Adamana Road Part Three: Atlas Herds the Desert Cows
We took one overnight hike in the desert and one run in the desert. One planned, the other we’ll call an instinctual delight.
I will be adding a fourth bonus story to the Adamana Road Series because it is just too much to fit here. Making it a harmonious quartet! In the meantime enjoy a traipse through the desert below.
I don’t know why I bring my phone with me for my morning constitution, I don’t usually. But I end up glad I did. I toss on a crop top and pajama shorts, and my yellow calf high rain boots. Nothing like pooping in nature, no. nothing. Sunrise and a breeze. Solitude.
The desert cows are closer to the yard than normal, but I don’t think much of it. Turns out Atlas, our aussie mix with the world in his eyes did think much of it. I’ve got a good squat on with my shorts at my ankles, Atlas is sniffing the air and whining, at the cows, not my morning movement.
“You stay, uh-uh. Sit. Stay.”
I feel him about to take off and thank my prayers I am mid wipe when he did and not any sooner because I mean he fully committed. No hesitation. He is under the fence and at the heels of cows in olympic time. I dart under the fence and zoom after him. I whisper yell because it's like five in the morning and Emmett is still asleep.
“Atlas! Come back here! Atlas come!”
Now he is herding desert cows, big freaking cows. He’s got like 13 trotting together. Even if I could get close enough to him to grab him, I would be afraid of getting knocked by one of those beasts. I am well far into the valley by this point, actually yelling for him now and losing my voice no less.
“Atlas for real come back!”
I am starting to get worried because my heel is rubbing in my rubber boot and I am not keeping up by a long shot. He’s got another set of ten cows corralling and barreling towards his grazing 13 now, deeper into the valley we herd. I remember my phone in my hand. I thank my angels and call Emmett breathless.
“Hello?”
Panting, and at the time tearing up. Many things run through your head when you are running wild in the desert. Well, I am wild, Atlas is in his element, insync with his instinct, totally has his shit together.
The thoughts though, one, my footwear is garbage, two, it's easy to get turned around and lost in the peaks in valleys of the landscape and we’ve been sprinting full force away from the compound for thirty minutes and three, rattlers. Thank Goddess I have signal.
“Emmett! Atlas is herding the desert cows, I can’t call him off. I need your help!”
I imagine he pokes his head out the camper door.
“I can’t see you, where are you?”
“Way back past the end of the property.”
I see the truck, the biggest bull of the desert drive down to the end of the property and realize that we are so far away. It's like an optical illusion, distance doesn’t make sense. I see Emmett, shirtless in gym shorts, his hiking boots on, hop out of the car. I am jumping up and down,
“do you see me? He’s past me, run towards me!”
I continue to watch in awe and worry as Atlas has the literal time of his life. I try to shout for him again.
“Atlas please let's go home!”
But who am I kidding, there is no way he wants to get back in bed after what I imagine to be Coachella for herding dogs. Emmett reaches me after about ten minutes and like an athlete training for distance he methodically and with ease runs past me, onwards into the desert. I turn and gaze after him dreamily, seriously, what a dreamboat.
“But who am I kidding, there is no way he wants to get back in bed after what I imagine to be Coachella for herding dogs. ”
I follow behind in the direction of the commotion but with no voice and no intention of catching up. We are getting to a flatter chunk of desert, there is a trailer. Looks lived in. never seen it before. I see Emmett at Atlas’s hind. Atlas turns and looks at him like,
“oh my dude! So happy you could make it to my show! Just finishing up!”
And he is, it appears he wanted to herd the desert cows to this trailer in the middle of nowhere. Emmett rushed out to us so he forgot to grab the leash. As they are walking back towards me and the sun is heating our sore muscles, I notice he’s taken a shoelace from his boot and has fashioned it into a cute little fairy leash. I giggle.
“I forgot the leash.”
He is panting.
Neither of us have it in us to discipline the dog, we are both just really impressed and happy everyone is okay. It takes about an hour to walk back. Atlas is worn out and so are we. We have a chill rest of the day. Mark stops by later,
“No evening walk tonight?”
We laugh,
“no, Atlas took us for a run this morning through the desert, herding those cows.”
“Well dang, how far did you go?”
“Down to a trailer we’ve never seen before, by the railroad track.”
“That’s a ten mile adventure right there.”
And that is the story of Atlas’s premier herding show and how we unintentionally ran ten miles in the desert without crossing a single rattlesnake.