As the wind blows and snow threatens, Frost and his companions discover that the cave has a new guardian. The small entrance room is pungent with the aroma of mountain lion and littered with bones and skulls of its kills.
But the cave is not the real object of this journey. When the remains were returned, the man's teeth had been kept back for further study. They recently were sent back to the Forest Service, and Frost wants to repatriate them with the man's bones.
A half mile or so from the cave, he comes to the bottom of a rock wall and stops. Looking up at the top of the cliff, he sees a square of red cloth whipping in the wind that appears to be tied to a dead tree.
Scampering up the side of the precipice, he plucks the cloth from the tree. "It's what the remains were wrapped in," he says, pointing to chew marks that riddle the material. "The animals must have dragged it out."
It could be a sign that the man's spirit is welcoming him back, he adds. A few yards below is the place where Frost had hidden the bones.
Carefully picking his way to the spot, Frost removes the rocks that cover a small cave. From a paper bag he had carried in his knapsack, he removes a small Tupperware container that holds the teeth, each individually wrapped in tissue paper, and a braided rope of sweetgrass.
Frost has just placed the teeth in with the bones and red cloth when the paper bag is tugged from his hands and sucked back into the hole. It could have been the wind or...
"I guess he wanted the bag," Frost laughs. "I'm not going to argue with him."
For the next few minutes, Frost struggles to light the sweetgrass rope as he battles the wind. Finally there is a moment's respite and the aromatic smoke drifts from the cave.
Removing an eagle wing from his knapsack, Frost sweeps it over the opening. Then he replaces the rocks until the spot is lost to anyone who does not know its location.
Standing to face west into the wind, Frost begins to sing. Spreading out before him is the Colorado high country at its finest. Tall grasses color the hillside above timberline gold, blending into stands of fir, pine and aspen below. To the west, south and north, heavy clouds gather about the tallest peaks.
But on the peak where Frost stands, his voice rising and falling in ancient rhythms, the afternoon sun comes out dragging blue sky with it. As he predicted, the snow squalls have missed the mountain, dusting nearby peaks with a white mantle but leaving summer on this slope.
Frost finishes his song and wipes at the tears that roll down his cheeks. "It's hard to sing with the wind coming right at you," he shrugs. He pauses for one last look at the sacred ground. "I feel better," he says, shouldering his pack. "now that he's home again."
end of part 2
