Ozark Mountains

I didn’t know I would pass through the Ozark Mountains until I was in them.  Relics of the Ouachita Orogeny, a continental collision that occurred before reptiles evolved into dinosaurs, the Ozarks have slowly downwasted through millions of years.  They now sit unheralded in the middle of North America, overshadowed in the popular mind by the Appalachians and Rockies, memorialized only by a cheap brand of outdoor gear available at Wal-Mart.  But, as I discovered today, the Ozarks retain their own unique character.  The Ozarks are like the first hair you find on your shoulder when you turn twenty-five: interesting and somewhat surprising, although you realize that you should have expected it.

Unlike a hairy shoulder, however, the Ozarks were beautiful.  I drove thought them on US 63 last night and on Missouri 14 / Missouri Z this morning.  Yesterday’s drive was pleasant; today’s was enchanting.  The mountainsides are flush with green but too steep for the plow, so pastoralism reigns.  Alongside the road, oak forests have been intermittently cleared for pasture.  Irregularly spaced homes and wooden barns sit posed, waiting for a National Geographic photographer to arrive on assignment.  Horses and cows graze by the roadside, lifting their heads to watch ungainly pickup truck-camper combinations negotiate tight turns while distracted drivers from Columbus, Georgia look out the window.

At length, I wanted a break from working the clutch, so I pulled off next to a sign announcing a yard sale.  I guess I hadn’t really looked at the yard before I pulled over, so I was surprised when, after cutting off the truck, I saw chickens running all over the place.  A wire fence ran in no discernible pattern across the yard enclosing an area about the size of a putting green.  There were chickens inside the fence and chickens outside the fence.  Inside the fence, there was a blue tarp draped over an oval outline in such a way as to form a small pond in which a couple ducks swam.  There were also several birds that looked a little like chickens and a little like ducks but not exactly like either.

I told Duke to stay put and got out.  I realized the whitewashed house I’d parked in front of was part of the chicken-duck enclosure.  A ramp led from the ground to a windowframe through which chickens, ducks, and chicken/ducks moved freely.  They cackled and crowed and quacked at each other, chasing one another into the house or out of the windowframe where, if they were too rushed to navigate the ramp, they thudded dustily into the earth.

Where are the people? I wondered.  I wanted to ask them something, although I wasn’t sure what.  An old Chrysler LeBaron was parked in the yard, but it obviously hadn’t moved in awhile.  The junk set out for sale – old furniture, clothes, a stereo, a keyboard – looked like it had sat through a couple rainstorms.  I saw no one.  I waited awhile and, when no one came, I let Duke out to see if he would chase the chickens.

But Duke was better mannered than I had hoped, so we walked around the house together.  On the other side a large dog of indeterminate breeding ran frantically back and forth in a five-by-ten cage, barking.  There was more junk laying around – plastic chairs, tools, building supplies.

Some of these items, like the car, the house, and the stereo, were potentially valuable.  Some of these animals seemed to be pets, and others could have been a source of food or livelihood.  All of it was neglected.  Someone had, in the not too distant past, tried to sell everything of value, then abandoned the rest.  I wondered if drugs were involved.  Methamphetamine, maybe.  Maybe this wasn’t someplace I wanted to be.  I walked Duke back to the truck and loaded him into the passenger’s side, and was standing in the yard taking one last look around when a truck slowed down on the road.

It was a pickup with three guys in the front seat.  The guy closest to me had is window down.  He was skinny with brown hair.  “Need anything?” he asked me.  The truck stopped.

He spoke without smiling or showing his teeth, the way that I have seen meth users talk.  And I can’t say for sure, but it looked to me at the time like his cheeks were sunken.  I moved toward my own truck.

“No, I’m alright,” I said firmly.  The guy waved his hand forward and said something to his companions, and the truck drove off.  I got out of there.  The Ozarks are beautiful, but rural America has its blotches.