The sinuous track of ferns cushions
each step, stinging nettle reaches out to
tantalize our thighs. We recall the old raconteur
that walked these woods before Boone spread
the word about Paradise and the landscape
recoiled beneath hard, leather boots.

The salt licks, long gone, favorite spots of
bison and elk prevailed. Perhaps he learned
his stories from them when warm air
whistled from flared nostrils as they licked
deep crevices in the salt earth, creating springs
for drink and lure.

They say he lived somewhere near the bluffs,
an overlook to the narrow passage of the
Dry Fork Creek, burying his stories in fissures
of jasper and limestone. The old ones tell tales
of watching some stories crumble and roll down
the sides during heavy rains, with spark and burn.

If no one finds the stories soon, they will be lost
in the spray of water tracing deep grooves along 
the fossil laden bank. We climb down the bluff,
walk the creek, blanketed with pieces of quartz tooling
and occassional arrowhead hidden beneath aged leaves
of sassafras and river birch.

Clumps of humus, crinoids and brachiopods are pushed
aside, groping for proof of his existence,
listening for whispers from pieces of shale.  A river stone
surfaces, brachiopods fossilized deep  in its face, we lift it to
listen, a blast of silence in the labyrinth of history,
the sudden rush of the creek almost knocking us over.

A sighting of the indigo bunting graces the distance
between then and now with a quick dance, as the 
ghost of the old raconteur howls.