Night Walker

Chicasha, OK

It is no small feat that I survived the final miles of route 19. The sky has been strewn with dark clouds of promise for over a day. Without water to drink, or food that would outlast a storm of any length, I favored to leave the shelter of the one room brick face cabin that was engaged in the bluff of a field I pass rather than wait out a storm that might not even wet my boots.

When the earth and red brick hut was enough miles behind me to make a retreat unthinkable the sky opened up with more lightning than rain. At times there were four hit in the air at once. Darkness was an uneventful switch from gray to black, and then the real rain came. My legs, already tired, were pummeled against the tar to clear the miles of empty flats before all of my life went black. With a aluminum frame pack, and two walking sticks of the same material, I favored the idea of other deaths rather than a spear of energy thrown from the sky. Flask. Crackle! My legs go faster. I can ask no more from them. I am the tallest thing for what looks like miles in any direction. The sky above strobes in blue light flickers. I feel static move over me. "Walf faster," I say out loud to my horses that are already running full tilt considering the weight on their saddles. "If I get struck we all die."
At an overpass, where trains run beneath, I divorce myself from the high top in leaps and wet bounds that I am amazed doesn't land me on my ass sliding on a ramp of concreate. I am safe and giddy. Water follows me under in spit but I have no worries for it. I am again sitting with the living rather than peering over some nameless ledge while dancing top-heavy.
In high winds I set the tent. There is no need to swear it erect. Having seen the face of death I consider even the spraying wind to be a blessing I turn into. Most of my tack is dry. Camp is set before I consider that I am three miles from a city. If I was homeless and wet this is where I'd flee to. If I was homeless here I would be dry under cover by now.
At one in the morning I wake up to walk outside and releave myself. The red earth above the tracks is soft as powder. I void toward the railroad tracks below hearing nothing but wind coming back. The word is at rest. Even far away, the lights are lazy. The rain falls without working the earth hard. Back in my tent I read a silly book I shouldn't waste my energy carrying. Tomorrow it will start my fire.
At seven a.m. I leave my tent again for the same call, and because I am eager to be in the cool air. I walk the three paces to the same drop above the tracks below. I do not void. Below, covering the heal of my size 13W bootprint from my one a.m. water call is the full print of a mountain lion that covers the heal. I stare. I kneel. A few feet from the door it stood checking my scent. It is my habit to always look for sign, tracks from the night, bent grass giving the direction taken when the earth is hard, a check of wind and the moisture it holds to tell age of a track. My camera takes a picture using chapstick for a guage in size. Looking down the railroad tracks that wind off into a weak sun rising I hear the words come to me, "Check Mate."