Hang on, I still hadn't gotten to the mountains yet. I was still on the train at this point in the story. Stretched my rubbery head out of my little haven in the middle of the night, just about forgot where I was. Rusting metal walls with flecks of paint tumbling off-- I was still just waking up in that short bubble of time where the mind draws a blank from the registers of the past and present, so these walls could've been my home. Then my ears came to, and the rhythmic ka-lump-a-lumping of the train grew on my consciousness. These things, with the full moon looking in on me through the gaping door, acted together not only to shake some memory into me (I was not at home), but to inject a cold, raw fear into my system.
I panicked, shot up to my feet, and called out, "Pa! Pa?" I ran breathlessly over to the door and peered outside-- couldn't see much out there but these big, scary dark lines racing beneath my feet in a speckled pale blur. I called out for him, but he didn't answer. My lips began to quiver, my eyes to burn, as a certain despair gripped my heart. Would I see my home ever again? Where was I? What have I done? I'm going to die! I need my Pa!
The indifferent nighttime only made it worse, not to mention the cold, nasty wind whirling in. "Toughen up, boy!" They seemed to say mercilessly. "Ya gotta be rough to make it in this world!" I was all alone, without my Pa. I just couldn't help it; I just sank to my knees and wept and bawled my little heart out.
So I did the only thing I knew to do: Retreat to my corner again, hide in my shell, and squeeze my eyes closed. Just then my eyes peeked open and felt drawn to the dark, shadowy corner opposite from where I was. A new fear pierced me. I sniffed and said, "Hello?" There came no reply. But an instinctive fear began to grow in my stomach. Why does my imagination pick the worst times to tease me? But only, I couldn't look away from this evil patch of black, growing more and more evil the more I tried to ignore it.
Did something move? "H-hello?"
Without warning something satanic and enormous, twice the height of a grown man, was unmistakably rising from the ground. My blood ran ice-cold.
A long, wretched face slowly emerged from the shadows; on it were no eyes. Out from beneath it grew long, bony legs in ragged overalls of faded hue; bare feet with untamed claws! And those terrible demon eyes seared a hole through my face. I edged toward the door slowly, trying not to excite it. But suddenly he screeched-- the most horrifying screech in the world-- burst forward, and these long, hairy arms reached up and grabbed for me; I scurried and stumbled on something, and-- for a brief moment, the world disappeared from beneath my feet, and my stomach was lost.
Wham! All fours whipped in with my head. The trembling world outside my shell rumbled across like a violent slideshow. At this very instant I was stricken with the painful realization that I was waking up for a second time. Gravity must've just woken up from a bad dream too, because he pushed and pulled furiously, not remembering which side of the world he was on. If ever there were a rude awakening from Pa marching around my room flipping on all the lights and bang-bang-banging away on his "good-morning" pan till I was deaf (I wanted to steal that blasted pan and bury it somewhere many times but was too afraid to), this topped them all.
Gravity sobered up, and the motion picture came to an abrupt pause. It was suddenly silent. The wind whistled a little bit. Then some startled crickets shrugged and resumed their chirping nearby. My dizzied eyes, squeezed shut, now opened, and slowly, heart-pounding, I peered breathlessly out the corner of my little cave.
Just as my dancing vision adjusted, and as I began to slowly slide all fours out of my shell to feel the earth, at a faint shout they all retreated quickly back in. I listened intently; it wasn't human. Something somewhere, miles away from here, howled mournfully. Then a whole pack of them picked up on the first's solo and joined in a cacophonous chorus.
Coyotes. It chilled me to the bone. But it grew on me, and when they stopped, I wished they hadn't.
By now any regrets I had for having left home only minutes ago, any tears shed on the train, and the night terror of mine were forgotten and replaced with an overpowering wonderment of the world all around me. An exhilarating wind whipped around violently here, exercising ruthless authority over the land. Every last silhouette of the shifting trees with their leaves glittering in the moonlight, the swaying grass of the whispering plains, the towering hills around this dark valley, the little specks of stars up above, and the coyotes' music most of all-- all came pouring into my senses like-- like what? Just plain richness, that with which reality trumps dreams. The richness wasn't in what I saw, but in how alive I felt in comparison to before, how much existence I felt, and it was terribly fantastic. To attempt to express this to another would be blasphemy-- it just hits you on the inside, but no words or music or pictures can justify the feeling that it gives you to be out there among the wild things with nothing but a soothing canopy of twinkling stars over your head. It's almost enough to make you hate the bed you sleep in. Wandering cowboys with horses and campfires had it made back in the day. I thought I could live out there forever.
I'd always wanted to be a cowboy. I didn't know how a turtle would look in an outfit like theirs, but maybe I'll try it on sometime when nobody's looking.
So why did I come out here?
None of my friends wanted to. Pete seemed warm to the idea at first, but when the fateful morning came and, after playing sick, I telephoned him to come over and join me on my quest, his mama answered instead. That lousy chicken had gone to school-- just plain chickened out on me. She had no idea about the plan, so he was honorable in keeping quiet-- but still a big, fat chicken. I wondered if he had told anybody else at school. Pete was the only boy there who almost had the guts as I laid out my plan for adventuring and cowboying across the vast, dusty land to the group of enthralled boys with lit-up eyes huddled around my desk. At first they didn't think I was being serious, so they all smiled and said things like, "Dude! That would be so awesome!" and, "I would totally be down for that!" But then as I went on, I read it plainly in their fading smiles, they didn't even have to say it: "Wait a minute... He's serious?" and they slowly backed away. Pete was the one who stuck around and showed promise of being my sidekick, but when the metal came to the music, he shrank away too.
Pa had had adventures as a reckless kid. Now it was my turn, and here I am. I wasn't about to let any of my classmates stop me, no matter how hard they pleaded for me to come to my senses. Wouldn't even think about letting them talk me out of it. And if I'd asked Pa, he'd just laugh and suggest a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon. The only image that came to my mind was a long, miserable walk behind a tour-guide explaining things that no reasonable ten-year old would want to know. "No running," he'd probably say (as if my running could get me anywhere). "Stay five feet behind the railings. Okay, now look at this gorge here. Back in 1845..." (I'd gathered that all tours went this way after Pa took me to a tour in the mountains before. It was the most excruciatingly boring day of my entire life, and I wanted to die.)
And so there I was, 'bout twelve hours after I'd dove into the roaring river, now fresh from the spill down the hill off of that train. I stood up and dusted myself off. I looked around and surveyed the majestic dominion of mother nature that engulfed me on all sides, and I suddenly felt very, very small. To a bird up above I would have been a speck; any onlooker would've lost patience and gone crazy watching the little speck of me inch its way across the endless void.
My four little feet started their long, hard work as I began moving toward a spot on the black horizon I'd picked out with my eyes. It was a distant hilltop capped with a solitary tree; I'd figured that, since there was no place in particular to go to out there, that was as good a destination as any.
Must've been half a mile away, and I think that any average human being with nice, long legs that swing each step what would be two whole leaps for me could've made it there in about two seconds. It took me all of half an hour. Actually, it might have taken me twice that long if I didn't hurry as I did-- not that I'd felt impatient to get to any place before, nor am I impatient in general, but this night I was anxious to start on my newly found cowboy life. (I needed a hat, a guitar to strap around me to look cool with, a horse to speed things up, and a piece of straw sticking out of my mouth to complete the set. Can turtles ride horses? Well, Pa taught me fiddle, so I think I can ride a horse too. The author seems to agree.)
After what seemed an eternity of scraping and boosting, scraping and boosting, and scraping and boosting (to the point where my mind would have exploded had it gone on any longer, as the tree sometimes seemed to never get any closer), I finally reached the hillside, panting my poor turtle heart out.
Voices floated over to me across the air. They were going up and down, high and low, louder and quieter. Then some uproarious cackling. Then it all went up and down again. Took me a minute to figure that they were singing. Then it took me another minute to realize that I was approaching those voices; and then it finally struck me that they were coming right from where the tree was! An orange halo flickered over the hill's brim. And by golly, there were three big ol' beasts hitched to the tree as well! Were they there thirty minutes ago, or did I just not see them?
One of the horses snorted nervously as I drew near to him, so I kept a safe distance around him, not wanting to get punted a mile away and have to start the walk all over again.
In about five more long minutes, I strategically positioned myself in some tall grass beside the clearing around the oak tree and peered through: Three grown men in overalls (what is it with the author and overalls?). One big, hairy one on an scratched-up bass, another tall, lanky one with a brand-new, glistening green guitar that mirrored the flames, and another short, stocky man on an old fiddle, all three of them huddled around the campfire. Empty bottles of whiskey littered the ground all around them, giving off an awfully potent stench that nearly knocked me out.
The man on the fiddle was just going at it, zipping his bowline up and down like there was no tomorrow. The fat, jolly bass giant set the mood with a big grin across his Santa Clause cheeks while he watched the fiddler and followed hurriedly along. The guitarist sang some, plucking his strings with fingers of lightning. I could've sworn that if I'd amputated his hand while it still playing and set it down, it would've outrun a bullet train!
I didn't even notice my own foot stomping, then my head bobbing up and down, then my elbows swinging left and right like a sailor, and a big, goofy grin on my face, till I was downright dancing and having the time of my life. You don't get this kind of service at home.
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