The cool of the earth

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, and now perhaps they were no more.

But Dragons weren’t the only things that came and then slowly faded away.

Likely it was the flocks and herds that drew the beasts in the first place, but the years passed, and fewer animals vanished, fewer wildfires raged through the gullies, and fewer herdsmen went out to never return. But then, the years have seen other things dwindle; fewer cattle roam the steep valleys, and fewer men go out to seek them. Now there are only a handful that yet keep herds in the foothills, and those are a shadow of those that once thundered among the mountains.

Dragons are rarely thought of now; when a stray bull is sought and the herdsman must venture beyond the fences, his eyes flick to the sky as he crosses a clearing, just as he watches for loose boulders when passing beneath a cliff or seeks signs that a cave might be occupied before entering; a danger rarely encountered, but present. Indeed, most herdsman would no more be prepared to deal with a dragon than with sudden rockfall, or fangs in the darkness, so rarely are these dangers met, but still he checks.

This was not true Wild here, for roads had been cut through the mountains and the memory of man still lingered in ruined huts and crumbling tunnels. Here man still came to gaze on the wilderness and marvel at its wildness. He drove his rumbling wheels from the cities of the coast to the cities of the plains and spoke in passing awe of untamed things. But this was not true Wild. This was a wild that slunk about the camps of man in the shadows and gazed upon his dwellings in the night, that crept in when His lights grew dim and He slumbered, to snuffle at his leavings and to graze his fields beside his flocks. This was not the Wild that fled with flaring nostrils the rumour of His coming, but merely pricked its ears. This was not the Wild that died of longing in His pens and stables, but grew fat on His largess, for like Him, it had forgotten that life is more than a full belly.

And yet the true Wild was not so far away as He believed. He had grown accustomed to the tameness of the wild and thought it truly Wild, and so turned his mind to other things. His father’s yet had felt that urge that made him kin to Wild things, and some of them had driven deep into the mountains, and made their homes among them, where the Wild fought against him. But soon they turned their eyes again across the sea, and their ships streamed back across the waters. For war had come to the Old Country. When they returned, their minds were full of victory and of sorrow, and many who had left the Wild places came not back, while their brothers remembered only how they had driven off the Wild, and they thought of it no more. Had they not conquered? Had they not made roads to pass through the mountains to the fertile plains beyond? Had they not harvested the precious things of the wilderness and brought it to heel? So now they turned their eyes to their cities and their settled places, and the Wild began to return to the lands He had abandoned, thinking them secure, and as He passed through it and about it, thinking his hold on it remained, it began to forget him.

But that was long ago, and if those few that still remembered the Valley thought no more of it than a place to visit, or to pass through, and never wondered what lay beyond their islands of false-wild within it, then let them. If the memory of dragons and hardship kept them from venturing once more into the wilderness, then I would be free to do so unhindered, and so I would.

I had not forgotten. I wandered the bones of my forefathers lives as a child, and as I grew and life drew me ever more away from it, I never forgot it, and now at last I turn away from that life and seek to do as they had done before me; to go out into the forgotten places and make a life for myself in the country that I love.

I have always relished the first moments of returning to the valley. No matter how long since last I came, the feeling never lost its wonder. Vanishes the weariness that lay on me, all unfelt, of heat and sound and harsh scents, unnoticed until now as it begins to fade away. I step into the quiet like a pool and sink beneath the coolness of the trees. Smells closed over my head; of sharp sap and musty earth, the smoky smell of old fires wetted down by rain and under it all the faint sweetness of a quiet sinking into death; the slow rot of timber and bone settling into the long sleep.

There in the coolness and the dimness and the silence that isn’t silence, I feel myself waking, as though from a long sickness, to find that weakness is gone. Tiredness had lain in my bones so long that I had forgotten I had ever felt otherwise, but now it melts away and my limbs feel light, my mind free, and the smile that spreads across my face is one of unrestrainable contentment. I open my eyes and breathe deeply. Then, settling my pack, I set off again, my steps suddenly fresh and eager.

The valley I enter now is hardly more than a gully, the path of a small creek that joins a larger, that joins the river that finds the sea. And like the waterways the valleys run into greater valleys and the ridges climb to higher peaks. This is but a tributary of the Valley proper, and that great valley is only visible on maps, for to stand within its bounds is to lose sight of it among the ridges and the ravines that it holds; an entire land of cliffs and gullies, of rocky slopes and floodplains all contained by the mountains that divide the sea from the high plains.

My feet find their way with ease along the track, well known once and now remembered, as my eyes wander the landscape, ever old and ever new. For the woods were not always here either; this land had been cleared by farmers and herdsmen, miners and foresters a hundred years ago, and these trees that stood so ancient seeming now had grown since then, the tangled undergrowth of countless ages was in truth but newly sprung in the wake of washing floods and sweeping fires, and when I walked these ways as a child many trees were standing that now lay fallen or lean against their fellows, and many paths choked with brush had been clear and easy walking.

Time goes ever on, but its ravages are quickly undone by its renewing, and the ages pass.

The day passes as I ascend one ridgeline, only to descend along a spur to a new ravine, and while my eyes can see little difference between one dusty line of stones and grey branches and another, and each valley is much the same as the last, the slopes littered with scree and spindly shrubs, trees like old men cloaked in the rags of winters bark, and the stony water courses choked here and there with sandbars, the water clear as glass where it races laughing among the boulders, or pooling deep and dark beneath the trees like black ice, it is not a sameness drear and tedious, but an ever renewing familiarity. And the downward road is ever like that first; the welcome coolness as the stark and weary forests grow green and fresh beside the water. Rich brown banks thick with ferns and growing things, or dappled cathedral halls in miniature where the Stone-Trees grow like pillars, thin and straight, far apart and carpeting the ground with leaves that only their saplings rise from, their canopies dim and solemn above, their boles patched with grey and green like mossy granite.

The valleys begin to grow cooler as the sun lowers in the west, and the vigour I had felt begins to wane. My mind is filled with the things I had not thought to bring with me; the many small pleasures that one looks forward to at the closing of the day, and even some things that none would willingly be without which I had, in my eagerness, forgotten. I think of sleeping quarters, which this morning had seemed of little importance, for was not the earth a gentle bed and the heavens a soft covering? Now, as chill settles into the valleys and the ground beneath my feet seems harder with every step, I realise I had brought no tools for making fire, and the blanket I had thought so thick and warm in the sun by the sea, grows thinner in my mind and the wind colder on my skin.

I had planned to rest in a hut that still stands on a hilltop nearby, but charred trunks and virulent growth told me that even had I seen it with my own eyes but last year, I would likely not find it now, should it still be standing, and I had not even a map to show its place.

As I descend again from a low ridge, the sun still bright at its top, though giving little warmth and sinking with every step, I resolve to find as good a place to camp as I might by the water in this next valley, which seems less steep and I hope the trees might yet remember the cattlemen, for once there had been clearings of soft grass by nearly every ford in the mountains.

The track bends snakelike across the slope, and at the final bend before the crossing I see a large black bird, like a crow but with a spot or two of white flashing now and again as it hops about the ground. It must hear me and wings away with a cry, but it flies only a little way to sit perched on a limb of the tree eyeing me as I approach.

I stop where the path turns by a tree and watch the bird curiously, It is a Gern; one of those kind that dwell in the mountains and are said to live long lives. They are larger than most, but for the great lords of the air, and often appear in old stories where their wisdom and helpfulness to man is lauded. They are not uncommon, wherever the mountains are still to be seen in the distance, and I have ever been glad to see them, for their song is filled with a yearning that echoes my own hearts longing when I see the mountains blue against the horizon.

“Hullo old man, what are you looking for?”

My eyes search the ground where the leaves have been scratched aside in a hollow of the tree roots

“Looking for dinner? I’m beginning to think of it myself you know, what’s that?”

I slowly approach the place, talking gently, and kneel down on the leaf litter. There, where the leaves piled up year after year and rotted into a rich loam, grew a little spindly bush, with grey green leaves and pale-yellow berries.

I recognised the plant from books I had read; it had many names, the ones I knew given by the pioneers that loved its strange, rejuvenating fruit, so welcome to those that cut lumber for the cities, or followed the herds to their high pastures.

“Is this what you were her for old fellow?”

As I brush away the leaf mold a beetle scurries away in fear and the bird darts down to snatch it up.

“I see, you were looking for your dinner, I didn’t think you would be keen on berries, but I’ll take some and see if I can find you some more grubs eh?”

The black and white head cocked questioningly; yellow eyes fixed on his own. For a moment. Then the bird shook itself, cawed impatiently and flicked its gaze to the ground meaningfully.

“Haha, alright, I’ll get to work then. Here you are, a good fat one!”

I flick the white creeper-worm upward, soft and pale against the leaf mould as it arcs towards the tree limb where my feathered accomplice sits waiting. The yellow eyes follow it closely as the small body flies twisting through the air, until, as it passes close by, the sharp beak snaps out; ‘snick’.

“Ha! Well caught!”

I leave the Gern to its meal and begin to pick the hard-skinned berries, enough of them lie among the fallen leaves in various stages of decomposition that I feel no need to leave any on the thin branches, shivering and shaking as my hands rustle among them. I know that the leaves can also be used for a tea that brings sound sleep, and the root can be chewed, but is more potent a medicine that the berries or the leaves, though whether the root works to quieten or enliven the body I do not know. I decide to leave the bush in its haven between the buttressing roots of the spreading River-Apple, a rare garden in so stony a place, the larger tree leaning outward, over the edge of the ravine, its branches stretching to the sun and hanging over the water that races and burbles across stones below. The mighty roots driven deeply, splitting the mountains bones and creeping between them, seeking out nourishment and gripping the rocky slope firmly, bracing the great tree against time and winter floods.

I give the soil another going over, but no more crawling things reveal themselves

“Sorry old man, that’s the lot. I guess I’ll see you around”

The ford is wide and shallow, floored with round stones that would make for easy footing, but I am loathe to spend a night with wet feet. Seeking upstream, I find a place where the water is less wide and splashes about some boulders. The light being yet sufficient for such acrobatics, I cross from stone to stone and so came dry to the other side. As I return to the ford and the path, along the waters edge I pass under a young tree of the kind known as the ‘Fishermans Friend’, for its low branches that hang far out over the water. This one is young and its greatest bough yet thin, but I had at least remembered my angling gear, planning to stretch my supplies by means of it. My attention is then caught, as I reach the track once more and see that the trees had indeed been cleared at the bend of the road. But more immediate, through the remaining brush as I round the corner I see the light of a fire.

“Hullo the camp!”

I call, not loudly, for the day is nearing its end and I find the empty camp strange, for someone has been here, but I can see no one about, though saddlebags lie at the foot of a tree near the fire. I set my own pack down across from the strangers and look about, stretching stiff muscles even as the sweat dries chill on my back. Calling again and receiving no response, I gather some wood and feed the fire, which I can see has been not long alight and indeed is near to dying when I find it. Still no one comes. At last, the light failing, I think to try for some dinner and, leaving my gear by the fire, well fuelled, and taking a leather bucket from my absent companions’ bags, I set off with hook and line for the stream.

I have caught two small fish of some kind I don’t recognise in the dimness and a third begins to tug at my line when a loud snort startles me, catching at the narrow branch I sit on to keep my seat, I turn sharply and see a large shape pawing the ground and snorting angrily at the foot of the tree. At first, I think it a horse, and that the unknown inhabitant of the camp has returned, but the dark outline of horns reveal it to be a raw-boned bull.

“Hello one-horn” I call, for I saw that one of its horns is broken. “Have I taken your fishing place?”

The bull snorts at me and sets a hoof on the low branch that holds me over the water, causing me to bounce uncomfortably, the bucket with my catch still secure with its handle hooked over a branch.

It seems the beast is will climb out to me, so strangely does it behave, but just as it raises its other fore-leg, the branch dipping and swaying as its weight settles onto it, my yet dry feet descending rapidly to the water, a sharp whistle sounds from up the track and the hooves clatter on stones as a mounted figure gallops toward us. The bulls head sways about and it set first one hoof down and then, making to lift its other from the branch, the sharp hoof slips and the leg is caught over the branch so that it hobbles there, bawling in indignity and unable to flee as a rope flies over its head.

The rider speaks, seemingly to the now well secured animal.

“Well, well old fellow, I never knew you to be a fisherman, but here I see you, with the branch of a tree as your pole, having made yourself a fine catch! Come down little fish, I’ve tied old One-Horn tight and he must now content himself with grass and water for his dinner”

I laugh and respond cheerfully, the fish still snared on the end of my line pulling and splashing as I do

“Gladly, for I see that you catch no fish with your line. But what I have caught I may share if you will share fire to cook it.”

“A fire warms two as well as one, and this one would welcome fresh food. I have been following this old skin-and-bones for longer than I had thought to and my stores run low.”

My catch dangling from one hand and the bucket, filled, from the other, I return to shore while the stranger relieves his mount of its harness and sets it to graze on the sparse but soft grass. While I set the fish to cooking and my companion fills a small black kettle we watch each other, as it were, from the corners of our eyes. He is a little older than I, and his profession clear, but I wonder what he makes of me. We sit staring into the fire for a while before the stranger looks up.

“So, what brings you out here? Myself, I’ve been rounding up a mob that went missing after a fire, most of them came back, but this old moss-back and his friends decided they liked their freedom too much, so I came looking for them. I was just setting up camp when I heard him down at the creek, but he led me a merry chase before giving me the slip. I can tell you I’m glad you distracted him, He’s the wiliest one of the lot, and the last I had to catch. It’s home for me and Chim in the morning, and for old One-Horn.”

I shift the fish in the coals before replying warily.

“I’m following the Old Gorge Trail”

He looks surprised

“I didn’t know anyone still knew about it in town, though I suppose there’s not many left up here that know about it either. But that only leads to the old Horse Flats, what do you want to go out there for?”

I shrug

“I’ve read a lot of old stories about it, so I thought I’d see what it was like”

He nods slowly, both of our gazes returning to the flames and our thoughts wandering far away

“that’s true, A lot of things happened out there.”

We eat in silence, fish on bread baked in the coals, nothing more than flour and water and meat, but hunger is, as they say, the best sauce, and we sit listening to the animals graze and the water chuckling.

He sighs contentedly

“I’d give a lot for a good hot cup of tea, but I ran out a few days ago. Oh well, tomorrow there will be tea and a soft bed.”

I remember the leaves in my pocket and draw them out

“How about some Corellus? I’ve never tried it, but I’ve heard its almost as good as tea”

He whistles in surprise

“That’s more like it, hand me some of those leaves and I’ll put the kettle on eh? These look fresh, where did you find them? I haven’t seen any Sawsberry for a long while.”

I empty my pocket and pass the contents into his eager hands, he sorts the few berries out and hands them back to me before crumbling the leaves into the pot

“You’d better keep those if you plan on tramping around out at Horse Flats, its steep country out there. How does a town boy know about Sawyers Berry? You called it Corellus? so, let me guess, you read about it right? You can be glad my grandad didn’t hear you say it was ‘almost’ as good as tea. At least you knew what it was, but you’d better be careful eating berries out here, they aren’t all good for you”

I laugh at his sudden chatter

“To be honest, I’m glad you knew what they were, I wasn’t quite certain myself. An old Gern showed me where to find them”

I grin mischievously as he shakes his head in disbelief

“A Gern showed you…”

“Well, I think he was more interested in what was crawling around it, but I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t seen him.”

Setting the pot to boil in the coals he settles down cross legged and gives me a strange look.

“So. What are you really up to out here? You aren’t some city kid out for a jaunt in the woods, you know all about the place, sort of, but you still decided to head out her all alone, on foot?.”

I lift my hands and shrug

“Well, as for walking, I’m afraid ‘Shanks’ is the only pony I have. As to who and why, I grew up not too far from the hill country, I spent a lot of time as a child exploring the old mines and such near my home. As I got older, I wanted to know more about the people that made them, so I read everything I could find about the old mountain men, and the more I found out, the more I wanted to do it myself. If they could, then so could I.”

He nods thoughtfully as I speak, his eyes returning to the fire and his chin sinking into his hand. When I finish talking, he looks up at me.

I can see that he wants to say something, but finally he just shakes his head and grins.

He pours out some tea into his tin cup and drinks it eagerly, then rinses it and fills it again, handing it to me.

The drink is bitter and gritty, but pleasantly hot and as I hand the cup back I feel the weariness of the day become a welcome tiredness.

“Do you know the story about Corellus?”

I ask and He shakes his head, setting the pot out of the way and banking up the fire

“Some native legend you mean?”

“I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell how old it is, anyway, the story goes that this girl loved the mountains so much that she spent all her time wandering through them, until one day she comes across this man who is fleeing some people. There are versions where he’s a thief being chased by the farmers he stole from, and some where he is the farmer being chased by thieves. But either way, they fall in love at first sight. Only, one of the pursuers catches up to him while they are talking, and there’s a fight, during which the girl is wounded and the attacker gets killed. So, as she’s dying, she says something romantic and meaningful, then she dies and turns into this plant, Corellus, which means something like ‘Hearts-Ease’. He eats the berries and has his strength restored so that he can escape his pursuers, the end.”

He shakes his head and gets up to retrieve his saddlebags and bedding, and I set out my own blankets.

“Yeah. A lot of those old stories end like that. Well, we’d better get some sleep, old Chim’ll wake us up if anything happens. He won’t wander, he knows where his oats come from.”

As we settle down for the night, he props himself up on his elbow and looks at me.

“You know, if you ever do get settled up there, you might need some help, don’t you think? There’d be a good piece of work to do”

“I don’t see that it would hurt” I reply

He nods and sinks back down.

I sleep soundly that night, though towards dawn a strange dream of grey ghosts moving in the mist almost wakes me, but their muffled steps soon fade away and I sleep until bright morning wakens me. The fire is dead and the clearing is empty but for a little black pot of cold tea.

The last leg of the trail, almost hidden from the road where it strikes off down a spur of the ridge, takes me down again to another dry bed of a nameless watercourse, where it continues along slopes and up gullies, rising gently for a long time before cutting down across the slopes of a steep ravine, but my vision is ever filled with thick green growth that hides the ridges, and all I see are the suggestions of hills or valleys to either side as I go along. Finally, the last gully flattens and the thin rivulet dives beneath soil instead of racing over stones, and the ravine opens up, the trees falling away to reveal wide floodplains bordered by seeming miniature ranges with their own ridges and valleys all contained between the great cliffs on two sides that run away to left and right along the valley of the river proper that winds through the mountains to the sea.

I follow a stream to the river and walk the still cleared paddocks, though grown over with shrub there remain spots of grassy clearing to show where the herds once grazed. After a time of breaking a path through the brush by the river, I come to a place where the remains of walls and fences show amidst the verdure of the years. I decide that this old homestead will serve as my base of operations while I survey my domain; wandering the gullies and climbing the hills, or fishing, swimming and lazing by the water. Days pass and I know I must soon return to the world, if for no other reason than for the tools and supplies I will need to sustain me while I clear the land once more and begin to work it.

The day before I must begin my return journey, I decide to follow a small stream, its water clear as snow melt and near as cold, sharp with the taste of a spring deep in the rock. Its path winds around small hills of white stone, shattered by a fire not too long ago, the round slopes like skulls black with soot and green with new growth that grows rank and eager, thick as moss and higher than my head, so that I keep to the waters course where the going is easier. After most of the morning spent slowly climbing towards the cliffs this side of the river, the creek bed meets a gully that runs upward between two white hills, and for a while I stand there beside the deep runnel in the rocks, almost hidden among the tall yellow grass, resting my limbs, and searching the mass of young trees for the head of the gully, where I am sure lies the spring. There, where the mossy marble robe of the hills folds inward, as my eyes follow the cutting of the waters path upward to that point, I see a thin column of soft white smoke, rising into the pale blue sky.