We're in September, the end of summer, the beginning of fall. In the rhododendron along the banks of the stream an occasional yellow leaf hangs down. To one who appreciates the art of random arrangements they add a new touch to the landscape.

A few leaves in some of the trees have turned yellow. Some have fallen. They lie here and there on the floor of last year's leaves. They float on the still water in coves among the moss-covered rocks sticking out from the stream's banks.

The water beside where I sit flows in a wide circle, possibly eight feet in diameter, next to the flow of the channel through this place. Before Hurricane Hugo in 89 the circular flow had a place hollowed out three to four feet deep. During the storm's mayhem a radical change occurred in the flow of water through here that filled the round, funnel-shaped hole with rocks and sand.

Now the water moves in its circle around the mound of sand, a round sandbar less than a foot beneath the water's surface. Two small crayfish scour the mound, sometimes digging downward into the sand until they're out of sight. After a little bit they fly backwards out of the sand like a missile out of a silo, then settle on the sandy floor in a cloud of muddy smoke and start crawling around looking for snacks again.

A school of minnows swim in place above the sand mound facing the oncoming current, their eyes on the surface waiting for a small winged insect to light for a second. One of the minnows darts to the surface, a circle forms and dissolves in an instant, the minnow swims back down and rejoins the company of underwater disco dancers.

The image of a doe jumping a barbed wire fence with locust posts standing askew stays in my mind. A friend in Ashe County emailed it to me last week. Driving along Buck Mountain Road, a road that is still gravel, she saw the deer in the road. It ran down the road in front of her. The doe gave her time to get her new digital camera ready, then it jumped the fence so close she got a great picture.

My mind has been flashing to young deer I've been seeing in the road when I go out in the morning. I've been wondering why I see so many young deer this year without their mothers, fawns too young to be weaned. I watched a pair of twins grow this summer, seeing them often in the road confused, evidently after losing their mother too soon.

Yesterday I learned that somebody at Air Bellows has been belly-shooting deer with a .22 that run off and die on other people's land. Deja vous. That's happened up here before, fifteen to twenty years ago. In the evening just before dark I'd hear the pop of a .22 and say a prayer for another deer's soul.

The cats have found places to nest while they wait for me. Aster is curled up on a bed of colt's foot and moss above the opposite bank. Tar Baby has claimed this rock I'm sitting on. He attacks Tapo and Caterpillar when they approach me. It's not a serious attack, just a pounce with enough teeth and claws to tell them they have to fight him for it if they want on my lap.

He has never been this aggressive about claiming me. He's feeling frisky today, walks around with his ears back. A little while ago he jumped onto my back and climbed it like it was a tree trunk. He's never done this before either, that is since he was a kitten climbing everything, and it didn't hurt then. I let out yelp and had to disengage him manually.

The other two cats are staying away from him. He crept over to sleeping dog Aster, who doesn't have much tolerance for play anymore, like he was going to pounce on her, but his better judgment kicked in and he changed his mind. He ran quite a ways up a cucumber tree, turned around, came back down and took off running like a horse when his feet hit the ground.

Now he's sitting beside me wanting some petting. A little bit ago he pounced on Caterpillar, biting her neck. She wrestled him off of her and popped him on the head with an open paw. He's out in the woods someplace now, looking for something to chase. He's like a child after too much birthday cake.

It started raining and I got up to go, gathered my writing items, put them in the bag, called for Tapo, but she never turned up. The rain stopped. I sat down in another place in the bend of a spruce pine trunk that grows from the end of a big rock sticking out over a cascade of white water.

When I noticed Tar Baby's spells of picking on his sisters appeared to have a pattern, I made a mental note that the moon was in its fourth quarter. The next time the moon entered that phase he started pouncing on them again. He ran Tapo up a tree, attacked her in the tree, they both fell to the ground, Tapo took off running full speed and Tar Baby right behind her. He caught up to Tapo and tackled her; they twisted up into a ball and rolled around in the trail making a loud racket. After a few years of watching this I know when the moon is in the last quarter now by the cat fights.

Back to the Backwoods Beat/Waterfall Road Archive

Email: news@alleghanynews.com