Crossing Maryland’s mountains late at night, I saw a figure.  I caught in a glance disreputable cowboy boots impractical for the highway, small pack drooping to the ground.  He looked so lonely, and the exits were so far apart.  He thanked me when he climbed in, and I pointed out a thin black string hanging from his coat pocket.  He closed the door on it.  It’s stronger than it looks.  I can’t get rid of it.  I looked again at his boots.  Where’re you headed? I asked, even though he had been walking backwards, thumb out.  West.  He mocked me with a touch of his imaginary hat.  Imaginary hat, imaginary lady.  He pulled the string, and I started the car, waiting for something to unravel, or for the end to appear.  His winding went on and on.  He wrapped the slack around his wrist, making a thick bracelet.  At first the ball of black was shiny and dense, but after minutes of wrapping and winding, I started to drive, and the thread grew slowly grayer.  I checked my rear view mirror – still no cars, but it was getting light.  He kept winding, chewing a toothpick, looking like he wanted to start a fight, maybe not with me, unless I made a hat joke.  The thick skein around his tan wrist was now a shade somewhere between grey and blue, but the one between his fingers was peach colored. How much more is there?  I broke the silence.  Never really have come to the end, but I’ll let you know if I do.  He slanted his gaze toward me without turning his head.  He gave a yank, and the sun lurched up blinding in my rear view mirror.

When the high water from the storm receded, much of the path went with it. The recent rain rounded out hollows under the tree roots poking up out of the ground, and washed out the rocks in the path. The flood rushed away as fast as it came, so that the mud splashed everything low with brown spray painted droplets. At the bottom of the falls, where the boulders crowd close to the mist, I braced my legs against one rock, and my back against another. I pushed hard with my legs until the earth opened up wide and deep. With a satisfying crack, the raw roots of trees jagged the earth, and everything eroded faster. Little bits of earth muddied the water. The earth’s seam split straight up the sky’s back. Away crumbled the river edge. Lines of water and sky and water and earth blurred until there was only the path and the water. The river grew darker and darker. I traced it down the washed out and still soggy towpath, pushing through the underbrush. As I walked, the water turned from tea colored to blue then bluer then black, then black again, and blacker til the night sky was rushing past under the trees. Stars caught in the torrent washed along. The Pleiades hooked up against a tree hanging out low, nearly toppling into the river. The star pileup made it difficult to hear anything else, with their hissing and singing out loudly for freedom. All at once, the sound dislodged the tangle, and after a few spins, down the river the constellation went. I walked for hours, until the sky stopped flowing by, and the mud dried up and the pattern made by the fish in the mud spelled out my name. I retraced my steps. The moon was caught in the fissure, blocking the falls except for a few small slivers of sky dripping down in a trickle. My dog barked at the moon once, then began to howl, and with each howl, he nudged the moon with his nose. I told him to stop howling at the moon and to find his ball. He found it and we went home.