Today was a Meet Up group for hikers, hikers with their dogs. This isn’t the first time for me. I’m a long-standing hiker. I’ve hiked for years, I love trails. I love being in the dirt. And I like mud. A lot of people go around mud, I don’t really avoid it. I’ve gone to a few group outings with them before, taking Gem, my six-year old Border Collie mix, but I’m not really all that sure you could call them a group.
I did go up to the top of Point Mountain, I did make, it’s just that the group was way ahead of me. Kids, nah, not really, they really weren’t. Just people, men and women in their 30s, some were in their 40s, one guy was older than me, he was about, I don’t know, I’m thinking sixty-two? He coughed a lot, I know that and it annoyed me. He had very thin ankles, not normal for a guy.
One girl, she was watching my tattoos, I knew it, I saw it, her name was Ellen. I don’t like that name too much. It’s like a very bland name. I have never gone out with an Ellen. It’s a very Jewey name. How about Naomi, huh? That’s a very Jewey name. Anyway, Ellen darts her eyes, diverted to my arms. She wants to ask about my tattoos, I could just hear it in her brain going, “This woman is old, what the fuck is she doing with these tattoos, and look at her with her cut-off shirt, showing her stomach, omygawd.”
I wanted to like tell her I could read her mind at that point. But it’s not a big deal. She was all right. I was better looking at her age. Forty-two? Forget it. She didn’t do nothing, nothing for me, but her brain was sizzling, dying to ask, “Are you seriously going to walk up this mountain?“
Yes, you snobby little bitch, I am.
The guys in this group, all of them in this group, are like the losers from high school, the left-behinds, the rejects, the ones no girl in her right mind would go out with. And now they’re all here, with tight underwear and too tight-wearing pants so you can see, kinda’ if you look, glance, don’t make it obvious, but you could see the outline of their penis in their pants! It’s not good; it was never a cool look.
I disregard of all these and I head up the mountain. Look it had rained the night before, so the bugs were out, it was muddy, and the rocks were slick. I hate these conditions for hiking, they’re my least favorite conditions, but I go.
The other four girls practically ran passed me, the guys were ahead too. It was a straight shot up the mountain, almost at a 90 degree plane; it wasn’t easy, and the big drops and spaces between the rocks to traverse the trail was difficult since the rocks, like I mentioned, were slick. I was dressed well, with good boots, so I thought. But the boots sucked, and I was slipping everywhere. Thank God for my walking stick that helped. I was last in this hike, and the only guy in front of me was the guy with the skinny ankles.
About an hour into the hike, I lost the group, every one of them had pushed themselves so far ahead of me, I couldn’t even hear them anymore, and for the last hour I was alone with Gem.
Knowing that I came with a group, and now no one was around, was a little unsettling. But see, I knew this park, I had been there several times, and so I wasn’t lost. I knew when I got down, I’d come to meadow, a big cornfield, and then from there, the river. At the lower part of the trail, the Musconetcong runs 46 miles and right where I’d meet it was where the trout fishermen fish. So I wasn’t lost and I felt fine with that. This group didn’t turn back to see how I was, and I thought that was really shitty.
When I reached the river, I reached the group and reunited with the group. I pat my dog. She was tired and wet. Her fur had picked up summer prickers and they had settled on her hind legs and withers. She looked at me as if to say, “I’ve had enough.” She doesn’t swim, and doesn’t really like the water except to get her pads wet. The other dog owners have your typical labs and beagles who like the water; they were there. There were the treat givers, giving treats, dogs begging. But not Gem. Gem doesn’t beg, although I knew she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten her breakfast. I needed to get her home.
I walked ahead, I knew where I was going, I pulled out some speed on the flat land part of the trail, and pushed ahead of the group. I heard them yelling for their dogs to come. Most of the time the dogs are on leads and don’t know when to come when called. I pushed on knowing the road would soon unveil itself. I had less than 200 feet to go.
I reached my car, letting Gem in the hatchback where her fleece bed awaited, and having cleaned her towels in advance of the walk, toweled her off good and dry, picking the prickers out from her fur where I could. I got in the car, too, adjusting the mirror, I made sure Gem was settled before taking off.
I heard the voices of the group in the parking lot of Point Mountain making plans for the lunch at Jake and Riley’s. I passed them, I didn’t wave goodbye or say thanks. And I didn’t goodbye to anyone, but instead headed back home, home with Gem, where we both could find a sense of belonging.
Copyright Terry Rachel, August 2014
A Hardscrabble Daughter 
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