It was a frigid December night when my little boy disappeared.  Off he toddled into the inky darkness.. . the wind howling, blowing his tiny feet off the ground.  In a split second, my little Huckleberry had disappeared.

When I was a kid, we lived near the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado River.  We played on the banks of the raging river, constructing ropes lines across the river and building water vessels from river junk and willow branches.  When we got bored, we’d leave pennies on the railroad track, lay down parallel to the track to watch the furious locomotives run over the coins and smash them, watching the sparks fly . . . we’d watch the creepy guy who parked his creepy-guy van on the bank, under a canopy of sloe-eyed willows. He never got out of his car, just sat in the front seat, staring ahead. Convinced he was dead, we took turns sneaking up to his car, daring each other to get the closest possible look.  No one got hurt.  No abductions, but we never forgot the power of a spring run-off, nor the force of a locomotive blazing past you, nor the need of forming an quick exit if  creepy guy rises from the dead and snatches you.