The Speaking Pines

A stand of frost-silvered dead snags on a saddle where the dusk wind makes the same speaking sound as Windcut Pass far above — the tribes will not cross this ground after dark.

The snags are old-growth pines killed by a cold snap a generation back, stripped by frost until the bark is grey-white and the hollow trunks ring. At dusk the wind finds the cavities and makes a sound the tribes call the Pass speaking downhill — a low, almost-vowel drone that carries for half a mile and means nothing, or means exactly what the Pass means: that you are at the edge of something that has no regard for you. Frost shrikes roost in the upper branches. Glowcap and frost lichen grow thick in the lee.