by Calvin Hecht
Curt was enthusiastic, he began studying online all he could about the flora and fauna of the Aleutians. That he might have the company of an Alaskan grizzly bear during his stint on the island never seemed to enter his mind, or, if it did, Curt dismissed it as of no consequence or as just part of the adventure.
Either way, that was Curt — jump in with both feet and go with the flow.
Kevin, of course, knew about Curt's nature-loving idiosyncrasy and, in some respects, shared the feeling — that's why Kevin was on this particular wilderness adventure into the Jemez with Curt. However, unlike Curt, Kevin had less loner tendencies, and although Curt's pending Alaska adventure was exciting even for Kevin to imagine, nevertheless, something like that was not Kevin's cup of tea.
Kevin was still struggling with his future, and, at this stage, he had no plans whatsoever beyond high school graduation, although he was fairly certain he'd be going on to college at some point.
No small part of Kevin's struggle revolved around his father's desire that Kevin enter the ministry. The situation was compounded by the fact that Kevin had yet to come up with any kind of career choice on his own — many careers interested him, but none lit his fire; none gave him passion. Because of that, he often felt like a rudderless ship when it came to his future.
~~~
Kevin had dug into a side pocket of his backpack, dug out a package of beef jerk, and shared it with Curt.
After a few pieces of jerky, Kevin took long swig of canteen water to assuage the salty jerky and to replace the fluids he had sweated out during the first hours of their hike. A couple of minutes later, Curt did the same.
The day was beautiful — not too warm and not too cool at their estimated 8,000-foot elevation. The classic deep turquoise of the New Mexico sky, the warm sunshine radiating off the slab of rock, and the soft murmur of the wind through the ponderosa pines was mesmerizing.
Kevin shifted to his right side and leaned on his backpack with his right arm. He crooked his elbow and rested his head in the palm of his right hand. He was thoroughly enjoying the respite and the wonders of nature all around him.
Lost in the wonder of the moment, he suddenly thought about his father's Sunday sermon from the book of Romans the day before. Kevin remembered that his father had preached on a subject that had something to do with people being without an excuse for not knowing God. God is revealed in and through the things God created, Kevin's father had preached.
Thinking about his father's sermon and observing the creation around him, Kevin understood — there indeed was no excuse. The order, the balance, the sheer complexity and beauty of all the things he was experiencing through his five senses demonstrated to Kevin an intelligent cause — a Creator — not a haphazard evolution beginning with a "Big Bang" and a couple of mindless amoebas in a primordial ooze.
~~~
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse… Romans 1:20 NKJV
~~~
As he thought about his father, Kevin had a momentary feeling of guilt. Kevin had often displayed less than enthusiastic acceptance of being a preacher's son and the religiosity that implied in the eyes of his friends — a religiosity that Kevin was reluctant to display. He knew his attitude was a disappointment to his father.
Kevin closed his eyes in an effort to blot out the feelings of guilt. His thoughts began to drift and within moments, he was fast asleep.
~~~
Kevin awoke with a start — things were crawling on his face!
Jumping up, instantly wide awake, Kevin could see a dozen or more ants — big, black, half-inch long mountain ants — running in every direction on his clothes and bare legs as he swatted at the ones scampering across his face, in his hair, and down the neck of his shirt.
"Yikes!" he exclaimed, as he jumped up.
He began dancing from one leg to the other, all the while swatting here and there, finally flicking the last of the ants from his clothing.
Kevin saw Curt, sitting on a large boulder a dozen feet away, half-bent over in laughter at Kevin's predicament. In seeming collusion with Curt's laughter, a Steller's jay seemed to laugh at Kevin from its perch high in a nearby pine.
"Oh, great! You sit there laughing at me and even that bird over there is laughing! Why didn't you say something — wake me up?"
"Well, I didn't notice the ants until you jumped up and then it was just too late and too funny," laughed Curt.
"Uh-huh. I'll bet it was."
Embarrassed and a bit indignant at Curt's laughter, Kevin realized it served him right. He should have been more careful, more observant about where he sat down for rest.
The good news was that the ants had not bitten Kevin and for that, he was thankful.
Curt, backing off his teasing attitude, asked, "Sorry, bro. You 'bout ready to go?"
Kevin answered, "Yeah. Let's do it."
Kevin carefully checked his backpack for ants and finding several, made quick dispatch of them. He then hoisted his heavy backpack onto his back. Curt did the same with his backpack. They were ready. Curt led the way up the trail.
They hiked about a half-mile when they encountered a stand of quaking aspen trees with the characteristic fluttering leaves rattling in the breeze and their white bark — bark that Native Americans had used for centuries as a kind of natural aspirin for medicinal purposes.
Unlike the sharper scent of pine trees, the aspens had a mild, sweet, and vaguely musty odor.
The trail was barely visible as it wound through the aspens, however, what grabbed the young men's attention were the scattered carvings of names and dates on several of the older and larger aspens.
"Wow! Look at this one," Kevin said, pointing to a carving some nine feet up on a three foot diameter tree. "That looks like — wow! — I can barely make it out, but it looks like L. Ortega, May 1898! And look at this one over here! Abe Hiram, 09! This is really cool!"
The growth of the carved aspens and the healing of the cuts over time made deciphering many of the carvings next to impossible. Nevertheless, Kevin and Curt were impressed.
They wandered a few feet off the trail and found even more carvings. One carving on an almost three-foot wide trunk, perhaps the oldest tree in the stand, contained a barely readable Yates and what looked like 1854 about eight feet up on the white bark.
"That Yates one can't be 1854! — must be 1954 — these trees are old, but they can't be that old, can they? I mean, I can't believe 1854," said Kevin.
It was then that Curt surprised Kevin when he said, "I've been doing some studying about forestry and wildlife for my Alaska thing next year, and, as I recall, trembling aspens — this kind of a tree — can live one-hundred and fifty or more years. So, 1854 is not impossible.
"Also, a group of aspens like this isn't called a stand or even a forest; it's called a 'colony' and, believe it or not, it's a single humongous living organism."
Kevin, truly impressed, replied, "You're kidding! That's awesome!" and, after a moment's hesitation, added, "Well, Curt, I am surprised!"
"What's that supposed to mean, you're 'surprised'?"
"Well, for a dude who usually loses his school textbooks within the first six weeks of the new school year, to hear you say you've been studying something is a surprise. That's all."
"Well, la-tee-da, dude. This kind of stuff interests me. History and geometry don't," replied a miffed Curt.
"Hey, nothing personal meant. Chill, bro. I just made an observation, that's all. I'm happy for you that you've found something that interests you. Who knows, you may even end up getting a Ph.D. in forestry or wildlife someday."
There was a long pause as Curt weighed what Kevin had said, and then Curt replied in a thoughtful tone, "Maybe so. Maybe so."
Kevin took a few more steps into the colony. "You know, I'd bet that s
ome of these initials and the people who made them have interesting histories," ventured Kevin.
"Yeah, maybe some were on the run from the law or doing some illegal stuff like digging up Indian stuff or whatever," volunteered Curt.
"Yeah. Could be. Do you want to carve your initials?"
"Nah. We need to get going. See that cloud over there?" and Curt pointed out a brilliant white cumulus cloud with shadows of grey, billowing over a peak several miles to the north that was visible through the aspens. "That cloud is gonna get bigger as the day heats up, and we could be in for a nasty thunderstorm. I don't like lightning, especially if I'm caught out in it. And, getting wet is not my thing, either. So, let's push on and see if we can make the cabin before it hits, okay?"
"Gotcha," replied Kevin.
After another hour, the climb lessened and they entered a small valley, roughly circular, about a quarter-mile long and a quarter-mile in width. On either side were towering hills thick with mixed conifers of Douglas fir and a scattering of blue spruce.
The young men did not realize it but they had entered a small, ancient caldera now verdant with greenish-yellow knee-high grasses, wild flowers, and a small stream that look promising for containing native trout.
On a nearby jagged and blackened ten-foot tall stub of a long-ago lightning struck pine, a red-napped sapsucker woodpecker ignored the young men less than a hundred feet away and rat-tat-tat-tatted away, looking for a mid-day insect snack.
Halfway through the valley, Curt stopped and squatted down, pulling out the U.S. Forest Service map he had in his back pocket.
Kevin squatted down opposite of Curt. "What's up, bro?" Kevin asked.
"Well, the trail has kind of gotten overgrown in this meadow, and I think we've lost it. I'm not sure if we should go straight ahead or if the trail angles off someplace here in the valley."
"Let me see," said Kevin, reaching for the map.
Kevin studied the map for a minute, turning it left, right, and upside down in an attempt to orient it to the surrounding hills. Exasperated, he said, "I can't tell a thing with all of these topographical lines that go all over the place. Half this stuff — I mean like the valleys and whatever — isn't even identified."
"Well, you're just not an experienced map reader, that's all," teased Curt.
However, Curt's tease was masking uncertainty on his part, because, truth be known, Curt had difficulty reading the map also. "Hand me the map. I'll figure out where we're at," said Curt.
Curt pulled out his compass and laid the map on the ground and the compass on the map, both in proper orientation to each other. Next, he found the cabin location and read the compass bearing.
"Okay. I got it. We need to head that direction," and Curt pointed up stream. "Makes sense. I mean, the cabin being next to a stream. We just need to follow this stream, and it'll take us right to the cabin."
With a confidence that belied a nagging, subconscious uncertainty, Curt stood up and said, "Let's go."
~~~
Unfortunately, Curt had misidentified their location on the map. Yes, the cabin was next to a stream, but not the stream he and Kevin were now following. Unaware, they had deviated from Viejo Trail more than a mile back.
The decision to press on upstream would be fraught with imminent danger, but it would also result in an unexpected encounter.
Chapter Three
Danger and Rescue
As the young men followed the stream out of the ancient caldera, the stream narrowed and then disappeared completely, petering out in a wide fan of algae-green seepage of unknown origin.
Squishing through the mud, they soon came to a gradual one-hundred foot rise of ancient lava flow that afforded an ease of climbing much like a staircase.
They began the climb and soon topped out on a plateau of near-black, pockmarked basalt, featuring dozens of large water-filled pits of uncertain depth and up to four feet in diameter.
By the then late afternoon, the threatening cumulus cloud from earlier in the day had grown to a massive, roiling, towering, angry monster with an underlayment of distant, streaking grey-black rain capped with brilliant white mushroom tops, miles high.
The afternoon breeze had freshened with a distinct scent of impending rain. The distant sound of thunder had had the young men' attention for the better part of the past hour; the storm was drawing closer and an already intermittent spattering of huge, icy raindrops promised a deluge shortly.
In the late afternoon shadow of the mountain to the west and the storm-darkening skies, it was almost as if night had quickly descended on the two.
In the gathering darkness, not only was there danger from lightning, but also if they continued, one of them could fall or slip into one of the pits, and if such a pit was deep enough or hot enough, the effect could be tragic.
The young men's situation was compounded by the anxiety-driven yet unspoken realization that they were lost — there was no cabin in sight — and the fact that there was no un-rough, non-rock area to pitch their tent, much less to try and drive tent stakes into solid rock.
Stopped in their tracks by their situation and the potential danger and with the storm and an unsettling darkness bearing down on them, the young men were startled to hear the distant tinkling of bells!
They looked at each other in surprise and without a word began carefully making their way toward the sound of the tinkling.
Minutes later, descending the last of the basalt, the young men found themselves at the edge of a grassy area about the size of a football field. In the middle of the field directly in front of them some fifty yards away was a flock of fifty or sixty milling sheep. Some of the sheep were wearing bells, and it was the sound of those bells that drew the young men to the area. A mostly black Australian sheepdog was circling the sheep, ensuring each stayed within the group.
To the right of the flock— in the "football end zone," so to speak — was a white, fifteen foot square canvas tent, the kind with four four-foot sidewalls and a pitched roof reminiscent of Matthew Brady's photographs of Civil War army field tents.
Next to the tent stood a shepherd — a young man, near as Kevin and Curt could tell from the one hundred foot distance, about the same age as Kevin and Curt.
The shepherd noticed Kevin and Curt but did not appear to be surprised. He raised his right hand in greeting. Kevin and Curt simultaneously returned the greeting in-kind and, as they walked closer, they could see the shepherd appeared to be Mexican — but maybe Basque? In any event, it quickly became obvious to Kevin and Curt that the shepherd neither spoke nor understood English.
As Kevin and Curt got within ten feet of the shepherd, the icy cold rain began pelting in earnest.
The shepherd quickly pulled back the tent flap and gestured for Kevin and Curt to enter his tent and get out of the rain, which they did. Most gratefully.
The tent held a cot and several wooden boxes that Kevin and Curt assumed contained food supplies and probably assorted veterinarian medicines and potions.
The boxes also acted as tables. One was set up with a plate and eating utensils. On another sat a kerosene lantern.
In the far corner was another box. The far corner box looked like a kind of shrine. At the base of the box was a folded horse blanket — probably used for kneeling. Centered on top of the box was a six-inch statue of what Kevin guessed to be the patron saint of shepherds. On either side of the statue was a half-burned, now extinguished white votive candle.
Being a pastor's son, Kevin immediately picked up on the fact that the shepherd was probably devotedly religious; Curt, if he noticed at all, could not have cared less.
A crack of lightning lit up the tent canvas followed by an immediate thunderous boom. The already hard pelting rain suddenly doubled and then tripled in intensity, drumming noisily on the tent roof. Every few seconds a gust of wind would ripple the tent. More lightning and thunder and waves of heavy rain continued for fifteen minutes, and t
hen gradually the rain began to ease and the sound of thunder became less intense as the storm moved through.
The interior of the tent and the tent floor had remained bone dry throughout the storm, a testament to the quality of the tent and the skill of the shepherd in site selection and drainage engineering.
The young shepherd was most accommodating and by a series of smiles and gestures invited Kevin and Curt to spend the night in his tent, which, given the potential for more thunderstorms, the treacherous water-filled-pitted landscape they had come from, and no idea where the cabin they sought might be, the young men gratefully gestured thank you and spread out their sleeping bags on the tent floor.
At this point, the shepherd left the tent apparently to check his flock and ensure they were bedded down for the night.
With no thought of food and after almost twelve hours of hiking, and at the end, tension and anxiety about being lost and in danger, the young men were exhausted.
Each lay down on their respective sleeping bags fully intending to be gracious guests despite the language barrier when the shepherd returned.
Instead, both fell asleep almost immediately.
~~~
Kevin and Curt would make a decision in the morning that would be pivotal for all that would follow.
Chapter Four
Day Two: The Campsite and the Unexpected
Curt was shaking Kevin awake. "Hey, get up. Let's get going."
Kevin sleepily cocked one eye open to find a grinning Curt standing over him. For a moment, Kevin was disoriented about where he was and then it all came rushing back — the sheep, the caring shepherd, the storm, and the tent.
Kevin was also surprised that he was lying fully clothed — boots and all — on top of his sleeping bag.
"Man, I really crashed last night," Kevin half-groaned as he raised up to a sitting position.
"Yeah, we both did," replied Curt.
Kevin could feel the morning sun's heat already building up inside the tent. Kevin also noticed that the heat seemed to intensify the smell of the oils in the canvas; a smell that reminded Kevin of the canvas tarpaulin that his father used on occasion to cover items hauled in the back of the old Ford pickup.
He had a sudden inexplicable pang — he missed his father.
"What time is it?" Kevin asked, squinting at his wristwatch.