A warrior dies and the forest cries

I remember vividly the night the Cochise warrior died.

The elk bugled and the coyotes howled in the forest just beyond town. They cried like I've never heard before from the quiet deck at my father's house. 

Perhaps the sorrow in the region was so powerfully felt that night that it rose into the star-studded sky above like a palpable scent, drifting with the wind and through the trees. 

Maybe even the forest creatures could smell the pain that floated in the sharp mountain air.

And in that same air, a sensation of beauty revealed itself—one that is always there but rarely seen outside of moments like these.