon Ranger, lay half curled, knees drawn up. An iridescent green and black backpack, heavy with water and whatever was inside, twisted her almost belly up. Buzzard buffet: they didn't even have to dig for the tastiest parts.
A
One vulture, bolder than the rest, dropped down from the ledge on wide-spread wings, stirring up the putrid air. Unheralded, a Gary Larson cartoon flashed into A
Gagging, A
Her stomach was long emptied before the heaving stopped. She crawled to the water's edge, wiped her mouth with a handkerchief wet from the pool and, without hope, pulled her King radio from its leather holster on the hip belt of her pack.
"Three-eleven, three-one-five."
Three times she tried. Magic number, she thought, filling her mind with irrelevancies: the Holy Trinity, three wishes, three strikes and you're out.
"No contact. Three-fifteen clear."
The vultures had settled back to their interrupted supper. A squabble of black wings pulled A
Not such a bad thing, A