Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 1 “Behold a Pale Horse”: The Exalting Influence of Mythical Realism in The Ash & The Elm My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything. —Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad’s fervent reasons for creating impactful works of fiction are exemplified in the story that constitutes the foundation of this Creative Writing Project—the opening to The Ash & The Elm: A Mythical Realism Novel (“The Ash & The Elm”). Within the opening chapters of The Ash & The Elm, the Revelation of St. John the Divine comes to life in south-central Utah. As a dark void forms at the center of a thunderhead high above the canyonlands, thirteen-yearold sheepherder, James Ascher, clings to the root of an ancient bristlecone pine after rescuing a lost lamb. When the Revelator’s pale horse steps out of the void, two things occur. James’s life is saved, and his mysterious influence on the lives of others is engendered. On the same night this portentous miracle occurs, the enigmatic horse also appears to fourteen-year-old Ava Lennox from the nearby town of Boulder. A gifted pianist who is struggling to come to terms with the impending death of her only parent, Ava finds herself lost within the sandstone canyons of the Boulder Mail Trail while traveling on horseback and attempting to reach a doctor who can save her ailing father. Thereafter, she is equally changed, and her extraordinary life becomes inextricably connected to James’s. Based loosely on the historical lives of my beloved maternal grandparents, J.C. and Eva Haws, The Ash & The Elm relates the stories of a latter-day Ash (Ask) and his Elm (Embla)—the first-parent figures of Norse mythological fame while being grounded in Western myth, spiritualism and folklore. Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 2 The opening to The Ash & The Elm is a creative work that engages the exalting power that results from the intentional authorial combination of an engaging narrative that is influenced and enhanced by the aesthetics of mythical realism. Professor emeritus John R. Trimble remarks that, as with any of the necessary elements required to produce an impactful work of fiction, when it comes to producing effective openings, authors should respect the fact that “the grandmasters have made it far easier for a novice to acquire chess sense than authors have made it for him to acquire its literary equivalent” (Trimble 4). While a story is the sum of its various parts, a story’s opening is integral. Successful and effective openings contain certain intrinsic elements. Besides the obvious—the establishment of a setting and an introduction to characters (“not necessarily the main ones”)—novelist Elizabeth George suggests in Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writer’s Life that there ought to be a presentation of “some element of the conflicts to be found in the plot or the subplot, . . . some indication of theme[,] . . . some sort of problem that the character has encountered, or it should foreshadow problems to be encountered” (George 69). She suggests that this is why it is so important that a great opening “either possesses or promises excitement, intrigue, or high interest for the reader” (69). Similarly, American novelist and short story author, Ann Hood, instructs authors to keep in mind that the opening to the story “creates tone, point of view, setting, voice. It introduces themes. Or, as Ted Kooser explains in The Poetry Repair Manual, the opening is the hand you extend to your reader” (Hood 5). Whatever kind of welcome an author offers their audience, this balancing act is far from easy, but doing it well is essential. Regardless of length, a story’s opening contains an opportunity to present an impactful and influential vehicle in which powerful fictive moments veritably transport and transform audiences. In his essay, “Story & Dream,” writer Jim Krusoe states that an author’s “work is to Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 3 create dreams that others can experience with . . . intensity and vividness” (Krusoe 186). And according to Ann Hood, successful openings must be “well written, so fresh and compelling that it makes [the reader] want to read more” (Hood 18). For instance, “Call me Ishmael,” the notorious three-word opening to Herman Melville’s monumental masterpiece, Moby-Dick, provides a great case study in miniature (Melville 18). At first glance, it may appear innocuous. Preceded by the suspenseful and ominous chapter heading, “Loomings,” Melville demands that I entertain the narrator’s pseudonymous identity and suspend collective disbelief (18). Thus prepared, I can then encounter a more effective introduction to an adventure that is dominated by one crazed man’s encounter with a creature of mythological dimensions and Biblical proportions. I strived for a similar effect within the first pages of The Ash & The Elm. First, two ominous New Testament epigraphs confront the reader at the opening of the novel. The first comes from 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 7, wherein St. Paul references his personal torment at the mercy of every mortal’s “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me” (Riley 1). The second draws from the Revelation of St. John the Divine, which reveals that, after beholding “a pale horse” during a vision concerning the events preceding the Second Coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that the “name that sat on [the pale horse] was Death, and Hell followed with him” (1). Following the epigraphs, and taking cues from Melville, Section I of The Ash & The Elm is aptly titled “The Gap” (2). At first, this may seem cryptic but works to foreshadow what readers will find in the opening of the novel to describe an inexplicable void that forms within a dark thunderhead preceding the arrival of the Revelator’s pale horse to the narrator’s grandfather in the opening chapters. From these mysterious signposts, we are then freshly compelled and drawn into the story across the following opening narrative lines: Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 4 When the Revelator’s pale horse appeared to my grandparents, it established the thornplagued course of their lives. It was the reason they met and set forth in motion the remarkable and astonishing events that I am attempting, although rather poorly, to relate to you here. It also became the catalyst leading to my unfortunate birth to their youngest daughter. But more of that later. (3) Thus, within just a few captivating sentences, I present the reader with intriguing and transporting details connected to the promise of a payoff to be found by continuing to read a story that encapsulates, among many others, the “remarkable and astonishing” lives of the protagonists as well as the resultant fallout surrounding them. However, it is the immediate inclusion of the mythical element resulting from the appearance of the Revelator’s pale horse within the realistic setting of the protagonists in the canyonlands that truly gives the opening to The Ash & The Elm an even greater emotive impact. To understand why that is, we must consider the impact of a profound literary device, one which has been identified by author Salman Rushdie as “ the ‘commingling of the improbable and the mundane’” within creative fiction, and a mode that has become the foundational hallmark of the international movement known as magical realism (qtd in Bowers 3). The concept of magical realism—magischer Realismus—was first advanced by the German art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to explain the power and effect of art “to capture the mystery of life behind the surface reality” (2). English and comparative studies professor, Wendy B. Faris, remarks that “magical realism combines realism and the fantastic so that the marvelous seems to grow organically within the ordinary, blurring the distinction between them” (Ordinary Enchantments 1). For award-winning magical realist and Chilean author, Isabel Allende, “[m]agical realism is a literary device or a way of seeing in which there is space for the invisible Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 5 forces that move the world: dreams, legends, myths, emotion, passion, history. . . . It is the capacity to see and to write about all the dimensions of reality” (222n8). In their introduction to Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, Faris and her co-editor, Lois Parkinson Zamora, explain that: [M]agical realism is a mode suited to exploring—and transgressing—boundaries, whether the boundaries are ontological, political, geographical, or generic. Magical realism often facilitates the fusion, or coexistence, of possible worlds, spaces, systems that would be irreconcilable in other modes of fiction. . . . [T]hey often situate themselves on liminal territory between or among worlds—in phenomenal and spiritual regions where transformation, metamorphosis, dissolution are common, where magic is a branch of naturalism, or pragmatism. (Zamora and Faris 5-6) It is in this vein, says professor and scholar, Seymour Menton, that “magic realism injects a touch of magic in reality[, and] ‘is based on the representation of what is possible but not probable’” (Menton 23). Thus, magical realism creates a space within creative fiction where “magic may be real, reality magical” (Zamora and Faris 3). Scholars, David Young and Keith Hollaman, point out that among “the fundamental patterns [magical realist] stories follow, [t]here is the story that offers one fantastic premise and then adheres to logic and natural law[, and a] second . . . which begins naturally and with familiar events and details, and then moves toward the extraordinary (Young and Hollaman 6). On one hand, The Ash & The Elm can be seen as aligned with the first version in that it begins with a fantastic opening that describes the appearance of the pale horse from out of the “liminal territory” of the gap within the thunderhead, and its resulting effect on the protagonists, which is then followed by a narrative within the parameters of the norm (Zamora and Faris 5-6). On the Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 6 other hand, the main story builds from the natural and real toward the penultimate appearance of the pale horse to the protagonists “between or among worlds” where a pragmatic reality of magic occurs “in phenomenal and spiritual regions where transformation, metamorphosis” is present (56). Regardless of the frame or structure in which it is presented, magical realism has enjoyed a storied international presence located within the writing traditions of many authors spanning from the pillars of pioneering efforts in grandmaster novels such as Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and German Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum, to the more modern works of Africa’s Ben Okrithe, and the Asiatic writings of East India’s Rushdie and Japan’s Haruki Murakami. To observe magical realism in its natural, opening element, we might consider some of these famous examples: • One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. (Kafka) • Beeta says that Mom attained enlightenment at exactly 2:35 P.M. on August 18, 1988, atop the grove’s tallest greengage plum tree on a hill overlooking all fiftythree village houses, to the sound of the scrubbing of pots and pans, a ruckus that pulled the grove out of its lethargy every afternoon. (Azar) • There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. . . . Now I am an axolotl. (Cortázar 355) • Most people mistake me for a small, kindly Italian grandfather, a nonno. . . They never guess that I am a vampire. (Russell 3) Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 7 • The causes of the rapid extinction of the Dinosaur remain mysterious; the species had evolved and grown throughout the Triassic and the Jurassic, and for 150 million years the Dinosaur had been the undisputed master of the continents. Perhaps the species was unable to adapt to the great changes of climate and vegetation which took place in the Cretaceous period. By its end all the Dinosaurs were dead. All except me—Qfwfq corrected—because, for a certain period, I was also a Dinosaur. (Calvino) An additional example we might also consider is William Faulkner’s short story, “The Old People.” Therein, a young protagonist experiences a life- and perspective-changing encounter with Mother Nature under the mystic tutelage of his Native American mentor, Sam Fathers. Faulkner’s narrative opens with these striking observations that set, among many things, the tone, expectations, promises, and inexplicable marvels that will follow: “At first there was nothing. . . . Then the buck was there” (Faulkner 213). Immediately, reveal editors David Young and Keith Hollaman, Faulkner constructs a reality-questioning confrontation that ends when “the reader merges with the magic” (213). Speaking through the “boy” protagonist who demands, “You don’t believe it. . . . I know you don’t—,” Faulkner dares us “to explain the apparition of the deer as superstition or hallucination” while knowing all along that, having laid the intricate and spell-binding groundwork, we are “content with the growth of mystery, with full participation in the sense of wonder with which the story closes” (Young and Hollaman 6; Faulkner 230). As shown in each of these examples it can be observed that, “when the assumptions of realism are temporarily abandoned,” whether it be the waking from fitful sleep to discover you have been transformed into an insect or the considered study of or encounter with Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 8 nature that results in a similar transformation of ourselves, “magical realism . . . make[s] its appearance” (Young and Hollaman 31). Inspired by these examples, I aimed for a similar effect in the opening lines of The Ash & The Elm. For example, consider the moments that occur just before the grandfather’s reality is shifted by the appearance of the pale horse from out of the gap: He described seeing dark thunderheads swelling above the canyonlands as he hung by one arm below the roots of Old Methuselah. With his other hand, he clutched a bleating black lamb against his chest, cradled within the folds of his sodden wool overcoat. Boots scrabbling for purchase against the granular edge, Grandfather said he fought against a terrified stupor, trying to reconstitute a clearer understanding of the series of events that had led him to that fateful confrontation with life and death upon the mesa. (Riley 3) Although his situation is perilous, it is the additional effect of the inclusion of the sensual elements described in the prior sentence that James experiences when the pale horse appears that enhance the moment “when the assumptions of realism are temporarily abandoned” for readers in the text, and the magical realist shift occurs: “Grandfather always swore that the revelatory moment the horse appeared to him from out of the gap that night was attended by a sharp tang of ozone upon his tongue accompanied by sage, juniper, and pinyon” (Young and Hollaman 31; Riley 3). According to Wendy B. Faris’s essay, “Scheherazade’s Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction,” magical realist stories exhibit five “primary characteristics of magical realist fiction”: Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 9 (1) The text contains an “irreducible element” of magic, something we cannot explain according to the laws of the universe as we know them[—]magical things ‘really’ do happen. . . . (2) Descriptions detail a strong presence of the phenomenal world—this is the realism in magical realism, distinguishing it from much fantasy and allegory. . . . (3) The reader may hesitate (at one point or another) between two contradictory understandings of events—and hence experiences some unsettling doubts. . . . (4) We experience the closeness or near-merging of two realms, two worlds. . . . (5) These fictions question received ideas about time, space, and identity. (167-73) Within The Ash & The Elm, there is also a multiplicity of moments when these elements are apparent and the “assumptions of realism are temporarily abandoned” in order to make way for the appearance of magical realism (Young and Hollaman 31). For instance, when the female protagonist becomes lost in the canyons along the Boulder Mail Trail and Ava stops to rest her horse, Wagner, her conceptual understanding of reality shifts and comes into question while she attempts to restore her composure: Holding onto Wagner’s reins, Ava sat down heavily on the bark-stripped trunk of a fallen pine. Bent over, with hands covering her face, she began to sob. A few shoulderwracking moments later, a distinct change in the surrounding atmosphere preceded the loud, percussive slap of a hoof striking rock. . . . There, framed by the towering walls of the canyon, stood another horse. The strange beast faced them broadside, and Ava knew instantly that this was no ordinary animal. (Riley 21-22) Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 10 Later, a similar shift from reality occurs when the male protagonist, James, tries to rescue the lost ram from plummeting off the cliff face “between the roots of the giant bristlecone his grandfather had named Old Methuselah” (26). After riding his stallion, Star, up to the top of the Mesa through a rain flooded slot canyon, and reaching the tree, we are told: When he came round the base, there was no black-faced ram standing in between the bristlecone’s roots, waiting for his rescue. Instead, what James found was only one small black lamb—a pitiful animal that looked up at him through the pelting rain and bleated in terror. (31) However, beyond these elements, readers of The Ash & The Elm will also observe that it is more than just a magical aesthetic at work, but one that has deep set roots in the mythical. A mythical story is defined in A Handbook to Literature as one that “[p]resents supernatural episodes as a means of interpreting natural events[, and] makes concrete and particular a special perception of human beliefs or a cosmic view” (Harmon and Holman 334). It is a story that “comports a complex and multifaceted reality, a ‘dramatic human tale’ that is interpreted in various ways[, and] ‘describe[s] the various and sometimes dramatic irruptions of the sacred [. . .] in the World.’” (Carruba 90). And while it may also leverage the elements of magic, a mythical story is found when “[t]he frame or surface of the work may be conventionally realistic, but contrasting elements—such as the supernatural, myth, dream, fantasy—invade the realism and change the whole basis of the” story (304). In The Ash & The Elm, multiple mythical elements are at play among the magical that are contained in both the mythical references in the names of characters as well as the mythicalreferenced elements surrounding them. For instance, on the Christian side of mythology, the male protagonist James, “[a]n English form of the Hebrew name Jacob,” who was the Father of Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 11 Israel, is named after the “Son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve, brother of John,” which connects him to Christian mythology (The Bible). Additionally, James’s experience on the cliff face can be seen as relating to not only the intentional references to the Revelation concerning the pale horse by St. John the Divine, but loosely to two Old Testament stories: (1) the intervention of Isaac’s sacrifice at the hands of his father Abraham after the arrival of the ram caught in the thicket; and (2) Moses’s experience with the burning bush on Mount Horeb. As for the Norse, there are numerous mythological connections in The Ash & The Elm. Norse mythological reference can be found in the name of the horse Ava rides—“Wagner,” the operatist who created the Norse-central The Ring Cycle. And when the narrator describes the pale horse’s “sliding flight earthward,” following its emergence from the gap, there also exists a reference to Odin’s famous steed, “Sleipner”—a name “which means ‘the sliding one’”—in addition to more obvious New Testament Revelation (Riley 37; “Sleipnir”) (Emphasis mine). Further, according to a search engine located on the genealogical site that provides “the meaning and history behind” surnames, James’s last name, “Ascher,” is a Germanic surname referencing the ash tree, and Ava’s last name, “Lennox,” is a Scottish surname pointing to the elm tree (Ancestry; Riley 17, 7). These names are important because the synopsis of the novel included above states that “The Ash & The Elm relates the stories of a latter-day Ash (Ask) and his Elm (Embla)—the first-parent figures of Norse mythological fame.” While magical realism has become a worldwide phenomenon, it has also given rise to an adaptation of the mode that has been observed in the works of such monumental authors such as Anton Chekhov, William Faulkner, Louise Erdrich, William Kennedy, Tony Morrison, and Francine Prose, to name a few among many. Pointing to what has appeared in the writing of these masters, Jeanne Delbaere-Garant argues for scholars to “adopt the term ‘mythic realism’ Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 12 [over magical realism] where ‘magic’ images are borrowed from the physical environment itself, instead of being projected from the character’s psyches,” which is a trope common to the magical realist tradition engendered by Roh (Delbaere-Garant 252-53). Citing Sri Lankan-born, Canadian writer, Michael Ondaatje’s novel, Running in the Family, as a prime example, Delbaere-Garant notes that the shift from magical to mythical realism can be observed when “[t]he interpenetration of the magic and the real is no longer metaphorical but literal; the landscape is no longer passive but active—invading, trapping, dragging away, etc.” (252). Delbaere-Garant agrees with Ondaatje as he suggests that, when reality is adapted from magical to mythical, “ ‘the landscape . . . is not a landscape that just sits back and damns the characters with droughts. It is quicksilver, changeable, human’” (qtd. in Delbaere-Garant 252). Anton Chekhov’s short story, “The Black Monk,” is a great example of Ondaatje and Delbaere-Garant’s reasons for identifying mythical realism. In the story, just before the mythical phantasm appears to him, the protagonist named Kovrin remarks that “ ‘it feels as though all the world were watching me, hiding and waiting for me to understand it’” (Chekhov). Thereafter, it is a literal movement of the surrounding environment that precedes and conveys a mythical shift in Kovrin’s reality: But then waves began running across the rye, and a light evening breeze softly touched his uncovered head. A minute later there was another gust of wind, but stronger—the rye began rustling, and he heard behind him the hollow murmur of the pines. Kovrin stood still in amazement. From the horizon there rose up to the sky, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, a tall black column. Its outline was indistinct, but from the first instant it could be seen that it was not standing still, but moving with fearful rapidity, moving Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 13 straight towards Kovrin, and the nearer it came the smaller and the more distinct it was. Kovrin moved aside into the rye to make way for it, and only just had time to do so. A monk, dressed in black, with a grey head and black eyebrows, his arms crossed over his breast, floated by him. . . . His bare feet did not touch the earth. (Chekhov) And because of his situated environment in a shifting landscape, Chekhov’s narrator reports Kovrin muttering, “Why, you see[,] there must be truth in the legend” (Chekhov). From the very beginning of the novel, the landscape in The Ash & The Elm creates a similar effect upon the protagonists as well as the reader as it enhances and heightens the shift from reality. Using the above-referenced magical and mythical elements for context, the story leverages the arid environment of south-central Utah. For both James and Ava, their journeyings within the environment, especially regarding that of the Wilderness, are replete with references to a landscape that is “active—invading, trapping, dragging away, etc.” (Delbaere-Garant 252). Each has difficulty navigating the “veritable maze” of the Wilderness that threatens their lives, and one that Ondaatje might consider to be “ ‘quicksilver, changeable, human’” (qtd. in Delbaere-Garant 252). And it is because of the intentional inclusion of these enhancing and exalting environmental elements, in addition to those of the magical described above, that I advocate for The Ash & The Elm to be viewed as an impactful work following the tradition of mythical realism. Combined with the influence of magical realism, and arising out of affective myth, spiritualism, and folk tradition, The Ash & The Elm is a creative work following a tradition that “brings together the seemingly opposed perspectives of a pragmatic, practical and tangible approach to reality and an acceptance of magic and superstition into the context of the same novel” (Bowers 3). In writing this novel, I tried to create what Salman Rushdie calls one of those Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 14 “capacious, large-hearted fictions, books that try to gather up large armfuls of the world” (“Bollywood or Bust”). For, as stated by the award-winning narrator of Midnight’s Children, and as will be experienced by audiences among the pages of The Ash & The Elm, in order “To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world” (121). Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 15 Works Cited Ancestry. https://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts. Accessed 6 April 2025. Azar, Shokoofeh. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, Apple iBooks ed., Europa Editions, 2017. Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magic(al) Realism: The New Critical Idiom. New York, Routledge, 2004. Calvino, Italo. “The Dinosaurs.” The Complete Cosmicomics, Everand ed., Mariner Books, 2015. Carruba, Elena Imen. “Mythical Realism in North African Fiction: Ibrahim Al-Koni's Gold Dust and the Bleeding of the Stone.” Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 41.1 (2018): 89-107. ProQuest. Web. 28 Mar. 2025. Chekhov, Anton. “The Black Monk.” The Black Monk and Other Stories. Everand ed., Sovereign, 2012. Cortázar, Julio. “Axolotl.” Magical Realist Fiction, edited by David Young and Keith Hollaman, Longman Inc., 1984, pp. 355-59. Delbaere-Garant, Jeanne. “Psychic Realism, Mythic Realism, Grotesque Realism: Variations on Magic Realism in Contemporary Literature in English.” Zamora and Faris, 249-63. Faris, Wendy. Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004. ---. “Scheherazade’s Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction.” Zamora and Faris, pp 163-90. Faulkner, William. “The Old People.” Magical Realist Fiction, edited by David Young and Keith Hollaman, Longman Inc., 1984, pp. 217-231. George, Elizabeth. Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writer’s Life. Perennial Currents, 2005. Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 16 Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed., Prentice Hall, 2000. Hood, Ann. “Beginnings.” The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House. Tin House Books, 2012. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis, translated by Ian Johnston. Everand ed., Simon & Schuster, 2009. Krusoe, Jim. “Story & Dream. ” The Writer’s Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House. Tin House Books, 2012. Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. 1967. W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. Menton, Seymour. Magic Realism Rediscovered: 1918–1981. Associated University Presses, 1983. Riley, Justin. The Ash & The Elm: A Mythical Realist Novel. 2025. Weber State University, Master of Arts in English Creative Writing Project. Rushdie, Salman. “Bollywood or Bust: Salman Rushdie on the World of Midnight’s Children, Forty Years Later.” Literary Hub, https://lithub.com/bollywood-or-bust-salman-rushdie-onthe-world-of-midnights-children-forty-years-later-2/. Accessed 24 November 2024. ---. Midnight’s Children. Random House, 2006. Russell, Karen. “Vampires in the Lemon Grove.” Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories. Vintage, 2014. “Sleipnir.” World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Sleipnir/. Accessed 6 April 2025. Trimble, John R. Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing. 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 2000. Justin Riley / Critical Introduction / Page 17 Young, David, and Keith Hollaman, editors. Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology. Longman Inc., 1984. Zamora, Lois Parkinson, and Wendy B. Faris, Editors, Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. ---. “Introduction: Daiquiri Birds and Flaubertian Parrot(ie)s.” Zamora and Faris, pp 1-11. JUSTIN RILEY [ADDRESS] [EMAIL] [TELEPHONE] Approx. [_____] words Approx. [_____] pages THE ASH & THE ELM: A MYTHICAL REALISM NOVEL By Justin Riley © 2025 Justin Riley. All Rights Reserved. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 1 7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. —2 Corinthians 12:7 8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. —Revelations 6:8 Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 2 I THE GAP Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 3 WHEN THE REVELATOR’S PALE HORSE APPEARED TO MY GRANDPARENTS, it established the thorn-plagued course of their lives. It was the reason they met and set forth in motion the remarkable and astonishing events that I am attempting, although rather poorly, to relate to you here. It also became the catalyst leading to my unfortunate birth to their youngest daughter. But more of that later. Grandfather always swore that the revelatory moment the horse appeared to him from out of the gap that night was attended by a sharp tang of ozone upon his tongue accompanied by sage, juniper, and pinyon. He described seeing dark thunderheads swelling above the canyonlands as he hung by one arm below the roots of Old Methuselah. With his other hand, he clutched a bleating black lamb against his chest, cradled within the folds of his sodden wool overcoat. Boots scrabbling for purchase against the granular edge, Grandfather said he fought against a terrified stupor, trying to reconstitute a clearer understanding of the series of events that had led him to that fateful confrontation with life and death upon the mesa. Of course, now I’m just getting a proverbial cart of the more salient details too far ahead of the horse. So, please allow me to start from the beginning . . . Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 4 25 March 1932 # “WAKE UP, JAMES!” Clarity escaped the young man as he peered up from his straw tick in the bunkhouse and into the prodigious and mustachioed jowls of old Doc Harris. Escalante’s doctor, dentist, and barber towered above him at the foot of the bed, holding a kerosene lantern. “Time’s come. Your ma’s goin’ into labor before her time,” he explained, adjusting wire bifocals with sausage-thick fingers. “She needs your pa.” Comprehension dawning, James threw off the layers of wool blankets from his naked body. He sprang from the thin tick, grabbing at his motley assortment of clothes hanging across the top rail of the pine bedstead. James donned the long-sleeved cotton shirt, buttoning johns, and faded denim overalls in a flurry. Rather than being abashed, the old doctor who had witnessed James’s own nascent beginning over thirteen years prior, seemed bemused. After James pulled on his boots, he snatched the swinging lantern away from the old man. From off the pegs nailed to the wall, he took down his calf-skin gloves, a well-worn Stetson, and a wool overcoat. Rushing out the door, he was swallowed by the darkness of a cold spring morning. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 5 Breakneck, James crossed the yard. Their small barn stood below the wide base of the ash tree-–an ancient sentinel that had existed well before the town was ever settled and homesteaded by his ancestors. Its naked branches, not yet begun to blossom this early in the year, were backlit by a waning gibbous moon. Innumerable stars flared in a cloudless sky. Illuminated by the swinging lantern, the ash resembled a colossal claw bursting forth from the grave of earth. James skidded to a stop in the loose dirt before ramming into the wide barn door. Placing the borrowed lantern in the dust, he threw up the cross-latch, grasped the cold iron handle with both hands, and pulled downward and back. The door slid aside with a grudge and an obstinate groan. Picking up the lantern, James stepped into the small bay, raising the lantern to peer into the pair of stalls at the back. A set of black eyes reflected at him, pin-pointed with the warm glow of burning light. Named for the stark diamond of white centered on its jet-black forehead, Star was James’s fouryear-old stallion. The other stall was empty. Star’s mother, the older mare, Yrsa, was working the family’s flock of sheep with his father up in the canyon. James scooped a handful of sweet oats from the feed barrel and opened the gate to the stall. The horse stepped toward him in welcome recognition. James rubbed his open hand up and down Star’s neck, withers, and shoulders whispering a secret between two old friends. Time being of the essence, James knew he didn’t have time to properly tack and saddle his horse. Instead, he would have to ride bareback—a skill he’d been taught by their Paiute ranch hands years before. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 6 Right hand flat, fingers close together, he offered the oats up to Star’s anxious lips. As the horse partook of the early morning offering, James unhooked a hackamore from the post. James removed his palm from the suckling lips and threaded and cinched the bosal around Star’s nose and jaw. Slipping the horsehair mecate and leather hanger over its flattening ears and behind its twisting head, James upturned the milk pail and leaped onto the skittering animal’s back. He grasped a handful of mane along with the braided mecate, shifted his hips forward, hyahed, and spurred the young horse forward with boot heels to the flanks. Horse and rider bent their heads down to avoid the low doorway and shot out into the yard. Foreseeing their destination, Star turned north heading toward Pine Creek and the monocline box canyon and the rocky defile that constituted the gateway leading to the family’s range claim lying at the center of Death Hollow. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 7 ARPEGGIOS. Ava Lennox’s thoughts were troubled that morning by the complication of arpeggios. Sitting on the bench at the bay window of her second-story bedroom, she peered eastward through musty, muslin drapes anticipating the rise of the sun above the distant mountaintops. Ava always looked forward to that glorious moment of the day when both warmth and enlightenment would simultaneously bathe her face, bringing, at once, a sense of order, understanding, and quite possibly, peace to her complicated thoughts. Any moment now, the world would awaken, come alive, just as she had hours earlier shrouded within moonlit darkness, to a profound awareness and appreciation of life’s complications. Most especially, the complication of arpeggios. To divert herself from the immense pressure of her father’s suffering and declining health, Ava had immersed herself over the past few months in the singular study and mastery of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor. Ava’s father, Thomas Lennox, had been left to raise their four-year-old child when his wife, Polly Ann, succumbed to a short yet painful battle with pancreatic cancer. Thomas was intent on his daughter becoming a woman of refinement, taste and culture even though they lived hundreds of miles away from the closest metropolitans of any note. After a continental journey Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 8 consisting of portage by heavy rail between New York and Salt Lake City, followed by a rattling box truck ride through South Central Utah to remote Garfield County, a Steinway Model O was delivered to their large, four-bedroom home. Nearly all 117 of Boulder Town’s modest inhabitants clamored to watch a six-man team unload and install the rich mahogany colored Living Room Grand within the front parlor. The piano was soon followed by the arrival of a governess for Ava. Miss Jane Ellen Spencer, a recent graduate of New York University with a degree in child education, was also an accomplished pianist. Since then, Ava’s life had been consumed by the complications of music. Beethoven’s sonata Quasi una fantasia, complete with its broken chords, demanding dynamics, articulation, phrasing, and precision of finger work, occupied fourteen-year-old Ava’s singular passion and focus of attention. “Good morning, Ava,” a voice spoke up behind her. Ava turned from the open window to find her governess framed by the bedroom doorway. Jane Ellen’s dark hair was neatly styled into a low bun wrapped with a cream-colored ribbon. She held her hands folded demurely across the front of a brown, pleated skirt complimented by an ivory blouse. “You’re up early again, I see.” “Oh, Jane Ellen,” replied Ava, leaning back against the window frame with a sigh. “I just couldn't sleep. My mind has been racing since yesterday’s lesson. I've been going over-and-over the third movement in my mind. My fingers keep moving back-and-forth in my sleep. The arpeggios kept waking me up.” Jane Ellen managed to smile, but Ava could see in her hazel brown eyes that something was not quite right. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 9 “What is it?” she asked. Jane Ellen frowned, and then looked down the hall to the stairway behind her. “I think you ought to come downstairs. Your father wants to speak to you.” With a nod, Ava followed Jane Ellen downstairs. Arriving at the back of the large home, Ava refused to cross the threshold of her father’s shade-drawn bedroom. Fingers pulling at the braids of her strawberry-blonde hair, she didn’t want to proceed any further. Jane Ellen stood to the side of Thomas’s four-poster bed. She held out her hand, helping her employer sit up. Propping pillows behind him, she offered him a glass of tepid water. The effort sent Thomas into a painful coughing fit. When the spasms finally subsided, Jane Ellen wiped the bloody phlegm from Thomas’s beard and lips. A cold sweat flushed his brow. Following a few difficult breaths, her father was finally able to take another short sip of the proffered water. But the water caught in his throat, causing him to gag. The debilitating spasms returned. Thomas had contracted the life-threatening bacterial infection on a business trip to Southern California three months before. Since then, Ava had avoided the western wing of the home. Unless she was able to escape outside during the scarcity of fair weather in early spring, Ava spent her days working through her frustrations and fears pounding out the broken chords of the third, final and turbulent movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” After managing to slow down his breathing and calm his spasming lungs, her emaciated father waved to Ava to come nearer. In obedience, she walked toward the side of his bed. Jane Ellen stepped back, allowing Ava to sit down on the button-tufted accent chair. Ava smoothed Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 10 out the ironed pleats in the skirt of her dress and twined her active fingers together in her lap trying to keep them still. Thomas placed his long, dehydration-wrinkled fingers over the top of both of her hands. Through rheumy eyes, he tried to capture the attention of his only child, managing a thin smile. “Hello, my dearest Ava,” he finally said, not without difficulty. “Jane Ellen tells me you’ve been progressing with the Beethoven piece?” “Yes, father,” she admitted with a proud smile. “But I’m having trouble with the final movement. There are the arpeggios . . . ,” she began to explain, but was unable to articulate any further that their complications occupied her waking moments and troubled dreams. “Very good,” Thomas commended with a nod, stifling the need to cough again. Ignoring Ava’s lack of explanation, he said, “I wish I could sit and listen to you play all day long. Nothing would make me happier.” Ava bit her lip, forcing a smile while suppressing the urge to break down into tears. “I would like that very much,” her wavering voice offered in truth. “Soon . . . ,” her father began to say, but a wracking coughing fit took over. Thomas had to remove his hand from Ava’s to cover his convulsing mouth. Jane Ellen stepped in between them with an already blood-stained rag trying to help. Unable to take any more, Ava fled the room. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 11 THE RUGGED TERRAIN OF THE DEATH HOLLOW WILDERNESS was a veritable maze of treacherous slickrock plateaus, entrapping slots, and narrow canyons and defiles. After navigating several miles of challenging elevation climbs and descents, Star crested the plateau’s summit around noon. James could finally see the mud-red stripe of Sand Creek flowing in between the fissures of the Navajo sandstone canyon. A quarter mile away, dozens of white- and black-faced sheep rambled about grazing upon spring flowers and the knee-high grasses growing along the thin creek. James leaned back to guide Star down along the steep game trail twisting like a jagged staircase to the streambed. At the bottom, he booted the tired horse into a gallop in the direction of the draw where his father, Claud, had set up a makeshift camp. The stallion charged out of the juniper brake, and through a copse of aspens, entering the draw near the mouth of a shallow cavern worn into the cliffs below a natural shelf of sandstone. In surprise, Claud stood up from the spare fire. A horsehair blanket fell from his shoulders into the red sand. Already saddled from Claud’s inspection of the flock that morning, Yrsa nickered a salutary recognition. “Pa!” James cried out as Star traversed the creek and climbed up the sand bar. “James?” Claud responded in confusion. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 12 James jumped down from the skidding horse and wrapped his arms around his father. “What’s goin’ on?” Claud demanded. “What you doin’ all the way out here? Why did you leave your mother?” James let up on his grip around Claud and took a moment to gather his breath and thoughts. “Doc Harris says the baby’s comin’ early,” he choked out in explanation around a cotton-dry tongue. A storm of knowing struck Claud’s brow. He turned to look out over the dozens of sheep milling about them along the canyon floor. Faced with a decision to carry out his duty to remain with the flock or return home with speed to be at the side of his wife, his father did not hesitate. Claud would return to Anna as she attempted to bring their fourth child into this desolate patch of dusty earth. Claud knelt in the sand, gripped both of James’s forearms with large, calloused hands and looked him directly in the eyes. “Watch them good, son. Make sure they stay out of harm ‘til I return. All will be right.” Knowing James had the experience to carry out their venture in his absence, Claud kissed his son on the forehead. He stood, grabbed his own wool overcoat from off the bedroll, and donned his black, wide-brimmed hat. Grabbing Yrsa’s reins, he set his boot in the stirrup, leaped onto the mare’s back, and turned the bay toward the south canyon. Nodding his confidence to James, Claud yelled, “Git’ up!” Burnt-orange sand flew from Yrsa’s hooves as they tore off across the draw and through the shallow creek, disappearing behind the junipers and aspens. Claud’s whistles, amidst a thunder of hooves, echoed down the walls of the canyon. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 13 AVA SAT ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF BOULDER CREEK with the warm sun at her back, dangling her bare feet and throwing pebbles into the cold spring water. Above her towered the spiny-ridged summit of Balancing Rock. Silver and black-striped minnows darted around the crescent of grass-tufted banks lying along the shallows of a clear pool formed decades before by a lodgepole dam reinforced by limestone rocks. Whenever the seasons and weather permitted, Ava and her schoolmates spent their free time taking turns jumping off from the knotted rope swing they had tied to the upper branch of the willow tree. Falling into the cool water, they would splash each other and churn the once clear pool muddy with red-brown silt. Attempting to free her mind from the fears created by her father’s progressing illness, and the dark shadows they cast over their lives, Ava sat in contemplative solace. It was Good Friday, and the school board had cancelled classes for the day. A long Easter break allowed families to travel and bestowed a well-deserved day of respite upon ragged instructors. Ava knew it was only a matter of time before any of her friends showed up to play in the creek. Until then, she intended to spend every precious moment of the time afforded to her in solitude and escape. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 14 Ava continued to distract herself with the complications of Beethoven’s third movement of arpeggios, Presto agitato. The pooled water cascaded from the glasslike surface over the top of the lodgepole dam. Rippling down from the top of the dam, the water bounced upon the rocks, continuing its jouncing journey toward the larger Escalante River. The wild motion reminded Ava of her nimble fingers endeavoring to play the scattered notes of the Sonata. Broad of shoulder, Ava stood nearly a head taller than many youths her age. On most occasions, she was the first to be picked for a team during schoolyard games. This was especially true when they formed squads for a rousing game of stickball, needed an anchor for a match of tug of war or someone to serve as guard in “Duck on a Rock.” Ava had developed the right to be respected during her second year of grade school. One day at recess, Ava had come upon her closest friend cornered behind the schoolhouse. Emma Monson, reduced to tears, was surrounded by a pack of boys who were calling her inappropriate names and pulling at her dress and pigtails. Before the teachers could manage to pull Ava off the boys’ freckle-faced leader, she had bloodied his face and broken his nose. Following the brazen attack, she was known as “Dempsey”—a nickname bestowed upon her in honor of the famous heavyweight boxer from northern Utah. Yet, despite her inherent toughness, when it came to the ever-present fear of losing her only living parent, and the possibility of being shipped back East to be raised by unknown relatives like an orphan in a Victorian novel, Ava managed to be vulnerable to the reality of her circumstances. Ava’s solicitude was interrupted by the scrabble of shoes upon rocks along the trail leading up to the creek. Quickly wiping away tears from her cheeks and onto the skirt of her gingham dress, she attempted to gain her composure, refusing to show any sign of weakness. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 15 When the warmth of the sun became blocked, and a long shadow fell over her shoulder, carrying out across the still surface of the pool, Ava knew instinctively that this person was not one of her schoolmates. Curious, she turned to look over her shoulder. Jane Ellen stood silent before her looking up toward the canyon rim. Expecting someone else, Ava was ashamed to have been tracked down by her governess, having nothing to say in defense of her flight from her dying father’s bedside that morning. Without rebuke, Jane Ellen stepped forward, removed her shoes, and gathered her skirts up in order to sit down next to Ava on the tufted bank where they sat in silence. Ava rubbed blades of grass between her fingers as the minnows continued to dart backand forth beneath their feet. Smooth speckled stones glimmered in the sun at the bottom of the pool. Ava looked down at her hands. Jane Ellen cleared her throat. “Your father loves you more than anything, Ava. No one can appreciate how difficult this may be for the both of you.” Ava bit her lip, refusing to shed any tears in front of her mentor. “Father’s getting worse,” she said. “Why hasn’t Doctor Harris visited us?” “He’s not scheduled to visit until next week after the holiday. I tried placing a call with the switchboard operator in Escalante this morning at the post office to see if he could come sooner, but Mr. Lyman told me that the lines have been damaged during the recent storm,” Jane Ellen explained. “He said it may be some time before the Forest Service is able to repair the connection. Until then, we will just have to wait. I will try to make your father comfortable, and we can pray that when Doctor Harris does arrive, he can provide your father with some relief.” Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 16 Ava didn’t say anything in response, unable to process the fact that her only parent was dying. Jane Ellen placed her hand on Ava’s arm. “Take your time. But make sure you come home before your lessons this afternoon to eat something. You skipped out on breakfast.” Then, she patted Ava’s arm, stood up and slipped on her shoes. Leaving Ava alone, she walked back down the trail toward the Lennox home. Ava spent the remaining moments of the afternoon considering any plausible options that may solve her predicament. Before returning home in time for her lessons, she had reached a conclusion. She wanted answers now. Regardless of the competing arguments forming in her mind, she was settled on a course of action. Taking matters into her own hands, she would leave early the next morning and ride her father’s horse to seek out Doctor Harris by herself, well before anyone could stop her or talk her out of it. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 17 JAMES AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. He stepped out from under the cavern shelf to peer up into the marbling of gray skies. A nagging concern as to the welfare of his mother and the child she was bearing hid in the corner of his mind. James was the first of three children born to Claud and Anna Ascher. But he was the only child that had survived his second year of life. Given his mother’s advanced years, and a lingering weakness from a battle with Typhoid, both she and the child she was carrying were at risk from the moment of its conception. His father intended to return home from the range at the end of April to attend James’s mother. Yet, once again, fate was revealing its hoary hand. James refused to consider that, when he returned home, he would have to help dig a grave for his mother and her unborn child next to those of his two infant brothers. Despite the outlook, James was unperturbed by his father's lagging absence. This was not the first time he had been left alone to tend the sheep. Besides chasing a handful of sheep away from the alleys leading to known slot canyons, and away from areas where they might climb up on a plateau, butte or clifftop, the time had passed without incident. On other occasions since turning ten, he had spent several days alone watching over the sheep when his father rode the mail trail to Boulder Town or returned home to Escalante for supplies. On such occasions, James was left in blissful solitude, able to consider his place within the world, viewing the paths of his Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 18 life through an inherent appreciation of the red, yellow, and gold ribbons of sandstone that juxtaposed the dusty, sharp and entangling angles of scrub-oak, pine and acacia. It was Holy Saturday—the day before Easter Sunday. Even though they had enjoyed a wet spring, the annual lack of summer rain was a despised, yet accepted, condition of life. As always, any amount of moisture would be most welcome as long as James kept himself and the sheep near the camp by the draw, and out of the slot canyons or off the sandstone precipices. If he didn’t, flash floods could drown and carry off anything left unsecured to a cliffside or canyon floor rending it apart and scattering the varied pieces for miles. And in the case of a plateau or clifftop, there was no telling when gale force winds might pick up or where lightning might strike at elevation. Not to mention that a heavy deluge would make any sandstone surface the point of quick departure for a rain-slicked ride to certain death over the side of a sheer-faced cliff. Following a cold meal of hard tack and pine nuts, James mounted Star and began to assess the rest of his day’s work directing sheep that had wandered away from camp during the night. He rode up and down the creek for a few hours corralling and cajoling. By early afternoon, even after all the work he had performed that morning, he was missing sheep. It had still not begun to rain, but the skies kept darkening by degrees. James knew he was losing time. He had to ensure that the missing sheep had not placed themselves in danger when the chaos of the portentous storm was finally released. The high, wind-worn walls of the sandstone canyon provided a natural east and west border with few gaps, caves or narrows to investigate along the main stretch of Sand Creek near the draw. This left James the need to search the south and north ends of the canyon for the missing animals. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 19 After exhausting the lower portions of the canyon to the south, James recovered only a pair of rams, five ewes and a handful of lambs by late afternoon. With a good half dozen or more to account for, James reluctantly directed Star up the canyon. From Sand Creek’s confluence with the Escalante River at its bottom, the elevation of the canyon floor rose gradually in a north-by-northwest direction to its top. And although the more fertile parts of the Wilderness surrounded the headwaters of Sand Creek, the heart of Death Hollow was a veritable morass of narrow declines, slots, treacherous cliffs and plateaus. Its exacting landscape offered both man and beast a sure glimpse of mortality—the very reason why James had left it to be searched last. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 20 BY MID-AFTERNOON, AVA HAD MANAGED TO SURPRISE HERSELF. Her ill-conceived plan had gone off without a hitch. She had successfully slipped out of the house early that morning without detection. Then, she had managed to tack her father’s horse, Wagner, all on her own, leveraging all those equestrian lessons her father had forced upon her when she was nine. From there, she rode away from the sleeping town and through the well-known entrance to the old mail trail that connected Boulder Town to Escalante. From there, all she needed to do was stay on course until sunrise when the path through the canyonland would become clearer. When the light of day finally arrived, it revealed cloudy skies. Ava was glad to have laid out a thick, warm coat and scarf, as well as wool stockings and gloves the night before. She knew that she had to make good time if she was to avoid being caught on the trail in the canyons if it began to storm. By early evening, traversing the lowest point of the canyon, she crossed Sand Creek. Then she left behind a field of sagebrush, scrub oak, and ponderosa pine that yielded to slickrock steps climbing up a sandstone cliff. Upon reaching the summit of the plateau, the mail trail continued to wend its way through a cobalt labyrinth lined with basalt boulders and slippery shale down to the canyon floor. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 21 Ava followed the narrow path along the winding canyon, unable to view the lay of the land. But Ava’s confidence in her plan began to wane when she came upon another creek earlier than she would have anticipated. She knew full well from her study of a map the night before that Pine Creek was located much farther west and the old mail trail only crossed Sand Creek once. The already dim light of cloudy skies was being swallowed up by the approach of dusk. Her concern was intensified by the high, narrow canyon walls above her. She was losing precious time to get back on the trail before night set in. Still, a storm threatened, and the temperature was dropping. Ava retraced Wagner’s hoof prints along the sandy floor, following the winding canyon back toward the base of the plateau. When she reached it, there was no sign of any other trail other than the wrong one that had taken them to the creek’s crossing. Frustrated, she dismounted, allowing the animal to rest. She needed to gain her bearings and composure. Holding onto Wagner’s reins, Ava sat down heavily on the bark-stripped trunk of a fallen pine. Bent over, with hands covering her face, she began to sob. A few shoulder-wracking moments later, a distinct change in the surrounding atmosphere preceded the loud, percussive slap of a hoof striking rock. Ava’s head shot up with a snap. Prepared to scold her father’s horse, she observed that, except for his ears that flicked back-and-forth, Wagner was looking back up the trail behind them and holding stock still. She followed his gaze. There, framed by the towering walls of the canyon, stood another horse. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 22 The strange beast faced them broadside, and Ava knew instantly that this was no ordinary animal. By Ava’s estimation, the draft horse stood over twenty hands tall—nearly five hands more than the lean thoroughbred beside her. Then there was its demeanor. Ava sensed an aura of utter superiority emanating from its penetrating gaze and regal posture. Most striking of all was its unique coloring. It presented a mottled blanket of skin speckled with a variant of gray spots covering its lean and muscular body from its shoulders and withers to its hips and loins. Unlike any other horse she had ever seen, this horse’s pale-colored coat shimmered in the thin dusk light. Almost pearlescent, it was skeletal in appearance. Its silhouette was edged by the thinnest of gray and black. Ava began to question whether the horse was even real. But that fact was settled moments later when it snorted, and a misty cloud burst from flared nostrils and into the chill air. The horse seemed to appreciate her awe when it shook its head in the air, causing its mane to ripple outward. With a whip-crack flick of its tail, the horse lifted its massive foreleg into the air before pounding it down into the pebbled sand with a sand-splashing thud. Black mottled lips peeled back to reveal ivory teeth before letting forth a shrill and deafening neigh that resounded across the canyon walls, causing both Ava and Wagner to step backward in tandem. As the enigmatic animal stood still before them, the next few minutes passed for Ava pierced by an appreciative silence. Finally, the horse moved. It turned its flickering body back toward the trail and looked over its right shoulder at Ava. With a forceful blow of air from its nose, and a distinct shake of its head, the horse took off, trotting away from them back toward the second Sand Creek crossing. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 23 At that very moment, and for the rest of her life, Ava could never explain why she knew that she had to follow the horse. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 24 BETWEEN THE MOMENT HE STEPPED OUT OF THE CAVERN THAT MORNING until he entered the center of Death Hollow at dusk, the tone of gray clouds over the canyonlands had turned from ash to slate. Due to the impending storm, the scant light of day continued to diminish as he urged Star up the canyon. Still, it had not yet rained. Halfway up the canyon, he found the missing sheep huddled together, chewing on the tall, sweet grass growing near a shallow pool created by the spring runoff. Star’s sides heaved from riding up and down the canyon all day. James got down and let the stallion drink freely as the sheep continued to mill about. Falling to his knees, James joined his horse, cupping his hands and dipping them into the clear spring pool. He brought the cold, refreshing water to his parched mouth, and gulped it down with abandon. After repeating the process several times, James sat back on his heels, belly full and out of breath. He took off his coat and used his hat as a bucket to scoop up more of the cold water before turning it over his head to wash away the grime of the day’s efforts searching for missing sheep. James shook his sodden hair and drew his fingers back over his head to comb it out from his eyes. Then he wiped his face and brow against his shirtsleeve and replaced his coat and hat. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 25 The piercing cry of a goshawk circling the canyon caused him to look up. James watched it soar until lighting down in the topmost branches of a pine tree growing out of the cliff where the goshawk commenced preening itself. Above the goshawk loomed the cloud-strewn sky. James gauged that he would lose all light within an hour or so. Time was not on his side. Needing to get these sheep back to the draw before darkness set in, he had no choice but to try. James mounted the satiated stallion and began to coax the wayward sheep away from the spring. Within a few frustrating minutes of using Star to work them back-and-forth, the flock moved down into the narrow gap between the canyon walls and toward the draw. At this rate, he might just make it back to camp before losing the light of day for good. Otherwise, he’d have to hope that enough of the moon’s light was able to pierce the thick storm clouds above and reflect off the canyon walls or creek for him to navigate. However, just as they left the spring and were making headway down the canyon, a bolt of lightning flashed above the canyon’s rim. The rumble of thunder followed soon after. James was exceedingly uncomfortable with the nearness of the strike in proximity to their location, not to mention that it might portend the rainstorm that had threatened all day long. Regardless, it did manage to inspire the small flock to move faster in the right direction, causing them to zig-zag between canyon walls and boulders, pinballing against each other. Another succession of white, electric spiderwebs flashed across the sky. They were succeeded by the boom of thunder before an unsettling period of silence predominated the area. It was during this period of repose, and just before he realized that his flock had stopped moving, that James heard the unmistakable bleat of a sheep high above him. Thinking he had already located the last of the strays, James was surprised to see their black-faced ram staring down at Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 26 him from the top of the mesa. When James saw that the ram stood between the roots of the giant bristlecone his grandfather had named Old Methuselah, he knew exactly where the ram was and how it had arrived there. Knowing the newfound flock would not stray far in his absence, James dug his heels into Star’s sides as fat drops of rain began to pound down upon the parched earth. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 27 A CLAMOR OF VOICES PLEADED WITHIN AVA’S HEAD TO RETURN HOME. To give up on this reckless misadventure. Jane Ellen would be distraught, concerned by her protracted absence. And then there was her father to consider. If he knew that she had run off and could not be found, what would that do to exacerbate his already tenuous condition? Ava’s every single nerve was on edge. Logic dictated that the supernatural entity leading them north should be avoided. If the storm broke and there was a flood in the canyon, or if the horse decided to turn on her, she knew that she would be in extreme danger. She wasn’t capable of protecting herself. Yet, a growing sense that the horse meant her no harm, and that the course she was now pursuing was the right one, persisted. Long after they forded the crossing of Sand Creek where she had first ascertained that her journey to find Doctor Harris had taken a very troubling turn, they continued to follow the horse along the creek and headed deeper into the canyon narrows of the Death Hollow Wilderness. Night drew nearer, with daylight scarcer by the moment. Ava had difficulty encouraging Wagner to keep up with the horse. The massive beast never seemed to flag or tire. They would ride blindly up the canyon, and their view of the horse would become cut off by the narrow and twisting canyon walls and steep, slanting precipices. It Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 28 never failed that, after arriving at some clearing of sorts, finding themselves on top of a plateau or bluff, the pale horse would be waiting for them there, standing broadside across the trail, exhibiting a look of constant impatience and brandishing annoyance. After allowing Wagner a short period to catch his breath or take gulping mouthfuls of water from the creek, the unearthly horse would then turn its head north, its skin flickering from tangible one moment to nearly transparent the other, within the dim light. Rounding a bend in the canyon, they came across a little white lamb followed by a handful of alternating white- and black-faced sheep of various genders, years and sizes. Then many more. The number of sheep continued to rise until Ava and Wagner arrived at a draw near the creek where the main body of the flock appeared to be located. Ava could see by the fire pit and supplies that this area was being used as a sort of temporary camp. But there was no sign of the flock’s shepherd. The pale horse only gave them the briefest moment of respite. For as Ava was about to dismount to stretch her legs and explore the camp, the horse threw a fit. It let forth another thunderous neigh and snort before jumping, twisting and spiraling its body around in the air like a bronc trying to throw its buster. Stomping its large black hind hooves into the wet sand, it reared up. Dozens of bleating sheep scattered to the canyon walls and down the creekside trail as its silvered forelegs beat at the empty air above them. Upon coming back down to the sandy earth with a thump, the horse shook its head and unruly black mane, body glimmering. It then turned back toward the upper canyon trail. Trotting forward at a clip, it gave Ava little time to consider why they shouldn’t take advantage of this time to rest at the camp. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 29 Still sensing an urgency to their unknown errand, Ava resumed her mount, and spurred Wagner forward. Sheep scattered out of their path with their numbers diminishing the farther they rode away from the draw. The pale horse set a blistering pace as it climbed up the canyon trail. As Wagner’s head began to droop lower, his breathing became more labored. Ava was getting concerned for her horse’s health. Because of the height of the sandstone walls, and the distant crackle of lightning across the canyonlands, Ava could only discern the flashes of light high above them before the groans of thunder followed. Suddenly, the pale horse diverged from the creek bed and began to climb a rocky trail up the base of a wide mesa. As they began to follow it, there was a brilliant flicker of white light and a deafening boom. That’s when they lost sight of the horse again. Rain began to cascade in sheets down upon them from above. Thunder crashed around the canyon walls, causing Wagner to slip on the sandstone and jump sideways. As she recovered her seat and grip on the reins, Wagner regained his footing and quickened his pace skyward toward the mesa’s rocky summit. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 30 THE NARROW SLOT CANYON HAD BEEN USED BY JAMES’S ANCESTORS for decades to run sheep up from Escalante through the Death Hollow Wilderness on their way to the Boulder Mountain. Wide enough to admit a full-grown horse, the slot wound and climbed steadily upwards like a grand staircase. And although the jutting sandstone shelves of the canyon walls kept much of the pounding rain off James and his horse, the slot also became a perilous chute for the raging river it was now channeling. Star struggled at turns to keep his footing in the rushing waters, slipping when the sandstone and shale shifted under his iron-shod weight. As night set in, there remained the thinnest amount of light necessary for James to lead them, clambering up the slot canyon to surmount the top of the mesa. From there, it would only be a short distance farther to reach Old Methuselah and the ram. Torrential rain made it difficult to see more than a dozen yards in front of them, but James was able to navigate the direction of their ultimate destination by way of the harried lightning blistering the sky. From it, James could make out the naked and twisting limbs of Old Methuselah where it stood out prominently in the distance—a tortured, stony Ebenezer growing out of the cliff’s edge. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 31 Upon reaching the tree, James jumped down from Star’s back into a ruddy pool of silt and mud that caused him to lose his footing and fall to his hands and knees. Promptly regaining his feet, he circled the wide base of the tree to access its cliffside. When he came round the base, there was no black-faced ram waiting for his rescue that stood between the bristlecone’s roots. Instead, what James found was only one small black lamb. A pitiful animal that looked up at him through the pelting rain and bleated in terror. Their family depended on every last sheep for their welfare, young and old. Charged with their care during his father’s absence, James did not know why there was only a lamb trapped on the cliff face where the ram should be. But his responsibility now was to recover this single lost lamb. James wavered briefly in confusion before climbing down the pine’s enormous root. After dropping a few feet down to the sandstone shelf, a strong gust of wind took his hat from off his head and flung it into the abyss. The lamb danced away, attempting to conceal itself within the shallows of a hole some burrowing animal had created for use as its den beneath the protective roots of the tree. James dove to the ground and reached into the den and grabbed its forelegs. The lamb cried out, trying to scrabble back as he pulled it out from the hole. Bleating, the lamb’s head jerked about, hind legs whirling, as James picked it up from the ground. Pinning it with one arm against his chest, James unhooked the first few buttons of his overcoat. Then, in one swift motion, he jammed the small animal down within it, hoping the jacket would help him contain the lamb while freeing up the other to help him climb back up the tree root. To his surprise, the warmth his body offered the lamb beneath his overcoat must have had a calming effect, and it began to hold still. Relieved, James stepped up to put a boot into a wide Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 32 crack of the root and reached up with his free hand. With what little strength remained in him, James managed to pull himself up to a point where he could see just over the top of the naked white root. Star stood blinking at him through the rain with the hackamore dangling over his head, dragging in the mud. Only a few inches lay between an escape from the cliff with the lamb, and being able to remount his horse. Then he could find his way back down the mesa to where he had left the recovered sheep before returning them all to the camp in the draw. But as James moved to gain a higher foothold on the root, the heavens interceded, and a lightning bolt struck the heart of Old Methuselah. Sparks flew, exploding into James’s face as an intense wave of heat and energy passed through the tree and inti the ground on which he stood. James lost his grip on the root, and his boot came free of the foothold. Having lost consciousness, his limp body, complete with sodden overcoat trapping the bleating lamb, fell toward the cliff face. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 33 WHEN AVA REACHED THE TOP OF THE MESA after nightfall, there was no sign of the horse, and it was all she could do to remain calm and not panic. Soaking wet and cold, she began to shiver. Reflexively, her fingers began to knead Wagner’s mane, thrumming them back and forth as if she were playing piano keys. The frantic movement was short lived though as Ava remembered to employ an old calming trick that Jane Ellen had taught to her, one which she had used whenever life became overwhelming. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and slowed down her breath. Then, Ava tried to imagine a safer space within her happier memories. This time, her mind fought to ignore the consuming complication of arpeggios that had occupied her mind for months on end. Despite her desperate circumstances and the pouring rain, she sought serenity across the Sonata’s ponderous first movement, Adagio sostenuto, wherein Ava found peace for the briefest of moments. Ready to face her predicament, Ava opened her eyes. With the light of day now extinguished, she could discern little about her environment. The spectacle of the electrical storm accentuated the dark silhouettes of looming rocks and scarecrow trees that lay scattered about the flat, rocky surface of the great mesa. Without the pale horse to lead them, Ava didn’t know where to go. She still felt the rightness of her actions to this point, and that her decision to follow the beast had been correct. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 34 This was true even though they now seemed to be miles away from her home or destination, stranded on the top of a mesa during a violent thunderstorm. In between the flashes of lightning, Ava caught some movement on the far horizon. Something was moving swiftly toward them. When the light show stopped, and Ava couldn't track the location of whatever was drawing nigh, a roll of thunder turned out to be the pounding of hooves. Wagner cried out and reared up below her, nearly spilling her to the ground. Then a black, rain-slicked stallion, wearing only a hackamore bridle, leaped out of the darkness in front of them. Wagner stomped his hooves on the shale and sandstone, skittering nervously to the side. They managed to dodge the frenzied animal as it streaked past them, disappearing down the trail beyond a veil of rain. Ava struggled to regain control of her horse as Wagner danced back and forth, chomping his bit, turning himself in circles. Eventually, she managed to calm him down, talking in soothing tones, and rubbing his neck and shoulders. Heart racing, Ava tried to make sense of what she had just witnessed. But the fact that it wore a bridle could only mean that it wasn’t entirely wild. And if that was truly the case, to whom did it belong, and where was its rider? In these conditions, a person might be in serious trouble without a mount. Struggling to come up with solutions to her questions and determine who might also be foolish enough to be caught in the Wilderness during a storm, Ava remembered the flock of sheep they had stumbled upon earlier that evening in the draw, and its lack of a shepherd. She clicked her tongue, whipped the reins, and kicked Wagner’s sides. The horse galloped forward as Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 35 Ava used the lightning strikes to trace the flight path of the frightened black stallion back to where it might have come from. # Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 36 JAMES CAME TO WITH HIS BOOTS DANGLING LIMPLY OVER THE CLIFF’S LEDGE, and the lamb’s hooves beating at his stomach and chest. His head throbbed and his left eye felt as if it were on fire. He couldn’t see out of it. Dazed, James lay still on his back staring up into a storm-bulged sky. He wondered what had just happened to him and how he had managed to avoid plummeting hundreds of feet to his death and leaving his parents childless. Looking above his shoulder, he could see that his left arm and shoulder were caught, wedged into a crevice between two large rocks. He attempted to roll over and pull himself free, but an intense pain radiated through his shoulder and surged throughout his body. With a scream, he had to close his eyes and grit his teeth to avoid biting his tongue, concentrating to breathe through the pain. Knowing he must have broken his collarbone, tears spilled from the outer corners of his eyes, rolling down his cheeks and into his ears. And the lamb continued to bleat and struggle within his overcoat. Given his injured condition and hopeless predicament, he cried out to the heavens for intervention. But his cry was arrested by a swelling bank of clouds forming within the thunderhead. Amid that thunderhead, there was a distinct gap devoid of any light, color, tone or visible substance. Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 37 The gap grew larger in proportion to the thunderhead until James caught movement radiating from its center. Within it, a shadowy shape appeared, haloed by the gap surrounding it. The shadowy form separated itself from the gap and descended with speed toward the cliff. As it neared, the form grew and became more discernible, more corporeal, increasingly taking on volume and tone. Its sliding flight earthward ceased just before striking the cliff. James drew in a breath, his heart clenching within his chest. He had no explanation for what now stood before him in the middle of the air above the turbulent chasm. It was a horse, but a larger animal than he had ever encountered. Ethereal in appearance, its pale muted coat, edged and speckled in tones of black and gray at the flanks, shone faintly in contrast to the inky clouds behind it. The pale horse’s steam-filled breaths puffed out into the cold night sky. As if touching the very ground, the animal shifted its weight, bringing one foreleg up and pawing a coal-black hoof in the air toward him before placing it back down onto the invisible firmament holding it up in place. Thereafter, a stalemate of sorts began between them, with James pinned to the cliff by his arm and broken shoulder. Whatever this animal was, and for whatever reason it had chosen to appear to him now, James knew that he didn’t want anything to do with it. Somehow, he had to free his arm, get away from the cliff and return to the top of the mesa with the struggling lamb to find safety. When the horse turned its head to the side to groom itself, James decided to take his advantage. As James started to move his free hand across his chest and over his broken shoulder to try pulling himself up by the edge of one of the ensnaring rocks, the horse turned its head back Justin Riley / The Ash & The Elm / Page 38 to face him. James froze in place as a look of pure malevolence appeared within its dull black eyes. With a snort followed by an earsplitting neigh, the horse lifted its tail and whipped it back and forth above the canyon. Then, with ears pinned back, it charged. James began to scream. Boots scabbling against the cliff edge, he tried to use his legs to desperately push himself up and out of the rocks’ crevice to get away. But the pain was too great, and it overwhelmed him. When the nightmarish horse flew within a dozen yards of the cliff, James was hit with a wave of nausea and vertigo, and he started to lose consciousness again. Detecting movement to the left of his periphery, James turned his head in fading confusion. Above him appeared an angel with strawberry-blonde hair, reaching down to free his arm. #