Mesa Trail ch. 37
Draft 2

"The cold of the charm against her face gave Keeper a start. She blinked her eyes and looked right at the golden disk. Her lucky charm. It was still strung on the snapped pink ribbon." – Keeper











How the next few hours played out up there above the Mesa Trail, way up there, near the summit of Flagstaff mountain well over 7,000 feet up into the sky, is still debated among the backcountry creatures of the Flatiron Forest.  None of the backcountry creatures could remember anything quite like it, only heard of such things from the old ancestors, and even them, they had only been stories of such things.  The backcountry creatures had lost touch with each other it seemed for a long time. All those people coming up to walk around the cleared paths of the forest, they were fine, just fine, but so many of them, not like it used to be.  It was hard to get together in the same way you used to, said the bear clan; the mountain lion clan, well, they moved deeper and deeper into the woods, and just didn't see each other in same way they used to either.  Less creature community is what many of them claimed, just didn't really know what each other was doing.  And there weren't many who witnessed it anyway.  Who could trust the sapsucker?  It was he who saw it all play out before his little sapsucker eyes.  What was he doing all the way up there at the side of the mountain anyway?  Sapsuckers were notoriously talented at sticking to one spot on the side of a ponderosa pecking away his holes and using that funny tongue to gather sap and insects, but one thing they were not known for was flying.  Sapsucker parents hardly even trained the young for long distances, why would they? Sure, they had long wings, but the rhythm was off, flitting about from limb to limb.  Well, not this sapsucker this day.  He had dodged the globules of rain that morning all the way up the side of the mountain following the human, peeking down here and there to see this new route that she was taking right up the side of the mountain so quickly the sapsucker could hardly keep up.  The human had slowed down, wiped her brow, and touched something that was dangling around her neck.  It shone a bright color that the sapsucker had seen a few times before along the creeks of the mountains where he might stop at a small bath for a drink.  He might peck at the flakes of the bright color, but it didn't taste particularly good so he would spit it back out.  Was this one of hers for good luck, or bad...who could tell? He had better stay close by, out of curiosity, and watch out.

From the very tip top of that old Ponderosa he could see across the meadow, where the tall human was following Biggalow up to the old caves where the sapsucker had been told never to enter.  At this moment, the very same moment they reached the entrance, the sun had begun to shoot out over the contours of the mountain turning it instantly into a crystallized landscape.  It was all aglitter, he would later say, and he couldn't perfectly make out the figures any longer, so bright.  Three of Biggalow's clan walked up and over to the ridge from the other side of the hill.  This was the part that nobody had ever seen, never, only stories, unbelievable, but here it was, and the sapsucker's eyes bulged right out of their sockets.  I mean, you never know with bears, of course, they are big enough to do what they like, but the four of them rose up onto two feet each and they indeed clasped front paws and began a little dance around in a circle.  This kept on for a few minutes.  It was like it had been rehearsed but who could know?  The tall human was up against the face of the opening of the cave and was joined there by a middle sized and small human.  They didn't move, couldn't.  Was there harm to come? What was this?  The sun had laid down over the black of the bears like a sheen.  They didn't chant or hum, just a slow round dance, more like a gala.  That's what it was, a gala.