Chapter 51 Evan’s Vivid Dream
Tied to the horse, Evan drifted in and out of consciousness as Casey led Cherry off the mountain.
His mind returned to the summer, after he’d taken Grace fishing, when he'd began to settle into the daily life for which he'd been born. He began to realize that he would never be able to return to New York, never be able to return to the classroom. He loved literature and teaching, but there was something deeper inside of him that tugged at him, and its force was undeniable even for someone who attempted to resist. Evan had no intention of resisting. His only challenge was to figure out a way to get Grace to understand the life he’d chose and to desire the same thing he did. That was not going to be an easy task. She simply did not have the same thing within her.
Several times, she had ridden along with him, but it wasn’t a daily thing. She enjoyed the beauty of the mountains and the solitude. She enjoyed the freedom and the clean air, as well as the quiet, which was only interrupted by birds and animals going about their daily routine of living. Evan worked at drawing her attention to those things and tried to come up with an excuse every day that would get her out with him on the back of a horse.
“Why don’t you bring your journal and come with me?” he said one morning. “We’ll have a little picnic and enjoy the falls, and you can pass the time while I do a little riding.”
“Falls? What falls are you talking about?” she asked. She assumed that he had taken her to every place on the range and now he was springing a new one on her.
“There is a waterfall over on Clear Creek,” he replied. He had never taken her there before, because the ride in was pretty rough and he hadn’t been sure of her riding skill. He was pretty sure that she could handle it now; besides, it was pretty close to the area that he needed to ride. He hoped that this would win her over.
“I guess I could,” she replied. “I really should be writing, but...”
“I can’t think of a better place to write and be inspired,” he interrupted. “Maybe the noise would be too much of a disturbance. You probably better just stay here.” Evan understood a little bit of psychology himself, and he knew that offering something appealing to someone and then taking it away was almost guaranteed to work at getting them to do what you wanted. He would have been an excellent used car salesman. He smiled as he considered the thought.
“Why have you never told me of this place before?” she asked.
“It doesn’t amount to much, really,” he said. “Just the creek flowing up to the edge of a cliff and plunging into a deep hole. I was really just looking for an excuse to get you to come along with me.”
“You could just ask,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know you’re busy.” He got up to leave, taking his hat down from the peg by the door.
“Catch Susie for me,” she said. “I’ll get a picnic together.”
Evan stepped out into the crisp morning with a smile that he had hidden on his face until the door closed behind him. It had worked. He knew that if he could get her out to Clear Creek Falls, she would fall in love with the place and have no problem at all staying in Colorado. She was on the edge of it already. It would be a perfect place for him to tell her of his plans. He could give her a little push. “Not literally,” he mumbled to himself, smiling at his own sense of irony.
The trail to the falls was a long ride, and it meant riding through some pretty rough country. There were a couple of miles where the narrow trail dangled on the edge of a rock wall, nearly a thousand feet above the narrow canyon with its meandering stream below. The view was spectacular, but the ride made the hair stand up on the back of even the most seasoned of riders’ necks. Grace was terrified. “Just trust that mare,” he encouraged. “She doesn’t want to fall any more than you do, and her feet are sure.”
“This place better be worth it, Evan David Williams,” she told him.
“It’s worth it,” he answered. He could already hear the dull roar from the falls, which was just around the next bend. This was truly the best way to approach, because at one moment, you were fearing for your life and in the next, your eyes were opened to an incredible beauty that made you feel like you had fallen from the cliff and had suddenly arrived in heaven itself. His horse picked its way around the bend, and the scene opened up before them.
The pale, blue horizon in the distance was broken by a jagged, black ridge line that slowly transformed in color as it moved closer into the view of the beholder. Its dark timber slowly became a patchwork mixture like the valley of Evan’s homestead. The patchwork was broken in various places by openings, “parks”, where the green of grass and a stunted type of sage that was much smaller and only scattered in clusters. As the blanket of timber reached a lower level and the terrain began to flatten out in a gentle slope, the patchwork of trees gave way to a vast open meadow, which funneled its three springs through the basin, which led to the edge of the cliff. Just above the rocky ledge, the stream spread out and formed a marsh around the ledge. It was nearly flat right around the very edge and therefore created the impression that the water paused upon the brink before it plunged in eight to ten separate streams. There was a point as one first rode up to the view, where it seemed that the water plunged into a bottomless pit. The black granite of the cliff was covered with moss, and in several locations, there were trees clinging to some narrow rocky ledge where a tiny bit of soil allowed them to sink very shallow roots. The sound of the water plunging into the pool below was loud enough that a person shouting was barely heard.