Just one of the places I escape to occasionally, in the safety of my head.

 I COULD ALMOST HEAR THE STARS

Twilight arrived early that evening. The storm abated, and despite occasional flurries the moon shone down at intervals through a partly cloudy sky, lending an eerie translucence to the scene and casting curious shadows on the glimmering snow. The breathtaking beauty of the mountains once more overcame me. The magnificent ponderosa pines leaned and swayed precariously, each bow hanging heavy, laden with a mantel of white. The air was still and silent with only the occasional pop of an overburdened limb disturbing the quiet as it echoed from the canyon beyond. Smoke boiled and billowed from a forest of stovepipes, and the sound of kindling being chopped rang at intervals from a series of locations and echoed from the ravine. I stood for a long time, shivering and staring awestruck across the snow-covered Sierras. I’ve never experienced air fresher, shadows deeper, or a scene so extraordinarily quiet and pristine. You’ll laugh and think I’m crazy, but it seemed as though I could almost hear the stars.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, a bitter north wind whipped down from the high country. The storm returned with a vengeance, and the temperature dropped to around thirty degrees. I pulled my chair closer to the potbellied stove and poured myself some coffee from the gray graniteware pot. As twilight approached, I sat staring out the window and listening to the moan of the howling wind as it tore at the shingles and rattled the chimney cap. I could hear the hiss of sleet as it began filling the ruts and hoof prints in the muddy street, and icicles began to form and hung in profusion from the eaves. The sleet came down fitfully against the window, and periodically a gust of wind would find its way down the stovepipe and the old cast iron heater would belch smoke from around its dampers and red-hot lid.

After a while the rough plank roof began dripping and leaking like a sieve, and one by one a strategically placed company of pots and kettles joined in a chorus of plinks, plops, and piddles as they filled quickly with their captured leakage and began splashing rhythmically on the floor. Clearing a spot on the frosted windowpane, I squinted and peered outside. The snow was coming down in earnest now, and the street was entirely abandoned with the exception of a few hardy souls on the boardwalk by the bell tower. I warmed a blanket for myself, kicked back in my chair, and leaned against the wall. The stove dampers were wide open, and I remember watching the firelight dancing on the wall. Then the cobwebs came, and darkness took me in.

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