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Show RIVER and heaved large sections of the wreck over the sheer cliffs that surrounded the mountain top. They left nothing standing but the floor and part of the porch. Thaf s how I found the peak, the broken skeleton of the shack strewn all over Lonestar amidst Tex's old boots, bottles, and booty, with five years of hippie trash piled atop the mess. I was flat broke, but I borrowed a hammer and saw and pulled and straightened nails out of the sound lumber till my eyes crossed. I hauled the wood up from the bottom of the cliff and salvaged the shingles, and after a fashion I reassembled the cabin. With the help of some of the younger members of the local Allenthal clan I rustled up some tin roofing and window sashes. I built a bed and a desk, hustled up an old mattress, an antique rocker, a tin wood stove, and even an oak ice box. By the end of October I was settled in for the winter. Lonestar's mornings seemed eternal with peace and beauty. On the coast of northern California there is a quality of light and color that I've seen elsewhere only in October: the sea and the sky have a windy clarity that fairly glistens. The peak was high enough so that in the mornings it rose above the thick white coastal fog that piled up against the rising hills. When the winter rains came, the fields turned from yellow and brown to a brilliant green laced with blue and gold wildflowers. I built a window next to my bed so that I could see the sun rise over Empire Grade, and in the lazy long evenings I'd climb a monolithic rock at the west end of the peak and watch the red sun sizzle as it sank into the Pacific. Lonestar was bewitching, so slow and quiet that I settled into the movements of the earth and sky. My days moved as slowly as the sun. At night I could see the glare over the mountains from the solidly packed humanity around the San -123- |