SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND:
It was coming on to evening on a long summer’s day. I had started out early that morning from the Croton Spring area; swinging a wide, zig-zagging sort of loop over to Rough Spring, then another unnamed one at the foot of Pulliam Bluff, and now was skirting the slopes of the northwestern slopes of the Chisos.
What I had seen on this one day alone brought home the reason for my life-long love affair with this magnificently lonesome land, as well as the same concerning generations of family and kin from a hundred and twenty plus years before.
Wildlife was in abundance, feeding on the ripened red fruit of the prickly pear. In the gorge leading to Rough Spring, the sign of black bear was prolific. Scat and tracks in mud and dirt, along with the tell-tale snapped off trunks of persimmon saplings, so the bruin could obtain the tasty offerings above. Here and there was the buzzing of bees, going about their business to and from small pockets of water.
The leavings of man were here too, but mainly stretching only from the pre-park era back to the time of the Ancients. Man is supposedly the highest order of animal, and a born predator to boot. His kind is attracted to such environments as easily as any other, plus with man there is that innate desire to explore, to build and to have a place to call home.
It was all here for me to see and experience, as plain and easily observable as the big stand of giant century plants halfway across, their outsized stalks of twenty feet and more all toppled over in the same direction from a past big blow.
And now the sun was beginning to set. There is something special about the coming of evening in this country; the settling of the breeze, the coolness on the face, the rays of the sun tinting the land with a golden hue, and the quietude only broken by the call of the dove and the scraping of boot upon rock as you move along.
Then you stop for a breather on top of some higher ground and feast your eyes on what is before you, knowing that if God Almighty Himself struck you down at this very moment, you would die in complete content.
Because heaven would not be that far to go.
God bless to all,
Ben
FUTURE BOOK SIGNINGS AND TALKS:
(NOTE: THE EVENT IN MIDLAND HAS BEEN POSTPONED BUT WILL BE RESCHEDULED)
–HICO Friday-Saturday, June 10th-11th Billy the Kid Museum Old West Festival
–BOERNE Saturday, July 9th Patrick Heath Public Library, 11am-3pm
–MEDINA Monday, July 11th The Core House Ministries Book Signing, 11am-2pm
–MEDINA Monday, July 11th Faith and Freedom Celebration Speaker Medina Community Library 4pm
–ALPINE Saturday-Sunday, September 3rd-4th, Big Bend Gun & Knife Show, Pete P. Gallego Center
–SAN ANGELO Thursday, September 15th Stephens Central Library, 6-8pm
Ben H. English
Alpine, Texas
USMC: 1976-1983
THP: 1986-2008
Author of ‘Yonderings’ (TCU Press)
‘Destiny’s Way’ (Creative Texts Publishers)
‘Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Bend’ (Creative Texts Publishers)
‘The Uvalde Raider’ (Creative Texts Publishers)
Facebook: Ben H. English
Webpage: benhenglish.com
‘Graying but still game’
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