I reached the crest of the mountain after lunch, sweating in the August heat and humidity even at such a high elevation, with the misty clouds burned away. I keyed off the bike and sat, listening to the hot metal pinging, my booted feet on the stony earth, breathing in the mist, letting it fill my lungiv>fill mys, my heart fluttering like a bird caught in a too-tight fist. Letting memory and reality merge.
The air was noticeably thinner, and the smells of hemlock, pine, fir, maple, and oak were stronger than the lingering smell of bike exhaust. Clouds were thickening in the east, and I knew there would be rain soon.
I stepped off the bike, locked it to a tree with a length of chain, hid my helmet in a pile of bracken, and grabbed up my supplies, sliding them into the backpack. And I walked off the two-track trail to the top of Horseshoe Rock. Standing in the lowering clouds, their mist snaking over the ridge and down into the valley below, I looked out over the world.
Horseshoe Rock was bigger than I had expected. Too big to see its scale in photographs. Bigger than the grandstand in a coliseum. Bigger than Horseshoe Falls in Canada. Bigger than anything I could ever remember seeing. Yet it was familiar. I had been here before. Several . . . no. Many times.
The sensation of a pelt rubbing against my flesh and bones grew. Rippling, uncomfortable. My breath sped, my heart tripping.
I walked the rock, sure-footed, as a thin rain began to fall. Thunder rumbled overhead. The misty drizzle damped my clothes, sticking them to me. Wet seeped into my braid and trickled along my scalp, adding weight to the long plait. I raised my face to the rain. Unlike the other girls in the group home, I had never cared whether I got rain-wet, because I didn’t wear much makeup and my hair had never been styled. It was black and straight, hanging way past my hips, worn most often in braids; rainwater didn’t cause me the problems it did the more socially upscale, high-maintenance girls.
Now, wet and uncaring, I walked all along the upper ridge of the rock, seeing the surface shapes that had caused such arguments among archeologists.
The cliff was marked with ridges of hard rock, veins of whiter marble, harder than the surrounding gray granite, standing up just a bit higher, running across the curvature like multiple spines ridging the stone. And it was pitted . . . .The pits were all uniform in direction, falling from the top of the stone across the almost-flat side, perpendicular to the marble spines, and down, down, around the curve of the mountain, like tears of rain and pain. Every single pit was flat bottomed, level, and nearly perfectly circular, though the sizes of each pit trail were different. Some tracks were small, starting the size of a Coke bottle bottom and falling away to holes no bigger than a quarter. Some began the size of a large can of . . . of ravioli, descending to the size of a can of cola. Always larger at the top and growing smaller as they trailed across and down the stone to disappear under the curve of the rock.
Moss grew so thickly in the shaded areas that it was like piled carpets in overlapping shades of green from nearly black to nearly white. A flash of lightning forked across the sky. I looked up, into the face of the brewing storm, violence all around me. Drops of rain pelted my face, cold, washing away my sweat. I shivered.
With a sudden roar, the drizzle increased to a true rain, beating the trees and leaves with a hollow patter, slamming against the bare stone, kicking up into the air ah="to the gain, and cascading back into rivulets, rushing down the bowed rock face, through the pathways of pitted depressions, across the ridged spines, down the mountain, splashing and gurgling, as if the earth drank down the rain.
I followed the downward movement with my eyes and then with my feet, to the far right where scrub grew, dropping fast from Horseshoe Rock, away from the stable flatter stone to the deep earth and down, sliding and slipping below the curve of the broad cliff face into a narrow gorge. Loping with a gait that felt odd in the hiking boots, I splashed through runnels and rills and slipped through muddy depressions. Leaves tossed pooled rain at me; branches whipped me.
I opened my mouth, scenting, pulling in the world with a harsh sucking sound. My breath came fast, almost painfully, in gasps that resounded off the trees and filled my head with partial memories. I have been here. I have been here. Home . . .
The elevation fell away, quickly and furiously, trees and leaves and ferns flashing past as I followed the water down. A deer froze off to the side, and I slowed. Crouched. Stopped. Fixed her with a steady stare. Her scent flooded my mouth and body, and I started to salivate, staring at her. I panted, studying the doe. I don’t know what she saw in my gaze, but she whirled and bounded over a fallen tree, moving fast, uphill. My muscles tensed, bunching tight, as if to follow. I held myself still, hands gripping the boles of saplings to either side.
Meat! the voice said.