Flying Man’s Gulch

Flying Man’s Gulch is a forested riverside place whose rushing water and open sky frame two pivotal moments in Lennie Walker’s story. There, an early lesson in musical freedom connects sound to the natural world; later, the river’s moonlit beauty sharpens the pain of a future Bailey Walker will never share. The place holds both a beginning and a loss, without making either one cancel the other.

Setting and traces

A piece of staff paper is found spiked to a low branch at Flying Man’s Gulch. Its surviving words express a wish that at least the sun would stay away, making the natural setting part of a small, bleak fragment of writing. Elsewhere, the landscape is rendered through the rushing river, the opening in the canopy, and a flat rock beside the water: a place that can hold both exuberant sound and quiet companionship.

A lesson in making music

During freshman year, Lennie Walker and her fellow students have both made the honor band. Frustrated with the musicians in class, Mr. James takes them out of the classroom and down a path into the forest, where the river rushes and roars. He climbs onto a rock and asks them to listen and play, treating the river, wind, and birds as part of the music rather than as a backdrop.

After the students recover from their initial laughter, they begin playing their instruments one by one. Lennie is among the first. Clarinet, flute, and oboe mingle with the sounds of the river, wind, and birds in a glorious cacophony. Mr. James conducts the surrounding sounds and then turns back toward the students, affirming the music they have made together. Returning to the classroom, he gives Lennie Marguerite St. Denis’s card and tells her to call. The excursion thus links musical expression at the gulch to a concrete next step in Lennie’s musical development.

Grief beside the river

Later, at Flying Man’s, a break in the canopy lets the sky flood into view. The full moon shines on the river until the moving water seems like rushing light. Lennie and Toby Shaw sit on a flat rock and then lie beneath a star-filled sky. They are close enough for an embrace, but neither moves to close the remaining distance.

Toby tells Lennie that Bailey had wanted to hold her wedding ceremony there, so that she and Toby could jump into the pool after their vows. As he speaks, Lennie imagines Bailey in a bright orange wedding dress, laughing and leading the wedding party back toward the house. The imagined scene gives shape to a happiness that the sisters and Toby had expected to share, while making its loss newly vivid. Lennie begins to cry; Toby cries too, and their tears become indistinguishable before they kiss again. At the same riverside where the band once made music together, the natural world now surrounds an intimate scene in which shared grief briefly brings Lennie and Toby close.