Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (21 page)

Friday morning after everything was packed, the house cleaned and thank you cards set on the kitchen table, Patricia and I walked down to the barn to get Della. When my wife led her out of the barn, my attention was drawn to Della’s right rear hoof. It had only half a shoe on it. She had broken it, and the outside half was gone. I would have to re-shoe her before we went anywhere. It was early enough in the day to do that and still hike to Eagle Hollow in time to do the show.

Della was in no mood to have her feet worked on. She had watched us get the cart ready. We were highway-bound, and she knew it. Being shod was not part of Della’s plan.

She and I danced around for a bit, but finally she settled down and I got both feet trimmed. Then, as I reshaped the new shoe, I broke it. I didn’t have another one road-ready. On the phone from Eagle Hollow, John said, “Bring it over and weld it back together.”

So, I borrowed the Green’s truck, drove across town and welded the shoe. While I was getting ready to put the shoe on, Patricia said “Shouldn’t we take her for a walk first?”

It was mid-afternoon. I still had to get both shoes on Della, we had a six mile hike ahead of us, and then we had to set up the stage and put on a show. “I don’t have time to take Della for a walk. We need to get going.”

“But she’s been standing here a long time.”

I snapped, “She’ll be alright!”

After I got the fourth nail in the right shoe, Della started to fidget and lean on me. So I poked her in the ribs with my elbow. “Straighten up!”

I had just finished the last nail, when she leaned so hard on me we both nearly fell down. I elbowed her again. This time she jumped so far the other way that I couldn’t get under her. So I walked around to the other side of Della to push her back in place.

I was directly behind her when it happened. It came quick–deliberately and precisely. Della’s left rear hoof slammed into my right thigh. I flew through the air and landed in a painful heap four feet away.

Patricia screamed, “Oh my God, no! Bud, are you okay?”

When I landed on the ground it knocked the wind out of me. Literally, I saw stars, and I couldn’t breathe–much less answer my wife. She was frantic, “Bud, are you okay?”

A couple of days later, as Dr. Steve showed me the x-rays of my thigh, he said, “You have a bruised femur. Sometimes a bruised bone can be more painful than a broken one. You need to stay off this thing for a while.”

“How long?”

He knew about our journey. “If you stay completely off it for two weeks, you could start using it slowly. Then, in another week you may be ready for the road.”

He paused, “Don’t push it. You’ll just make it hurt longer.”

I followed doctor’s orders and just sat for two weeks with my leg propped up as spring got prettier. The longest string of perfect-for-traveling days we’d had, were those three and a half weeks that I was laid up on the farm.

Sarah Green said, “Maybe Della kicked you because she doesn’t want to travel.”

I could fill a couple of chapters with stories about how Della proved to us she loved the road. Like the way she’d paw the ground as we packed the cart in the morning. Then, as we hitched her to it, Della would get so excited that she could hardly stand still long enough for us to get hitched up. While we were walking, she was constantly looking from side to side checking out the scenery. Patricia called her “the perennial tourist.”

Sarah asked, “So why did she kick you?”

“Because I had it coming. I got in a hurry and none of us were having fun. So Della slowed me down.”

Downtown Madison with Belle
.

CHAPTER 9

I
NTO
T
HE
H
EARTLAND

“H
EY, WHAT GIVES OVER THERE
?”

He had just sat down at a booth close to ours in a Bob Evans Restaurant near Aurora, Indiana. His was next to one of the front windows, and his stomach came close to keeping him from getting into the booth. He was inching his way across the vinyl seat, when the waitress said, “What’s that Charlie?”

Out of breath, he stopped scooting and jerked his left thumb toward the window. “That over there–across the highway. What the hell’s going on? Somebody open a campground over there?”

We had left Madison three weeks ago and took our time following the river. Later today we would cross the state line into Ohio. Now we were camped in an open grassy area next to the busy four lanes of US 50. It was a good distance off the highway, but everyone in Bob Evans had a view of our camp. A very fish-bowl sort of place.

The waitress was kind of cute, in her mid-thirties with a touch of Kentucky in her voice. She poured Charlie’s coffee and said, “I read about them in the paper. It said they’re walking across the country with a mule. Goin’ east somewhere. I think Maine.”

She pulled out her order pad. “So Charlie, what are ya’ having? The usual?”

He nodded and stirred his coffee as the waitress scurried off. The way he stared out the window at our camp, I sensed something about it bothered him. When she brought his food, Charlie looked up at the waitress
and grimaced. “So why are they doing that? They walking for cancer or something?”

“Naw, nothing like that.”

While we listened to her, Patricia and I were impressed with how much of our story she retained. She told him we were poets, that I was writing a book and we planned to travel on foot for several years. The waitress ended with, “But mostly they just wanted to do it. I’ve got the paper at home. Want me to bring it tomorrow?”

He turned toward the window and shook his shaved head. “So they’re just wandering around camping anywhere they damn well want, eh?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

When he turned back toward the waitress, his fleshy face was puckered with disapproval. “Who said they could camp there? Probably nobody. Just squatted. Sounds like a bunch of damn freeloaders to me.” He picked up his fork and pointed it at the waitress. “They got a home somewhere?”

“I don’t know. I’ll bring you the paper.”

“Don’t bother. I got it figured out.”

Dumping salt on his hash browns, Charlie laughed and shook his head. “In other words, they don’t really have a life.”

We decided to bypass downtown Cincinnati. It seemed like the safe thing to do. When I walked across the country in the 1970s with the pack pony and dog, I never hesitated to trek through a city. I walked into the hearts of Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and Denver. But it’s like a lot of people kept telling me, “That was thirty years ago. Things are tougher now!”

I was also younger then, and I was single. But now I had a wife to think about. And Cincinnati had all those race riots. I saw it on TV. White guys being pulled out of trucks and clubbed in the streets.

“And you ain’t even got a truck,” said one good-ole-boy back down the river road. “They’ll kill you, rape your wife and barbeque your mule!”

So I thought it best to go through the northern suburbs instead.

Jeff Swinger said, “They’ll love you in Cincinnati.”

We met Jeff as we walked into Aurora, Indiana. He and his wife passed us on their way home to Cincinnati from Madison. He was a photographer for the
Cincinnati Enquirer
. “When we drove by you, I told my wife, ‘There has got to be a story here.’”

When we first saw Jeff, his face was behind a Nikon with a long white monster lens. He was in front of us, walking backwards, snapping away when he asked if we were going downtown. I told him why we weren’t.

“Every city has its problems. And none are trying harder to fix them than Cincinnati. It’s a great town. Come see for yourself.”

That night in the tent, Patricia said, “If we’re not going downtown because you’re looking out for me, forget it!”

“Well–”

“Listen, I told you I would do this trip however you wanted to do it. And if you want to walk downtown, let’s go!”

It first felt like we were coming into a big city when we camped in the town of Cleve on the west edge of Cincinnati. We spotted a big grassy spot next to a NAPA auto parts store, and they gave us permission to camp. In front of the lot, next to the highway, was a deep ditch with water in it. At the back of the lot was a row of trees, and behind them was several sets of railroad tracks. A few hundred yards to the west of our camp, was a switch yard for some sort of industry. Nearby, to the east was a crossing. So every train had to blow its whistle several times as they approached, and the tracks were busy throughout the night. So was the highway in front of our camp. And every once in a while a jetliner would fly low over us. We were definitely coming into a city.

“Hey, you’ve got a phone call!”

The guy who yelled that at me had just come out the side door of the NAPA store and was walking toward us. He was halfway between the store
and us when he stopped, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. I hollered back, “For me?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s inside the store.”

I was dumbfounded. Who would call me at the NAPA store in Cleves, Ohio? We’d only been camped there an hour. When the parts guy and I walked back toward the store I asked, “Are you sure it’s for me?”

“You’re the only one around here traveling with a mule.”