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This is what it looked like around 9:00 o’clock this morning after an all-night rain. Yes, it does that every once in a while. Every once in a long while, if the truth be told, and how remarkable it is. In just a few weeks, there could be a dusting of snow on those same hills. Did I just say that? Shame on me. I hope that doesn’t happen soon. We’re not ready psychologically or physically.

Summer here is like a kid coming home from college for a weekend. It drops its bags off, goes out partying with its friends, and drives back to campus early to beat the traffic. You were hardly ever here, you bastard. Show some respect for your goddamn elders. Think about all the money we’re spending to send you to that ritzy school so you can shove drugs up your nose.

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As I drove out to the trailhead for my four-mile hike this morning, I was feeling kind of old. Maybe it was the truck’s fault. When I got there, I saw three other vehicles and nobody around. The driver’s side door squeaked loudly when I opened it. Slamming it shut made it go BAM wocka-wocka rattle tink.

Body-wise, I felt great, you understand. Bouncing on my feet. Tough. Ready to go. But a little less hip and more of a relic. A testament to inherited vitality and stupid fucking cheapness.

The hike was fine, I made good time. It was only about 75 °F but hot in the sun. There was a strong breeze and almost no clouds. Dry, then, so a cooling effect. You sweat and dry off at the same time. My new Patagonia boots are tougher and more cushioned than what I was wearing before, and I flew over the rocky parts.

About a half mile from the turnaround, I came across a rattlesnake. Just a toddler, this one, about eight inches long. Either it had swallowed something too big for it, or someone had stomped it behind the head, which wasn’t in such good shape, either. The poor guy was obviously doomed. Actually, I thought it was dead, but when I poked it with my stick, it turned over on its back and wiggled some. Not knowing what else to do, I left it writhing in the sun.

As I walked on, I had a string of second thoughts. Now that’s kind of cruel. Even if it is a dying rattlesnake, it’s only a baby. You could have just as easily flipped it into the shade, or better yet, dropped a heavy rock on it where it was…

So I decided that’s what I would do on my way back. If a raven or a buzzard hadn’t gobbled it up and saved me the trouble, I’d put the strange mangled accident out of its misery and redeem myself, too.

Naturally, I forgot.

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Don’t know how long this will be up on YouTube, so have a look now. This video consists of two different combined trailers—still want to say “previews”—for the new movie “Gravity,” starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Needless to say, I have to see this thing. Oh my God.

It was after Labor Day and all the Texans had gone home. When I arrived at the parking lot, I was all alone. There was no one on the trail. As hot as it was (90 °F), at least the air was dry, and I even had a breeze. Low humidity plus moving air means you actually feel cool once in a while. I wore my new Patagonia Drifter hiking boots and felt like one tough mofo just being out there for my usual four miles.

Near the turnaround spot about one quarter of a mile from the above shot and a good deal closer to the Rio Pueblo gorge that slope rolls into—the Rio Grande gorge is just beyond—I stopped to relieve myself in the shade of a certain juniper. As I was standing there, a large turkey vulture shot up from the Rio Pueblo! The water is hundreds of feet below, and the bird had been flying down where I couldn’t see it. That was the damnedest thing, seeing that buzzard spring right out of the earth. It made a very large loop over terrain just like you see here and glided slowly right past where I was zipping up, leaning a little in my direction to get a better look or scent from just 30 feet away. I wondered if I smelled dead or just plain sweaty.

There was another time that I remember being eyed or sniffed by carrion eaters. It happened just a short hike from Yellowhammer Farm in the Arkansas Ozarks back in ’71. I described the experience in a letter to a friend back then and thought I’d reproduce it here. Imagine actually writing a letter!—or typing, in this case. I had a small portable typewriter in my shack and would have written this by candlelight or kerosene lamp. I think it sets the scene rather well after all these years, and you can see why I’ve never forgotten that afternoon:

Got to describe something to you while the urge is here: yesterday I climbed up to a rock ridge up and across from our property, the very top of the ridge, about 150 yards of rock, flat, broken into many large chunks, with lots of caves (small) and overhangs, some rock faces as much as 25 feet or more in height. From up there you can see 300 degrees around, see for many miles, it is the most fantastic place I have ever seen in Arkansas, and it’s only a 15-minute hike from the edge of our place, altogether about 45 minutes from where I’m sitting now. The very top, you understand. Well, I was lying there sunning myself, lying face down on a large flat shelf of rock that jutted out, almost asleep, when I heard a strange, very faint, multi-pitched whistling noise, a barely audible sound which seemed to be going around in circles. I opened one eye and glanced upward just in time to see a large black buzzard quietly swoop past about 20 feet above me: there were two of them, actually, making 30-foot circles above me, using the airflow coming over the mountaintop, just whistle swoop checking out my flesh, you know. (I was lying naked on top of my clothes.) When I sat up they split, just as quietly as they had come. Man, that’s getting down to basics.

The sounds came from the feathers at the ends of the birds’ wings, vibrating in the breeze at different frequencies, and sounded like a very quiet bullroarer being swung around one’s head. Sometimes you can hear the tips of ravens’ wings make a similar sound when they glide by real close and there isn’t any wind.

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