At first there is this. A sense of autumn. The breeze heady with the smell of short lawns and tall weeds. The air abuzz with the songs of late-summer life.
August opens the door to my favorite time of the year. Ditches thrive. The country roads I ride serve as amphitheaters for the orchestration of the unseen, all the while dressed in the gowns of the day, both vibrant and subtle — coneflowers and Queen Anne’s lace and jewelweed. Before long, goldenrod will throw pieces of the sun across the landscape.
Robins and cardinals add voice to the cacophony of crickets and cicadas. And, if you know where to look, a mockingbird will stitch it all together.
Red-winged blackbirds have convened in mass at some out-of-sight wetlands, but there remains an occasional stray clinging to a power line or resting on a fence post, chastising anyone who happens by, offering a Tk, Tk, Tk, like some Sunday School teacher displeased with a child’s behavior.
Liz and I leave the countryside to ride rolling residential streets in New Castle, a drunkard’s path through town, avenues divulging a variety of architecture. Turning onto Main Street and moving past Baker Park, we’re on our way back toward rural roads. It’s there it happens.
Everything changes.
With light traffic from both directions, we ride two abreast, making sure no one from behind is tempted to squeeze past when there’s an oncoming vehicle. A four-door sedan hangs back, finds clearance and safely passes. The pickup truck that follows, however, seems hell-bent on getting by as well, despite a four-way stop just yards away. The driver surges forward, less than a foot to my left, then unexpectedly cuts back in before completing the pass. I brake hard, the vehicle’s rear bumper only inches from my wheel.
I yell. Twice. Three times. Going around the truck on the left when it stops at the sign, trying to gain the driver’s attention, I’m still shouting, until I’m next to the cab. She refuses to look at me. Windows rolled up, she’s inside her 5,000-pound cage, safe and sound. Then she pulls away as if the lives just put at risk have no value.
I’m convinced it was intentional, that she forced her way around us due to some misguided notion we had no right to be there. Her bit of road rage, subtle by all outward appearances, is fueled by an all-too-common disdain for cyclists. She would just as soon see us dead than see us on the road.
It’s the sad sort of thing we deal with on any given day in any given location. Even on country roads.
But at least there, far from the city, is some solace. I sense it as I put the incident and New Castle behind me, riding by pastures just now starting to glow with the bold purple of ironweed, as if some autumnal dimmer switch is being slowly moved to full light.
I regain my sanity another four miles out, where a stream jogs close to the road before running away into a stand of mature trees. From the branch of a walnut, 25 feet off the ground, a belted kingfisher perches, rattling off a string of expletives, letting us know we are not welcome in this place. The voice brings me to a halt. I straddle the bike and let my senses take over — seeing again, hearing again — aided by a militant-looking bird dressed in a blue ruffled cap and white scarf.
When I turn away and begin to roll, another bit of white catches my eye. At the edge of the road, contrasted against the ditch’s deep summer greens, is a scattering of bleached bones from a raccoon.
I lock my eyes on them, turning my head as I pass, keeping them in sight until I can look back no more.
Road bike: 27.14 miles — Henry County
