A dozen years or so when I was living in Arizona, my girlfriend and I were hiking into the Superstition Mountains outside Phoenix, with packs on, to spend the night down in a gulch somewhere, just to get out under the stars, something I don't do enough of anymore.
We had been hiking a few miles and we can to a fork in the trail and stopped to take a drink of water, and then out of the shadow of a big cactus this guy on a big horse appeared. He was drekked out in full cowboy regalia, and his horse was big and strong and beautiful, in full splendor, like that Robert Redford movie with Jane Fonda. He had on all the requisite equipment, and looked like he had been on the trail since Mexico or somewhere, or maybe for his whole, entire life.
He looked down at us with his mustache and squinted eyes and ever so slightly tipped his hat, and we looked up at him and nodded hi, not a word exchanged, and then he and his horse wondered off down the trail like this was 1865. Sharon and I looked at each other, shook our heads and smiled, and then moved on to look for a campsite. Even still it seems like a dream, but I swear it happened.
1 comment:
I love the desert because stuff happens there.
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