We wheel downhill to cross the creek and at the corral fence I proudly get out to officially open the gate and let the cars through—We go bumping down the two-rutted lane to the cabin and park—My heart sinks to see the cabin.
To see the cabin so sad and almost human waiting there for me as if forever, to hear my little neat gurgling creek resuming its song just for me, to see the very same bluejays still waiting in the tree for me and maybe mad at me now they see I'm back because I havent been there to lay out their Cheerios along the porch rail every blessed morning—And in fact first thing I do is rush inside and get them some food and lay it out—But so many people around now they’re afraid to try it.
Monsanto all decked out in his old clothes and looking forward to a wine and talkfest weekend in his pleasant cabin takes the big sweet axe down from the wall nails and goes out and starts hammering at a huge log—In fact it’s really a half of a tree that fell there years ago and’s been hammered at intermittently but now he’s bound he’s going to crack it in half and again in half so we can then start splitting it down the middle for huge bonfire type logs—Meanwhile little Arthur Ma who never goes anywhere without his drawing paper and his Yellowjack felt tip pencils is already seated in my chair on the porch (wearing my hat now too) drawing one of his interminable pictures, he’ll do 25 a day and 25 the next day too—He’ll talk and go on drawing—He has felt tips of all colors, red, blue, yellow, green, black, he draws marvelous subconscious glurbs and can also do excellent objective scenes or anything he wants on to cartoons—Dave is taking my rucksack and his rucksack out of Willie and throwing them into the cabin, Ben Fagan is wandering around near the creek puffing on his pipe with a happy bhikku smile, Ron Blake is unpacking the steaks we bought enroute in Monterey and I’m already flicking the plastics off the top of bottles with that expert twitch and twist you
