West Jefferson, NC

In the Bohemian Coffee Shop where several people know my name before I set my pack down, culture shock removes my road dust as people shake my hand asking about a book release date. Miles ago I would not believe this place existed. Miles ago I questioned if I existed, or if I would continue to do so. When I am too many roads removed from trappings of today's society, many faces warn me to watch my scalp with no wink in their eye. There are towns where no smiles come except from the cows, and they watch me take water from the creeks, and then look at each other without chewing. Everyone has a story on these near forgotten roads that robs me of sleep. I walk farther in the ditches until I am sure that one leg will grow longer than the other. I keep my hat brim pulled down when a old pick-up pulls up just a little too slow. This is not my nature. This is not the walk. As soon as the ghost stories wear off I am searching out eyes again. Many smile back, some wave. Years ago I was a combat paratrooper in this state. As part of the 82nd Airborne Division I was too brave when death was camped all around. We were all too brave. Time has reminded me that we break in ways that don't always heal.
I was a soldier here in North Carolina, but North Carolina is a state I dated but never really knew. Walking through town a large man yells across route 221 to me. "Are you the man walking across America?"
Monte appears to be a happy soul. "I have read Peter Jenkin's book until they were worn tissue thin, and dog-eared to tearing. Man, I love those books. Ya know, I got to meet to meet Peter when he was close to passing through this area?"
We shake hands again after we talk for a few minutes. Before my I leave my new friend to come to the Bohemian Coffee House I write now from, (I took way too long to find) I'm given an invitation to stay in one of Monte's log cabins for the night. Missing my humble log cabin that I built back in the woods of the Berkshires, I am thrilled to spend a night in a log shelter. Little do I know how blessed I will be.

It is 20 degrees out. Snow is an occasional sting on the face, nothing but touches blinked into water. Yesterday it was seventy. I am lucky that I found no post a day ago. Yesterday I was going to mail out clothing I now wear without a choice. I am still cold, but it is a peaceful edge. Dressing until I am warm is sweating in a mile, yelling at the elements in two.
Mentioning the wind from last night is to talk about demons pulling my hair, as it tried to empty my pockets of everything I carry. At seven p.m. I am soldier proud that I can set camp in winds that have me staking my hat to my head. This wasn't a camp from Ralph Laren. Just outside of town in a zone that almost every town has; the old lot that falls away down behind the gas station where the purple briars grow, I found a flat near where a house is reduced to a cinderblock foundation. Camp was where the wind brought dead things out from the town; things that nobody wants anymore.
When the wind really came it came with tearing and knashing of its teeth. It was a jet with engines just above my head. If I could have broken camp, and broke fence, bolted through briar, I would have run for the old barn. Or, I would have sat by the creek and made up songs while leaning against the lonely tree with my pack behind me, head pulled into my shoulders calling morning. Even with my full bag of stakes beat into the earth around me like a prayer circle, it was the weight of my flesh and bone that kept my whole world from flying to the heavens. All night I shoved my body against the leading wall of my tent to head off the attack. The wind was still slamming me over. My tent poles did not break. They should have. That was all I could hope against. The ends of my hiking poles were wrapped in my clothes, adjusted, and buttressed beside me to help battle against the wind. My pack also never got to sleep as it too was part of the bracing. Morning found me in my stew of gear all leaning to one wall of the tent raft that had somehow rode through the night without losing a soul. Some nights are the carpets of down pine needles where I fight like a child to stay up past bedtime to peer through the trees at the water, other nights are fists and arrows I dodge until morning makes me brave again.