Memories: Installment 5

This is the second to last installment of this series. I have to put a stop to it eventually, or this place will become nothing more than a collection of anecdotes and cease to be a part of my forward momentum. It's good to reminisce, but it's important to acknowledge that the past is over, and we move on from there.

Today I made a comment about my eldest nephew growing quite so tall that reminded me of something a important to me, which is the moment that I realized that - even though he wasn't necessarily related to me by blood - he might as well be. I knew in that moment I was willing to offer my life for him.

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There is a sacred place in the mountains. Few ever travel there. It is nested deep in the wilderness, inaccessible to vehicles even if motors weren't forbidden. It sits quietly along the length of the South Fork of the Stanislaus River, several miles in on horseback. It is peaceful, quiet, pristine. The grass grows a deep green, the trees surround it like guardians, and the water runs as clear as crystal. In mid-June, there is often still snow clinging to the nearby peaks. It is, in my mind, what heaven truly looks like. This place is called Hiram Meadow.

I went with my family there a few times. We would camp at the mouth of the river where it meets the reservoir, and wrestle the gleaming trout from the snowmelt-waters as they raced and jockied to get upstream. We tossed the females back... we would want fish in the next years too, after all. But those fish bite anything. ANYTHING. I've seen people catch a trout with a bass lure. Bait. Dry fly. Wet fly. Salmon eggs. Worms. And bless his heart, my nephew caught one using nothing for bait at all. Just a hook. Those fish were starving on their route upstream, and we'd cheer them on when one lept the eight-foot waterfall.

Every trip, we would venture at least once to Hiram Meadow to let the horses graze a little and to bask in the sacred beauty. This trip was no exception. We had more people with us than most times, including a lady I didn't know hardly at all, but she claimed to know horses, and so she came with. I was on Cloudy, the soft-mouthed snaffle-trained plush-coated quarter horse that somehow decided I was worthy to ride her. (Snaffle-bits are used on horses with VERY sensitive mouths, and using it wrong is a big problem. Her owner trusted my reputation in horsemanship to not harm her, and I did not disappoint. Ever since then, Cloudy was my steed on these trips. She developed this weird kind of kinship with me, but I did NOT complain.) My nephew - being still quite wee at the time - rode with the lady I didn't know on a strawberry leopard-appaloosa.

I rode behind her, keeping an eye on the wee one, and pointing out things to him as we rode past them, like a set of fresh cougar-tracks at the edge of the river in the soft wet sand, or a hawk soaring overhead. I wanted him to come to know and love nature as my father and brother did, as I and my mother do, to really bring him into the family. My brother and his future wife were very serious about one another, and I had this strange need to pull her son into the family and envelop him in a way. I needed to make it known that - blood or not - if he was to be a part of the family, then we would accept him with everything we could offer. And so I hovered a little, I'll admit. Needing to include him. Wanting to show him things. Hoping to make him see, so that he would never doubt.

Hiram Meadow was beautiful as always. It was a sunny day and clear, and the air was that perfect temperature to counter to warmth of the sun so you couldn't get too hot. The water was running swift and glassy over the well-worn stones.

I don't remember all of the details of when it happened, but I remember it happening, I don't remember if it was before we let the horses graze, or after, or during, or which. But I do remember it vividly.

I was on Cloudy, and facing the river, about 20 feet away from the bank. The river ran swift enough through the semi-granite-clay that it had etched the banks into the earth a good three or four feet before hitting water. The water itself was at least three feet of freezing-cold snowmelt, and travelling at a good clip. And that's all I could think about when the strawberry appaloosa decided she wanted to go into the river.

All I could see was the woman's back as she yanked ineffectually on the reins, and my nephew's little legs dangling off either side of the saddle. I didn't have time to think of anything else. All it would take would be a stumble and he would go plunging into the icy water. I don't remember doing it, but somehow I got Cloudy to understand the urgency. She doesn't like to go fast normally (the one time I spurred her into a gallop we were halfway across the meadow before she complied), but as a pair we sprang into action. We came up on the other horse's left side just as its front feet splashed into the water, and gripping the reins in my right hand I reached out with my left to grab the stunned (and now slightly damp) little boy by the ribs and pulled him bodily onto my saddle before turning Cloudy away from the splashing ruckus that was the appaloosa.

In retrospect, I realize now I hardly gave a thought to the woman on the horse. She was kind of one of those "Gee, My, Ain't Nature Grand" kind of people my dad dislikes so much. She had no respect for how deadly even the simplest things could be. No concept of how fast hypothermia can set in, how cold snowmelt really is, and how easy it is for little boys to be swept downriver. Three feet of fast-moving water is nothing to sneeze at. It can kill a grown man, to say nothing of little boys. Hell, I was in danger getting that close.

But I didn't care how dangerous it was to me. It didn't matter. What mattered was the boy, helpless and unaware. He didn't come out of it completely unscathed - his pants were soaked through. But I shudder to think of the misery he might have suffered if he'd gotten completely engulfed by the river, or what might have happened if he'd come loose. In that moment, I didn't give a damn about whether I was risking myself. I needed to get my nephew out of there.

I wouldn't let anyone else take him from me. He rode with me the whole way back to camp, a good solid hour in his little soaked jeans. I kept him tucked into my core to keep him warm; even the warm sunlight couldn't dispel the chill of the water when the breeze kicked up, or when we passed under the shady canopy. All I could think of was how close a call that had been, and how I didn't trust anyone else - anyone else - to keep him safe. And then it hit me.

Blood or no, I'd give my life for this kid.

Scrawny, feisty, full of sass and imagination, wonder and curiosity, this wee lad was Family already. I didn't have to try to welcome him in - he was already there. Protect the young, safeguard the weak. Watch each other's backs. Pick each other up when we fall. "I've got your Six." I'd done it without hesitation. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, probably without thinking about it.

I'm not sure if he remembers it, though I'm sure he remembers parts of those trips. He'd been on a few of them, riding horses, catching fish, building fires, taking the boat out with dad. It doesn't ultimately matter, I suppose. All that matters is that he's one of us.