Big Mabel

The trail narrowed. The sky, once wide and unreachable, now pressed in closer between the ridges, framed by tall trees and brush pushing back from the edges like a crowd making room for something sacred. Logging had come through at some point—Mabel could see the scars. Jagged cuts through the treeline, stumps still weeping sap in the sun. But even here, where the saw had bitten, life fought back. Saplings swayed beside the wreckage, their leaves fluttering like green flags of resilience. The forest was healing. And so, in a way, was she. Now a frequent passenger, Carlton, on her shoulder when the air was still or the thermals were unkind, clicked his beak once and sniffed the wind. “Smells like timber country,” he muttered. His voice wasn’t just observation anymore. It held weight. Reverence. Mabel didn’t respond right away. Her ears flicked. Her hooves slowed. Her gaze traced the soft, curving rise of the path ahead. It wasn’t just the smell—it was everything. The feel of the dirt under her hooves. The way the creek curved just so. The hush in the trees, the hush that sounded not like silence, but remembrance. Her voice was low. “It’s changing.” Carlton glanced sideways. “You?” She shook her head slowly. “The land. Or maybe both.” A bend in the creek. A flat stone crossing, worn smooth by generations. A notch in the tree line where a trail veered right, rising in a slow, deliberate arc. Not a human trail. An animal trail. Hooves, not tires, had carved it. Her hooves. Or ones like them. Long ago. She paused at the edge of that curve and closed her eyes. There it was again. That feeling. That almost knowing. Like a song caught behind a door. Like someone calling your name in a dream just before you wake. “Do you know this trail?” the crow asked gently, watching her face. “I think I do,” she whispered. They walked on. By midday, the light had shifted. The trees thinned where the slope dropped, and shafts of sunlight dappled the trail in shifting gold. The air changed, too—less dry, more loamy, thick with the scent of damp wood, distant pine, and something else... Earth, recently disturbed. Not rot. Not decay. But work. Men had been here. The wind carried sawdust, the sweet bite of bark torn fresh from its trunk. Somewhere nearby, someone was still cutting. But beneath it—beneath the new—something old lingered. Deep. Then she saw it. A clearing up ahead. Half-swallowed by vines and low brush, a leaning fence post stood at the trail’s edge. Nailed to it—barely holding on with rust-bitten nails—was a corroded metal plaque. The letters had mostly eroded under years of rain and wind, but one name still shimmered faintly in the sunlight, as if memory had refused to let it go: Chaney Mabel froze. Her chest tightened. “This was their route,” she said, voice thick with awe. “John and Jerry. My great-uncles. They hauled timber down from here before the roads were laid. Folks in town used to say they could back a full load down a switchback with nothing but a whistle and a stomp.” Hopping down to the post, tilting his head as he read the faded letters. “You come from legends,” he said. Mabel didn’t answer. Her eyes shimmered. Her breath caught in her throat like a verse she didn’t know she still remembered. She reached out and touched the plaque with her nose—gently, reverently. Then moved on, hooves slow but sure, following the trail that wound downward like a river of memory. The trees grew sparser. The underbrush thinned. Old stone walls appeared between the trunks—half-collapsed, moss-covered, forgotten by men but never by time. Fence lines dipped and rose in crooked rhythm, tangled in honeysuckle and wild berry vines. And then— There it was. A marker. Small. Unassuming. A chunk of stone, half-sunk in the earth beside the path. Moss curled over its edge. Time had chewed the details, but two shapes remained etched in the surface—side by side, facing forward. Two mules. No names. Just the image. Mabel stopped. The air held its breath. She stepped forward and lowered her head, her nose brushing the stone like a daughter greeting her ancestors. Her eyes welled, not with sadness—but with something deeper. Recognition. “They were real,” she whispered. “They were here.” Carlton didn’t speak. He cawed once—low, soft, as if even his voice had taken off its hat. Mabel stood there a long moment. The world felt very still. And then it began to hum. Not loudly. Not with sound. But with presence. Every leaf, every broken fence post, every root underfoot seemed to pulse with quiet energy. The path beneath her hooves no longer felt like guesswork. It felt like memory. Like return. She didn’t feel lost anymore. She felt carried. The hills no longer towered—they leaned. The trees no longer loomed—they listened. Carlton fluttered up to a low branch ahead, his dark wings catching the amber light of the descending sun. He scanned the valley stretching beyond them—soft ridges fading into mist, the kind of view you could only earn through effort, faith, and good company. “You ready for the last stretch?” he asked. Mabel didn’t hesitate. Her eyes shone—not with uncertainty, but with steadiness. “I was born ready,” she said. She took a long breath, filling her lungs with the air that had once raised her—the scent of cedar, soil, and time. Then she stepped forward, hooves pressing into a trail older than maps, heart steady in her chest like a drum calling her home. The mountains echoed softly around her. And somewhere ahead, just beyond the next ridge, the earth waited with open arms.