Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (47 page)

We were on the highway walking up a hill toward their place, when Patricia grabbed my left arm and squealed, “Did you see that?”

A black bear had just crossed the highway about 100 feet in front of us, and he did it in three leaps. Then he disappeared into the woods.

My wife’s voice shrilled with excitement. “Bud, that was a bear! Did Della see it?”

When I realized it was a bear, I looked at Della. Although she was intently watching it, she didn’t react to it much at all. That is, until we got to the place where the bear had crossed the road. Then she started snorting as she looked in the direction it’d disappeared. She shivered a bit, then stepped up her pace.

Patricia said, “She sure doesn’t like the smell of bear!”

“I never heard of a horse that did,” Nancy said. “Mine hate it.”

In her late thirties, Nancy was petite and wiry. Above her barn door was a sign that read “Pig Headed Blond Woman’s Farm.” Earlier that year she had an encounter with a 150 pound black bear in her barn.

“Three nights in a row he got in the barn and trashed it. Threw saddles down, scattered hay and feed everywhere, and he got into the horses meds. The second night he ate a bunch of Icy Hot. You’d think a mouth full of that would have kept him away.”

Nancy shook her head. “But no, he came back. I didn’t see him in the barn until I started for the door. He was just inside, and I don’t think he’d been there very long, because it wasn’t trashed yet. But the horses were going nuts in the corral. I was afraid they’d try to go through the fence. So I picked up some rocks and threw them at the bear to chase him off. But he turned around and started toward me.

“So I ran back to the house and got my brother’s 30/30. I’m not a hunter. I like animals too much to kill them, but this bear scared me. So I shot him. Hit him in the shoulder. He turned, ran and then collapsed on my property line. Then he began to bawl. It broke my heart. He was suffering. So I shot him again to put him out of his misery.”

Nancy paused for a moment and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Everyone around here thinks I’m a hard ass. But it really tore me up. I had never killed anything before. Then my neighbor started yelling at me–called me a murderer. He saw me shoot the bear the second time and
said he was going to call the law. So I went in and called the state troopers and told them what I did. I figured I’d probably go to jail.”

A judge eventually ruled the killing as justified because Nancy was protecting herself and the livestock.

“My neighbor is still pissed about it.”

The Mercedes was new, and the driver was in his mid-fifties. While the car idled, he stared silently at our flyer that my wife had just handed him through the window. After a few moments, without looking up, he said, “I don’t know about you camping here.”

He owned a piece of land east of Long Lake on the south side of Blue Ridge Road. It had a pond and enough un-mowed grass to feed a twenty mule team for a week. We were standing beside the highway eyeballing it when he pulled into the drive and stopped.

“Who’s going to be liable?” Through the window of the Mercedes, he handed the flyer back to Patricia. “I don’t want to take that chance.”

Right then, from across the road, Doug yelled, “Hey, come over here.”

He looked to be in his early sixties and was standing at the base of his driveway waving for us to cross the highway. The driveway was gravel and led up through a stand of pines to a small cabin. “I ain’t got all that greenery, but it’s a place to get off the road.”

No traffic was coming, so I turned Della left to cross the pavement. When the cart pivoted I heard a loud crack directly behind her right leg. She bolted and there was a clang followed by what sounded like something dragging.

Patricia was walking behind me. So I yelled back to her, “What was that?”

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “The cart’s going to hit her!”

Then, in what looked like a choreographed move, my wife leaped up into the cab and stomped on the brake. With a thud, everything lunged to a stop at the foot of Doug’s driveway. I turned around to see the back end of the right shaft on the ground. It had broken loose from the cart.

I looked into Della’s face and said, “Your mama just saved your ass, girl.”

Between Della, Patricia, me and Doug, we got the busted cart up into his yard. Then with Doug’s phone we found George the welder. He would fix it in the morning.

After a steak dinner and conversation around a bonfire in Doug’s front yard, we went to bed. When I crawled under the covers, my wife said, “I’m glad the cart didn’t break in that guy’s pasture across the road. He might have been liable.”

We took Blue Ridge Highway because we heard it was less traveled, and we’d see the mountains better from it. The traffic
was
less and the scenery amazing. Those Adirondack vistas will forever linger in my mind. From that ridge road, we could see some of the park’s highest peaks jutting up from a forest that seemed to go on forever. And so did the no trespassing signs. In one place, for at least half a mile, they were on every fence post and nearly all of trees alongside the road.

Patricia said, “They sure know how to ugly-up a forest around here.”

It was around 7:30 p.m. when we got to Newcomb. Dark would be upon us in an hour, and we needed to find a place to camp. So far, every place we spotted that might have worked was posted. The Newcomb House Bar & Grill was the first open business we came to. So we went in to see if anybody knew of a place where we could stop for the night.

“Over at the trail-head to Santanoni.” The man was getting up from the bar to leave as he said, “I know you can camp there. And it’s got plenty of grass for your mule.”

“Where’s it at?”

“Across the highway and back in about a mile or so on the dirt road.”

It was almost dark when we got there, and by the time I got Della situated I had to use a flash light to find my way around. The air was so laden
with moisture it looked like mist in the light’s beams. Even before we got it pitched, the tent was soaked.

“I’m sick of this,” Patricia said as I handed her our bedding bag.

“Traveling?”

“No. I love traveling. It’s dealing with this wet tent and damp bedding all the time. And I’m sick of the no trespassing signs.” The sound of a slap came from the tent. “And I’ve had it with all these stinking mosquitos! I can’t wait to get out of the Adirondacks.”

In the morning, when Patricia handed him a cup of coffee, Chris said, “You really shouldn’t give up on the Adirondacks, yet.”

We were camped at the beginning of a trail that led five miles back into the woods to Camp Santanoni–a Great Camp built in 1893 on Newcomb Lake. Abandoned by its owners in the early 1970’s, it was now owned by the state. Chris had a summer job doing maintenance there, and he was a tour guide. The rest of the year he was a college student studying historic preservation.

My wife told him how frustrated we were with all the posted signs. She told him, “It was easier to find a place to camp outside the park.”

Chris said, “This trail leads into a 12,900 acre preserve and it’s all open to the public. Five miles back in on this road you can camp on the lake near the main lodge. I’ve got a canoe back there that you’re welcome to use. And there’s a spot with lots of grass for your mule.”

While Chris drank his coffee and talked about the campsite, I began to warm to the idea of taking the side trip. Four other people who visited our camp earlier that morning had expounded on the beauty of Santanoni. All of them said, “You have to go see it!”

After they left, I said to Patricia, “Maybe we should check it out.”

“Look, since we’ve been in these mountains we’ve taken two side trips to what were supposed to be great spots for us. Each time it was a bust. And this one is five miles. If we get there and have to turn around and come back out, we’ll have blown a whole day.”

“Well, it just seems to me–”

Her volume was up and her cheeks turning read. “All I want to do is get out of these fucking mountains!”

I threw my hands up in surrender, “Okay, okay.”

Grabbing Della’s water bucket, I stomped off toward the creek grumbling to myself, “Why does she have to be such a bitch about it?”

The road to the Santanoni trail-head crossed the creek on a wood and stone bridge. I was next to it mumbling my way down to the water, when two gray draft-horses trotted onto the bridge pulling a covered wagon. The driver was a stout man with gray hair and a beard. About half way across the bridge he urged the horses into a gallop.

When he passed me, I yelled, “Watch out for the mule up there.”

He turned around and yelled something back. I didn’t hear what it was, but from the expression on his face I could tell it wasn’t friendly. So I turned around and continued on down toward the water. Just as I got to the edge of the creek, from the top of the hill I heard a frantic, “Whoa! Dammit, whoa!”

That was followed by lots of clanging up by our camp. But after several more “whoas,” the racket stopped.

We had been expecting the wagon. Some of the people who visited our camp told us that Doug was going to haul them and their stuff back into Santanoni with his horses. With full buckets, I was walking up to the wagon when Doug turned toward me with a sheepish grin on his face. “Sorry I was so ugly back there. I thought you were being a wise guy. Thanks for trying to warn me about the mule.”

Doug Alitz owned High Peaks Stables, and with his wife Maggie, ran Aunt Polly’s B&B. We passed it on the west edge of Newcomb. Doug said, “I saw you go by yesterday and wanted to invite you in. But I was tied up with customers and couldn’t get away.”

While his passengers loaded their gear and canoes into the wagon, Doug asked us about our trip. Then he said, “You’re going to Santanoni, right?”

Patricia said, “I’m afraid we won’t find a place for Della.”

“There’s a perfect spot for you guys a little ways before you get to the main lodge. It’s got lots of grass, and it’s beside the lake. I know it’s open. When you come back out, bring Della and come spend the night with us.
I’ve got a nice bedded stall for her and for you two we have a private room with a bath.”

When Doug drove off with his wagon load of campers, I was ready to hike back into Camp Santanoni. But Patricia said, “Well I’m not!” A rumble was in her voice. “By the time we go in and come out of there that’ll be ten miles and we won’t be any further down the road. I want to get out of the Adirondacks!” Her fists were clinched to her sides as both the tempo and the pitch of her voice crescendoed. “I am sick of the traffic, the damp, the bugs, the swamp, the fucking no trespassing signs, the snooty people–”

I said, “Wait a minute. We’ve met a lot of nice folks in the Adirondacks.”

“Okay, okay.” Patricia had both hands in the air like someone surrendering to a cop. “We have. But you’ve got to admit, we’ve run into some real ass-holes in these hills.”

In a bad attempt at a Brooklyn accent, I said, “Hey, this is New York! So’s, what did you’s expect, eh?”

That got a chuckle out of her. “Yeah, well, a night at the B&B sounds good, but I don’t know about going to this Santanoni place.”

Without forethought I said, “Okay. You stay at the B&B, and I’ll hike back in and camp a night or two.”

I was both shocked and exhilarated when those words came out of my mouth. Suddenly my mind buzzed with,
Wow, an adventure without the bitching!

Patricia’s eyes looked like those of a deer in headlights when she said, “What? You would go back in there without me?”

My flame of excitement fizzled into a vision of me swimming naked in a moonlit lagoon by myself, wishing Patricia was there. At that moment, I felt incredibly lonely. I had to change the subject. “Look, people come from all over the world to vacation in these mountains and here we are trying to run through them. Maybe the problem is us.”

“What?”

“Maybe we’ve been so hell-bent on getting down the road we haven’t really paid attention to where we are. We need to set up camp somewhere for a few days and relax. And this Santanoni sounds like the perfect place.”

“I don’t know–”