Tramping

With renewed vigor we shouldered our packs and attacked the trail ahead at a pace that was incredible to behold. We wanted that time…at the top… for us alone… and the sooner we got there the more moments there would be to share.

It seemed like no time at all before we reached the rim and stood staring downward at the majesty below us. The marker read 7,700 feet above sea level here, the verdant green of the high country spreading out as far as the eye could see. Small pools of blue broke through the canopy here and there…Christopher Creek…Tonto Creek, and far to the south the watershed of Roosevelt Lake. Tiny ribbons of asphalt wove between the hills, beaten into submission by the forces of nature, and every so often a tiny insect-sized car would make its tentative way upward toward the escarpment. But they wouldn't see what we'd seen, I thought…find what we'd found.

We sat huddled along the rim, leaning against each other, counting the minutes by the muted beating of our hearts until the realities of the dwindling day forced us to deal with the inevitable.

Then, laying his groundsheet among the ferns. My lover slowly, tenderly removed my clothing for one last time…one last intimate expression of what we'd found and were about to lose.

Gently he held me, stroking his fingers over my trembling flesh, swallowing my heated sighs as they escaped from my lips. His voice, a hush in the wilderness, touched me in places that no physical act ever could as he murmured sweet intimacies into my hair.

And so he continued, until my longing for him became unbearable, and his touch became the only thing in the world that mattered…a union of flesh…a bonding of souls…a memory forged of timelessness.

We joined then, his sweet presence filling me, driving me…consoling me, and when his essence had once more mingled with my own we lay together, embracing as though no earthly power could possibly separate us.

But it was a myth…a fantasy. For, even now the the Mogollon Stage would be on its route, weaving its way along the road from Winslow to the Rim…ready to take me back to my small car a lifetime away.

We paused…the words that might postpone the inevitable forming on our lips, then dying in the light of reality. What we'd found had been special…something borne of the moment…its fleeting heartbeat not meant to withstand the rigors of the world beyond.

We knew it …and we mourned.

And so we sat that way…lost in each other's embrace…offering no promises and asking none until finally the bus pulled into view and it was time to leave.

I wavered as I climbed the stairs…boarding the bus for the return trip back to civilization…to my life as I'd known it before my "tramp" into the wilderness.

I paused. Something deep within me wanting to follow him to wherever his 'track' might lead …but I knew it was a foolish fantasy. Ours had been a moment removed from the persistent tick of the clock…a pure pristine memory that the real world could only tarnish and adulterate.

Our moment was over…it was time to say good-bye.

And so, as he faded away into the distance, I knew he would always be a part of me, and I of him…preserved in perpetuity by the selfless act that tore us from each other's arms. Though we were parted…he would never be gone. He would remain as he was just at this moment…young and virile…strong and passionate until the end of time…perhaps on a mountaintop in New Zealand…waiting…waiting…

A dream.

A memory…

…of the days when I once went "tramping" in the wilderness...