Yellow
Mountain
By Peter Smyth
A
family driven apart by greed and lust. The desire for gold and wealth is
overwhelming like the lure of a naked thigh. After the death of old man Hudson
many had searched for his gold mine, but none had found it. Damsel
Parker, cow hand and drifter, learns of the gold mine through the old man’s
granddaughter, Gale.
Damsel Parker is thrust into the
middle of a divided family, where he learns that lust and greed is the parent of
all evil.
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Part 2
With each painful step forward, it appeared to
Parker that the great untamed west changed its mode gradually, from the dusty
dun colours of the endless sand and rock of the desert to the dark green-gold
tinge of the tall distant pine trees stretching endlessly through the wandering
valleys, and beyond, deep into the northern country to the low laying foothills
of the Rocky Mountains where the snow lies thick and deep as the soft white fur
of the legendary snow wolf.
It was just past noon when he at last reached
the Buffalo River at the point where it emerged from the gorge between two large
solid stonewalls over looking Grayville’s Ridge.
Parker dropped what remained of his belongings
to the ground at the foot of a fallen tree and slumped down beside them. With
the weight of his body off his blistering feet the dark depressing thoughts of
the last three days seem to lift also. He settled back into the bow of the
weathered trunk looking up at the rocky columns that blocked out most of the sky
above him. An awesome sight of sculpture carved by the endless drive of time,
wind, and rain.
For over an hour he was totally oblivious to
the march of time, to the majestic swing of the sun on its endless journey
across the sky. His troubles were lost momentarily to its warmth and life-giving
rays. A sense of un-urgency had now come over him as he rose slowly to the
waters edge, removed his clothing, and slid slothfully down into the cool crisp
water. The endless purl of swirling eddies gently massaging his exhausted body
as he floated naked on his back, watching a solitary vulture circling in
majestic splendor on the unseen currents between the two towering columns like a
dark daub against an electric-blue sky.
Suddenly, there it was again, the same uncanny
feeling he had had twice before. The unsettling feeling as if being watched; a
sudden awakening of the subconscious that stimulates the mind to things that
elude the physical eye. He sunk deep down into the water, turning slowly. Then
just as quickly as before the feeling passed.
Parker rinsed his clothing, and then spread
them out to dry on the short grass beside the river before settling down on a
outcrop of rock over looking where the Buffalo River tumbled a hundred feet,
through three different stages, down into the valley below. From his position he
got his first sight of Grayville’s Ridge. A four-hour march, he reckoned,
looking up at the sun. He had no need for the mechanical tick of moving metal
arms as did the city folk, their days broken into hours and minutes and some
times even further into seconds, as those who controlled the industrial wealth
of the country and who now directly threatened the great expanse of wilderness
with their tainted charms and promise of wealth for all. Already the large steel
horse had arrived, wealthy masters shrouded in death and dishonesty, its large
steel hooves cutting endless grooves into the fragile ecosystem of the
ever-widening frontiers. All this in the name of progress and the American
dream, Washington had told its nation.
For more than a thousand years the natives of
America had judged time and season by the ever shifting arch of the sun, and
over the years Parker had learnt the art also. Not only had he familiarized
himself with the movements of the sun, but with the stars as well.
Grayville’s Ridge nestled comfortably in a
shallow basin at the foot of a series of low laying hills that seemed to twist
and dance through the heat-haze that rose steadily up from with in the thick
blanket of undergrowth that traced the Buffalo River through the valley;
distorted elusions of imaginary rivers, drifting on clandestine air currents,
clouded in askew colours of metallic bronze and silver blue, and beyond, the
back drop of dark blue mountains marching boldly up into the north territories.
Parker dressed and started down into the
valley with the same urgency like that of the waters that spewed out over the
cliff. Coming out from the shadows beneath the falls, he paused a moment to take
in the tranquility of his surroundings. He was lost for a time in its splendor,
his eyes slowly absorbed the beauty of the calm clear waters of the catchment
pool that rippled gently as the last of the three tiers of the waterfall emptied
its endless flow sensitively into it, and the rich abundance of colour that
adorned the indigenous forest that surrounded him, and he found himself wanting
to hide this splendor from the world, to keep it safe in all its splendor and
virginity, for in his mind’s eye he could already see the destruction that
awaited this sanctuary; the forest chopped and cleared for the onslaught of
horse driven wagons, the river and catchment pool soiled by the loss of
vegetation that devastates the soil into a dying frenzy of endless decay and
erosion, and the disgust of human filth.
Already the game was almost gone, a million
buffalo slaughtered in less than a handful of years; a creature treasured by the
people that once roamed unhindered across this land. Their songs, and tribal
tales of its kindness had once drifted freely to the north and south across the
open plains and mountaintops, of how, in its death, it had offered up itself to
their every need. A great emptiness awaited this land, and Parker felt an
immense sorrow fall across his heart.
Continued...
