Chapter 12: Routine life in mountains
The high pastures stretched before us like a green tapestry woven between the stone teeth of the mountains.
My father and I worked in the comfortable rhythm that came from years of shared labour, driving the cattle down the winding mountain paths toward the safety of the lower fields.
The beasts lowed and complained at being moved from their familiar grazing grounds, but they followed the old trails carved by countless generations of hooves and boots.
There wasn’t much for them to roam around, as most of the island was covered with the snow. We had to take them up towards the mountains where the sunlight is stronger; only there could we find grass for the cattle.
My father moved with the steady grace of a man who had spent his life among these peaks, reading the weather in the colour of the sky and the behaviour of the animals.
His weathered hands guided the most stubborn of the bulls with touches that seemed gentle but brooked no argument.
Watching him work, I understood why the other villagers looked to him for counsel on matters of farming and livestock. There was wisdom in the way he read the land, wisdom earned through decades of listening to what the mountains had to teach.
The sun climbed toward its zenith as we worked, the air growing warm despite the altitude. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I chased down a wayward heifer that had decided the grass was greener on a precarious ledge.
By the time I’d coaxed her back to the herd, my shirt clung to my back, and my legs ached from scrambling over the rocky terrain.
It was then that Aldein found us.