Leader of the pack

There's a curious incident I've been meaning to mention ever since it happened a couple of weeks ago. Longing for some legwork and fresh air, Penelope and I decided to make a day of it on the mountain that overlooks our town, Plomari. The mountain rises from the sea in a sheer mass and crests at about 2000 feet before trailing into a ridge that brackets our section of the island. Other than a tufting of cypresses and radio towers at the summit, the massif is covered almost entirely in olives. The better part of the natural setting here can be described like this: Looking west from Plomari, the left part of the frame is made up of tranquil Aeagean waters, and the right part by the great green mountain. Climbing it had actually been one of my first acts back in April, when freshly landed here from my winter in the Bitterroots. I will post a picture of the view to this site soon.

It took about 3 hours to hike from our house to the top, where we broke for a lunch of homemade pizza and sweet potato pie. For a while we stretched out on the pine needles, hearing birdsong interlace with the hum of the radio tower's electrical equipment as late afternoon filtered through the trees. But the idyll passed, as all things must, and we gathered our things for the walk back down. Our legs had been pretty spent on the ascent, and the way down seemed to drag on for as long as the way up. This was a good thing. Every turn in the path offered vistas that were bucolic, majestic, or both. I was profoundly happy to be standing where I was when the sun ducked behind the mountain and the colors deepened into shades of buoyant, almost painful beauty. As we picked our way down I was also pleased and disgruntled to find fistfuls of shotgun shells: Pleased because it indicated that hunting fowl and other small game is part of the Lesbian way of life, disgruntled because the hunters hadn't bothered to pick up after their fun. And I say 'fistfuls' because I fetched them up and took them home.

Dusk approached. Passing through a village called Katoxorio, we paused to ask a man doing some yard-work if he knew where we might buy a bottle of water. He said there were no shops in town, but that he'd be happy to mix us up a little batch of orange drink. He was an Englishman--a Mancunian, to judge by the accent. He made us a gift of the bug-juice, and we thanked him. As we set off again, he called out after us with a tip. Don't take the road, he said. Take the path that branches off to the left after that house there. There, you see it? Take a left that way and just keep walking. It will take you straight into Plomari.

We did fork left and follow the path. At first it was much the same as the other paths we had followed that day. Rocky footing, olive trees, stone walls, the occasional shepherd's lean-to. Suddenly the path turned into a paved road just a little wider than the wheelbase of an average car. The surface was corrugated in a herringbone pattern which led the eye down the road--and into a gorge, at what seemed to be something near a 45 degree angle. About halfway down we paused to reconsider. When we turned around to see the road looming above us, our legs would not hear of a retreat. We were committed. We tramped on until the grade bottomed out, snaked, and began to rise again--perhaps not as sharply as what we'd come down, but it was bad enough. Who on earth had the road been built for? We had plenty of time to ponder the question. Once we'd crested the rise, the road plunged back down into the gully, only to rise again. And so on, for the better part of twenty minutes. At last the pavement broke off into dirt, and the road emerged from the roller-coaster gulley to wrap around the side of the small hill between us and Plomari. We were nearly there.

Bahh! Beeeee-eh! We surveyed the slope above us and saw a herd of goats. Penelope bleated a rejoinder in goatish: Behhh! They must not have understood her idiom, and did not say anything in response. I decided to try out my own goatish. Be-e-e-e-e-e-eh! This got them. They said beeee-eee-e-e-e! I said be-e-e-e-e-e-e-eee-e! and they said beeeehh-e-e! Then they started moving, as if one of them had said, Come on guys, let's follow these guys! Or maybe, Let's get 'em! Two or three very uncomfortable minutes ensued. The goats followed after. We quickened our steps; they quickened theirs. They closed, grunting, hooves clattering. Penelope turned around to admonish them. They stopped to consider her words, but must have understood even less Greek than I do; they resumed their pursuit as soon as we started down the path. I had the very peculiar sensation that we might actually fall afoul of a goat stampede. We were considering making a run for it when we rounded a boulder and were met by a very angry little shepherd dog that saved us the ignominy of having to flee from small livestock. No bigger than a terrier, the dog snapped at our heels and proceeded to herd the goats, numbering fifty or more, into their pen. Everyone understood exactly what the little dog was saying.

I've never fancied myself a leader of men. At least I know I have what it takes to lead goats--though perhaps I should familiarize myself with the meaning of what I'm saying before I say it.