Two For One

I've been riding for days and my horse is gettin tired. Horace is his name but he prefers to be called Hank. Don't ask why, that's just the way he is sometimes. We took a wrong turn somewhere in New Mexico and by that I mean that we thought it was our turn to have the bank's money. Turns out they thought otherwise. It seems like I've been wrong a lot lately. Hank thinks so too.

I don't know when it was but somewhere between awhile ago and a little after that Hank and I crossed paths and decided to travel the same one for awhile. He was old then but I guess I was too so there's really no reason to talk about that. Now we're just older. I think his age shows more than mine. He disagrees but what do horses know. What I know is that our saddlebags are full of money and if we can make it to Montanna then we'll both give up the old life and start an easier one. Open a lodge for fishin and huntin maybe. We've got a long way to go.

Right now we're winding our way through the Sangre de Cristo mountains and all I can say is thank God Himself it's not winter. I didn't think we'd make it this far but even Hank knows this would've been the end of the road if there was snow. Lucky. It's still a little early in the year and the trees are still holdin a few leaves, but not many. You never know with these mountains. I guess you never know with anything.

There's a pass just a few miles ahead that I know of but not many other people do. A friend of mine showed it to me once. You could say he kinda hides out up here now and then. That's all I'm gonna say about it. If he's still up here I'm thinkin I might see if he's up for Montana too. Maybe we'll make it across the state line this time.

They call it the Land of Enchantment. Capital letters and everything. I don't know much about enchantments or things of that nature but I can agree that there's somethin about this place that's hard to explain. Sometimes I wake up in the mornin and watch the sun come up thinkin that places like this are why people write poetry. I've never heard any that could do this place justice but I'm sure people have tried. I don't think they've got the words for it though. There's just too much to put into letters on a piece of paper.

That desert down near the Guadalupes doesn't care for men one bit and it'll kill you if you're not careful but you'll never see a sunset like that without believing in God. I don't mean that might offend Him either. There's just no other way to explain it.

If you wait till the snow starts falling and come up into these mountains you'll understand silence. Purity. Beauty. It's like a beautiful woman with her best dress on and all she wants you to do is look at her. She won't talk and you shouldn't either. If you close your eyes you can hear her breathe. Barely. Her cool touch takes your breath away. When you're with her it's like no other place in the world or if there is then it doesn't really seem to matter anymore. She doesn't care who you are or what you've done. She doesn't even care if you look or if you know she exists. She's hard to leave. Every time.

If you ride through the north part of the state like you're comin from Durango do it in the spring. Not so late that all the green is finished coming back but not so early that it hasn't started yet. Do it sometime in between there. If you time it right you'll see some of the best reasons to be alive. You can watch storms roll off the mountains or crash up against 'em like the sky and the earth or goin to war with each other. The lightning comes so close together that the thunder never stops until well after you've fallen asleep despite the noise. Sometimes there's so much lightning that you could imagine it's day and the sun is just flickerin a little. The storms are the best though when they're just marching across the plains right at you so that there's no mountains to block the view. Sometimes the clouds are so black and ugly that you think you may not live through that one but sometimes a man just gets lucky. It's amazing how some of the most terrifying things can be the most beautiful. That's the time of year the wildflowers are just gettin started, the rivers and streams are startin to swell, and everything that's been sleeping starts to wake up. Go out there sometime, someplace where you can't see any people or any of the things that they made, and just sit on the ground. Stop thinkin, stop listenin, stop trying to do anying. If you just sit, and just feel, you can sometimes feel yourself wakin up along with the world all around you. It's hard to say much better than that.

The truth is that Hank and I get into trouble pretty often and find ourselves headin to Montana almost as often. We almost never make it past the border and if we do then usually we just stop in Durango for awhile and wait for spring to start up again. This place gets into your head and grabs ahold of your heart and just won't let go. She won't let go.

After an hour or so we get to that pass in the mountains I mentioned earlier. Hank stops walkin and starts grazin. He won't go any further and so I guess he's tired of walkin. I guess I am too. We never do get very far and besides all that the law stopped chasin us days ago. We just like it up here.

If you hold your head just right and wait for a breeze you can smell snow on the air.