One Man's Dream

Chapter 3

Next morning Steve woke up with a chill that went clear to his bones. It was colder than a well diggers butt so to speak. He threw some wood on the coals and soon had a fire going. The fire was in a small rock overhang so as soon as the rock started heating up the rest of the little area he was sleeping in would get comfortable.

He put the coffee pot on a couple of flat rocks after putting more coals between them. He pulled his blanket over his shoulders and fed some small sticks under the pot. It wasn"t long before it was too hot for the blankets, so he rolled them up and started some eggs and bacon frying. He then made several pieces of toast over the fire.

When he was finished he had four eggs and half a pound of thick sliced, hickory smoked bacon on the plate, toast, butter, and a pot of coffee. Later he sat back and marveled on how good breakfast was. He didn"t believe he could remember ever tasting anything any better.

After about half an hour, he heated up some water, washed up the dishes, packed up his backpack and walked out the back opening of the cave. There was a small solar electric fence hooked to a gate about ten feet wide which kept about everything out except mice, rats etc. But he had put rat and mouse poison around to keep everything like that out of the s u v. He"d come back later to get the rest of his supplies.

Over the years, John had thought of and packed in most everything a person would need to live fairly comfortable with a little maintenance and upkeep.

Steve looked around at the tracks and couldn"t really tell what was bothering the dog the night before but whatever it was he figured sooner or later they"d come in contact with it, or at least figure out what it was.

Then he looked and seen where a wide trail went between a two rocks before it went around the mountain. Probably fifteen feet wide and about the same height, was a ledge that hung out over the trail that kept a lot of the weather off of it. John said it was hid, and he wasn"t lying so far.

He walked up for about a quarter mile and the trail went between a split in the wall. Just about the time he thought the trail was ending, he could see light on the other end and that was it. There was enough over hang on both sides that it was like a big cave. About halfway through the cave he felt a wet nose and hot breath on the palm of his left hand and his heart stopped just for a second. Lord, he hated it when that dog did that. He was pretty sure the dog knew it too. As soon as he jumped about ten ft. in the air and hollered a few profanities at the dog, well let"s just say the dog didn"t get any closer then ten feet of him for a while, not until he had cleaned his pants and got his wits back about him anyway.

At the other end of the cave the valley opened up. It was about fifty feet below, maybe five hundred yards wide and two and a half or three miles long. A big lake sat right where the valley split, maybe three quarters of the way down the length of it. The two walls separated into two directions about two hundred yards wide ending at another high wall.

The walls squared off and came back toward the middle of the lake almost like the edge of a knife. Scattered trees, some small patches of woods, thicker but not so large and what looked like a cave that let the water run through an out of the valley. He couldn"t tell much from this distance, but he was high enough he could see the beauty with clarity.

Now, where was the cabin? Scanning the walls of the valley he could see a lot of overhangs, and there, back in the shade, he could make out a couple of horses that John so often had talked about.

Looking farther out to the left of the lake on higher ground was a big ledge. Tucked back, he could see the slight glare of something. What was it? Finally, he made out the front of a log cabin that actually sat back in against a rock wall.

After he studied it for a while, he could tell the roof was actually a large rock overhang with the log front wall sat back in under. No way to see it from above or most any angle other than right in front of it. He probably wouldn"t have seen it if not for the glare from something shiny on top of the flat overhang.

He just stood there for a while and soaked up the beauty of everything. Finally he picked up his rifle, and started down the trail into the valley. By the way the trail went he probably had at least an hour and a half before he would get to the cabin and see everything.

As he started down the trail he could see there was a storm of sorts coming in so he thought he had better hurry. He told the dog to come on and if he scared him like that again, he’d shoot him. The dog kept his distance.