HAVE YOU EVER FALLEN ASLEEP to the sound of something dying?

I find myself here in a tent beside a river ten miles north of Yellowstone and my breath blooms overweight smoke, clouding my vision as I write. There is a herd of elk perhaps three or four hundred strong in a valley this side of the river, and they’re approaching, driven by the same forces that move all beasts. Hunger. Instinct. Sex. Fear. Saudade. I hear their shrieks, their lacuna cries of pain and pleasure, rusted gates swinging free, dancing violent – screeeeeSLAM – in each gust.

I cannot feel the toes in my left foot, a reminder that the circulation of critical materials is already uneven in my blood, a product of no less than 30,000 cigarettes – I’ve done the approximate math – poor posture and the general abuse of three unstable decades. Certain conscious choices have shortened my life, but imagine the horror of aging for a century in such a world, and what sort of world might it be by then?

There are days when I’ve seen enough before my eyes open.

I am hibernating here on this uneven ground because the lazy whiff of a story is stuck in my nose, first conjured on a porch not twenty miles from this spot. That ghost of an idea came weeping into the world sometime in mid-August over a chance beer under a sprawling sunset with a retired Yellowstone worker – a water hauler. Brief as the encounter was, his offhand musing on outfitter legends, staggering rescues and the shame of losing history stuck in the hairs on the back of my neck. I’ve come back to put flesh on that fading story’s bones.

I am lying here to prove that my deep sense of fraudulence is false. Prove it to myself, perhaps, or someone or everyone else. That isn’t clear. I only recognize the feeling that something remains to be tested. Beaten. Written. So I came back to this corner of heartless majesty to dig up a buried fear at the boundary and sink in chattering teeth, scored by a symphony of wailing calves, and bite down on what capsule may come.

I am losing myself here because I have nowhere to call home, at least for now, discounting the generous and immediate offers of scattered friends, family and ex-lovers still holding space for our past. After a summer of rootless wander, the thought of four rented walls and grid system constriction has already chased me back to the road more than once. Returning to this wilderness or any other feels wiser – somehow safer – than the easy addictions of a city. In the woods, survival is a shorter equation.

Resting my head again in this corner of Montana so soon is unexpected, but unsurprising. That last passage through the mountains two months ago – from West Yellowstone down past the geyser pits and burnt valleys to Snake River – redirected the course of my summer, and very likely saved my life. That is not the story I aim to hunt tomorrow, but it’s a fitting memory throwing warmth on this black, howling eve.

Have you ever fallen asleep to the sound of something being killed?

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The rest of “Summer Smoke” is burning between the pages of Sheriff Nottingham XV: Black Friday – out November 23rd!

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