Down in the lowlands around Mud Bay, right up close to its murky edge, there is a roadhouse. It sits near an off ramp of Hwy. 101. Perched above the salt water of the sound, it goes by the name of Buzz's Tavern. McLane Creek flows over flat terrain from the northerly reaches of the rolling Black Hills to the south. Small valleys and ravines are carved by rain drawn out of warm air rising from the Pacific. In winter it is a dark place, the translucent glow of dense cover interrupted infrequently by brilliant silver sunshine, beaming out of a bit of blue sky. More often low gray clouds hang within reach, as if an extended finger tip might touch them, retrieving a droplet of dew. A day here is the short period of filtered light before a dusky hue glows and night falls.
At one time, steam, mule, and man powered logging operations in these hills sent thousands of raw logs down tracks to the sea and on to sawmills far and near. There is an old railroad grade on the other side of the bay, that runs across cow fields and up drainages that boasted some of the largest trees on Earth. Now the rails are gone, ties, and the forests too, replaced by diminished stands of third and fourth growth nursery seedlings, sometimes resembling rows of orchard trees with the predictable pattern intended to maximize production of useful timber. Without question, the beauty of this region remains, but the dream of what it once was haunts the imagination.
Before the age of logging, people gathered by this bay to collect shellfish and trade with one another. Not far from here is an archeological site that regularly offers up a new treasure; evidence of past civilization. It could easily be imagined that people have been here for as long as they have been on this continent, the journey over ice may have emerged into green forests and rich rivers full of fish here. Or a boat traveling along the coast may have found its way to the inland waters of the Salish Sea, eventually meandering to its most southerly reaches. For centuries new roads have been built on old roads, as they were built on foot paths and trails. The same intersections exist, where geography and resources conspire to create unusual opportunity.
I have observed that my dogs detect these focal points in undeveloped places. Where the flood has left a mound of earth and debris, with a stray surviving seedling or two already established in the heap, they lift a leg to mark the turn we take, and fertilize that spot, lending themselves to its future significance. I can see how important intersections in the cities of the world may have first been a mound of earth cast into place by a slide or a storm, soon easily identified from a distance, by the enormous tree anchored in it. Of course the tree will eventually have to go, it has grown too old, dangerous, or progress has finally come to this neck of the woods. The mound will fall to the bulldozer, the wetland dried with fill, but the mysterious crossroad remains.
This sort of time travel has always entertained me, I love to look out over the predicament I find myself in, and proceed to transcend the when. Last night at the roadhouse a golden opportunity to do this came to me, and so I climbed aboard that magic carpet and ascended into eternity unfettered. Before me sat the great Daniel McKinstry, otherwise known as Mudcat, sweating profusely and bathed in white light. Silver hair a bit longer than my father would allow, a large frame stiffened with age, his rigid fingers contorting, seizing strings from the front of his guitar, lifting and releasing them, thumping the air, filling the room with deep vibrating tones. His voice coarse, soaring, as real as life and death, a source of joy for himself and those around him, recites the sacred sayings of ages not quite lost. A headlight beams from a north bound train while a big wheel turns around and around, a universe of grief and regret sails away beneath a far away Cajun moon. Unspoken details of lives gone by pour from my imagination, civilizations rise and fall in words obscure and familiar. All the while, the room bounces and sways; feet stomp, smiles widen, and the band plays on.
The guitar Daniel plays is a work of art, his hands carved it from a block of Red Cedar, like the logs that once floated in this bay, none other quite like it in the world. His accompanist Evan also plays an instrument Daniel made. In manufacturing, the front and back of the block are first split away, the center hollowed out and braced, the hand shaped panels re-affixed in an almost imperceptible way, so that one wonders how such an object could possibly come into being. It is in fact, one of the few appropriate things that can be done in this day with such wood.
So the instruments were played that night by devoted hands. The old songs sung, the stories retold, the birds in the bay still know that we beasts linger on the shore, at this intersection, as we have for ages. The moments are lost in time, perhaps to be remembered again someday by one who never lived them.