Journeys Afoot in North America
Part I, Early Walks
In November her commuter train was brown lead. When day was short its lights were dragon eyes. I always met it, but my friend never got off. Of what use is a job if none of the children need shoes? I resigned when day equaled night and fared out in spring to see the world, at least North America, with feet more dry than maritime.
The last suitcase was left with a brother in Dayton, Ohio. He took me, after a night's sleep, to the outskirts, which happened to be in a community called Alpha. Is there somewhere an Omega, we wondered? Then I set off to look for the wild horses of Ocracoke Island near Cape Hatteras.
On the way, at aboriginal Fort Hill in Ohio, I slept under a big log hoping for an Indian dream but got rain in the face. At Catlettsburg, Kentucky I considered working down the Ohio with Lincoln, but the bargemasters didn't trust my university hands. On into West Virginia the deep valleys seemed dark and gloomy. In some of those company towns the dogs were too depressed to bark. But the people were kind. "Get in; if it runs, we're going to town; pore folks got to stick together."
West Virginia's boundary with Virginia is no fiction; abruptly the land changes to open brightness. There was Bluefield, named for lupine, and then Marion where a gentleman with Van Dyke beard urged me to try the Appalachian Trail which here paralleled my route to the coast. He took me out of his way and waited while I bought supplies, grinning as he told about the moon-cussers, entrepreneurs of Hatteras who used to ride up and down with lanterns luring ships to wreck for salvage, and hated the moon's interfering with business.
First camp on the Appalachian Trail was Good Friday night in a lunar eclipse. The darkening found me pragmatically setting up a tarp against the dew. An executive's knife, finest steel, broke just cutting a reed. So much for that world! I slept as the moon recovered.
In the morning, the trail made quiet walking, away from cars and dogs, and its lean-to shelters had a rugged simplicity. There was love in the leaving in them of dry wood by the hikers for one another. I decided to follow the footpath to Georgia, forsaking for a while the road to wild horses.
The last of Virginia was the best. The trail wound down into the sweet-aired valley of Damascus, its apple trees in full bloom. All our pollution should be pomar.
Near Beulah, Tennessee I learned the peril of following a trail with a road map. On paper the town seemed near; it was only four or five miles, but straight down. When I'd gotten nearly back up with a full load of groceries a pickup stopped. The man and his retarded nephew were going fox hunting, the kid's prime joy; they asked me along. I demurred, not wanting to see any foxes mangled. "Fox don't git hurt, you'll see." So I went.
With the hounds loose we made a big fire and ate thick sandwiches. At coffee time, to my surprise, he put the pot right in the fire. No green jury-rig of forked sticks, just a regal levelling with the pot itself and down on the General Electric coals. Now we harked, and, in the baying of the hounds, uncle and boy knew if they had a fresh scent or old, were close on a fox or sidetripping at squirrels and even, I believed, how many scratches each named dog got from the passing briar.
After a quiet spell, I heard a faint yip-yip, akin to the coyote's. "That's the fox saying find me if you can, dumb dogs." Nobody got hurt, so for this pair a fox hunt really was a concert. At the ultimate cup of coffee we talked religion, tears came of exhaustion and the beauty of life, and it was dawn. Walk for me, and roundup of tired dogs for him.
At Elk Park, North Carolina I left the trail to visit Linville Gorge Wilderness. After selling me supplies a grocer said, "I have just the thing for you. The Green Beret troops who train in there keep cigarettes and throw the rest of their C-rations away. You might as well have them." This made a heavy pack, over a thin butt from depressive non-eating; I resolved to redistribute the mass. Then through the Gorge with its huge never-cut-over tulip trees and clear singing pools I ate heartily, emerging sleeker than I had entered.
But not too easily. The last day I left the main route to climb Short-off Mountain to sleep on top, knowing there'd be a trail down the other side although my wilderness map showed none. There were a dozen, deer paths. Now the deer don't lose easy as me. By noon when I reached a large tributary I was tangled. By some miracle I determined correctly that the tributary was in fact the Linville River, which put me on its wrong side.
I waded over and started the long steep climb up and out, learning on the way that azalea blooms get even lovelier in rain and mist. By midnight I reached a house where water was given and directions to a motel. Get those tired clothes off and find the pillow.
In the morning after my heavy sleep, two lean-and-hungries hanging about the place allowed as how I hadn't walked through Linville Gorge because no one could and if I came snooping around their neck of the woods there might be shooting. Will the Whiskey Rebellion never be over?
Then it was roads to Asheville, another day's rest, and by bus a rejoining of the Appalachian Trail near Wesser Creek Lean-to. After some days of steep travel the path became overgrown and obscure as the state boundary approached.
In Georgia I turned up my hound's nose at littered shelters, camping mostly under rock ledges. On Springer Mountain the Appalachian Trail ends with an exhortation to Maine. There was then for me no feeling of having walked the wrong direction; I liked the trail, but made it no promises to return.
From Amicalola Falls I roadwalked until a black hotel-owner and a highway patrolman convinced me it was dangerous. The citizens were still angry at civil rights marchers. So it was a bus home to Birmingham. In that soft seat my mind was a kaleidoscope of moon riders, apple blooms, and efficient foxes. Not a bad first season.