ar and cold as the air. He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. Pilar, he thought. Pilar and the smell of death. This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets Smoked leather The odor of the ground in the spring after rain The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark That was the odor of the cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry Or coffee in the morning Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven You must be hungry, he thought, and he lay on his side and watched the entrance of the cave in the light that the stars reflected from the snow.
Some one came out from under the blanket and he could see whoever it was standing by the break in the rock that made the entrance. Then he heard a slithering sound in the snow and then whoever it was ducked down and went back in.