Vermilion night

In the last rays of evening light,  far below at the base of a distant peak, elk began to bugle… soothed by the soft siren sounds of cool winds tumbling through the hemlocks… spellbound for hours by stars so bright and dense that a needle-wand of light could not fit between them, sleep came slowly to a soft bed of fir needles, on a high ridge, in a place called “Vermilion”.

Then morning came, gentle and easy, through a saddle to the east,

and within the hour, wolves sang.