He felt it, sometimes, like this; he could sense that in a few moments the sun, like a bubble of air that has risen from the bottom of a lake, would burst silently over the ridge to the east. He got up quietly from his buffalo robe, not disturbing the two squaws who slept nearby, and walked to the flap that always faced the rising sun and looked out at the eastern sky. His sense had been right, as it had been right on most mornings since he had come to live here in this wide grove beside the Salmon River. He looked at the distant ridge across the river where the sun would appear this time of year to the right of three juniper pines just below its flat top. The sky was not yellow or red—the sun had been above the earth’s horizon for more than an hour already; it was instead the crystalline, cornflower blue of mornings in the mountains. The spot where the sun was aiming turned a brilliant white, and then the first edge of the yellow globule flickered above the ridge. The old man stood facing it, as he did every morning, naked in the cool air.
