Gang Aft Agley

The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon. Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun. But by the pool among the mottled sycamores, a pleasant shade had fallen.

Walking slowly through the brush, I expected to find it somewhere - a floating, loosely basketball-sized cloud of color, the pink that surrounds the sun on a horizon. Although it came and went, it never vanished far into the forest. It did as it wished. I'd come to find it before it could return again, to keep it in the forest.

I didn't have to look hard. I found it, warm light pulsing calmly by the pool's edge, and walked quietly to it.

"Hey," I said, although it doesn't speak.

I picked my way near it and sat down. It hovered a few inches off the ground.

"I found you," I said obviously. "I knew you'd be around here. I wouldn't forget you. I'm not that kind."

I mustn't make it feel threatened or panic. But, neither was there any place for it here. It could not be permitted to stay or show itself anytime soon.

From the distance came the sound of men shouting to one another.

I'm never sure how much it understands. It doesn't speak and keeps to its own affairs. It's sometimes unusual, sometimes unexpected, but it makes no difference.

"You know, if it weren't for you out here, I could stay back in the fields and finish the work around the yard...," I said, trying to smile and without a hint of admonition.

I think it understands more than it lets on.
It is yet mysterious to me. It seems to mean no harm.
"You're different." I said.
I watched it beginning to glow like a coal in the darkening evening.

The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pool. And the shouts of men sounded again.

I looked out across the pool.

"Look across the pool," I said shakily. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Look across. Tell me how it could be. No, I mean, let me tell you... I'll tell you so you can almost see it."

And as I said it, it felt like offering firewood to the sun. I realized I don't even know if it can see, or which direction it faces.

"Look across the pool, and I'll tell you."

I would've liked to hear its story, though.

I reached in my side pocket and snapped the safety off of Carlson's Luger. My hand tightened around it and began to shake. I looked at its softly throbbing cloud of pink, churning slowly like a rosy star.

"We're gonna get a little place," I said. "And you won't have to drift around in the forest. We'll have a cow, and maybe a pig and chickens, ... and a little piece alfalfa -"
I think it heard the catch in my voice.

I raised the Luger behind it.
There was just no other way around this. I know I could not have asked anything of it.

"Look down there across the river, like you can almost see it. Gonna do it soon."

But it rose slightly, hovering above me.
I'm sure it saw me holding the gun.

But then it left and floated off, across the river.
I watched the rosy glow dissolving in the distance, reflecting off the waters already darkened by the fading sunset.

I think it understood
both what I was doing, why I had to, and how it must respond (even though I think it knew that I would not be able to actually carry it out).

I stayed beside the pool for a while, leaning back on my hands and trying to see across the thickening veil of darkness.

Then I re-snapped the safety, put the gun back into my pocket, and began the long walk home.
Tomorrow, I'd begin work again.