He
had been walking all day, since early morning. Now it was late afternoon. He
wasn’t tired; he just wanted to keep walking. He had started on a fire trail,
then to a hiking trail, and for the last few hours, a deer trail, very thin but
worn, skirting thick brush, but sometimes quite steep. Once, when he was much
younger, back in New York State, he followed a deer trail for hours and
actually came upon the deer grazing in a small meadow. In those days he liked
to walk in hopes of actually getting lost so that he might then have to find
his way once again. And he had gotten lost a number of times and always found
his way out, once after thirteen hours and spending a winter night in front of
a roaring fire in the ruins of an old mansion with a six-foot high fireplace.
He no longer sought to get lost; he
knew he already was lost, so there was no need. He just wanted to walk and
really didn’t care whether he was lost out there in the forest or not. He might
die, he thought, but it was not on his mind. He thought about when he ventured
into the forest not so far from Millbrook back in New York State in the middle
of winter when he could explore the vast marshes and swamps that were frozen
over, places he had never been able to get to before. This is where he came
upon the foundation of an old mansion that probably belonged to a patroon who
had cleared the land and farmed it as early as two hundred years ago. Now, all
these farms and their mansions had been reclaimed by the forests of Dutchess
County. Why the farms failed, he didn’t know. The rock and cement foundation
was quite large and at one end stood a six-foot high rock fireplace with a thirty-foot
high rock chimney. The hearth in front of the fireplace was six-feet across and
stood three feet above the foundation. It was all surrounded by thick fir
trees, some of which grew within the walls of the foundation.
The sun was setting and it was
getting to be in the low 20s. He wasn’t particularly cold yet but he had no
sleeping bag, only the clothes on his back. He gathered a big pile of firewood,
packed it into the fireplace and lit it up. A big white owl flew out the top of the
chimney. Soon there was a roaring, hot fire which he fed with a couple of logs
he had dragged up to the hearth. He laid down on the rock hearth and fell
asleep, using his small knapsack as a pillow. Soon it became too hot, so he
took of all his clothes and lay on the smooth rock of the hearth which had
become warm from the fire. He slept for a while and was awakened by a chill
that pierced right to the bone. The fire was now embers but still quite warm.
He put on his clothes that had been warmed by the hearth.
Suddenly he looked around him and
saw literally scores of glowing eyes watching him from the edge of the forest,
reflecting the light of the fire. Some were large, some small, some higher,
some lower. He wasn’t frightened though he thought that there could easily be a
mountain lion in the mix of what were probably deer and raccoons. He rose at
dawn and followed his tracks back, eventually finding his way out of the swamps
and marshes, and back to the road home.
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