He muttered, cursing the boots he wore as he walked and stumbled along the rough paths through the woods along the lake. He'd planned this for a couple of days, thinking he had considered everything but he realized now he had worn boots for smooth pavement, not for dirt chunked up by horse's hooves over many years. He knew now that when he'd ridden these paths on horseback with his dad, he'd taken for granted how much of the labor was being done by the horses. Idiot. His dad had taught him better.
The cold air, the first blast of the autumn season, made his nose run heavy. He dragged a ragged leather glove across, failing to do anything more than string out the snot, giving him one more thing to regret. He wished he'd remembered to bring a handkerchief. His dad always had one at the ready.
Tucker ran ahead, bounding through the high grass along the path with the abandonment and joy only a Labrador can find in any random moment. The sunlight reflected off of the chocolate coat of the dog, making him seem more marvelous as he vaulted through the landscape. It made him smile to see the young dog so glad to be out, even if without his playmate, another Lab named Izzy. Tucker's mate was back at home, left there because of a bad knee and a general inclination to ignore her master's call once her nose found something more appealing. He wasn't in the mood for that kind of frustration today.
The gusty wind blew clouds across the sky above, casting shadows on him and bringing a momentary chill before the sun worked its way through to bring some brief early fall warmth. The leaves of so many trees around him were giving in to the challenge of a new season, having dried up and no longer able to keep their grip on the branches that gave them life. Their rustling on the ground spoke to him like little songs of random vowels, whispering lyrics he couldn't quite make out.
The surplus army jacket he wore was a good shield against the cool air. He thought how in a few weeks these temperatures would seem warm but now their newness was still shocking and it was all he could do to stay warm. Stumbling over an exposed root in the path, he thought how appropriate it was that the day marked a change of season. His own season had changed just two days before.
His neck was beginning to feel the weight of the chain, three feet of length connected on either end to two boots, a pair of calvary boots his father had worn for a time. Years ago the two of them, along with their friend, Bob, had joined a Civil War re-enactment calvary unit to ride horses and shoot guns. That was about when his dad's health had begun to turn and the battle with chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, lung disease, became pitched, even though they were already celebrating his victory of having survived lung cancer surgery a few years before. He had won a battle but not the war. The war lasted fourteen years since his cancer diagnosis, nine years since the COPD had begun its advance. The last two years were the hardest fought and the most painfully lost.
Only a few of the Civil War re-enactments were done by the three comrades as the older man's health tugged at the practicalities of participation. A rainy event in Kentucky that resulted in hauling the old man around with oxygen tanks and ill-tempered horses in tow made the whole thing seem ridiculous. His dad never faltered, though. He dug in with the rest of them, always smiling through the mess of the event, shooting a wink to his stressed son from time to time. He'd been through worse and at least he was going through this with his son.
The tall black leather calvary boots, with their square toes and big pull straps, were marked with silver paint. One with "BRH 12-20-38" and the other with "RIP 10-17-11". Inside the second boot was a scrolled piece of paper upon which was written a requiem, rhymed lyrics to a song the amateur musician carrying the boots had fashioned earlier in the year when a prior episode threatened his father's extinction for the fourth time in two years. Even then he knew it was only a matter of time, a matter of running out of divine miracles, before the words would have context.
The graveside funeral, without memorial service or other ceremony, was a few days away and he had foolishly appointed himself the officiant two years earlier during a terse conversation with his mother beside his dad's first death bed. His wife had questioned whether he could handle it or not and wisely told him it would be best if he got through his own mourning before the event. So here he was.
His need for ritual was a surprise to him most of all. His education and own theology did not require any such process and yet he desired a moment to abandon himself to the rawest of his emotions. The day after his dad's death he rummaged through a cluttered basement to find the boots, which were discovered hanging overhead as he searched carefully on the floor below. Typical.
He took the boots without mention to his mother. He had started with grandiose visions for a dramatic moment, finding peace in nature and embracing a tangible element of memories shared by he and his dad. But the wrong turn that led him a few miles in the opposite direction of his destination now frustrated his purposes as he had been taken far away from the peninsula at the lake he had remembered would be just perfect. The horses had always known where to go better than he.
So now he recovered from the error and was delighted to watch as Tucker had gone ahead to find the jut into the lake that was his target. The dog stood at its edge, wagging his tail and looking at the water ten feet below to see if he could negotiate the leap.
"Easy boy. That's more than you can do."
A whimpered response indicated the dog's disagreement but he re-focused his attention on a passing leaf blown inland and away from the minor cliff and an argument was avoided. But this was the place for which the man had been searching.
As he looked up for the right tree he was surprised to find few candidates ready to lend their branches to a hanging boot memorial. Nothing looked right above and yet to him the spot seemed so perfect down below. He drafted a reluctant provider, hacking away at the blackberry bush grown around its trunk so he could move close enough to swing the boots and their heavy tether into a crook between a branch and the trunk. His jacket caught the thorns and he fought nature's grab to force his way close enough to make his attempt. Pausing to catch his breath he realized what a sight it must have been for anyone to witness should they care to watch.
A 43-year old bald man in the middle of the woods, fighting the wind and the undergrowth of the very forest from which he sought assistance just to hang a pair of cheap reproduction boots in a tree. Ridiculous. He began to laugh, slightly at first and then heavily, expelling tears amidst the chuckles and then stumbling into the tree from the convulsions of his fit. Ridiculous.
He began to practice his swing of the unwieldy device, catching other branches in the backswing, stopping to prune them into submission and then trying again, dropping the boots over and over. Once his delivery was proven to be workable he eyed the crook in the tree and cast the boots up, landing them in the tree, although a bit imperfectly to show the painted parkings on the boots. He looked up, minimally satisfied with his work at first, stepping away to see it from another perspective.
But tears blinded his eyes and the boots were a blur, shifting in the strong winds and his ritual seemed more silly then and he began to worry that he had undermined his dad's memory with such a stunt. He dropped to the ground, yelling and moaning, finding the wilderness of the place safe for this moment. He had not yielded to these emotions yet and it felt good to let them have their way.
However long that lasted was lost on him but he was brought back to the moment by Tucker's attack from behind. The dog had read his master's prone position as an invitation to wrestle and he was all in for the moment. Briefly the man thought to rebuke the dog for ruining his orchestrated drama, but then realized the wisdom of the interruption.
Tucker was fully engaged in the real moment of the now. He was finding the joy in front of him without regard for the loss of before. Even though a dog's limited sensibilities explain away the applicability of such simplistic wisdom during a time of human strain, the truth of the dog's perspective hit the man like a hammer.
He gave in to the dog's demands for attention and found himself wrestling with the happy-go-lucky sage, rolling across the damp ground and laughing all the while, celebrating the joy of the moment. The dog was merciless with his excitement, growling and yipping at his master's enthusiasm for the fight.
Finally, he collected himself back up, leveled another gaze at the memorial that was destined to hang only for a winter, if even that long, and turned away to follow Tucker back up the path out of the woods. They had traveled several hundred yards when he began to re-consider the whole thing. He turned and ran back to the tree where the boots hung and disclaimed the entire place as being the wrong spot. Some minor madness overcame him as he scrambled up the narrow trunk, nearly ruining himself in the effort, and trying to fish the boots out of the tree.
The dog watched from far off, quietly sitting and unable to interpret his master's madness. They were already leaving, why had they come back?
The dog watched the man stumble out of the tree after having knocked the boots out and a bit down the cliff toward the lake. He pushed through more underbrush, sliding down the cliff a bit to reach the boots and dragged them back to the top.
"It's not the right spot, Tucker. Where's the right spot? Help me."
The dog wagged his tail in response but had no hope of understanding this command. He jumped and encircled his master, nipping at the boots and his master's coat but received no response to the invitation for play.
"I don't know why I thought that was the right spot. Where do these belong?" muttered the imploding mourner.
He walked up the path, stumbling and falling, unable to move his legs normally. The weight of the boots seemed greater than their mass and his vision was blurred by the runoff from his emotions. He grabbed fallen tree limbs and began swinging with anger at defenseless trees along the path, punching them for an unknown crime. He collapsed in the path, hugging the boots. This time the dog waited and watched.
______________________________
Some time passed before he looked up. He sighed and cast his eyes ahead, a bit off the path and down the slope toward the lake to see an old tree, rotted somewhat with a large hole in its trunk that had clearly been used as a den door from time to time. Next to it was a young strong tree, growing in the shade of the older tree and a bit downslope. The younger tree's location benefitted from the older tree's greater roots that diverted flow off the water shed in which they stood around the younger tree so its roots had been able to find a place to take hold.
The older tree was broken in many places from many storms and its days were coming to an end soon. Its angle suggested it might one day fall upslope and provide even more shelter to the younger tree below it. The younger tree was growing up straight and strong and reached up to the light in the forest canopy. As the older tree's branches had begun to fade in recent years and hang low it made space in the canopy for the younger tree's branches to drink in the sunlight so important to its growth.
He knew that this was the place. He moved into the timberline with the boots swung across his shoulders until he came to the base of the younger tree, eyeing a strong crook about ten feet above him. All around him the forest floor was clear and it was easy to swing the boots until he had the rhythm that felt right. He cast up the boots and they found their place right away in the cradle of the younger tree's branches.
Behind him Tucker stood in the path wagging his tail with a polite whimper suggesting they should be done by now. His master smiled, promised to come along, and began his walk home.
