-------
----------Western
Kentucky: Lost & Forgotten, ---------------------Found
& Remembered
(excerpt from Day
2/Chapter 2)
The
first bridge we came to was 50 yards across. It had railings on each side. No
problem. Sweet, sniffing out everything, followed us across. But the second bridge
was a different story. A football field across and no side railings to hold onto.
It was 150 feet above a raging river that was spilling into the Ohio River. The
gaps between the railroad ties were further apart than the gaps on land. Between
the bridge ties was nothing but air and water 150 feet below. The wind was suddenly
stronger. Sarah & I did some time calculations. We felt certain that the last
train had passed us 15 minutes earlier so if we moved quickly we should, hopefully,
be able to make it across before the next train arrived. We agreed to move fast,
without hesitation, to look only at the ties, nowhere else. We took off. Halfway
across the bridge my hair stood straight up on my head when I heard Sarah scream,
“Sweet’s not comin!” I froze, stopped, slowly turned around. The
wind was now furious, blowing hard. There was Sarah standing, midbridge, staring
back at Sweet. Sweet was pacing back and forth, afraid to walk the bridge. Because
of the wind and the sound of the raging river I had to yell loud at Sarah to,
“Come on! A train will be comin soon! We’ve got to get off this bridge!!!”
She turned. Carefully, steadily we walked on. When we finally made it to land
Sarah stopped, turned and started pleading with Sweet to cross. We still had 50
yards to go, on land, before we got to a safe place, a place where we could get
off the tracks if a train came. It was a straight drop off where we were. Sarah
said, “I’m goin back to get Sweet.” I countered with, “Are
You crazy?! A damn train is gonna be comin any second. We’ve got to get the
hell off these tracks. Come on!” She cried out, “I can’t leave
her behind! She’s got no home!” I said, “Sarah, she’ll find
her way. She made it to us. She’ll find someone else, another home. I’d
like to take her with us too but we can’t. She’ll end up gettin run
over on the highways we’ll be hikin on. Come on Sarah!” I pleaded. She
finally relented. Yelled again, “Sweet please come on!” But Sweet was
still frantically pacing back and forth back and forth on the other side, too
scared to cross. When my Dad heard this story he said, “That dog had more
sense than both of you. It was smart enough to not cross that bridge!” Sarah
still worries about Sweet. We both hope she found a new home.
Once
we made it to a safe place on the tracks, a place where we could at least get
off far enough to not be hit by an oncoming train, I said, “This will be
a perfect place for me to take a photo of you, with the bridge in the distance.”
We turned together to look behind us to find the perfect spot for the photo. What
we saw scared the hell right out of us. Two huge men, rough looking in plain clothes,
were standing on the tracks, just this side of the bridge. Where in the world
had they come from?! There were no roads for miles in any direction. The green-brown
Ohio River was on our right & brown-green rocky rugged mountainous terrain
on our left. We hadn’t heard a boat or motorcycles or 4-wheelers, nothing,
no sounds cept nature. My first thought was of the movie Deliverance! Squeal like
a pig! Holy Lord help us! We waved to them then, turning, said to each other,
“Walk as fast as you can! Don’t slow down! Don’t look back! If
we need to run then run as fast as possible!” We were out of phone service
range. And besides, even if we called for help no one could get there in time.
Our only option was flight hoping and praying that we wouldn’t have to fight.
Those guys were twice my size. Without running, not wanting to show our fear,
we walked as fast as our legs could carry us. We were already exhausted from walking
miles and miles but now the adrenalin kicked in. Drenched with sweat we felt no
pain. We flew down those tracks. Finally, Sarah turned to look. We had turned
a curve on the tracks, crossing round a mountain. No sign of them. Nine wild turkeys
and a lone coyote, from nowhere, scared the hell out of us again. Sarah turned
back. We kept our fast pace for another half mile. We both turned to look. No
sign of them. Whew! We slowed our pace just a little. What were they doing there?!
Did they have marijuana fields? Meth labs? Were they hunting? We had no idea.
Were they plainclothes military guards patrolling the boundaries of Fort Knox?
All we wanted to do was get far enough away from them that they’d never be
able to catch up with us so we kept up our steady fast pace. Finally finally,
with no sign of them, we felt like it was okay to slow down.
What
a relief. One of my main concerns on this hike was for Sarah’s safety. It
was one thing for me to endanger myself but I sure didn’t want anything to
happen to Sarah. Somebody suggested later that the two guys, from nowhere, may
have been angels. I never thought of that. What do angels really look like? I’ve
always believed in angels. William Blake, one of my favorite poets, and Edgar
Cayce, greatest psychic of all time and modern day prophet from Hopkinsville,
Kentucky, both saw angels all their lives. Maybe they were angels, watching out
for us. When the unknown manifests unexpectedly, appears right in our faces, as
it nearly always does, more often than not it scares the hell out of us.
From
April 7th through the end of 2006 Sarah and Ron will be touring Kentucky, the
USA, and Europe performing/signing Western
Kentucky: Lost & Forgotten, Found & Remembered
and Sarah's new When The Redbuds
Bloom CD.
Western
Kentucky: Lost & Forgotten, Found & Remembered by Sarah Elizabeth
& Ron Whitehead is now available from Published in Heaven Books,
Click
Here for ordering
info.
News
& Of Note!
As The War in Iraq still persists, so does Poetry
Amidst a World of Struggle and finds
Louisville Folk, Blues great, Tyrone Cotton joining Frank
Messina, Ron and Sarah Whitehead
and
Andy Cook regrouping for
The Wanderer Tour. The Journey
begins March 21st at The
Rudyard Kipling. Click Here
to view all the dates as The
Wanderer Tour makes the way West.
