Mesa Trail ch. 9
Draft 3

"Just ahead of The Scamper, the falling tide streamed out of the Cut and into the gulf, rushing toward the sandbar. There the stingrays hovered on the strong currents. How many were there? Hundreds? Thousands?" – Appelt, from Keeper


Right next door to Bear Canyon Creek valley lay Skunk Canyon, an old rockfall which trailed all the way down to the base of the Chautauqua.  Was it ancient glaciation that left those enormous, smoothed-over boulders laying in the rising meadow grass like enormous eggs in among the ponderosa pines?  Those trunks rose up in craggly limbs, so dry, shaped like the arid climate itself, and seemed to sprout out of rocks ready to fight for their sunshine.

Up and down this valley was where the Williamson Sapsuckers flitted about the hard birch bark in search of grubs and sap.  Not just one, not just two, but for this day, this time around, how many, how many holes could be counted?  None of the city traffic could be heard here.  There were no hikers because there were no trails back and forth, just raw outright woods and rocks, so that every time their irredescent black faces with striped white eyes sucked for sap, the click to the wood was amplified and bounced around the valley like a mis-timed drum session.  They were not thinking of their music.  They had sunshine on their black bodies and were warm, and the air was clean, and field was bright green.  There was sap and bugs in there some where, just let me at it! Their little heads twitched in excitement, then the little feet scampered to the next hole, clickity click, and then, as if savoring the find, you might see a grub lay at the tip of the beak, held there for a moment before the last lightening quick gulp and another flit of the wings in satisfaction. The sapsucker would fly off, leaving a series of flute holes in its tree.

The past few sunrises brought to the attention of the sapsuckers far more than the temptations that lay within the birches.  Up over the crest of Skunk Canyon, looking over onto the next crease in the mountain, activity of the upright two-legs had increased.  There used to be nothing there more than the constant buzzing of the creek. To the sapsuckers this meant the place of the bird baths which  formed at the edges of stones. It meant the easiest of drinks, or the occasional two-leg quietly walking past, over the small rock trail planted in the creek, then out of sight again.  Yet lately small structures had been built, the two-legs stayed all day in and around the same place, often pointing at the creek itself.  Strange smells came rising up over the ridge of their homeland valley and wafted in among the birch limbs. The sapsucker might raise its little beak quickly to taste the air, then dive right back into breakfast or lunch.  Today they gathered at the top of the rockfall to consider a new location.  Many of the white trees had already been picked clean.  There was a secret language among the sapsuckers, not just sounds, but the quickening of their actions, the beak peck, the wing flit, that was code for let's wait and see. They rose up to the top tier of the Ponderosa and sat still momentarily to watch the new camp at Bear Canyon Creek.