It is a rabbit maxima. They are everywhere. Jackrabbits and cottontails too. They do that scaring-the-evil-spirits-away thing by waiting for me to come down the road in the truck and then bolting out in front at the last second. So far, none have gone under the wheels. I hope the their evil spirits have done poorer.

It’s also a tent caterpillar maxima. Their filament-woven nests cover most of the top branches of the cottonwoods hereabouts. In the great predator-prey cycles that rabbits and caterpillars and hawks and who know what else bounce through, I wonder if rabbits and caterpillars are synched-up like women under a similar moon. The last rabbit maxima that I remember was a decade or so ago. Are the cycles about every 7 years? 11 years? I don’t remember, but they are probably biblical in duration. All things grand and intricate seem to be.

There are two Cainville Mesas, both of them just west of Hanksville, Utah. The one I know is South Cainville Mesa. Between them runs the Fremont River, and is likely the element that split the two asunder. From above, the north mesa is shaped roughly like a rabbit. The southern one always looked to me like a cormorant swimming in pursuit under water in mid swivel. But that doesn’t work here. So imagine a tent caterpillar fallen from a tree, curled and mashed under the foot of a wandering bovine. That will do in a rough sort of way.

The mesas are capped by a thick sheet of hard golden sandstone. This shields the layers below from rain and the gaze of corrosive gods. Underneath, the layers are mostly soft and unsubstantial, easily borne away with wind or water. The caps rise more than a thousand feet above the surrounding country, like tables, like continents above a chalky sea. Around the south mesa, the exposed soft tuff is eroded in steep-edged mazes. The grey and lemon layers wash like waves about the higher country. The vertical cliffs only spill into flatter country near the bases of the pedestal. The clays and chalks thus eroded are poor soil, and a badland surrounds the south mesa for miles, buff-colored and folded and unforgiving. The Spanish word is malpais. Bad country.

I find it very good country indeed. These tall mesas are unique in a land of rounded mountains and flat plains and incised canyons. In a state where cows infest every imaginable patch of non-vertical dirt, this place is blissfully cow-free. The badlands are finally poor enough country for even the most determined cow to be turned away, and the walls of the mesas keep them off the top. The glowing hues and the abstract shapes are like slices of Okeeffe pastel paintings, transplanted and taken root and gone to seed. It is a wonderland, waterless and blown through with soft colors and harsh winds.

The top of the south mesa is flat, slightly rolling. The north seems to be as well, but I have not ventured on that mesa. There is no secure source of water, no springs or pools. No damn bulldozed cattle ponds. The sandstone caprock traps little potholes of water here and there after recent rains, and holds it for a time. Enough to support a few deer maybe. Grasses grow in clumps. Prickly pear thrives in great patches, and bloomed bridesmaid pink when I visited. And a few juniper trees, always hardy and always surviving where all else succumbs.

A walk across the top is linear. I think about the original inhabitants of Australia, who traveled, and maybe still travel, the great flat land in songlines. Each verse a tree, a wash, a stonefield. Choruses maybe for the landmarks growing out of the humming distance. My walk becomes a mini songline, with Dar Williams songs from The Honesty Room and Red Hot Chili Peppers songs from Californication fading in and out of each other like stations competing for the car radio in a drive across rolling country far from the sources.

There is an old sheep trail going up the north side of the south mesa. It’s mostly eroded, but still trackable. I climbed a year ago with a group, and this year solo. The register records only two groups in between. One with four adults and two children, and the other another solo hiker from Hanksville also on a second climb. There is a finely built sheepherder cabin far in the distance from the point where the trail tops the mesa. Sheep were grazed here for a time, being the only cattle that could make the climb. The shepherds were likely Basques from the north of Spain. The lack of water must have meant that it was always a marginal venture, although whomever built the cabin did so with the aim of long habitation. It’s structure is sturdy and its boards are only slightly aged. Below, on the far side of the mesa, are more mazes of pastel building up to the granite mass of the Henry mountains to the south.

Thankfully, there hasn’t been grazing on top for many years. It’s probably just not economically workable today. Somewhere below is a Utah rancher who sleeps fitfully knowing that there is grass growing up on top unchewed. He dreams of helicopters or tram systems to haul water up and fatted calves down (financed by taxpayers, of course). It is an abomination upon the Western Ethic to let forage, however marginal, go undigested by good American stock. Left alone, the unshorn turf might nourish the cattle of the Hades or maybe fortify the Seven Horses on the way to the Apocalypse. The Horror.

I saw no sign of deer, but they might be there somewhere. Deer, or perhaps bighorn sheep, were definitely here before. Lithic scatters from indians making stone arrowpoints are obvious. Any deer present during the grazing period where likely taken by the shepherds. Without the common thread of matriarchs to guide them up and down the mesa as season and water dictated, deer may never have reestablished themselves. Quien Sabe, the shepherds might say. Who knows?

I sat in the shade of a juniper and listened to the sound of the wind through the rough-edged teeth of the rim. I photographed the curves of the hills and watercourses below. I picked and fingered the rainbow quartz stonework fragments, and carried them for a time, feeling the sharp edges and trying to plumb their age and creation. The afternoon turned and the folds and mazes which were flat and fathomless in the noonsun lay transformed into shoals of giltfinned Nessmonsters with depth and pitch and clarity. Clay linen hung over this tableau by the elements became defined and shimmering as the light lowered. I conjured wings and hung like a raven in the updrafts and sidecurrents. I wished for a godcart on which I might ride the golden tailclothing of the land below.

Then thirst called, and hunger, and with it fatigue. The needs of mortals. Time to come down out of the higher ground. The thought on the down climb was of the cool Fremont river, and how good the recrossing would feel around tired toes.