My Dog

There had been many people at breakfast in the Snow Lodge, but there was no one anywhere around me now. I passed the Old Faithful Lodge, grateful to be away from it, crossed a small bridge, and headed up the ski trail toward Lone Star Geyser. Fresh snow, a sparkling morning, the Firehole River flowing cold-gray beside me. The trees on the slope bounding the trail on my right were heavy with snow. Snow topped boulders in the river on my left. Elk tracks crossed and recrossed the ski track, leaving huge holes in it. You cant get mad at an elk for stepping in the ski track, I thought. It was a brilliant morning, with nothing but snow and river and trees, elk tracks and sky in sight. The trail was level, easy, utterly beautiful. The sun moved. The river moved. I moved. In a morning of no wind, the trees did not move.

There is a timelessness in extreme beauty. The present does not disappear. Now becomes eternal. Once David said to me, "Lets do now forever." It is what I was doing, skiing along the Firehole. I did not rush. A short way before Lone Star Geyser, I approached a rise in the trail. On my left, the river had been replaced by a long, downhill slope to a vast snow meadow. A man and a woman stood on the rise, staring at me. Nothing improves ones skiing like people watching. Those two looked like great skiers. They looked as though they ran five miles every morning before breakfast.

I straightened up. I skied better. My glide became longer, my arms reached further forward. I became stronger, taller.

"Is that your dog?" the man asked me.

I thought perhaps there was an elk somewhere behind me and the man was joking about the elk that had been postholing the trail. There could not be a dog here. Dogs are not allowed on trails in the park. I turned to look behind me. A coyote stood at the end of my ski. If I reached back, I could touch him.

I turned back to the couple. "No," I said, "Thats not my dog."

It seemed to take me a long rime to register what was happening. I turned, again, to look at the coyote, really looking at him this time, taking in a well-fed, healthy animal with a thick, shiny coat and eyes that returned my look. We each saw that the other was not frightened. In looking at him, I forgot one is not supposed to look into the eyes of a wild animal. I looked into the eyes of my dog. The coyote returned my look, then turned and trotted off down the slope on my left. I watched him go the whole long way down to the meadow until he disappeared behind some distant trees.

"Thats not my dog," I said to the couple again.

"He was following right behind you the whole way," the man said.

The trail behind me came out of a curve several hundred yards away. Beyond that, it was not possible to see from where the couple and I stood.

"He was as close to you as when you stopped," the man said.

I always think I am aware in wild country. I think my senses are alert to everything around me. Even so, I also look behind me quite frequently in case a lion or a bear has appeared on the trail. Or I thought I did. It seems I do not do that on skis. Skis are so emphatically impelled forward that they do not promote looking around as hiking does. Apparently, my senses are not as keen as I imagine, either, although snow muffles the sounds of other seasons. It changes the aura of things. Should I not develop awarenesses in concert with the season? Perhaps Ive been away from serious winter too long. Perhaps Ive lost the necessity to be intimate with every season. Perhaps I would have felt malevolence or fear or hunger, where I did not notice ease. Had I sensed the coyote was there and turned to see him,, he would have gone sooner, would have made less use of the packing my skis did on the trail. The guy was a hitchhiker, and I gave him a ride.

Published by Marlowe & Company; May 2006
Copyright © 2006 Ruth Rudner

Excerpt published with permission from Ruth Rudner.