wandering at Two Wheels To There

A Mire, a Maunder, and Musings – 2011.10.09

Published on January 29, 2017 by Ry Austin 13 Comments

Escape Artist lay kill-switched in the sludge of Lambstone Valley Road while dumbfounded Surtch Pherther wondered how it had simply slipped away.

At a sudden hum down draw, he swiftly stooped to right the ride, and a small rattletrap pickup on accidental slicks squirmed around the bend. It was the balding, ragged dude that had lazy-waved from a slouch in his collapsed driver’s seat on the remoteness side of Threshold Pass.

“Hey, bud, need a hand?”

“Nawww,” Surtch’s voice strained at his bike’s heft, “but thanks, really.”

“So, d’ya know where it goes, if the slop gets worse?”

“I swapped here, went wide, the shoulder sucked my rear, and I fought the shit sideways… Or so it seemed.” He was glad for the full-face obscurity. “Yeah, up through the junipers to a saddle and then down steep ’n’ tight to Kinscore Pass—it’s bound to worsen before it gets any better.”

“Hmmm… Well,” smiling wryly, “I gotta give it a shot. Good luck, bud.”

“Hey, you too, man—you too.”

Fake-adjusting his gear, Surtch discreetly watched Escape Artist’s right mirror for ragged dude’s disappearance, unsteady and sluggish, before quickly remounting to slow-flee that scene of his latest embarrassment.

Aiming left from the right shoulder’s slant to drag him down, over-gassing ’til his ass wagged like a tease or a taunt, and with his feet as outriggers, he muck-touched off ’n’ on the miry mile back to Lambstone’s Y-junction with the gravelly Mochila Trail.

It had been a week of autumn everywhere—cold and damp in the City of Contradictions, snow atop the Westwitness Peaks, and in the remoteness, rain galore and a dusting on its heights—a carpe diem season in a life that Surtch Pherther had lately been striving to live so.

From a Lost Springs pit stop, south he shot on terra seemingly firming up, through a riverbed anciently dammed by lava and recently “haunted by desert fairies”, and then swayed a way into the Wapiti Hills on the floor from a prehistoric lake that happened thirty times in a million years and left soil so wistful for wetness that Surtch thought, I can go on slow and nowhere fast, or stick it swift in a soggy patch and get handlebar-hung or somersault-flung to a fate face-first into scrub and stone…

So, at the broad valley’s head, he pulled aside and shut off his ride, dropped the stand on some tuff and dismounted, grabbed water and snacks and a cheap cheroot, and struck off for some outcrops ’cause, when all else failed, there was always lone wandering, the best companion he’d ever had.

Many say such spaces house spirits of those gone before, and though these places had always enchanted Surtch, he felt he had no right to such thoughts. Not only was he naturally skeptical of claims of singular connection and exclusive communion, for they smacked of charlatanism and of power-lust by the cunning and of those in the know versus the damned if they never get it, but he believed that his legacy precluded his access.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin — “Hellooo down there, Escape Artist…”

He’d always been uneasy about it, that his race flooded the New World and expanded west and drove tribes from their ancestral domains—tribes that then were seen as savages but since as resourceful dwellers amid severe ‘scapes that offered little for bodies but maybe much for the famished soul.

And though he could only guess why his ancestors had crossed oceans, he knew why they’d trekked west: to flee persecution by their countrymen in this land of religious freedom, persecution for a belief that Surtch had twice or thrice tried—with a sincere heart, with real intent—but failed to embrace, a belief that failed to embrace him.

Many would allege that he hadn’t prayed hard enough or that his character was flawed, but after spending over half his life fitfully trying to cram in that puzzling piece of a confounding creed and racking his brain and wrenching his soul and lacking proof that he was being heard, whispering alone in the dark had become absurd to Surtch, and waiting for something transcendent to reach back, vain.

“My ancestors,” he said at the void, “devout great-granddad whose name I bear, what would you think of me, this non-kindred kin? Would you embrace me, or shun me? Would you be proud, or ashamed?” He ground out the spent cheroot. “No, none of us have to look very hard to feel we don’t belong where we are.”

When he came down from the mount, though the daily ground beneath his feet would remain as fluid as always and as everyone’s, that ancient lake-bed terra had meanwhile firmed up enough for a carefree, late-afternoon ride out of the remoteness—and… And the skin of his face shown.

Surtch couldn’t wear his ancestors’ beliefs—they wouldn’t have been fooled by the poor fit anyway. And he couldn’t bear burdens for his race—no one could for any. Sure, Manifest Destiny might have been rationalization for bad behavior, but in many ways the won West was a good thing.

Besides, from his experience, in his life, it boiled down to the only scripture that had ever made sense to Surtch—to love thy neighbor as thyself. After all: Go back a ways and we’re all from elsewhere. Go back all the way and we’re all from the same place.

Two-Up with the Past – 2011.10.02

Published on June 12, 2016 by Ry Austin 25 Comments

Shaky Surtch Pherther squeezed the clutch, halting Escape Artist a hundred feet above the Crosscapes River and Magic Canyon’s mouth where a clifftop younger self once spied a Native guy mid-chant just as a cloud burst.

He switched off the bike and eased its stand into the pebbly sand, dismounted softly, backed away to watch, and–spotting not a budge–bolted, dashing around all geared up and nose to the ground, kicking at rocks for a good one.

That morning, from a chair in the doorway of his room at Blakesville’s old Parker Motel, Surtch with coffee in hand had gazed at scattered cloudlets and virga while small hours rainwater wisped from Escape Artist and dryness overcame the last puddle in the lot. Looney Tunes goofed low on the TV behind him.

He recalled an eight-year-old self and his siblings parking their pajamaed butts before bowls of cereal and Trivia Adventure on the floor and those irreverent Saturday-morning cartoons on the tube in grandma-n-grandpa’s basement where they lived while dad built their house next door. It was only eighteen months, but those toon morns could have been his whole blessed childhood.

From checkout, Surtch blipped the old highway main drag east and hung the first right, passing boarded-up bars, expired eateries, and the tumbledown shacks and crumbledown ramps in Blakesville’s rusty railyard. Across the tracks he flew onto the cracked blacktop of Anticline Road, through the Salaera Wash dip that silts up at every flash flood, and past the obligatory dirt bike hills on the outskirts of town where he throttled down for the shift to gravel.

He passed surprisingly full Ash Bluff Pond at elevenish miles out and then swayed his way up to a sand-drifted washboard slog atop Salt View Mesa before slipping down a steep draw to the Anticline Creek bridge. Beyond, the road went all dirt and stone and bent to hell, and Surtch, rounding a tighty at too swift a clip, whacked the front wheel somethin’ fierce on a gouged washout, giving that rim its first of many dents.

At twenty-something out he scrambled onto a faint two-track and into a li’l badlands of red and gray shale and clay, traced a sandstone monolith’s sinuous fingers, tossed side to side down ledgy ruts and through cobble ‘n’ sand salad in a dry wash, carved off-camber up a slidey slope, and bumbled across weird warts of a rock bench to where he now lingered on the edge–alone in a breeze, with the odd crow and quiet.

Once re-serene from a spell with that scene, Surtch mounted back up, backtracked a bit, and worried his ride down the warped fringe of one bench to the next where he often camped with his kin and there fooled around for a while before, finally giving in to return to the City of Contradictions’ dubious civilization, he began to dawdle back toward Blakesville.

He dodged distant downpours and faraway wanna-rain, played that childhood game of “Where d’ya think that road goes?” with routes that vanished at worn corrals and shot-up water tanks or just into the sand as they should, and from an afternoon fuel-up at the town’s far west end, he pulled aside to consult his map of lies while the nearby slab spat and slurped cars at random.

How many beginnings can there be in a life or for one pleasure, he wondered. They say that each day can be a fresh start, another shot, and any gain therein chalked up as progress–that it all boils down to perspective.

For Surtch, this small fall adventure had been just that: a weekend of reducing pavement to mere stepping stones between the real stuff; of nudging the dirt closer to home, and his riding horizons farther out; of forging links from the sensational to the divine; and of further exploring and finally beginning to embrace dual-sporting.

Yet October was already afoot: Frigid Mr. Winter would soon be stomping his snowy boots on the stoop.

Surtch wouldn’t aim to be home by dark–he hadn’t been raised that way. Instead, he’d go west: up Lobo-Mancha Canyon in the Anticline; on the right road–eventually–for Antler Gulch, a way his brother had found through the clayscape waste’s surprisingly scenic guts; to dinner at dusk in a humdrum hash house in little Grames town; and over Friar Canyon’s sixty-odd miles that night, tailgating gas-guzzlers and big rigs as blockers against large game jaywalkers.

And all the way he’d carry on two-up, his passenger his past: a younger self mid-backseat in dad’s ’72 Ford “Blue Ox” Bronco; his brother on the wheel well at his right, staring at starlight, star bright, and moonlight in the desert night; their sister at his left, waiting with a Cat’s Cradle game in hand; mom-n-dad up front amid that magical glow of orange, cream, and green from the dash and the cryptically whispering CB radio; and that big, old V-8 just droning on and on and on.

Yeah, it was only twice or thrice a year, but those desert trips could have been his whole blessed childhood.

Fourteen Beautitudes – 2011.09.03(b)

Published on September 26, 2015 by Ry Austin 20 Comments

The CB160 racers rode a post-flag lap at revs so tempered that their slight engines sounded somehow stout. Back from the track’s far reaches they droned with throttle to spare and slow-swarmed toward the pits, where sidecars were arriving and getting readied for their go.

From the giddiness of the mosquito race, from the grandstand’s lofty perch, from the staircase tether to solid ground, Surtch Pherther landed flat-footed back on the paddock, into temps that had meanwhile surged and a crowd that had swelled since morning.

Through throngs of watchers and chatters and bike-tweakers and -testers, a rider in full textile all stormy-day shades feathered a white Ducati Monster to a stop spot near the concession stand, where junk food junkies were amassed for a pop and pizza fix.

In one smooth motion, the bike was shut off and propped, the rider out of the saddle, and the bright white helmet in a left hand clutch of its chin guard. With the common, side to side head-shake and right hand finger-comb, the Ducati girl swept her dirty blond hair from her face.

Looking self-assured, and smiling as wide as Surtch must have been that morning at hearing of his paddock-wandering freedom, she briefly scanned the scene and then set off for the grandstand steps, toward where Surtch stood contemplating her bike and wondering about her.

“You know,” he said, with a wrist-flick and head-nod toward her machine, “they always look like loaded springs, those Ducatis–like wild horses, all nerves and twitchin’ muscles, even at a standstill. Sooo,” catching her eyes for a spell, “how do you like it?”

The grinning Ducati girl gazed back at her white, hot ride. “It was love at first sight, and we’ve been together for six or so months. I used to be all about Harleys, rode a cruiser for years. But there’s no turnin’ back now.”

“Did you face any limitations, any, umm, learning curves, going from cruiser to sport?”

“Not at all. In fact, I think there were more limitations, more deliberate inputs necessary, with the cruiser. I hopped on this, and it was just so natural, like the Ducati was light-years ahead, like the cruiser was something, well, something primitive.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of ’em in traffic. They seem mighty nimble.”

“Oh, they are. At least that’s my experience. It surprises me still every time I ride.”

“Nice. Well, I’m headed for the show tent now–there are so many damn fine bikes around here, I’m afraid I’ve run outta drool.” The Ducati girl chuckled. “You, umm, you have a nice day.”

“You too,” she said. “See you around, maybe.” Then she climbed the steps and disappeared into the grandstand…

Once upon a time a tired teacher in a rare moment of engagement cautioned Surtch and his fellow students against careless use of abstract nouns and their derivatives.

They tempt us to attempt their definition, but that’s like trying to snare mythical creatures, like chasing snowflakes in spring, for such nouns are the names of intangibles, are essentially indefinable, and their meanings vary from perceiver to perceiver. They are–among untold others–fear, freedom, happiness, success, wisdom, god sometimes, and always beauty: beauty, the seldom self-evident; beauty, the what’s-behind-the-face value; beauty, the always subject to context; beauty, an elusive beast.

Beautiful are the elegant: for they forever remain refined despite what the road throws their way.

Beautiful are the sophisticated: for they comport themselves with dignity even through the rough spots.

Beautiful are the iconic: for they are the “impossible” from the past, heralding a future of boundless possibilities.

Beautiful are the humble: for they persist in their worthy pursuits, though any acclaim is rare.

Beautiful are the spartan: for they achieve the amazing, though their ready resources are few.

Beautiful are the respectful rebels: for though they challenge convention, they renounce not their roots.

Beautiful are the resilient: for from their falls they rise to wear their scars with pride, having gained more from toiling than was ever torn away.

Beautiful are the blended: for they can be the best of many sources, a greater harmony that transcends lesser differences.

Beautiful are the kindred: for though they off and on take opposite paths, their sound kinship stays forever strong.

Beautiful are the generations: for they stand side by side despite their differences and the years between and the separating ways of time.

Beautiful are the perfect pairs forever kept complementary couples: for together they endure breakdowns, flaws, and failures, defiant of all divisive forces.

Beautiful are the good soldiers: for they humbly toil upon fallow ‘scapes, across scorching tarmacs, through enclosing woods, and among formidable peaks, all to gain on that first goal worth getting–freedom.

Beautiful are the forgotten and fading: for they remind the rest that all is fleeting, that all things shall indeed pass–they remind the rest to own every curve, for one’s road is mapped as one goes, and there’s no foretelling its end.

And for her courage and confidence and enthusiasm in the face of media and its co-conspirators, marketer minions and the advertiser army–media and its desire for the desperate, its pursuit of easy prey and the chronically insecure, its harvesting of those husk-folk who measure only skin-deep, ones to dress down further and then paint up with its flawed products, and poison with its fraudulent philosophies…

Yeah, in spite of the odds stacked against her by her own kind, Ducati girl was beautiful.

With all of the fine rides his eyes had seen, Surtch’s mind was comfortably full, so he strolled back to the grandstand steps and climbed up to see the track once more.

The sidecar group sadly had made little progress in the preparations for their race, and with the day already approaching mid-afternoon, Surtch would soon have to get back to the City of Contradictions to swap Riot Machine for his pickup truck:

About 175 miles east and 6,000 feet up, in the high foothills of the Cairn Mountains, family and friends were anticipating his afternoon arrival for their annual firewood harvest. There would be turning leaves and chainsaw smoke, maybe a bit of fog and rain, a campfire and Dutch oven delicacies, his tent as shelter against pitch-black night, and his sleeping bag warm against the frost. There would be good company. Fall would be in full swing.

As for Ducati girl?… Surtch glanced around, but she was nowhere in sight.

Moto-Ogling and The Mosquito Race – 2011.09.03(a)

Published on August 24, 2015 by Ry Austin 7 Comments

“One for the race, please,” said Surtch Pherther to the clerk.

“Here you go,” she said, swapping a ticket for his currency. “Now, just ride through this gate, and park beyond the show tent that’ll be on your right. Concessions are under the grandstand, and you’re free to wander the paddock and the garages and, you know, check out the bikes and stuff.”

“Okay, thank you. Wait, what?…”

She chuckled. “Of course. Just watch for racers out test-riding and on their way to the track.”

Surtch was beside himself. He hadn’t imagined that he’d be allowed to get familiar with the machines. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that it might be possible…

That morning, in pre-dawn’s thin, blue-gray wash, he’d zipped up the vents on his leather coat, snapped shut those on his full-face, wriggled his fingers into his gloves, and switched on Riot Machine and pressed its starter. With a crank-crank-ba-RUMPH-blub-blub-blub, the naked bike’s big V heat had begun to rise. He’d hipped it vertical, heeled its stand, POP’d it into first, and at easing the clutch lever out and the throttle on, thundered off.

He’d rumbled west at 15 over the limit on arrow-straight Industrial Way: past drab factories, tilt-up warehouses, and countless lots for ready rigs; past the vast tailings pond and pile with sides so slightly sloped that it nearly goes unnoticed; past the refinery and smelter and sky-piercing stack–all forever crumbling and always on the rise–seizing what’s precious from the City of Contradictions’ gaping open-pit; and around, where the head of the Partition Mountains forces Industrial Way to join the interstate and shoves it and the rails onto fickle Lake Termina’s sometimes-shore–foggy when freezing; otherwise, marshy, muggy, buggy, and enchanting for its harshness.

History of the Wild West claims that it was for passage less perilous that horsemen and handcarts, wagons and stages, and roads and rails had rounded the ranges when possible, skirting each and shooting straight for the nearest end of the next one west as though in some super-scale dot-to-dot, but no… It was the mountains that had held men out and pushed them around: The peaks had sought to keep their secrets–their glitterings hidden and groves untracked, their snowmelt unsavored and vistas unseen. They’d sought to safeguard their elevated virtue.

About 30 minutes after leaving home and after a few miles of toying with 85 in a 75, Surtch had throttled down gradually on the ramp that swings off long, rises to overpass the interstate, and drops–suddenly to 45 mph as well–depositing one into the dusty, greasy guts of little Brinton, less a town than a glorified truck stop with the regular roadside fare for weary travelers struck with hunger whenever.

As he’d tried to cut Riot Machine’s speed to the limit, he’d mumbled into his muffling helmet and above the remaining road-, wind-, and bike-noise, “This morning’s like autumn. Something about this just feels like fall”.

Twelve or so years earlier, Surtch had joined his brother and sister-in-law in peaks-nestled Silvervale for dinner, a sort of celebration for his brother’s birthday. While they had afterward wandered the old mining town turned tourist trap, a late-August evening chill had lifted from its lofty perch, trickled down through the filtering grasses, shrubs, and woods and spilled across splashing streamlets onto Silvervale’s steep, off-season streets.

Surtch had remarked that something about it all smelled like autumn, and if he recalled correctly, his companions had questioned his perception. The thing was, he hadn’t know why. If there’d been evidence, he could have cited it, could have defended his senses, but–though roadside grasses had been late-summer dry–the undergrowth still had been lush, and the aspen leaves fully green. Nevertheless, to Surtch there’d been something–something intangible, something inscrutable, something maybe just beneath the surface.

“HellOOO racers and fans alike. Welcome to your Salina Raceway.” The loudspeaker announcement, a bit distorted and screechy, echoed off the pavement and off the cinder block of the grandstand and the garages and drifted into the vacant, desert sky. “We hope you enjoyed the gOrrrgeous morning, that you’ve drooled on a bike or two, and that you’ve bought a bite to eat and something refreshing to drink from our concessionaires, located under the grandstand. If not, there’s – still – time.

“NOwww, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The race of the classic and fabulous, the downright delightful, the historic, but highly modified, within reason, mind you… The Honda CB160s-EEZ-Eez-eez… Racers, please proceed to track gate number 1. The event will commence in 15 minutes. Thank yoouuu.”

With the lunch of champions in hand–a large Coke, watered-down and over-iced for sure, and a box of Mike and Ikes–Surtch climbed the grandstand steps to join the other spectators. There weren’t many–the place was virtually empty–and they were gathered at the railing overlooking the pits and the track. They were mostly family, friends, and racers themselves, content in each other’s company and transported by the gaiety of the event–a good group.

“We have a real treat for you today, race fans. The event will begin with a Le Mans-style and bump start. For those who don’t know…”

The suited-up racers took starting stances on the track’s inside edge and, at the drop of the flag, dashed across as well as possible, snatched their bikes from their assistants, and proceeded to push start–or to try to–those little engines that could. After one racer rushed to the wrong ride, resulting in a brief, theatrical scuffle on the track and a hearty chuckle from the grandstand, all bikes got started, got moving, and within a turn or two, magically were clustered: Stragglers had surged, leaders had lagged, and all were synchro-sweeping out of sight, speeding toward the far reaches.

Cheerful chatter in the grandstand filled the brief noise-void before a cloudlet of dust rose in the distance as a racer coasted his stalled bike off the track. Immediately thereafter, a remote hum followed by a low buzz signaled the pack’s return. The racers appeared in warmth-wavy flashes across the asphalt and mounds of dirt and sparse brush–there, gone, there, gone, there, gone–like breaching by a pod of mechanical sea forms on ground swells of a bleak future-scape.

Suddenly, in plain view around the final wide curve before the home straightaway, they zipped, high-revving their low displacements at 75 or 80 mph if they were lucky. The smattering in the grandstand erupted in hurrahs and applause, and to the grinning stranger nearest, Surtch hollered gleefully, “Ha-haa! They sound like a herd of blasted mosquitos!” And just as suddenly, the racers were gone again, off bagging curves of lap two, synchro-sweeping out of sight, speeding toward the far reaches.

It was early afternoon, and from the high desert valley floor, summer heat now was rising–spreading for itself, settling everywhere, getting into everything. Above the cheerful chatter that filled another brief noise-void, Surtch could hear the metal canopy high overhead pinging and popping with expansion.

He mumbled to himself, “Today–it’s like autumn nonetheless. Something about it just feels like fall–something intangible, inscrutable, maybe just beneath the surface. If only there were evidence”.

Relations & Reflections, Motorbiking & Mudbugs – 2011.08.20

Published on June 1, 2015 by Ry Austin 4 Comments

Because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again. It’s a predictable answer to an inevitable type of question, a type that riders rarely ask: They know that the experience, as skittish as a wild creature, eludes definition and that words often fail. To ride might be the only road to an answer: If the experience doesn’t take, an answer won’t be given. If it does take, a new rider will be born to pursue a passion that enlivens living–one possessed striving to possess the possessor.

It had been over five years since Surtch Pherther was–himself–born again, baptized by throttle into the Vespa sect of that divinely inspired Two Wheelers tradition, and much remained to be revealed to him—technically, socially, geographically, soulfully. Indeed, because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again would have to do—for now…

“We’re going crawdaddin’,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who wants in?” The lunch-lazy camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids of all ages wriggling into swimsuits and slipping into flip-flops, grabbing buckets and nets, and shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“I’ll meet ya there,” yelled Surtch, and he geared up, saddle up, and throttled off.

He hugged the few curves on the paved road from camp (they squeezed him back, right in the adrenaline) and then caved to the lure of an unlocked DOT gravel pit, low-banking its scattered mounds and slow-going its small slopes of shifty cobble in a continuing bid for practice makes better.

Perfect riding skills, especially off road, seemed an impossibility to Surtch, and frankly, immeasurable—like judging artistic merit.

From the gravel pit, he followed a faded two-track down to the pebbly beach and rode through the shallows half up to the hubs toward where his people were waist deep—splashing, laughing, crayfish net-catching—and closing in on buckets full. The scene flashed him back to a younger self’s first memory of wild water and a snippet of something he once-upon-a-time scribbled about it:

…I was four or so when my parents first took me and my siblings to wade in a desert river. We were headed home from camping when we stopped to try to squeeze out any lingering essence. The sun was setting, and damp river-bottom coldness was beginning to rise, which is typical for the desert—it can be blistering at noon, but frigid at midnight. I tiptoed through thin willows, purple-flowered tamarisk sprouts, and beds of coarse snake grass. The alkali sand, crusty and white, broke and sloughed beneath my little footsteps, exposing organic under-soil to which even the sparse salt grass clung fiercely. And all the while the Johnsie River just rippled, whispering its endless tale:

“I am a desert river and was dreamy in my youth. I only wanted to enliven difficult land, but of that I was deprived, doomed by the ages to dredge deeper and deeper until I flowed too far below any surface I could serve. I’m just a desert river—old and lonely—a thoroughfare for the evening breeze which to every spider delivers a fly. Look high, on the cottonwoods that dot my bank, higher than your reach. It’s where I wear my dry drift scarves and my deepest desire keep–to flood. Oh, just to flash once more. It’s when I’m at my peak.”…

Back at camp—nets tossed aside, buckets of creepy craw-dudes placed in the shade, flip-flops swapped for shoes, and swimsuits for dry duds—everyone had begun to slip into sun-stupor when…

“We’re off to hit a geocache,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who’s coming along?” And once again, as though on cue, the camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“Okay, man. You lead,” yelled Surtch, and a few minutes later, a few miles down from camp, they rolled to a stop on the hillside shoulder of a wide curve in the reservoir road. The kids goofed in the nearby brush while Surtch’s brother briefly consulted the GPS before pointing to a rocky outcrop on a low spur.

Up the gentle slope, through winding paths defined by giant, pungent sagebrush and impenetrable wild rose, along vague trails left by critters small and large, and safely past a stunning wasps’ nest sculpture, Surtch and his brother led the children. At last they scrambled the final bit onto the spur and then strolled out to its small point overlooking San Cosme Reservoir.

The kids spied the cache, traded trinkets, marked the booklet, and for a while everyone gazed upon the glimmering water below. Surtch repressed an urge to ask them for their thoughts, a query that seldom delivers anyway, and never in the moment: Most folks reserve the real stuff; impressions require digestion; and words—those imperfect tools for imperfect beings—often fail.

Oh, to be able to channel my child self, thought Surtch, to know his untainted impressions. Then maybe I’d know if I’ve grown, know if this bizarre, existential experience has been worthwhile so far.

Evening—calm, cooling, barely cloudy—was upon them upon their return to camp, so they lit a fire and soon they had a blaze. Amid the banter typical for fireside dining, Surtch politely declined his brother’s offer of boiled, um, freshwater lobster (a flattering name indeed) in favor of applesauce, beef jerky left over from lunch, and instant red pesto pasta. As night took hold, the children one by one yawned their ways to their sleeping bags and the adults followed suit until just the two brothers remained at the campfire.

“I was surprised when you showed up on Escape Artist,” said Surtch’s brother, with a knowing smile. “I had expected you to ride in on a new machine—something orange and sporty maybe?…” Surtch just chuckled.

In silence thereafter they watched the final flames die, the mound of orange coals cool and shift, the last few sparks rise and twist, and–curling smoothly around sky-pillar pines–the smoke waft like sacred incense in a grand, roofless cathedral.

To Surtch, this was the only religion that had ever made sense.