O'Rourke's magazine:
"Sorrows and Joys of the Desert," by Tom Dark
Once in awhile it's fun to feel like Superman. Not from any great feat I've done, but from some bumbling thing I've escaped. Last night, trundling around in the dark in my sandals, I stepped on a cactus. Came away scot-free! Then I smacked dab belly-first into a fence. No harm done! Then I accidentally tromped on another cactus! Scot-free! Superman! Gyod, those things can hurt.Such a baleful howling there was last night. A single, expensive hunting hound across the road, singing about being in jail.
I know it's expensive because I've seen all of them and played with a couple of them. Two of the happiest expensive-looking dogs in the world came prancing and sniffing around here last summer, thrilled to be out exploring. They loved me, too. They loved absolutely everything for the time they were free, with an absolute love.
I could see how they'd gotten away, as, while exploring our property, they preferred to slide under the fences rather than just walk through the open corral gates. They'd found a secret, delicious escape route under their kennel fence.
When not languishing balefully in their kennels, which is usually all day and night, their owner has them out training to the sound of a hunting horn, following a horse around and around a track, ridden by a young woman in a lawn-jockey costume.
I've seen her from a short distance now and then, but I've never seen her smile. She's very likely living a life of Doing Everything Right. They want to be the stars of the local la-la hunting-and-horn-blowing club, which is habited by All the Best People Who Do Everything Right. There are even members who might prove to be important to my career, but I'd rather be free of all that than bother with right-doing people who might prove to be important to my career.
With high fascination, our horses stand and watch the horse and dogs go round and round and round from their distance about half a mile away. Ours were trained for racing, not ceremonial hunting. Each time they see the horse, rider and dogs, horn blowing, they've never seen anything quite so amazing before in their lives -- except perhaps for the llamas that escaped from a neighbor's ranch last summer and came up to the property line. That was riveting.
The expensive dogs don't live such fascinating lives, stuck in a kennel most of the time as they are. Now and then they'll howl in unison at night, and it's baleful.
The coyotes, who get to run free in exchange for having to catch small animals for a living, sometimes howl in sympathy.
They make little encampments in a radius around our property, and after some time spent sleeping outside, one can tell by the howls who is encamped where. After one realizes they don't mean to sound as blood-curdling as they do (I'm not a rabbit, after all), the exuberant dog-music they mean becomes clear and so do the points of dog-harmony they mean to make.
The only entertainment the expensive hunting dogs have is to howl along with the coyotes... or it's that the coyotes howl along with them. The only song the expensive hunting dogs seem to know is "Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen."
The coyotes are always exuberant and spontaneous, but the hunting dogs usually start out with one call of misery, and the others join in. Then the coyotes harmonize from their several encampments, perhaps in compassionate contrapoint to the imprisoned song of misery they hear.
One might wonder why such a racket in the middle of the oceanic silence of a desert night isn't annoying, but it isn't. Unlike the city night sounds of speeding vehicles and sirens and boomphing adolescent sex-music and the like, the animal songs don't spell trouble happening out there somewhere.
Last night, however, was a solo sad dog-song. None of the local dogs or coyotes joined in. The dog spelled out his plaintive ballad until dawn, and like me, all the other creatures listened in silence. It needed heard. Things are getting sadder on the ranch where they Do Everything Right. As to punctuate the dog's message, a little cold rain fell, just a little.
Emerson essayed about how there seemed to be a palpable aura in the homes of people trapped in their own misery, no matter how proper the appearances. I noticed this about the Proper Man who owned the expensive hunting dogs who had escaped in glee last summer.
I called around to find out who he was and what was his phone number so he could come fetch his expensive dogs. He showed up unsmiling and ungrateful that I'd kept a watch on them for him, to the point of rudeness. He made sure I seemed unimportant. He wouldn't so much as offer a handshake. No L.L. Bean Country Club member am I. Well screw you, Jack, my horses are more expensive than your horses -- at least, they used to be. Now they're just lovable.
Stumbling into winter we go.
¶
¶Tom Dark doesn't look a bit like Zorro, despite a reputation for impromptu swashbuckling and accidentally shearing buttons off the wrong shirts. He presently lives in New Mexico with his wife and a small herd of horses, appreciation lately deepened, if possible, by William Nack's My Turf.
¶
