When What to My Wandering Eyes

            Yesterday, when my brother Ken and I were looking for the place for me to wait to see if I can get a buck for deer season, we were on an unused road in an overgrown area of an old farm, when we heard a small silver gray car coming along the road. From the condition on the road I’d seen I was surprised to see it maneuvering along. Rocks, water-worn channels, and ridges made me think the driver didn’t know where he was going or didn’t care what condition his low-slung vehicle was in when he finished the trail. My brother shook his head as well.

            The driver had entered on the opposite entrance of the road than we had. What I had already seen, the driver was in for more surprises than he’d already seen. Ken said that there were large waterholes and muddy tracks to drive on with high ridges in the center of the tracks. He said he didn’t know how the guy in the driver’s seat managed to get as far as he did.

            My brother has a four wheel drive pickup truck and said, “When we leave, we’ll go out the way he came in and you can see the road.”

            As the car drove by us, I could hear the shock absorbers or struts rattle. It was a wonder that they were still on the car. When we finished deciding on the spot for me to hunt, we started the drive out. What we’d already driven on was rough and pockmarked with large stones and gullies, but what awaited us was even worse. There were a lot of water puddles, but one was almost six foot in diameter and almost axle deep on the truck. The road became a set of tracks with a high center. In many areas, drag marks on the muddy, rocky center left a signature of the little car’s passing.

            The car's descent to where we were was rutted and muddy. It was slow going for Ken’s truck and jostled us from side to side, slipping into the depressions caused by water creating the channels. High spots of rocks raised their heads and had to be edged around. There was one particularly rough spot where we saw the chrome ring from a wheel, probably left behind by the silver car. Once out on the township maintained road, I could only marvel on the stamina of the car and the stupidity of the driver.