The Wind of Lonely Places

2.

Sally Cane yawned, pinched the sleep-sand from the corners of her 
eyes, snagged her coffee cup from the dashboard and took a swallow.  
She was waiting now to make her last run of the night.  Four-twelve, 
read the digital display on her watch.  Less than five hours before she 
had to start her day job in Santa Fe.  She sighed wearily, closed her 
eyes.  At first the two jobs had seemed a good way to make ends meet, 
and perhaps get a little ahead, but the pace was beginning to wear on 
her.  "I keep this up much longer," she reflected sourly, "I'll end up 
losing both jobs."
	"Snowcat one to snowcat four," the radio on the dashboard 
crackled.
	Sally picked up the mike and keyed it.  "Go ahead one."
	"Start your run, Sally," the radio spat.  "Cut over from Sunset 
and groom the Burro side of Alpine Bowl when you get down that far."
	"Ten-four, Al," Sally responded.  "See you at the shop.  Four 
clear."
	"One clear."
	Sally snapped off the dome light, and the night poured through 
the windows of the cab.  She revved the idling engine a little to avoid 
stalling when she put the 'cat in gear, and guided the machine down the 
catwalk.
	The night was moonless, and the high cloud cover left the 
night unchallenged even by the stars.  Sally's range of vision was 
confined to the wedge of terrain cut from the darkness by her headlights; 
the instrument panel glowed before her like the eyes of forest creatures.  
The engine noise and the racketing of the treads were muted within the 
cab, mixed with the faint, funereal moan of the wind.  Sally switched her 
tape player on, adjusted the volume.  Strains of a traditional Irish folk 
melody filled the cab.

The Autumn grasses sway apart
before your gentle feet, my love,
and sigh together in your wake,
as unmarked as the rolling waves
that bear my ship across the seas
away from you.  The tears we shed
will never stain these windy fields,
nor make our heart-sore sorrow known.

Clouds moved in from the lower elevations, sliding silently, invisibly up 
the mountain through the evergreens.  Tendrils of mist wandered 
forlornly through the glow of the headlights, disappearing up the ridge.  
Sally shivered with a nameless apprehension, swore softly.  She 
hummed and muttered parts of the song as she scanned the trail ahead, 
her words seeming to echo hollowly within the cab.

Now harvest scythes have shorn these fields.
The evening breeze has blown away
the fragrant grass that swept your skirts,
and melancholy swans are rocked
by fitful whitecaps on the lake.
The branches, like our love, resist
the wind, but one by one the leaves
are snatched, and flung upon the waves.

She skidded through a dog-leg left as she descended into Sunset Trail, 
gunning the engine.  Suddenly she wanted very much to be down the 
mountain before the fog thickened.  Halfway down the run she swung 
over into a side-trail that ran along the bottom of Columbine Glade and 
fed into a natural amphitheater, where several trails converged.  As she 
turned onto the flat area below the cliff, her headlights swept a ragged 
shoal of bare stone at the base of a thirty-foot drop.

O let the bare branch yet resist
the sullen pressure from the sky!
Heed not the mocking laughter from
the straw-folk, nor listen to their lies.

	Sally hit the brake and the clutch together.  The 'cat crawled to 
a stop after a couple of feet, the headlights illuminating a copse of pines 
through twin tunnels of fog.  "Sweet Jesus," she breathed, her gaze 
unfocused.  Slowly she licked her lips, reached, and shifted the 'cat into 
reverse.  She pulled back on the right steering lever, disengaging the 
track on that side, and eased out the clutch.  The 'cat jerked into 
movement, the headlights tracing a slow arc to the left.  Sally stopped 
the 'cat, stared for a moment, then groped for the microphone.
	"Snowcat four to snowcat one," she said numbly.
	A moment, then, "Go ahead, four."
	"I...I've got a code fifty up here, Al."
	Pause.
	"Say again, snowcat four."
	The microphone slipped from her fingers.
	"Come in, Sally.  Say again?"
	Sally stared grimly at the bloody husk broken on the rocks, the 
coffee roiling in her stomach, the rising moan of the wind suddenly loud 
within the cab.
	"Sally..."

Stay this Autumn as you are,
tell no one that you are my love,
defy the augury of crows,
and late in winter, marry me.