Leaving the Valley

Tomas was on duty again. He found Polly at the visitor centre kiosk just after sunrise. He had a fresh Thermos of coffee. He set it on a bench and sat down.

They did not say much for a while. Polly preened her feathers. The morning smelled of the river.

"I imagine you're moving on," Tomas said.

Polly tilted her head.

He told her about the rest of the park. The high country off Tioga Road. Hetch Hetchy, the other valley to the north, dammed long ago but still beautiful. The grove of redwoods up in Tuolumne Meadows. He spoke of these places with quiet pride.

"This place doesn't show you everything, even if you live here," he said. "You catch pieces. People come for three days and think they saw it. They saw a postcard." He sipped his coffee. "Better to see one piece all the way through. The peregrines? Fourteen years and I still don't know what they're going to do tomorrow."

Polly thought about her dives off the El Capitan ledge. She had not landed cleanly once. She had also gotten less bad each time. She thought she could keep getting less bad for a lifetime.

A shuttle bus pulled in. The same green bus. The same driver. "Off you go," Tomas said. He stood up.

Polly stretched her blue-teal wings. She lifted off from the bench, circled once over the visitor centre, and climbed. The valley dropped away. El Capitan stood on the left. Half Dome on the right.

At the rim, she banked west. Below her, a peregrine was hunting a small flock of swifts along the cliff face. She watched it for half a minute. Then she found the wind she wanted and let it carry her out of the park.