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dust, dread, and things unsaid
Dust, beige and fine like baby powder, rattles off the rusted frame of a yellow Ford pickup as it bounces over the gumbo hardpan of Deadman Road at 60 miles an hour.
Ian Tyson of “Four Strong Winds” fame, straps on a guitar and sings about a Navajo rug, to which my father and I slap the rhythm on our knees, adding to the dance of dust that surrounds us.
Each of us, one arm propped in the window frame, looking casually at the land that cascades behind us, my eyes descending to the outside mirror, and I look at my face and wonder when I’ll be able to shave.
Two horses in a trailer behind us, wet with sweat and its lather, four hours of chasing cattle in 95 degrees, look forward to being unsaddled and fed handfuls of grain and led back out to pasture where they can run for the hell of it.
And tomorrow, when dad asks me to saddle up, I’ll walk with dread to the corrals, not from a lack of desire, but with a dread that I’ll have to wait four hours to enjoy this quiet embrace, this ethereal moment, knowing that someday I’ll wish for just one more drive home after a hard day’s work, slapping our knees to Ian Tyson and basking in the warmth of my father’s pride.
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