waga2, cliff [november10 21]

the grey highway sloped gently downward on its way to meet the river. ancient disused truss bridges passed overhead and red radio spires stood in formation all along the ridge south of us. antelope brush grew large and bright with little pink blossoms, their roots grasping at red rock strewn across the desert floor in clusters like music notes. val and i passed her dark cigarettes back and forth. Hector sipped old beers he found tucked under his seat. we rolled on.

the river appeared to us as we crested a small slope. it flowed gentle, wide, shallow, and blue. its waves glittered white with countless tiny suns reflected back to the sky. on the opposite side of the river was the Jasper Wall, the west face of the plateau. it rose up a thousand feet in stripes of ivory and grey metallic weldstone. tiny silhouettes of trucks and cars glided along its edge. hector and i stared out our windows as we curved with the highway along the river bank.

val: “we're gonna take the little river crossing before the bridge. it'll take like fifteen minutes to get across but you know” she swept her arm to the view of the plateau wall, “worth it”

we came to a orange tower standing at the edge of the water. it was surrounded by a blanket of gravel, and a concrete pier jutted out of its side a ways into the river. there were two craft bobbing at the end of the pier. the first was a largish ferry with a squat white bridge and a red stripe wrapped around the hull. the second was a tiny transport skiff with bright yellow railing on all sides and a operator booth like a pay phone.

val coasted into the lot and stopped before the pier. we stepped out of the car and onto the gravel. a rusted metal door shrieked open on the side of the tower and a squat man came out smiling. he wore a blue reflective utility vest and a bucket hat with the logo for river transport services. he waved as we got out of the car. i leaned on the door next to val and hector set two beers on the roof.

boatman: “howdy, you looking to get across now?”

he crunched his way across the gravel and val called back

val: “aye yeah you got a way over for us?”

boatman: “a couple. looks like you're a small enough crew for the skiff yeah”

val dug in her pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.

boatman: “you just daytrippin?”

we nodded and val said we'd be back to get across again in a few hours. “betiful day for it, hows you tuck your money back and toss me a can, guy” he looked to hector.

they both grinned.

we pulled onto the pier and the boatman waved us onto the skiff. it slouched into the water as the car trundled onto it. the boatman hopped aboard and unhooked a large chain from a metal loop on the deck. he stepped into the booth and hit several buttons and a gate swung up behind the car and the engine below us rumbled and hummed. we leaned against the railing and lit our cigarettes. the craft lurched forward and we pulled away from the pier into the glittering gentle water. hector and val stood at the side of the car and chatted with the boatman, sipping his beer. i stood at the railing and watched Jasper Wall float silently toward us.

the wall is a near vertical face rising straight up against the river. theres no bank to build a road on so the highway is way up on the plateaus edge. to get from the water up to the highway there is a steel causeway riveted into the face of the wall. wide enough for two trucks to pass, it slopes at a steep diagonal up from another orange tower with another pier. its all held up by a dense webbing of black I-beams jutting at angles out from the stone and up from below the water.

the boatman explained that this crossing was established long before the bridge was put in further north. back then the next closest crossing wasnt for another fifty miles.

boatman: “water runs dark and fast up there. cold from the mountains”

Jasper Wall drifted closer and gigantic. the skiff crossed into its shadow and the air suddenly cooled. i looked back at the pier we left from, so bright in the sun and so tiny on the far bank. the river stretched out far in every direction, and the rock wall blocked the sun in cyclopean hugeness. the scale of natural form in the steppes felt made for things of a different scale than human.

i looked back to the wall and black steel causeway. i began to make out the details of the steel chaos holding it up. a hundred black I-beams were woven together like a nest or a funnel web. the driving surface was set on top, a smooth roof for the entanglement supporting it. little white patches dotted each of the beams.

the boatman geared down the skiff and we slowed gentle up to the end of the pier. servos sang a tenor note as the gate behind the car swung back down. the boatman called for one of us to hop onto the pier and toss a chain over. hector handed val his can and nimbly leapt off the skiff as it moved. he landed on the concrete and keeping momentum he jogged alongside us. the skiff slowed to a halt. hector bent and scooped an armful of chain laying next to a concrete anchor and heaved it over the railing. the boatman hooked the chain onto a metal loop on the edge of the deck.

boatman: “great legs, good son, pull us tight now”

hector grappled with the loose chain hand over hand and pulled it taught. the skiff swayed and bumped up against the pier. the boatman looked to me and gestured that i step off. i stepped wide over the gap between land and the skiff and planted my foot firmly on the pier. the ground pushed upward against my foot, catching it, holding it. the skiff bobbed up and released my other foot, i planted it next to the other on the concrete. the land was quiet beneath me, alien for a moment. i felt the sudden absence of the vibrations and shallow rolling motion under me.

val and hector and the boatman worked to disembark the car and i stood smoking and staring at the I- beams under the causeway. the patches caught sun from the water and shone in thin streaks. i walked off the pier and into the gravel parking lot looking intently at the patches on the beams nearest the pier. i got closer and the patches got larger. from the boat they seemed small but up close each was about the size of my torso. the patches were membranes. i reached the far end of the lot where the gravel met the steel ramp of the causeway. the causeways surface was grated steel, and i stared through the holes to the beams below my feet covered in white. it was webbing. i squatted down. the beams under the causeway were covered in colonies of spiders.

i gazed at the patch only inches beneath me. my eyes focused deeper and i saw tiny dots of red within the dense webbing. dozens of little red bodies moving slowly within, with limbs as thin as the threads woven around them. small and pointed arms all reaching and grasping and pulling their little weight. i thought about what it would feel like for one of the tiny red specks to reach with its slow and sharp legs and pry between my closed lips and crawl into my mouth. val honked the horn.

we waved to the boatman as we pulled out of the lot and onto the causeway. we were pressed back against our seats by its mad tilt. the grated surface vibrated and the car resonated sympathetically, harmonizing with the hum of its own engine. i looked out my window back across the river to the red rock and the dark grey strand of highway we rode to get here, all of it dropping away from us. i turned to look out the front window. vals knuckles were white with control over the wheel, resolute facing the empty grey blue sky.

we summited the causeway and turned away from the river, back onto the solid silent earth. the car faced east again and we accelerated down another grey ribbon to the mineral lake.

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