Storms Beyond the Mountain--Prologue

EPIGRAPH

                                     

  

 

 

 

 

Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember,
and remember more than I have seen.  ~Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

A single instant, as brief as a lightning strike, is all it takes. We live, or we die. It’s both simple and profound, the most inescapable and fundamental and unambiguous of all truths. The executioner of all concerns.

I stood at the edge of the cliff, slowly swaying back and forth. Far below, a jumble of large granite boulders shredded the creek into ribbons of cascading rapids and swirls of white-water.

It will be very easy.

All it will take is a step…and it will be over...

How much pain could there be?

I’ll be dead or at least unconscious"almost certainly…

I tried to look straight ahead"at the top of Limestone Mesa...

The last thing I will ever see…

No. Something else… not just barren rock…

The creek…

I glanced over the edge of the cliff, down to the roiling waters.

A mistake!

My gut tightened, I felt dizzy.

Don’t look down. Close your eyes...

I heard the low rumbling of the rapids; I felt a breeze on my face; I smelled the sweet-smoky scent of piñon from some distant fireplace.

These things are too familiar…they imprison me here!

Shut them out…don’t listen…

I closed my eyes.

Now…slowly…

I moved closer to the edge, feeling for it with the tip of my right foot.

Easy…

Suddenly, I saw those mangled bodies, smelled the stench of burning flesh, and heard the screams of the dying. Then, I imagined my own body, lying broken at the bottom of the cliff, my blood draining like red candle wax over the jagged gray boulders.

The reality of what I was thinking about doing shocked me. No, God, no! I quickly moved back from the edge, turned, and took a few unsteady steps away from the cliff.

I need something to hold onto!

That tree…

It was about ten feet from the cliff. As I moved toward it I stumbled"but managed to grab a branch. I held on, but my hands were weak, muscles trembling. The cliff began to crumble"the collapsing edge was moving back toward me!

No, it’s not! …just relax… that’s all…

I lowered myself, sat on a large root at the base of the juniper tree, and clamped my hands around the ridges in the bark. Wild heartbeats hammered my eardrums. I heard gasps.

Throat closed"suffocating!

No, it’s ok! Ok, now...

Breathing…

Think about something else… Anything…

I focused on the juniper, trying to occupy my mind.

Remember…You know this tree…

As a boy, I had often sat on that root. From there, I could look out over my family’s split-log house, our small town nestled among the Ponderosa pines, the valley with its meandering creek, and up to the high country and mountains beyond.

 Relax…breathe…

In those days, I imagined that the valley, the forests, and the mountains were baronies of my kingdom, the constituents of my world.

Now, the gnarled juniper’s branches looked dead. But the tree was still alive, still clinging to a crack in the nearly naked rock. It had withstood centuries of sun, wind, ice storms, lightning.

It’s strong"more enduring and dependable than anything else in this world.

It doesn’t have to feel, or suffer… It doesn’t even know…

I sat for a long time, feeling the reassuring solidity of the juniper, and gradually becoming calmer.

I need to get off this cliff!

I let go of the root, and got to my feet. The start of a worn trail was to my right. The trail ran parallel to the cliff, but safely back from the edge, and made a steep, winding descent along the flank of the hill, before it turned back toward the creek, and terminated beneath the overhanging cliff. I made my way down, feeling detached from my body, unsteady.

I got to the creek. Safe now.

But my hands were still shaking

The creek thundered complaints as it forced its way through the maze of boulders.

As I stood listening, my despair started to return, yet it was even worse because of my frightening impulse. The top of the cliff was now high overhead, leaning out toward the creek. I was up there, damn me…I was there!

The cliff and the creek and the tree and all else around me had once been part of my world. But I was no longer young, and that former world was no longer mine. Everything had been taken from me, leaving only a residue of disillusionment and pain.

How did my life become this enveloping hell?

Author's Note

Interesting enough to keep readers reading?

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[Marie]

I don't, as a rule, do books. But I will read at least one other chapter if you care to post it.