Fiction

What we thought was the old river bed is a chain of curved ponds. What we thought was a pool is an island, and then, in a dry spell, a beach. Ice becomes water becomes mud.

What we thought was sheer rock turns out to be a jumble of pockmarked sandstone, augured lairs, a gash of a cave. Another day the cave is only a cleft, twenty feet high, half a mile away, and deeply shadowed at dusk.

Nat argues that it must be a cave and vows to climb the rock outcropping and find the opening. What’s inside? Bears have recently been spotted in this county. Petroglyphs are not uncommon. It’s our luxury to wonder, a pleasure to let the question teeter.