* * *

        "You think God lets all them old famous artists take a turn a paintin' the sunsets?   I asked Dominick as we rode horseback towards the colored horizon.
        "On a night like tonight I'd be inclined to think so.   Said my half cousin.
        In truth we didn't have any blood relation.  Dominick was Native American and I am not.  My great uncle had adopted Dominick and his sister when their parents had perished in a car accident.  We treated each other like family and so we were. 
        Deep summer had settled in southwestern Utah, and Dominick and I were where we always were that time of year: trapping fur in the middle of nowhere.  We liked the open range west of Milford, there was little out there, little to attract anyone but Dominick and I.
        "You suppose Rembrandt painted this one tonight?  Asked Dominick
        I chuckled to myself, "What do you know about Rembrandt?"
        "I know lots about him,  said Dominick. "He was, well, one of them famous painters you was going on about."
        "Easy Dom, I'm not trying to ruffle your feathers."
        "You think you know more than I do.  Sometimes that gets under my skin a little."
        "It ain't that at all.  I don't think myself better than you; I just think you should attend school more than you do."
        "My Pa's been talkin' to you again, hasn't he?"
        "He worries about you.  Hell, he just wants the best for ya."
        "Well, school ain't it.  All I need to know I've learned out here."
        Dominick kicked up his horse and rode hard to the West.  It was the end of that conversation.  I knew most people thought Dominick to be a rebellious boy, a school dropout and a millstone around my great uncle's neck, but watching him ride bareback with his long black hair bouncing in the breeze, I saw the iconic figure of what I wanted to be.  It wasn't rebellious or bad, it was a simple desire to be unfettered by the ideas others would impose upon us, to truly be free. 
        Dusk had settled as I caught up to Dominick, who was already stoking our campfire.  I tied my horse alongside his and pulled the cottontails we had shot from my saddlebag.
        "Dom, you never mind what I said.  You and I were just born a couple of hundred years too late."
        Dominick smiled and said, "I'm not sore, just hungry.  Toss me them rabbits would ya."        
        It wasn't long before our bellies were full and we were comfortable beneath our little lean-to in spite of the storm we could feel rolling in.  That brilliant sunset had been a thunderhead boiling up out of the blue horizon.  Somewhere around two or three in the morning things got wet.          "You still think Rembrandt painted this sky?"        
        "Na, it must have been someone who worked with watercolor."
        We rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, but it was in vain. Dominick had it worst of all.  Water had run into his bedroll, and by the time it was light enough to move about, a chill had settled into Dom's bones.  All morning he sat by the fire, but he never could seem to shake the cold. His health began to suffer and together we decided it would be best for him start riding back to town.  I would have gone with him except for a solemn promise I had made to my grandfather.  He had taught both Dominick and I a lot about hunting and trapping, a lot about hunting ethics.  In spite of the weather and Dominick's condition, we still had a few traps that needed to be collected before our trip was over.  We could not leave an animal to suffer and still look grandfather in the eye, so when the rain broke, Dominick headed for home and I pressed further to the west.  By mid-afternoon, my goal was in sight: Indian Peak.
        A particularly remote and lonesome place, the mountain range was the location of a native reservation in the years when my grandfather was a young man.  He had known the chief and had often helped the small tribe top sugar beats before winter.  He had told me that the chief frequently lamented that the land there was bad.  I suppose they protested enough that the reservation was finally moved.  Now all that remained was an old weathered schoolhouse that the government had built and the name of the craggy peak poking out above the timberline: the Big Indian.
        The weather was not improving when I reached my traps.  They had been set high on the east side of the peak near a little spring that bubbled up from beneath a rock.  The water was clear and pure collecting in a little pool.  It not only afforded a spot to fill up my canteen, but a fine place to set the traps.  I had snared a coyote that had come to water, and by the time I had the hide set it was getting late.  I would not be able to make it off the mountain before dark, and so with no real concern other than a cold night, I set about searching for a spot to make up a little camp. 
        The rain was no more than a drizzle, though it was enough to make one miserable.  I wandered my way into a thick grove of aspens, stark white trunks like pillars holding a canopy of quaking green aloft.  It wasn‘t quite as wet under the shelter of those leaves and so I decided to set up my tarp in the grove.  Within an hour I was dry and warming myself beside a small fire I had coaxed into existence.  My horse stood tied beside my little lean-to.
        "Sorry ol' boy, but there is barely enough room under this thing for me,  I said. 
        My horse just blinked his eyes and snorted in disgust.  I believed he understood what I was saying, having traveled many miles over many years and being my only companion; we had worked out an odd form of communication.
        "This was the best I could find.  Besides, you'll be home tomorrow and I'll give you some sweet alfalfa."
        A stomp of the hoof and the nod of his head told me that would be fine.  I spent the last trailing moments of daylight looking for damp kindling to dry beside the fire and then I settled in for the night.  
        Tugging at a piece of jerky, I sat beneath my shelter staring into the embers.  There is nothing more magical than fire.  The coals are like crumbling towers and fiery caverns where imagination can play, leaping about amongst the licking flames.   I could gaze all night at a fire and never tire of it.  It seemed to hold a secret and arcane power that captivated my mind.  I tossed a few more sticks upon the coals before slipping into the relative comfort of my bedroll.  Lying there for a few moments more, I felt my eyelids grow heavy and close.
        There was stillness in the woods that night, nature holding her breath while the storm came.  Every creature had sought some refuge from the rain, and even the moon hid itself behind a blanket of clouds.  I remember the rhythm of the rain as it fell upon the leaves overhead and the breath as it came from my horse.  Then I heard something that brought me from my slumber.        "What is it boy?  I asked rubbing my eyes as I sat up.  No more than a couple of hours had passed since I had dozed off.
        "Easy, easy. What has you so worked up?"
        A branch snapped in the distance with a loud splintering crack and the eyes of my horse grew wide.  From the intensity of the sound I supposed the animal to be rather large, and not knowing yet what it might be, I drew my rifle from its scabbard beside my bedding.  I placed a hand on my horse to clam it some and for a moment I listened as hard as I could.  Suddenly there was the snap of a twig muffled in the rain, but some distance from the first report. 
        "It is circling our camp boy,  I said patting at my horses cheek.  "Probably just a cougar. There are plenty of them up here ya' know."
        I tossed some more wood on the fire and listened for any sign of the visitor.   It came from behind me, the rustling of brush, maybe a hundred yards away. 
        "It's coming closer, but don't worry I'll stoke the fire up. 
        I carefully placed a few logs in the fire in a teepee fashion, so as to draw the flames up their lengths and provide more light.  The forest was black and now seemed a foreboding place without the twinkle of stars overhead.  As the flames grew, I carefully peered out into the stands of aspen.  Soft amber light danced on the white trunks, skeletal spires surrounding my camp that now seemed so close. 
        Cougars have been known to circle camps.  After all, they are just big cats, curious creatures regardless of their size.  I didn't so much fear a cat coming after me, but I was concerned for my horse.  A crazed, rabid, or sick mountain lion might attempt to take a good horse down.  With too many miles between me and home, I hobbled my horse. 
        "Thank you Dominick,  I whispered, since he had shown me a manner used by Native Americans to keep their spooked horses from running.  I took a length of rope and in moments had ensured a ride home, and perhaps bait.
        "If the cougar comes in after ya, I'll get him. 
        Somehow my horse didn't look so assured.  Another twig snapped.
        "Easy boy, he's getting close."
        I stood like a silent sentinel, holding my breath at times and concentrating on the unseen.  I could feel it moving in a circle, slowly spiraling in on my camp.  Then when it was nearly twenty-five yards away it stopped.
        "I think it sat down now."
        Silence returned to the glen, even the rain seemed to pause in anticipation.  I strained my eyes hopping to see a shape, a shadow, something.  Whatever was out there sat just beyond the light of my fire.  Then nothing. 
        It felt like eternity, but it was probably only a handful of minutes.  I decided to place some more wood on the fire, but just as I began to move there came a sudden snap.  I froze, but my horse spooked and strained at my rope, trying to buck and bolt.  He only succeeded in stumbling to the ground where he laid white-eyed with steam snorting from his nostrils.  If the snap of the twig hadn't unnerved me, the display of my horse certainly had.  But again there was silence. Whatever it was it did not move, even during the violent commotion of my horse.  I decided to try placing the wood on the fire when again there came an abrupt snap.  I strained my eyes in the direction of the sound.  Blackness.
        I was for the first time in my young life afraid to be alone in the woods.  The grove of aspen that had felt like a cozy bedroom only a few hours ago was now an eerie and exposed cage.  Its white bars holding me hostage to an unseen creature. 
        I suddenly became aware that this thing must be watching me.  The hair rose on the back of my neck, and I felt like a deer in the crosshairs of a hunter. 
        "What are you?  I screamed.
        Snap! The crack of a stick came the response.
        My fear deepened as I realized this was not a cougar.  Mountain lions do not play games.  They don't snap twigs when you attempt to move.  They don't respond to questions or pleas.
        "What the hell is this thing? 
        I reached into my saddlebag remembering a small flashlight I had placed in there long ago.  Its batteries were weak and the beam didn't reach much beyond the fire, but when shown in the directions of the sound I caught a sudden flicker of eyes.  It was not the reflective glare of a cat or deer, not the green of a dog's eye, just the wet glisten of two eyeballs that appeared all too human.
        Startled I dropped the flashlight and held to my rifle.  There were the sudden sounds of a large creature rising from the ground and then running away through the woods.  It did not bound like a deer, or run silent like a cat stealthily would.  This thing made as much noise as possible running away at a fast pace, and uphill.  Branches splintered and bushes rustled as it trailed off.  I could hear it until it was maybe a mile distant.  Only then did I shake, my legs weak and wobbly.   I grabbed what wood was close to camp, never going beyond the firelight, and never in the direction of the thing.  I built a bonfire and packed my gear.  I never slept.

* * *

        Dawn broke after hours of waiting, but just as the soft blue of early morning revealed the world to view I climbed onto my horse.  Together we fled the hills at an incredible speed.  I never looked back, not until we hit the valley floor and were beyond the juniper in the sagebrush.  Only then did I glance back at the ‘Big Indian,' its shape like that of a teepee.  I'd never look at it thesame way again.
        We rode through the day.  Even after crossing another range of mountains I didn't feel like we were far enough away.  We continued on until Milford.  It was the wee hours of the next morning when I wandered into the Hong Kong Café looking disheveled and dazed.  I didn't explain why, but swallowed some pie and gulped a mug of hot chocolate.  The whip cream in the mug soothed my nerves.  I couldn't tell the waitress.  I didn't think I could tell anyone.  After all, what had I seen?  Something?  Nothing?  Could it have been my imagination?
        I had seen something.  There was something in the woods with me that night, something intelligent enough to toy with me.  I wrestled with my thought until I was home and in bed.

* * *