Dust and Horses

Driving to work along the ranchroads this morning, I found dust hanging in the air throughout the pine and juniper arroyos and overtop the painted horses at the Rafter paddocks, evidence of someone leaving ahead of me. My early morning beginnings have removed me from the normal cycles of most people scattered in the low hills and lakefront homes around me. Mostly, I find only evidence of their passing: cats slinking along the sunflowered berms, dogs trotting fencelines. I have encountered strange things, too. Once, in mid-summer, I nearly ran overtop a rainbow trout lying in the middle of the road. The trout was frozen solid and longer than my forearm. Another time, I rounded a corner and found a translucent plastic bag hovering above the sage and bunchgrass just off the road. The bag slowly circulated above, seemingly without intent to fall back to the ground. I drove off with the bag still hovering aloft. I have found girly magazines and tie-downs and maybe a dozen articles of clothing.

Some mornings, I stop and pull Dalmatian toadflax from the shale rolls and then scatter the plants across the gravel road. On occasion, I stop and speak with the horses. “Beautiful morning,” I say to them as they glance oblique. One horse always faces the exact opposite direction of the others. I imagine that horse as the poet or the simpleton, the difference is the same. Today, as I wheeled through the dust, hanging before me like a lake mist, the dull smell of earth and the sharp smell of juniper filled my truck, and the thought struck me that I like the smell of dust. I prefer that to the sweet smell of water.

--Mitchell Hegman