The Cats Who've Come To Stay
Copywright 2001©
The cats who've come to stay have been of quite a number.This
occurrance of various visitors of a herd of different colors started when I was quite young. Their visitation to me was not always clear as to their help to me or my help to them, but it seemed that both benefited.
The first that came was a black sleek, well-defined young male when I was only 7 years of age. I met him while I was on the mountain side of the Rockies on a spring afternoon, picking wild flowers. The small bluebells and the blue bachelor buttons where my favorites. I came especially that day to bury my treasures collected in my young age.
He carefully came past where I was sitting so that he came into my view. He said he had been watching from the rock precipice that protruded near the ridge of the mountain. He said he had watched over me before and thought it was time to meet. My name is Shadow, he said. The Spirit of the Keanutes' that had once inhabited the land had told him to come.
He was very curious as to what I was burying amidst the wild flowers that grew so tall. I told him that I did not know how long I would be here and that I wanted to leave behind, in this land that I loved the objects that I cherished most. He felt interested as to what might take me from this land. He could not find a way to ask. He said instead, that he and his ancestors had lived amidst the mountains for many generations--dating back to the time the Katz first befriended the Keanutes. He personally was not acquainted with this strong force of life that was once so prevalent in the mountains. It was Shadow's GreatUncle Zeb that spoke of the experiences of the Katz and the Keanutes together over the many centuries.
Shadow spoke with the ancient spirits, how exactly no one knows, but his uncle Zeb considered it to be powerful. The Katz and Keanutes had a strong connection with the mountains, and their love of them ran deep. The warmth of the sun and the dry smell of sage growing wild in the mountain meadows and the blue- blue sky with the white cumulus clouds above making forms to day-dream upon. These are the things I remember along with the lake. The long lake with the deep blue waters and many an interesting cove for a secluded look at the lake. You see it was the Keanutes that inhabited the land before the lake was formed.
Dams were built between the hogbacks of the mountains to hold the waters from the valley below. A total of three dams were built at the east of the large mountain river valley and one large dam at the north to close the exit of waters as they fed in from the river from that direction.
The tallest part of the house of communion for the community could still be seen at the low waters of harvest season. They say the cart paths throughout the town can be seen when diving.
