December 2024 - 47

Well, how about mahogany? Sometimes, I
intentionally tease the kid. It's a Western thing.
What is mahogany, he asked. It's an amazing
brown, I answered. Mahogany is a damned
good color, I said, thinking of a beautiful bay
mare I once owned and a picture I had of her
grazing and saddled in a mountain meadow
on a beautiful autumn morning. There was a
Ruger No. 1 in the scabbard, and I was eating
a bologna sandwich. That was nearly 40 years
ago. Strange the things you remember, fodder
for the old folks home. I thought, too, of the
deep, rich brown of a favorite Model 70 rifle
stock. Maybe it's mahogany, son.
But then I thought of the delicate yellow of
turning aspen on a particular hillside I know
in the Wind River Range. No, maybe it was
that yellow.
I even thought of black, the kind of black
between the stars when you first step up and
sit on the treestand and wait for that rutting
big buck white-tailed deer. You push yourself
deeper into the down and wool nest that is a
good jacket, cradle the rifle across your thighs
and then look up, past the white brilliance of
suns farther away than a human mind can
imagine into the black core of the universe.
What about black? Or the white of starlight
for that matter? What about gray? The gray of
a feather plucked from a sage-grouse's breast
and held to the nostril for a scent of sage so
strong that you think that it might be okay
to be blind if you could smell such wonderful
smells as consolation.
Aspen leaf green. Tanager orange. Cutthroat
red. Night sky black. Night sky white. Favorite
mountain mare bay. Sage chicken gray. What
of morning sky blue or evening sky pink? How,
son, can I pick just one color to be my favorite?
But then again, four or five days in an elk-free
zone to see the light of a new day on an old
yellow hide far across miles of the wildest pine
on this planet? Yeah, okay, I'll take that. What's
your favorite color, I ask?
Blue, he said. And green.
He is his father's son.
- Thomas Reed contemplates tough questions like
favorite colors from his family ranch where he writes
" Wild Country Dispatch " and rides mountain horses.
He and his wife raise and sell mountain horses and feral
children, which are not for sale most of the time. He is
the author of several books, most recently the anthology,
" Mouthful of Feathers, Upland in America. "
- Lori Eslick is an illustrator, artist, presenter, children's
picture book illustrator and workshop leader. She regularly
creates illustrations for Wyoming Wildlife magazine's
Wild Country Dispatch column. More of her work
can be seen at eslickart.com.
Wyoming Wildlife | 47

http://www.eslickart.com

December 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2024

December 2024 - 1
December 2024 - 2
December 2024 - 3
December 2024 - 4
December 2024 - 5
December 2024 - 6
December 2024 - 7
December 2024 - 8
December 2024 - 9
December 2024 - 10
December 2024 - 11
December 2024 - 12
December 2024 - 13
December 2024 - 14
December 2024 - 15
December 2024 - 16
December 2024 - 17
December 2024 - 18
December 2024 - 19
December 2024 - 20
December 2024 - 21
December 2024 - 22
December 2024 - 23
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December 2024 - 25
December 2024 - 26
December 2024 - 27
December 2024 - 28
December 2024 - 29
December 2024 - 30
December 2024 - 31
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December 2024 - 43
December 2024 - 44
December 2024 - 45
December 2024 - 46
December 2024 - 47
December 2024 - 48
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