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Show PAGE 3 THE ZEPHYRDECEMBER 89 BURIAL from the forthcoming novel Hayduke Lives by Edward Abbey CkJ man turtle amoles along the deerpath, seeking breakfast A beak. His small strand of wild rtcegrass dangles from his pincer--i- ke wise droll rednmmed eyes look from side to side, brignt and war and shrewd. He walks on long leather legs, fuily extended from the clear of die sand. walnut --colored hump of shell, the ventral sxio-cia a Tammy's scace. His shell is big as 3 cowboy's skillet gardeners helmet. He is years old middleaged. He has fathered many children and will beget more. Maybe. A desert tortoise. Tortoise, turtle, whats the difference? There is none. The ancient Greeks thought the tortoise s cnc of cerr.cn. So much for the Greeks. An ignorant pecoie. Tnis old man follows his regular route, seiccm wancenng more than a hundred yards from his base cams, -- ke a:l desert turtles, he knows his home, loves it. stays there, guards it Above his head grow shrubs of silvergray sagebrush, tailer than trees to him. Above the sage, aligned with the course of a ravine where clear water flows over ledges cottonwoods. Their bright of rosy sandstone, stand huge fat free-fcr- m sia green leaves tremble in the faintest breeze. To the turtle the treetcps seem remote as clouds. Where a buzzard sails, tipping sideways. Where a small airplane drones through the air on its linear, tedious single-mind- ed course. The world tips eastward, a molten sun bulges above the eastern canyon wail. Sun the size of a demon's fist. (Appearance is reality, ed said a wise man. Epicurus.) Wall pink ike sliced watermelon, verticaiity. rising one hundred feet above the graygreen talus of oroken rock, scrub juniper, blackbrush, scartet gilia, purple penstemcn, golden prince's plume. It is the season of spring in the mile-hi- gh tablelands of the canyon country. In America the still Beautiful. Old man turtle keeps to the shade. By the time the sun has flooded the canyon floor with light and heat he will have returned to his cool dark den deep in the ground. He pauses to clip a stem of grass from its base, folds the green blade into his toothless jaws. Grass getting harder to find these days; his desert infested with a novel enemy, the domestic beef cow. He ambles on. He stops again to sniff at a dropping, the size and shape chocolate-covered of a almond, resting on the sand. Pack rat? Elk? River toad? None of these but rather the dung of another turtle, a a CkJ man female. and turtle lifts his head and peers about, stranger wise ancient humorous eyes now a shade brighter than before, alert, their twining oeads of carmine Tight set in a mass of leather wrinkles. The turtle lowers his head, steps forward nose to the ground, tracing the spoor of the lovely stranger. A pink plastic ribbon flutters from the head of a stake in the ground, catching his eye. Again the old man stops. He feels a dim vibration in the crust of the earth. The ground trembles. Again the wind veers, again he smells the harsh violent odor of something unknown and alien to his world. He feels, he smells, and now he hears that things approach: a metallic clatter growing loud and louder, a sound as queer and unprecedented as the odor. Gld turtle cranes his neck to look backward but sees only the familiar sprigs of sagebrush with their miniature purple bloom, the red cow-bur- nt sand, the dried-c- ut clumps of bunch grass, the invading thickets of cheatweed. Above the sage, beyond the cloudy trees, he sees what might be a veil of dust rising slowly toward the blue. right-angl- nut-bro- wn VVee s she? 'ead aoL ne sn:ffs the air. But the air currents come from his nor the sweet ragranoe of female turtle In estrus but an reav oaa-n- g ie. poisonous, of a thing hot and burning, an odor of something emH nor alve o-- h nevertheless n motion, accroaching him from a vast cut no .noompreoensicie distance. The smeH is totally new to him from in the nostriis and nerves of old man turtle, totally different from -a half decades of experience. It is anything ,nom n is four a stink even worse T.an djgt of cow and cows dung. Rigid with attention, cask uc and reck exlervbed to its full three Inches, the old turtle searches and die collective conscious of the tortoise race. a-- d rer,7 No due. Tne wind changes dir action by a few degrees, the dark smell abates, fades off. At once he forgets it. W A Running cattle? The desert turtle consults his memory file. Perhaps it is cattle. But the stench of cattle, though foul indeed, is nothing like what he smells now. Nor do their cloven devils hooves create the shrill hard screeching clamor that he hears this time. The alien. An alien monster, unimaginable, unforeseeable, coming closer, moment by moment The turtle lowers his head and hurries foiward, feeling pursued. Feeling fear. Aware finally of a new and definite mortal danger. Perhaps he should turn aside, hunt for shelter under the ledges of the creek or among the junipers on the talus slope, but such a plan does net occur to the elementary brain of old turtle. From custom and obeying the homeward instinct he sticks to the familiar path, bound for his deep and sheltering burrow in the ground. Too late. Something huge and yellow, blunt-nos-ed grill-facglass-ey- ed with a mandible of shining steel, belching black jolts of smoke from a single nostril of seared metal, looms suddenly gigantically behind the old desert turtle. The monster bellows In his rear, gaining fast rumbling forward on an endless track of linked and clanging feet shoving before it as It comes a rolling wave of sand, earth, rocks small trees and mangled ed, sagebrush. '! SUN COUNTRY REALTY JTTU ' A I a'1" FINEST FAMILY RESTAURANT OPEN 6 a.m. Call 259-835- 2 , COME IN FOR THE BEST HOME COOKED MEALS your real estate professionals: We are able to serve Vur needs - Merry Christmas an HaPPy Hew Year from all of -p us at Sun Country Realty. 1075 So. Hwy 191 (801)259-632- 6 'PWfSjC P0 B0X 1269 Moab, Utah |