Above a craggy gray mountain, a mother eagle was teaching her young to fly. The four of them circled in the air and then swooped down, rose again, dived again, and on and on.
On the bare face of the mountainside, close to the summit, nestled a cabin made of real boards that had weathered and baked and run their sap in the sun until they were almost the gray-and-mustard color of the stones themselves. On the sagging porch of this bare little cabin, a man sat whittling. Every now and then he turned his attention to the birds above, watched them thoughtfully, and then returned to his work.