|
Brown-consolidated
By paleeoguy
In the Badlands, in a hilly, boulder-strewn coulee, the sun burned the ground. Green sage plants clung to the steep, banded sides of the gorge, their thin, brittle branches motionless; the small, pale blue leaves curling from the heat. A few clusters of cactus dotted tops of the coulee walls, hidden among scarce nests of sweet grass. There were also clutches of yucca plants, a thing that quite resembles the top of a pineapple, but is considerably larger.
The flat rocks on the slopes absorbed the intense radiation and their surfaces became hot. Below the boulders, though, in their shadows, it was cool enough to offer a comfortable refuge for prairie rattlesnakes, jackrabbits, and field mice.
The heat did not bother all creatures, though. Grasshoppers snapped their lacy wings through the still air, dancing, seeming to jump back and forth from invisible steps in the great, blue sky. Bugs clicked and buzzed, birds chirped, and a hawk circled in the sky above, rising on thermal updrafts.
The air was tranquil. It had not moved in a while. It sat there, in place, motionless. It stewed and sweltered in a stationary spot, absorbing the warmth reflected off the ground. Finally, after the ground had hardened enough, after its surface had baked dry, the hot air rose. Slowly to begin, but steadily faster and faster, until it was lifted from beneath by a cool breeze that shot like an arrow across the land. The grass bent, the yucca rustled, and the grasshoppers fell to the ground.
The cool air rushed over the ground, rolling and pushing over every surface until it fingered the very edge of the coulee. Then, like a lead weight the breeze fell, hard and heavy into the coulee. It ramped and bucked on the walls and the floor. It twisted and lurched, blowing dust and pebbles into the air. It blew past a small hare that was recessed in a hole, spread on the cool dirt. The creature squint her eyes until the wild wind had passed. Onward the rush of air went, blasting bits of rock off the walls, tossing flies end over end until, finally, it pitched out of the gorge and disappeared into the great, wide horizon beyond, and the hot air fell, again, onto the land.
“Why does it have to be so hot?!” complained a tall, young man. “Is it always this hot here?”
A small group of men walked in single file through a tall grass field. It was silent for a moment; a voice from the back of the line spoke up, “You’re not the only one who minds the weather here. It’d be doing me and the rest a favor if you kept to your self about it. We all know it’s warm, and we don’t need reminding.” The man’s voice was not harsh.
“Yeah,” he sighed, “I’m sorry.” He pulled the back of his gloved hand along his eyebrows, not doing much good to remove sweat. The glove was already saturated.
“Nothin’ to be sorry about, son, but sorry it’s hot.”
A small line of men navigated the top of a knife edged ridge. Like ants marching, they followed along a trail, single file. There were five men walking together. The red haired man was at the back of the line, a stride or two behind. He wore a brown cowboy hat. It had a wide brim that curled at the sides, and a leather chord that dangled to the side. Everyone called him Tucker. His real name was Jonas Tilbert, but people just called him Tucker.
It was a hot day in Montana, and the lack of breeze or shade from passing clouds kept that in mind. They all looked somewhat similar to each other, wearing broad brimmed hats of some kind or another, sunglasses too. Most had denim jeans and hiking boots, with knap sacks slumped over their shoulders. They were a tiny speck, traversing the sea-like plains of eastern Montana.
The group had followed a deer trail for most of the first part of their hike, when it could get them where they wanted, but now they forged their way through briar patches and tall grass covered hills, heading northeast until their path finally flattened out.
The leader of the group was a balding, dark haired man of 52. He was short, but burly from days past of fighting wild fires in eastern South Dakota. He had a long, geometrically triangular nose which provided the foundation for a pair of wire frame glasses that sat in front of inky black eyes. His name was Scott Chapman, and he was, effectively, the group’s leader. He had organized this outing and had selected the candidates for the job.
Chapman lead the bunch over a large, flat plain of sweet grass for close to twenty minutes, and kept on the as the land began to raise. They were almost there.
“How much longer do we have...until we get to the site, Scott?” The same young man asked, obviously out of breath.
“Boy, you’re sure a bucket mouth, you know that?” Chapman seemed amused. “You grow up with a lot of sisters? ‘Cause you sure do talk.”
The rest of the group laughed. They were all older men…and he was the youngest. Andrew Lewis was only 20 years old.
Chapman soon forgot the humor, though, when he spotted the trail of a vehicle’s tires in the grass before him. Oh, Christ, he thought, this is just what I need…BLM. He had suspected that the Bureau of Land Management might occasionally patrol this area, but the last thing he needed were to see tracks in the grass, and they weren’t old.
“Gentlemen, let’s keep a sharp eye out.” He reminded his group soberly.
The line traversed through the grass as it sloped up eventually into a large, broad hillside. The incline grew and lengthened for what seemed to be eternity to the screaming legs of the hikers, but the last reserves of energy they had finally managed to push them to the top of the hill. There, they collapsed in the grass, gasping for air.
Then, suddenly, a tsunami of cool air rushed through them. It chilled thier foreheads and flapping shirts, and tried to lift the hats off their heads. For the briefest of minutes, the group felt relief from the mid summer day's dreary heat.
9/26/2003 8:21:18 PM
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
