The Catskills: The Man with a Hole In His Head (cont.)

This summer down by the Delaware River where Orson has lived for uncounted years, a big willow tree collapsed under the weight of years and a storm. It fell directly in front of Orson's house. The last time I spent any time with Orson was a Christmas holiday celebration at an old farmhouse by the river, maybe ten years ago. The meal that day was as regional as you can get: rabbit and squirrel stew. Quite delicious.

Orson may not remember me, but I had been meaning to do him a favor, and now was my chance to ask about it.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes. How have you been?”

“Just fine,” he said cheerily.

“How about that big willow that went down at your house.”

“Oh, yeah,” says he in acknowledgement.

“I've been meaning to ask, would you like some help cutting it up? I got a nice chainsaw looking for some action.”

“Oh, no thanks. I just haven't got around to it. Just haven't had the time. But no thank you.”

Pride. That stubborn old self-sufficiency. Yes, Orson is one of them just as certainly as I will never be.

Come winter when the tourists and weekenders thin out and go back to New York City, or wherever they come from, I am left behind. Until the hunters arrive, usually before deep snow. Deer season comes first (bow season first, .30-.30s later), then wild turkey hunting is upon us, and the huge, silly birds I seek pecking around my pond at dawn vanish on cue.

Making a living here is not easy unless you work the tourist trade, run a restaurant or a bar. Even then good times are spotty. By deep winter am I long past asking myself what the hell I am doing here. A big time out is driving twenty-four miles round-trip for groceries.

When it's snowing, late afternoon brings the dark. I could see, once, through the headlights and the flurries that a big doe had just been struck, possibly by the pick-up truck far up in front of me. Hurt though conscious, she looks up at me from the snowdrift on the right bank where she's fallen. I slow down and watch her crane her neck upward, eyes yellow and fearful. I am struck with sorrow.

My shopping tour is quick, and I buy an extra head of broccoli; I have hatched this misbegotten notion that if the stricken doe has sustenance through the night, she might
limp back into the woods.

Back on the two-laner, heading back south downriver, there is commotion in the road. Where the deer had been, car and a truck are stopped with their headlights on.
I pull over, twenty yards distant onto the embankment with my paper bag of broccoli.
I am just in time to see three men heave the doe, swung by her legs, into the back of a pickup. Thud. Roadkill this fresh will not go ignored on these roads for long. Certainly not in midwinter. Deer season is never long enough for empty freezers.

I drive home in the dark, turning left onto the mountaintop before the highway descends back to the river, back to Orson's house a few miles below. It makes perfect sense that he would not accept a favor from a stranger.

I will never stop loving this valley where I have lived, off and on, for more than twenty-five years. But I will never be from here.

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