Attitude Meets Altitude

0 Dark 30 or so, and I arose in order to meet a bus headed South at 0530. For $7 (due to my years on the rowing benches) the bus would drop me at Union Station in Denver. I was to sit and wait the arrival of the California Zephyr, due at 0715. She was late, but government dulls everything.

I walked around a little after daylight seeing the city wake up, figuring out the below-ground bus layout and access from the train. The train was late, due to arrive at nine, and I bought a book to pass time within the upscale restored train station. It was done up like maybe the 1930s. You know, the years our country became infested. I seldom come down this way for a very good reason.

Around nine I was hanging back down by the benches at the end of the line. The spot smokers and drinkers sit is the best view of the Zephyr backing down. I watched until it stopped and the Conductors stepped out, then strolled down the platform past all the cars, watching the folks escaping their ride. No Jimmy-Jimmy that I saw. I turned and strolled back, looking hard now. It had been a year after all, maybe that's him wearing coveralls and a hard hat? No, he was the guy in a boonie hat across the tracks, bouncing on his toes and the balls of his feet. In motion, but standing still.

I crossed over and we met up. There was a bright aura of motion about him, so he stood out from the crowd of people around us. I let him know the first bus North was four hours away, and we ate food, drank beer and coffee and generally kilt time until the time arrived.

The bus was fast and plush: wi-fi, bottles of water and a toilet. An hour later he was planted under a shelter with his gear while I ran for the truck in a downpour. Summer in the Rockies.

The old Ford crawled up the last bit of dirt road and we were at the place. Head of the canyon, hanging off the flank of the mountains like a Swallow's nest. Angles everywhere.

I was three weeks off a sprained ankle and sort of limping about, but James was wide awake and looking at stuff. Energy from hell. Like being with a practicing man-at-arms would be, I'd imagine.

***

It was into the 90s during the days, but with low humidity and a breeze the sun gets aggressive on sea level hide. Closer now with less pollution, folks have died for the lack of a hat. As well, the atmospheric pressure is slightly lower and the air is slightly less inspired. For five or so days one will come up short of wind, until the body learns it.

James had swarmed through my shop, dragging a rubber car mat outside and hosing a year's worth of mud and slush off it, leaving it to sun dry and then be rained and hailed upon. Each gas can, wrench, carton, roll of hose, etc. etc., was set up high on something out of the way, then the whole space was swept out. The reflected light level at least doubled, toning down the drab dungeon vibe. James whacked on the heavy bag with my blackthorn stick. I wandered around wondering where everything was.

***

James told me that he had planned to do several hours a day of "light labor" to try to stay loose and maintain form. I told him his ship had come in. I need a secure footpath across the front of my shop, and the stone apron surrounding the building was trying to head downhill. That is no longer the case. I now have a proper path and James has been altitude tuned. Learned about hydration and getting work done early in the cool. A large toad has moved in under the bridge across some drainage, and a new small sub-world has sprung up. Cowboy the dog has embraced the new path, and the James effect lingers in his wake.

We went to a fairly good liquor store, and I got a bottle of bourbon. James got a jug of Carlo Rossi red and a 12-pack of Aggie beer. Nobody's drunk Rossi red and rum on ice out of a Pyrex measuring cup around me lately. OK, no one had ever done that. Baltimore cuisine right here in the high desert.

I worked him daily, mattock in hand like some white slave in the sun. He's in better shape than me for sure. I could let it inspire me off my ass into industry of my own, but there's no way I will let that sort of thing happen. I like taking two hours to wake fully up.

Ishmael showed up to visit and take the drifter over into Utah. He is a constant, like a human prime number. A lost culture in human form. He slept out on the deck at night in a Mercedes-like folding chair, listening to the cattle wailing down in the valley, buck snorts as the deer boys crept about mossy horned and "something with a fluffy tail that got close." Heard a cow Elk too. Just one, just once. Ishmael was limping around too, but he has two robo-knees and a good excuse.

We held some temperance meetings and shot the shit until we were tongue tied. James had been planning to use Ishmael as a sort of fork lift due to his size, but he was feeling his wounds and had not the LaFond enthusiasm for dirt work. Despite all that, it got done. We'd ride to the store, twenty miles daily for the mail, paper and Gatorade. Zero humidity and temps of 90 allow one to drink liters of Gatorade and water, yet never piss. Mountain Magic! We'd made the store run on Friday, and I realized I'd been a bad host to both James and Ismael. We'd been up at the house all week and I hadn't shown them around much.

I hung a right on Highway 36 out of the store and headed west up the Big Thompson Canyon towards Estes Park. In the Rockies, an open space ringed by mountains is called a park, think South Park. It is a glorious drive up through sheer canyon walls. Bighorn sheep kick rocks down at you as they defy gravity like mammalian house flies, prowling the crags. I turned off the main road at Drake onto the best bike road I know of. World class biker killing curves, always climbing, gaining altitude on up through Glen Haven past the Glen Haven Inn, a virtual English inn run by two genuine English poofs. GREAT establishment! On upward, finally through some of the most devious switchbacks ever, where I nearly dropped my bike more than once, and then topping a pass to reveal Estes Park suddenly like some kinetic postcard 2,000 feet below us.

We coasted on down through the estates and condos. High dollar stuff, and we could go there, if we behaved. The traffic was crawling through crowds of white peoples on vacay. We wound up at the Estes Brewery, where we saw our first Dindu. He had three or four mesmerized white people with him that he was instructing. He only said MF once, so was obviously tamed, maybe even educated. James was over the moon. He felt at home.

We had burgers and beer, then drifted on back downhill on Highway 36 back through the canyon. We held another temperance meeting, and the next day was spent shooting. Ishmael had an old school M14, I had 308 stuff too plus shotguns and 9MM stuff. We shot awhile, and it wound up shooting rocks off fence posts with a 22 target pistol at around 15 yards. Ishmael the sand-bagger, "I hardly ever shoot handguns," damn near beat me with my own pistol.

The next morning, Sunday, James and Ishmael headed off to Utah. Life quieted down to the normal silence, and my Wife emerged from her safe room. Cowboy the dog stared off down hill after the guests, having been charmed by James with beef jerky.

Too much testosterone, three men on the place. That was my Wife's assessment. I thought the level was optimal, me. You can live with folks half your life and all, but don't ever think that means you know them completely.

Riley