Mesa Trail, ch.1
Draft 3

"Every landscape has its magical beings. The ancient forests of the pacific northwest have Sasquatch. The piney woods of Alabama have Bigfoot. The Texas coast has Jacques de Mer." – from Kathi Appelt's Keeper


Preface

When Hannah had her very first vision of opening Element 79 some day, some day down in the valley, along some side street off of the Pearl walkway that was cozy and cobblestoned, where she would bake her famous "Mountain of Velvet Cakes" and serve "Chocolate Cliff Coffee," she never would have thought it would happen the way it had.

It wasn't until mid morning that the entire crew had arrived – Inuna at the bottom of the sluice box with her band of swimming turtles, Josh up at the head gate of the sluice box managing the water supply, Mr. Kliefen, 10 th grade Sociology teacher, hauling away gravel, Mrs. Diaz, 10th grade Health Sciences, sifting – when she found herself standing underneath the roof of the roughly constructed wood shack preparing lunches on the counter and realized that this was it.

She reached behind her and tore off a piece of cardboard from a box and wrote in big golden glittery letters Element 79 onto it, taped a stick onto the back and planted it into the hard ground out front along the trail.  She saw that there were rocks naturally in place to either side, they would work just fine for warm seats under the afternoon sunshine.  Inuna called up from the banks of the creek asking if Hannah needed help in the kitchen.  Mr. Bunkledon was arriving supposedly in just an hour and the entire sight had to be what was promised: a fully working gold mining operation. He needed to see that this 'Outpost' could be counted on, and that this was not just some crazy kids' dream scheme.

She put Inuna to work on cold wraps and quinoa bowls.  "I just lay them out to start in a stack then use the scoop for the black bean rice and lime mix." She squeezed the handles together and a perfect scoop dropped onto the maize wraps. "Voila, just like that." Hannah tried another one, dropping it from a bit farther up in the air, and it splooshed down and crumbled a little. "Sometimes you gotta have a little fun, too."

She called in Kitie for freshly squeezed lemonade.  Kitie was an eight grader. No, her name wasn't a mistake on the birth certificate, being mistaken with a Katie.  It was what mom and dad told everybody was a compromise name.  "What is a compromise name," the question would always come back. "He wanted a Katie, and I wanted Kite.  I've always loved kites, how they seek out the wind high above, duck and weave, like a hawk.  So we compromised to Kitie." Kitie, of course, like every other kid in the history of the world, didn't like her name.  She insisted that most everybody she knew just started calling her Kite anyway, so why not just stick with that.  Although, come to think of it, I don't really like Kite either. "How about Cutie, then, dad would say, and usually that would end that.  Kitie, by the way, in her most secret moments, loved kites herself. When she was first pulled onto the gold mine, the first thing she asked Hannah was whether they might try to use kites for some of their work.  "How exactly are you going to do that," Hannah wondered, but was open to any suggestion that anybody ever had.  They were working in a gold mine during school hours, for goodness sakes. If we can use a kite, let's use a kite!  "I just think they are pretty. I was also thinking that we could use them to send things to each other from the trails." Hannah had to give her a good long look at that one. "Kites don't fly themselves you know. Somebody has to hold onto the ropes." Kitie, was, well, a little Kitie.  Hannah looked at her and they both silently agreed that Kitie's name, as it turned out, was perfect.


Josh was a different story. Josh was younger brother, a 5th grader who could tinker with the best of them. It had been Josh's job to handle the sluice gate, clean the screens and set the rocks along in mindful piles, tagging them. He didn't think much about the sky and the hawks or kites.  His eyes were usually on moving parts. The way water moved down that last curl up above the mine sight was fascinating because it was such "high volume per cubic inch," that kind of thing.  Josh was the one who rebuilt the hinges on the opening gate.  They had been rusted by years of disuse. Standing in cold water ankle deep, he bent over with his pocket utility screwdriver and replaced hinges he got with the help of dad down at Kroner's hardware.  Josh didn't like ghosts and he didn't like "hot hot heat," as he would call it, the kind that came down at noon up here in Flatirons and would force any sane gold mine worker to dip into the cold creek for relief.


Before Hannah knew it, Mr. Kliefen and Mrs. Diaz were talking to others who had gathered where the Mesa Trail crosses Bear Canyon Creek and Hannah could see them pointing upwards to the shack, otherwise now known as Element 79 she told herself proudly, and a plan sparked in her mind as it always did: 1) this is the grand opening for the Mesa Trail Oasis; 2) we will invite all hikers in for fresh food and water; 3) if they would like to help haul, filter screen, weigh, they are invited.  Whatever they find directly in gold, they can dedicate to their own favorite cause down below in the city.  Hannah felt the old charm around her neck and wondered if this was what her great grandfather had in mind when he said, all those years ago, "some day you will find yourself at a cross roads. You may see two ways to go. Take the one that follows the bright sky. Always follow where the water flows."  At that time, she had no idea about cross roads or following the bright sky, but she could sure see it now, out there in the rushing blue water, the swirling blue sky, here family, the coming gold.


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1.

...The very first nights that Hannah and her family lived up there at the top edge of the city of Boulder right along Settler's Park – the very same place where the city had been founded two hundred years ago – were so dark that you dare not walk outside without a flashlight.  It was so dark behind the great red rocks that their father, in the beginning, would not even let them go with a flashlight.  "The rattlesnakes underneath the boulders are sleeping.  They have had to put up with people all over their homes all day long, maybe we should let them rest for the night."

Dad had grown up not far from here, in Fort Collins, and told little stories of he and his brother, who they called Ace because he was always into little disasters, getting nipped at the sides of their tall-necked boots their mother made them wear out in the brush.  "It is not a happy sight at all, let me tell you, when the stick laying across the trail isn't a stick.  It starts moving.  Sometimes it coils up, then you know what's next.  The shake rattle and roll." He happened to have a salt shaker in his hands as he was telling this, and shook it for effect.  "People panic.  They get stuck way up high in the mountains. Never hike high altitude alone, that's all I'm saying."

Hannah knew this was parental code for fear what is out there. The red rocks in the dark, from the back windows anyway, no matter how much safe light inside, were not rocks at all the three kids had decided. These were living, breathing, spiny, winged, rip roaring dinosaurs. Goodness only knows what they do when nobody is looking out there deep into the night. For awhile it was only Kitie who knew they moved. Then it was Josh who one morning woke up to run out into the kitchen and make the wild statement that last night he "most certainly saw the very top of the closest spine of boulders raise its head up to the sky, and peak right into the house. Like he was watching me." If any of them stayed up long enough, the howling from the west, on the back side of Flatirons, way up there at Flagstaff, began at midnight. Of course it echoed up and down the canyon to stir up the silence of everything else.  Bears! Mountain Lions! Dinosaurs! What else?