Part 42: Horseless Heaven

I checked for danger very carefully before I edged my way out of my cliffside shelter, looking up quickly and dizzily at the cliffside I'd climbed yesterday.  Fortunately, nothing seemed ready to jump on my head.

There are those ugly cobblestone steps I made yesterday, coming back to haunt me.

With no horse for company, I made my way down the steep and forested mountainside, and the landscape began to go from bad to worse.

As I paused for a cliffside battle with a late-morning creeper (which had blocked the only reasonable exit from the area), I reflected that it would have been a nightmare to try to run through here on horseback.  Actually, the whole horseback journey has been a nightmare.  And here I was, on the lookout for another horse to tame.  The taming process involves being thrown violently from the back of the horse - with an abundance of cliffs nearby, I could easily see how this could end badly.

This time, I remembered my bow and arrow.

Pretty cool natural floating bridge, though.

This.  This is the landscape through which I proposed to ride a horse.

At one point, I found myself on a mountaintop in close proximity to a bear.  I readied my sword.  The bear watched me.  Was it going to attack me?  Should I attack it?  Should I be declaring war on all bears, to revenge my horse Boxter?

The bear managed to corner me, but still neither of us had attacked.  For a long moment we stared at each other.  Then the bear wandered off.  I guess we had reached a temporary truce.

Toward sunset the trees finally thinned out, and the hills began to roll.  It was another horse heaven, except that here the landscape was eerily deserted of horses.

Ahhh.  Much better.  But where is everyone?

On a magnificent mountaintop I finally built Boxter's memorial, a glass portal shape with a prominent view over the deserted but horse-friendly valley.

A much better location than the tree-choked forest

In an opposing hillside I dug my burrow for the night, finished it in glass, and watched the sun set below Boxter's memorial.

Safe!