3. Caldera
A few blissed weeks later, an early breakfast and then Callie took me for a hike into the forest and up the slopes of the ancient volcano. We started on horseback. Turns out their horses were
exceedingly
well trained and mostly grazed in nearby Forest Service backcountry meadows except in winter or around open season when fools with firearms were even more likely to open up at anything that moved. They also had excellent hearing and knew their own names (and a whole lot more, I would learn later), so when Callie loosed a piercing whistle and called two of them, 10 minutes later she was teaching me how to groom and saddle a horse in one of their barns. I'd helped do some of this as a child, but that was long ago and Callie was undoubtedly better at all of this than anyone who'd ever taught me before.
At 5'9", Callie was the tallest woman here, athletic with slim hips and an absolutely amazing bottom, a glowing face, as shy as Jess in her way and the most likely to want to work alone. Hazel eyes tending towards green, long straight light brown hair in a ponytail emerging from behind her baseball cap, a beautiful smile that came too seldom but absolutely lit up what some might think was a plain, lightly freckled face. I thought her unutterably lovely.
She was so gentle with the horses, talking to them softly, making absolutely certain nothing would cause a crease or discomfort later, going slowly because she was also showing me and describing everything she did, sometimes guiding my hands to help, which was nice. Both horses were geldings, mine because I was basically a beginner though Callie very generously introduced me to the horse I would be riding as an "advanced beginner," and geldings were often docile and patient. Her preferred mare was likely to be otherwise occupied now during mating season, so she had a gelding today, too. She saddled her horse first, supervised saddling mine, then fit me with riding boots and a helmet, also packing up hiking boots for later. No spurs, and everything I wore had been purchased for me since my arrival. She also had a rifle in a saddle-mounted scabbard and wore riding breeches. Two knives, one menacingly long, and two long staves. My pants were more generic North Face, and she told me, smiling gently, that I would lose more weight before they would seek custom-fit gear for me.
It was a cool spring day, no rain but there was mud and puddles and streams to cross on the trails, sparsely graveled Forest Service roads in between. Callie spoke to me and to the horses gently throughout, her soft voice so very easy to listen to, the horses' gently rocking gait and small tinkling bells on our saddles hypnotic. She stopped and pointed out wildlife several times along the way: porcupine, a startled mule deer, several hares, bearsign we dismounted to examine more carefully, a marmot, a pika, so many chipmunks, squirrels, and ground squirrels that she didn't bother pointing them out except to distinguish chipmunks from the local ground squirrel - both had striped backs.
Drier and rockier as we climbed, then as the trail steepened to the caldera ahead, a smaller cone to our right, we left the road and dismounted for lunch, a stream and forage nearby for the horses. We sat together, side by side, on a blanket made of bamboo fiber, my helmet off. I reached for her hand and she took it, sighing. We breathed together, eyes closed, smelling the high country and the few remaining patches of snow melting and the warming green and brown and tan and gray world around us. Lunch was granola with raisins and banana chips and tart dried cranberries and sweet coconut strips with a little chocolate, dried leathery fruit, sandwiches of housemade bread with my seared chicken sliced thin and smoked tofu and tomato and lettuce and a few nibs of sopressata with a little housemade mustard and mayo, maybe the best sandwich I've ever tasted that wasn't cooked to order at a place that really knew its business. Water and soft cider from apples and berries and ginger and cinnamon. Definitely the best trailside lunch I've ever had, with the loveliest woman I've ever shared any backcountry with. She sighed again, feeling what I felt, took my hand, placed it above her knee, traced her fingers across its back.
"I haven't done this with a man before, alone," she said softly. "I'm enjoying being with you."
Me, the newly strong silent type, nodding.
"Can you feel this place?" she asked. "Really feel it, feel what's going on below, what went on here before, what will happen again someday?" Maybe she meant it rhetorically, but some simple speech was starting to come back.
