If I developed a fixation that summer it had to do with the runway (photo above taken from runway). George and I decided we should work an hour each day. The project started as a way to fill time, of which we had a surplus. It soon became something more for me, and it might have been the same with George, though we never talked about it. Neither of us missed our stint at the shovel, even on rainy days. There is a rhythm to wilderness. Digging the earth in solitude, without traffic noise, or other civilized distractions can produce a beat similar to the tempo of music, and its just as hypnotic. I’d get to the runway and begin my daily symphony with shovel in hand; push the blade in with the foot, crank the handle down, heave the load to the side. Push, crank, heave. Push, crank, heave. And before long I would be lost in the rhythm while revisiting things I thought I‘d long ago forgotten.
One day the hum of an airplane roused me from my revelry. I turned to see Ken’ Super Cub (photo above). Instead of coming in low, on final approach, he was adding throttle and banking to the right. The plane swooped over head and made a shallow dive toward a clump of willow thirty yards from me.
A brown bear shot from the thicket and started running up the hill. It was large and seemed to have an unusually long body. Ken (photo above) buzzed it, circled, and buzzed it again. I can still see that bear looking over its shoulder at the Super Cub as the plane’s wheels passed just above its head. The bear disappeared over the hill with Ken in hot pursuit.I was amazed to find the bear had been that close. I had toiled in silence, shoveling for nearly an hour. The patch of willow stood alone in open country. Was it there all the time or had it moved in while I was digging? What was its intention? Curiosity? Or perusing the local menu?
GO TO: Part 6, The ground squirrel
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