I don’t know George. Or, perhaps I should say, I didn’t know him. I’m not sure. He may have passed. We heard that his dog, who was always by his side, ran off, or got hit by a car, or got sick and died. And then we stopped seeing George. His place is a couple miles back down the hill from where we live and maybe 800 feet lower, on about five acres like ours, but all usable, and flatter, not a steep rocky slope in a canyon with beetle-infested trees.
His house is on the west side of the road, with most of his land on the east, a fenced-in, grassy horse pasture. He had a rundown barn at the lower pasture, next to where Six Mile Creek cuts through to Olde Stage Road before joining Left Hand Creek. George boarded other folks’ horses down there. His place was on the split drainage between Four Mile and Six Mile Creeks, a hydrological detail lost on most folks.
We’d see George every day as we went to and from town, mornings and late afternoons, crossing the road with his German Shepherd, going through the small wire gate, slowly and gingerly following a foot path across the pasture through the tall grass, which was verdant in spring, crispy in late summer and fall, and snow covered often. George’s path was consistent, well worn by him and his dog, from them going down daily, despite him being eighty, to care for the animals. In twenty-five years, we never waved to or hailed George. He was fixed on his doing, head down, eyes lowered, seemingly disinterested in passersby. Generally, folks don’t live up here to socialize much.
But the past few years, we’ve not seen George or his dog or any horses in his pasture. The grasses on his foot path have recovered from two feet and four paws stomping back and forth twice a day for who knows how long. There’s no trace of that trail anymore. No tracks in the snow. I long to see that sullen stranger down there, but there’s only a breeze bending the grasses where he used to be.
There’s a backcountry wanderer’s ethic that encourages us to “leave only footprints”. That’s a responsible idea, but perhaps ambitious. We may leave less. I was looking at an ancestry chart recently and realized I knew fewer than a quarter of the names in my matriarchal line. My foot path has been rich, and I am fond of it, selfishly wishing all the names that follow after will know me. How wide was George’s path? Who remembers?
But like George, my foot path too will grow over with tall, moist grass in the spring, kindling for wildfires late summer, and no trace will be left in the snow, just the wind shaping the drifts.
This is how it goes.
June 7, 2024
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