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Torrent echoes of sorrow 24/1/2023 In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. ![]() In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. ![]() What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming mêlée of wagging tails and playful maulings. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them. Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day. Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet. ![]() Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. Thinking Like a Mountain A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night.
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