The Tracker Tracked

Eager to start, I scanned the trail through the trees and up the mountain. The weather was cool, but clear. Over years, I learned to plan my hikes meticulously. Somehow, I forget the single, essential item.

Everyone insists I should never travel solo. Too many things can go wrong. A misstep can be deadly. Hiking with a buddy only makes sense.

But solitude draws me. I love it. A buddy is an iffy variable. Hiking with the wrong person challenges my reasons for going at all. If I wanted chit chat, I wouldn’t be scaling a mountain, by myself, for a week.

Language is preposterous. I’m amazed meaning ever gets transmitted. So much room for error cluttered with endless small talk. Someone emits a guttural sound and others nod with profound understanding. Right.

A never-ending battle, this verbal kipple. ‘He said, she said….’ Ambiguity rules. No one listens. No one understands. Agreement on where to meet for dinner is a miracle. Build a civilization? Not likely.

‘Not like math. Numbers aren’t squishy. Yes, people play games. It’s in their DNA. People lie. But, left to themselves, the numbers do not.’

Shep, my hiking mentor, checked his inventory list, everything I need.

He stopped. “What’s up? You’re on edge. Want to postpone?”

“No… I don’t know. It’s not you. Like talking with someone who lays it out straight. Tired of talking in circles.”

“Is it that hard? Walk into a bar. You find ten people happy to share an opinion.”

“That’s it, though. If I wanted opinions… You know. That’s why I head out. ‘Just the facts…’”

Shep trained me like no one else could.

He said, “I don’t train for suicide missions. That don’t need a trainer.”

No one hikes up a mountain riding on the warm glow of a few nature documentaries. Not if they plan to return.

Before my first hike, we prepped for months. Low altitude practice hikes, weight training, and five-mile runs. Weight is a huge factor. If it didn’t fit in my pack, I didn’t take it. Sometimes hard choices, I balanced wants off needs.  

The first step is the hardest. Easier to sit. But the journey calls. All set, I set out. After a mile or so, I hit my stride. The rhythm settles in. Keep moving forward. And up.

What did I forget?

Autumn had turned but no snow yet. Nights hint at the cold to come. My last trek for the year.

From above, the trees look like green crystals. Alien snowflakes spread out for miles. The air felt good. I continued on.

I thought about the man known as Tracker. I’d heard stories. Did he exist? A modern version of Sasquatch? Maybe a survivalist, standing alone against the pending Armageddon. One so isolated, his mother tongue becomes foreign and forgotten.

If I ran into him, could we even talk? Would he have anything to say? Would I?

Had he sprung fully from popular imagination? Not existing but needing invention.

How does one live off an unforgiving land? Foraging. Sheltering in caves. Ravens sharing their scraps.

Not sure why, a friend dwelt in a cave one summer. He ate roasted rattle snakes. Plenty of space. No nosy, or noisy neighbors. Working construction, he’d drive down to the city every morning.

He told me about some campers who built their campfire inside a cave. They spent a lively night fending off spiders and other crawlers raining from the cave’s ceiling.

My first night out, I watched the sunset, magnificent over an immense tree filled valley. So much space.

One night, I saw the fire bright eyes of a panther gleaming from the shadows. It watched me. I had my machete. What did I forget?

I’ve hiked hills and mountains for a decade. Days can pass without another soul crossing my path. Meeting on the trail, a nod suffices.

I reckoned Tracker’s legend lived in lively imaginations captured by campfire stories. No one claimed they’d seen him. They ‘knew someone’ who saw him years ago.

If he did exist, who knew if he survived the brutal last winter?

I never expected to find this mythical character. Years ago, I fancied I could track him. I’d see a sign, a broken branch, or a shoeless footprint. I’d follow. Any evidence of him would come up dry. I felt as if he was toying with me.  Trails ended at a cliff’s edge, a wall, or simply vanished.

Halfway in, one night he came to my camp. I looked up and blinked. Unshaven for years, dressed in skins, he looked as Neanderthal as the stories described. A true mountain man.

He stood by the fire as if I’d lit it for him. How did he get so close, undetected? I reached for my machete. He laughed.

He indicated a log. “May I sit?” He sounded like he hadn’t spoken in a week.

I nodded. He laid his walking stick down, crouched and stretched into the radiating heat.

“People call me Tracker. Funny. Always trying to track me.”

“I’m Leo.”

“Like the lion?”

“More like a leopard.”

We chuckled. The fire felt good.

He drank from his canteen and chewed some jerky.  Silently, he stared at the fire. I wasn’t hungry.

“Don’t see many campers this late in the year.”

I finally found words. “I like coming ‘til winter hits.”

He stretched. “Yeah, gets tough then.”

We watched the fire. I added fuel. Sparks danced into the night.

I’m not ashamed to admit I held him in awe. So many questions. But I didn’t want to interrogate him. I’m not a stringer for the nightly news.

Comfortable in his own company, conversation was optional.

I broke the silence. “You ever count the leaves on a tree?”

Puzzled, he shook his head. An owl called.

“I tried one day and gave it up. Impossible…” He nodded at the obvious. “Best I could do was count a single branch and estimate.”

He tossed a stick onto the fire.

“I figured a million…” I added, “Look at a forest, you see the glimmer of the infinite.”

We sat, the fire between us, the only humans in thirty miles. The crackling fire punctuated the silence.

He sized me up. “What do you do?”

Right there, I lost all respect for him. He sounded like some suit making cocktail party small talk down below.

‘What do I do?’

I said, “Tracker, I’ll tell you once. I’m not what I do. I’m not a pedigreed show dog. Or an investment portfolio. My career doesn’t define me.”

He reacted as if I’d thrown a rock.

I kept on. “Why don’t you ask what I love? What I care for? How I see things? What moves me? What makes me sing? And laugh. What offers me joy?”

The fire hissed.

Recovering, he smiled. “Alright… What makes your heart soar?”

“I’m an accountant. I love numbers. Balanced accounts are beautiful. I love seeing my work bear fruit.”

In a few moments, he leaned in. “You’re an accountant? You do taxes? I’m looking for a good tax guy.”

“Damn!” I hadn’t brought my paperwork.