When you move away it’s
always hard to pick and choose what events warrant a six-hour round trip and
someone always thinks you should’ve come home when you didn’t. Birthdays,
church homecomings, reunions, weddings, etc. As we’ve gotten older and busier we
go home less but we try to choose those prime events where we can see the most
people and get the most bang for our buck. Some holidays win out over others.
For us, Christmas has
always been the constant. We’ve never skipped it. My mom’s entire family is always in Pound for the holiday and both of my dad’s brothers along with
their closest cousins are there too. One Christmas, as often happens during
holidays, my dad started romanticizing his younger days. His brothers and
cousins soon joined in waxing poetic about the Laurel Fork trail near the Pound
dam. They hadn’t been up there in years and truth be told it’s entirely
possible that not a one of them had ever been there sober. The days when they
ran through the hollers and trails of southwestern Virginia were long gone.
They got it in their head that come spring when they were all back in town for
Easter they’d get on that trail again.
The cold months passed and April arrived, cooler than expected. Easter was never a given
for us, we remained non-committal until the last possible minute and always
made a game-time decision. This particular year we packed up the dogs in the
Subaru drove South on I-81 until we reached Abingdon where the dogs know it’s
time to lay down because nothing but curves lay ahead for the next hour while
we trekked as far as one can go into southwestern Virginia. The Pound.
My husband went ready to hit Laurel Fork with both dogs and some of my dad's family. When it came time to put their money
where their mouth was only one of my dad’s cousins and my husband were going to make the trek. These men had hunted, fished, camped and carried on in places like
these and maybe they didn’t want to relive it.
I had, personally, never
been on the Laurel Fork trail and were it not for the events that transpired
that Easter weekend I likely never would have. After not hearing from the
husband for several hours I knew something was up and when I called he informed me he'd lost one of the dogs.
Our Dolly is a rescue who
had been a part of our family for only a few months. She’s part hound and part
demon, her heightened energy and penchant for whining make her a lot of work.
Word soon spread through our tiny town and when family members learned that the
closest thing I’ll ever have to a child was missing in the woods it didn’t take
long before they rallied to me. Relatives showed up in droves, some of them
simply to sit in my car while I cried and threatened to divorce my husband if
we didn’t find her.
My dad hiked up on one
trail and his brother, Tim, drove up and to walk back down in from the other side. For
hours we all traversed the trails and former trails of Pine Mountain. Night fell
and still no Dolly. Cut to resurrection morning and my family in the woods
calling for a dog instead of at the sunrise service. After a break for Easter
dinner, night fell and still no Dolly.
Monday morning held a happy ending for us and Dolly. She'd had her fun and waited to be found in the parking lot at the Laurel Fork trail. Still wearing her hiking backpack and a bit worse for the wear she was ready to go home.
I like to believe her antics were a ploy to get my daddy and his brother in those woods again but maybe she is
just ornery.
