LITTLE ROCK — ALONG THE BUFFALO RIVER,
NEAR TYLER BEND
“Nature sucks.”
This is one of our household idioms—a phrase we occasionally imagine emanating from one of our innocent dogs, upon whom we have projected fictive personalities. “Nature sucks” when there are ticks to be pulled, or burrs to be picked out, or insolent squirrels chattering in the trees. When the sun pounds us to jelly, rain interrupts our plans or our hill ices, we mutter the mantra.
Do we mean it? Sometimes yes, definitely. Sometimes we want three-prong plugs and iPads, reliable broadband, an urbane wine list. We want DVDs and restaurants and air conditioning. Most of the time nature is something we want only at a remove—we like the way the light plays on the bluffs, we like the mountains framing the fairway, we like to watch the big cats pad behind their bars (and to tut-tut at their being locked away for our amusement). Nature, Tennyson observed, is red in tooth and claw. Our species has been successful to the extent that we have tempered and moderated nature, curbed its rage and sublimated it to our own ends.
We tamed fire, then invented agriculture, then started to domesticate some animals—including the human one. Most of what we understand as “our” world is what we have wrested away from nature. Most of us are too soft and dependent to survive in the wild.
I am thinking this as I ride on the back of an animal, a horse known to me as “Red,” who does not realize the imbalance of power. I am not at all confident riding him; I hope he does not suspect.
Perhaps I should be; I have been around horses enough. My sister trains, raises and shows quarter horses; my niece is recognized as some kind of world champion by the Palomino Horse Breeders of America. Karen rides well —for a time she worked at a stable simply to try out the idea of horse ownership. (She thankfully decided against it because horses eat every day.)
And I have ridden before—though the last time was probably a decade ago.
That time, I was too proud to proclaim myself a novice. When the trail guide saw Karen wheeling and cavorting with her pony, he made the sexist assumption that I was at least as expert as she and he put me up on a troubled steed named Smokey with instruction not to let him get too near the other horses lest he start acting like Metta World Peace. I dutifully obliged, and Smokey tried to wipe me off on every tree trunk and fence we passed. When that didn’t work, he twisted around and tried to bite me. I kept pulling his head up and squeezing him with my legs and somehow we made it around the loop and back to the corral. By the end we might have developed a grudging respect for each other, but we never became friends.
So I spoke up, and Ben Milburn, who owns Buffalo River Outfitters and organized this ride, put me up on Red, who is is a far more agreeable animal. That’s not to suggest he’s a trail nag—he’s big and powerful, but he’s patient enough while I figure out the controls. I tend to hold the reins too tightly; when I relax he moves forward. I lay them across the side of his neck to make him turn in the opposite direction.
After an hour or so, I have relearned everything—I post when he trots; I let my arms go soft and give him his head when we head down the bank, across the smooth-rocked bed and into the trickle that is currently the Buffalo National River.
The river is very low, too low for rafting, and back at the outfitters we overheard a woman tell a potential customer that unless it started raining immediately, and rained for two weeks straight, there’d be no rafting for the rest of the season. It’s all right for canoeing, though there are a few spots that require you to portage. It is mild and warm and beautiful and not particularly buggy.
(Red does not seem to like the water much. He wants to cross at the narrowest point, which is deeper than the path our guides have picked out. We debate for a second before he lets me have my way and we stay in line.)
Forty years ago, Richard Nixon signed the law designating the Buffalo the first national river, protecting it from the civilizing influences of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Buffalo River Improvement Association, who meant to dam it in a couple of places, to turn it.
As short-sighted as the historical losers might seem, I can understand why they might have thought the best thing to do was to harness the river’s hydroelectric potential. It runs through what has always been an economically challenged area, and it is our way to shape the world to our purposes. We have a tendency to overlook the everyday miracles before our eyes—I live on a ridge high in a gorgeous city, with green spaces and deer, yet most days I don’t see it.
And here, two hours north in the bona fide wilderness, I catch myself worrying that we couldn’t get our mobile Mifi device to work back at the cabin. On horseback, I field a call from New Jersey. I take a quick scroll through my email while limestone bluffs stare down at the puny creatures scrabbling at their feet. I put the phone away, lean forward and pat my new friend Red’s neck. “Nature sucks,” I whisper.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
Photos and other images relating to the Buffalo River can be found at:
blooddirtandangels.com
Perspective, Pages 74 on 05/27/2012