Thomas Doty – Storyteller

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In the Long Shadows

In the long shadows of evening at Cottonwood Glades, this alpine meadow of creeks and pools is brushed green with skunk cabbage, yellow with buttercups, white with trilliums.

Takelmas call this place Latgau which means "Knife in Belly." Here, at the headwaters of Cottonwood and Dead Indian creeks, the first war was fought. Sometime in Mythtime these creeks flowed red. Cottonwoods became smoldering stumps. A lot of people died.

Now the creeks brim with the boomings of frogs. Woodpeckers rattle the trees. Deer browse slowly from glade to glade.

In the long shadows, that first war is barely a memory.

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