The growling cloud may soon find a place to bleed its heart-water in torrents, turning vicious and unforgiving as it reaches the ground, searching the lowest terrain, sniffing and snuffing its way like a hungry coyote on the hunt, but with the force of a downhill locomotive someone lost control of. Rolling away the unrollable, the water in its gaining power smothers the dry washes in wakes of white foam, brown liquid sand, and slithering debris. The sliding, shallow water that precedes the deep, roaring gully-washer, whispers as it rounds a bend, like the hushing rustle of a quiet surf. And down in the flats of wolftail and sparse grama are American pronghorns and blacktailed jackrabbits, and scattered through the hills are mule deer, elk, Merriam's wild turkey, and tassel-eared squirrels in shades of silver and black. Rushes of bandtailed pigeons come through from the north in the early fall.
Coyotes raise ruckus and bobcats remain composed.
The mountain is forest land blended with range country, divided between federal jurisdictions, and leased to citizens addicted to cutting timber and growing livestock. Those citizens think of the bear as an interloper. The bear doesn't realize he isn't a property owner himself. But only if the wildlife didn't interfere with the activities or business interests of the entrepreneurial residents. The law spells all that out.