“Many warriors made strong by the hard Winter will soon come down from the mountain.
Then there will be enough,” proclaimed my father.
“It will never be enough for them,” I replied.
“It will, Little Flower,” mom declared.
I smiled, tightened my laces, and told them, “It was time.”
The morning sun struck the mountain peak, flooding the path less traveled with natural light.
So, I took it, confident that it would indeed make the difference.
“It is time,” said Joe Longbow leaning on his shovel.
“It is”, I acknowledged as I passed.
It was the same with Tiny Violet and her 12 sisters, standing proudly next to their toil.
I had walked this way many times while the work progressed, and each time it got a little easier.
Some of the boulders were gone, others circumvented. The tree stumps playfully invited us to jump up
or over, and the underbrush…had vanished. But it was dry—oh, so dry.
I stood atop my favorite stump, amazed and energized at the sight of the parched stream bed intersecting
just a few hundred paces below.
I jumped down and ran to it. I gazed upstream, but the signs were not yet there.
The trek to town would be a dusty one.
I looked to my left and saw my little brother and his friends skateboarding
down the hard granite slopes of the Valley of the Moon. I nodded at my Grandfather
watching over them. He smiled proudly, then waved me on.
I followed the stream bed all the way to town. It was noon.
“What brings you all the way down here, Little Flower?”, asked old Ben an original settler.
“One last trip to the hardware store, Ben.”, I said.
“Really! Is it time?”, he queried.
“It is”, I replied.
“Well, darlin, I think it’s ABOUT time. Somethin’s gotta be done,” he retorted.
I kissed him on the cheek and stepped onto the sidewalk of ‘civilization’.
It was a small town, wires, hard pavement and Amazon had brought all the conveniences of
modern life to their households, allowing them to believe they could escape the
sustaining frustrations of Nature. As if one could escape the power of a relentless Sun,
and simply place the essence of life in a plastic bottle.
It was only March, but the heat had arrived. My pace slowed. The bad boys were watching me sweat
and howling like the dogs they were. They followed me into the store, sniffing and growling.
Mr. Johnson, wanting no trouble from the rich kids, intervened.
“It’s here, Little Flower. How many more of these are you getting?”, he asked, as he rushed to my side.
“This should be the last one, for a while.” I replied.
One of the dogs, leaned toward me and drooled. “What are you buyin’, war paint?”
Another barked, “I hear them drums at night. Do we need to call the cavalry?”
The good dog came to my rescue striking them with a rolled-up magazine,
“My apologies, Little Flower. Down Boys, DOWN.” He then tried to comfort me by copping a feel.
I slapped him hard.
The dogs began to yip and snip until a voice silenced them.
“Lunch break is over boys, or are you quittin and leavin town like all the rest?”
The dogs ran out with their ‘tails’ tucked softly between their legs.
Mr. Johnson sighed, “Thanks, George. I couldn’t afford another ruckus in here.”
“Well, my money would have been on Little Flower. To tell you the truth,
I was sorely tempted to let it play out and pay for the damages. These few ‘workers’ I got left
could use some time in the hospital thinking about consequences”, laughed George.
“Thank you, Mr. Landrum. On any other day I would have welcomed the opportunity, but we need this right away.”
Mr. Johnson asked, “Is it medicine?”
“Kind of…think of it as vitamins for Mother Earth,” I said as I took the package and headed out.
I heard Mr. Landrum say, “Hopefully, it’s a rain dance.”
And Mr. Johnson reply, “Well, prayin hasn’t helped.”
Old Ben was waiting as I left town. “Got my maps and my two canteens,” he said, handing me one.
We arrived at the lab, as the sun dissolved on the horizon. We paused to take in the spectacle.
Joe Longbow (Electrical Engineer) and Tiny Violet (PHD in Physics), opened the package and
inserted the parts into the laser. Grandfather (Geologist) and his fellow most knowledgeable elders
carefully examined the maps of Old Ben (the mining engineer).
We worked all night, finalizing the strategic cuts into the mountain that would restore the natural
flow that had been disrupted by 20th century blasting, digging and mining. Robbing us all of what
was really essential. As my father had foretold, in his metaphoric way, the-excessively-deep-snow-melt-warriors
would soon flow down onto the restored natural path and into the Valley of the Moon
where there would, now, be enough…even for those who would claim we stole it.
