Butte Dream
Dec. 12th, 2006 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaI was involved with a man whose wife had left him. He sought my company for comfort and companionship. We'd been friends before, but I was hesitant to go in the direction he was pushing the relationship because I felt like he was still hung up on his wife.
He begged me to come out riding with him. He'd been working on a ranch and had access to horses. We planned to pak out into the wilderness several days via horseback. After a few days of travel, we came to a free-standing butte in the middle of the prairie (not unlike Pawnee Nat'l Grasslands). With the help of climbing equipment, we hoisted ourselves to the top where there was a view of the prairie stretching for miles, more sky than grass.
It was getting towards the end of the day, he said it was time to climb down to and make camp. So he made his way down, taking the rope with him. Then he tied the lead for my horse to his and rode off, leaving me stranded on top of the butte, miles from anywhere, with nothing but the clothes on my back.
"What happened?" I called after him. "Why are you leaving me?"
"My wife's coming back," he yelled back at me. "I didn't know how to break it to you." And he was gone. Standing on the top of the butte, with the sun low in the sky, I watched his dust fade into the horizon.
I don't know how to explain the heat or dryness of the high prairie. The hearty flowers that grow out of rocks. The abundance of rattlesnakes (often living in crevices in the rocks, definitely a hazard when climbing a butte) or that these rock formations are often the nesting grounds for raptors in a place where the only trees are usually scrubby and low to the ground. One doesn't really need climbing equipment, just a lot of grit to get up and down one of these things, but for all that, it might have been a solitary tower with no stairs and no door.
There is also no way to describe the way the heat evaporates at the end of the day. The stillness, or emptiness of the landscape. How cold it gets, or how numerous the stars. Or dry, interminable hushing sound of wind on brittle grass.
He begged me to come out riding with him. He'd been working on a ranch and had access to horses. We planned to pak out into the wilderness several days via horseback. After a few days of travel, we came to a free-standing butte in the middle of the prairie (not unlike Pawnee Nat'l Grasslands). With the help of climbing equipment, we hoisted ourselves to the top where there was a view of the prairie stretching for miles, more sky than grass.
It was getting towards the end of the day, he said it was time to climb down to and make camp. So he made his way down, taking the rope with him. Then he tied the lead for my horse to his and rode off, leaving me stranded on top of the butte, miles from anywhere, with nothing but the clothes on my back.
"What happened?" I called after him. "Why are you leaving me?"
"My wife's coming back," he yelled back at me. "I didn't know how to break it to you." And he was gone. Standing on the top of the butte, with the sun low in the sky, I watched his dust fade into the horizon.
I don't know how to explain the heat or dryness of the high prairie. The hearty flowers that grow out of rocks. The abundance of rattlesnakes (often living in crevices in the rocks, definitely a hazard when climbing a butte) or that these rock formations are often the nesting grounds for raptors in a place where the only trees are usually scrubby and low to the ground. One doesn't really need climbing equipment, just a lot of grit to get up and down one of these things, but for all that, it might have been a solitary tower with no stairs and no door.
There is also no way to describe the way the heat evaporates at the end of the day. The stillness, or emptiness of the landscape. How cold it gets, or how numerous the stars. Or dry, interminable hushing sound of wind on brittle grass.
