Curious Incident

I had noticed a hickory tree, on the way back in yesterday, near the base of the driveway, that was leaning in a different position than it had previously. After dinner, I was sitting out on the back steps, enjoying a smoke, having the last of the Single-Barrel whiskey Kim had brought. Late setting sun in glorious color, outrageous oranges and reds. Not really thinking about anything, poking between my teeth with my tongue, amazed that little flecks of meat could still be so flavorful, when a mournful rending sound echoed through the hollow. I knew it was a tree shattering and I knew specifically which tree. I'm pretty sure it was that hickory. It was leaning at a unsustainable angle, I had registered that. Ordinarily wouldn't find out for sure until I go out on Tuesday morning, but I might walk down tomorrow, just to see if I'm correct. It could be a different tree, fallen on the driveway, that B and I would need to address. These things happen. What was curious was that this specific time I was in position to hear it. A slow twisted rending. On a close night, when the fog was climbing up the ridge, it would be great to hear Stephen playing Cello Suite #6 about half-way up the driveway: it would sound so good. Like those natural amphitheaters along the Colorado. A ridge is always the product of two hollows, sound carries. I was hiking a slot canyon in southern Utah once, 100 degrees and zero humidity, and I heard water coming; I clambered up to a ledge that was maybe eight feet above the bottom of the slot. A sluice of water roared through, four feet deep, forty miles an hour, gone in a heartbeat, but if I hadn't heard it I would be dead, another victim of unexpected circumstance. As it happened, I was rolling a smoke, four feet above the torrent, not a care in the world. Just lucky to be there. Beautiful day on the ridge. Walking out to the truck for drinking water, though, netted three ticks. Plain yogurt with sun-warmed blackberries for breakfast, during the rest of the day, every couple of hours, I'd have a rib and a few bites of macaroni salad. Read through a pile of London Reviews, finished a Lee Child novel (how is Tom Cruise going to play a character who is 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 240 lbs ?), then some Carter material I'd brought home, along with a book on Grant Wood. A well-rounded day of reading. Did a word search through my archives, 'Janitor College', a raft of stuff, and if it were ever to be a book, the opening would be a wonderful page I wrote a few years ago, about Janus being the patron saint of janitors. I like it still.