Thinking Like a Mountain

A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock
Rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night
It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow
And of contempt for all the adversities of the world
Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well)
Pays heed to that call

To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh
To the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow
To the coyote a promise of gleanings to come
To the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank
To the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet
Yet, behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears
There lies a deeper meaning known only to the mountain itself
Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf

Those unable to deciper the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there
For it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land
It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night
Or who scan their tracks by day

Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events
The midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks
The bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces
Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves
Or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them

My own convinction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die
We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which
A turbulent river elbowed its way
We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water
When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail we realised our error
It was a wolf

A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows
And all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings
What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the centre of an open flat
At the foot of our rimrock

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf
In a second we were pumping lead into the pack
But with more excitement than accuracy
How to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing
When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down
And a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes
I realised then, and have known ever since
That there was something new to me in those eyes
Something known only to her and to the mountain

I was young then, and full of trigger-itch
I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer
That no wolves would mean hunters' paradise
But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf
Nor the mountain agreed with such a view

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves
I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain
And seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails
I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed
First to anaemic desuetude and then to death
I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn

Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears
And forbidden Him all other exercise
In the end the starved bones of the hoped for deer herd
Dead of its own too much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage
Or molder under the high-lined junipers

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves
So does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer
And perhaps with better cause
For while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years
A range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades

So also with cows
The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realise that he is taking over the wolf's job
Of trimming the herd to fit the range
He has not learned to think like a mountain
Hence we have dustbbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea

We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness
The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison
The statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars
But it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time

A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking
But too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run
Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum
In wildness is the salvation of the world
Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf
Long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men