Sounds in the Night

Position: 35°11’09.2″N 106°28’52.5″W

Around 10PM I take Bodhi for his late night walk. Turning left out of the front door we head down the steep drive and turn right. No matter when the sun sets, at this altitude darkness falls on the mountains quickly. There’s too little moisture to hold onto the light and the thinner air gives up its ability to refract into the shadows.

Unless there is some form of cloud cover to reflect the city’s glow, there is remarkably little light pollution. In a few moments your eyes will adjust, and you’ll see the stars casting the faintest of shadows. Or, if it’s the right time of the month, the moon will make it day again. A flashlight is essential. If not for flushing out coyotes and stray cats, for warning cars of your presence. A flailing light dangling off your wrist draws more attention than a gilets jaune (French for a hi-viz vest, or a protester wearing one).

On dark nights your hearing steps in and does its best to compensate for your tired old eyes. What’s that? The sagebrush rustles. Not the whispers of its thin branches catching a breeze, but something padding, snapping staccato in the undergrowth. Like a gun dog, Bodhi’s tail flicks up and he pauses at attention. Then it goes quiet. The quail or rabbit freezes, immobile and therefore invisible in the darkness. Bodhi could sniff them out, but being at the end of a taut leash, with a slightly impatient human at the other end, he doesn’t have permission.

RainStick

With the grasses coming back to life winter’s bare rattling is muffled, leaving more room in the soundscape for the mutters of nightlife. Lifted by the wind occasional yips and responding barks echo off the arroyos. Bodhi isn’t drawn and ignores the far-off conversation. Turning the northeast corner of the circle, a gust stirs the little dried and curled leaves littered about. They rattle across the tarmac sounding like water. No, more like a stream, a burbling brook. Or, perhaps, an enthusiastic eight-year-old with a homemade rainstick. In the high desert this watery murmur is cacological¹ and a little disorienting.

Drawing in air deeply through his snout, Bodhi ignores the arid rainstorm whirling around him and roots around for something deep under a bush. He buries his nose in a hole then attempts to widen it with his paws. He finally gives up when called over, blowing his nose contemptuously as he slowly lets his retractable lead shorten.

Chimes

Turning right and heading uphill again the wind picks up with a shove to the back. The regenerated brush is waist high and plumes of pollen cascade into the air. There it mixes with the pins and needles of desert sand carried here from the other side of the Rio Grande. Even if you can’t see the dust, you can feel it. And when you hold your breath and cock your ears, you can hear it hiss off the pine trees and scour the rocks smooth. The Sandia Mountain’s foothills are strewn with rounded, friendly boulders that never rolled anywhere. Millennia of wind and sand laid them bare with all the patience of a deftly handled archaeologist’s brush.

Heading home, Bodhi’s nametag clinks reassuringly, but only for us humans. His smell and presence are more than enough to warn the varmints away. At a dark corner, I turn back and click on the flashlight for a better view. A pair of bright yellow eyes shine back at me. They are not Bodhi’s eyes. But they have caught his attention. I catch my breath and crank the light up to 11. It’s a small black spaniel out for a late-night romp. She keeps her distance and Bodhi concedes the struggle to reach her in my favour. Near the house, the syncopated metal tones of the large windchimes in the breezeway banish all other sounds save the creak of the heavy carved wooden door swinging open and clicking shut. It’s time for bed.

^1. Cacological from cacology: a $5 word defined as a bad choice of words, or faulty speech. It was close enough in meaning for this context, but more importantly was the best onomatopoeic term your author could find. – ed.