While it saddens me to say goodbye to friends who have decided to retire elsewhere, I understand their reasons for leaving Craig. I can be as annoyed as anybody by life in my small town: the presence of turkey buzzards, trucks without mufflers and winters without end; the absence of medical specialists, shoe stores and grandchildren; the irritation of mosquitoes, decayed sidewalks and dogs barking in the night.
But my husband and I are content here; we will remain.
We chose to retire in Craig in large part because Moffat County hasn’t been paved over: nature here is unbridled, immediate, a powerful presence easily accessed. I experienced the natural richness of our area two years ago as I walked along one of the many trails that twine like tendrils of spaghetti behind the cliffs north of town. An unexpected encounter riveted my attention and saturated my senses; to this day, a glimpse of furtive movement, an October sun falling on my face or the spicy smell of sage delivers it to me.
I shared the moment with Sue, a friend, and her companion Eddie, a small dog of dignity, on a Colorado morning filled with the promise of perfection. Eddie was the first to sense another presence. Romping and sniffing back and forth in front of us, he stopped, sniffed the air and froze in place, as though turned into a pillar of salt due to disobedience.
Sue and I, involved in a wandering conversation — a book recently read, a husband’s mistimed humor, a shared fondness for red wine and chocolate — eventually became aware of Eddie’s lack of movement. Concerned, we scanned the path ahead, searching for a little dog in a giant landscape. Just as we began to worry, we sighted him, and his intense gaze directed ours. Twelve yards to our right, a statuesque silhouette stood on the crest of a yellowed hill, backlit by a blue-white sky devoid of summer’s intense luster.
“That’s amazing. So beautiful,” Sue breathed with the contagious mix of wonder and excitement she reserves for a pot shard found on a desert bluff, a summit view of mountain peaks marching into distant clouds or the Yampa River, ice-bound and lined by frosted trees on a foggy morning.
The three of us — a dog on high alert ad two talkative women pulled out of ourselves by what we saw — stood as still as the shadowed elk: its muscles quieted; its head and antlers turned toward us; each point and branch of its symmetrical spread outlined by the unpolished sky.
Eddie quivered with an electric charge of awakened instinct, his ears, like teepees, standing tall. Sue and I stared in silence, wanting to observe completely, to secure forever this grand animal, this September moment of motionless splendor.
The elk, the most imposing and implacable participant in our staring contest, tired of it first. Our presence no longer interested him; and he told us so with a stately exit, turning in a slow, four-quarter beat, moving at a regal pace of his choosing: unalarmed, unhurried, unimpressed.
We watched as he disappeared; and when we could no longer see him, we exclaimed about his size, his power, his control of the situation, and about our fortune in having had a front-row seat for his commanding performance.
We then turned back to the trail and our rambling conversation while Eddie ran in front, patrolling for tantalizing smells and forbidden snacks. But an ordinary walk had been transformed to the extraordinary by an encounter with an assured wild animal. A few blocks from our homes.
And that’s why I love living in Craig.
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