The Re-discoverer

Is there a proper name for what I do? I like to think of myself as a re-discoverer. Everywhere I go has already been inhabited and then abandoned. I retrace the steps of the people who let the property go to seed or grow over while kept in legal limbo. For so long unbound by human will, nature has stepped in to reclaim it. My business card calls me a Property Assessor, but I am a re-discoverer who found their perfect job.

People ask me if I ever get lonely on the multiple nights of solo camping this job often requires. It melds with my passion for landscape and ‘found things’ photography. Plus, I am a comfortable introvert. Give me an abandoned field to camp in with a blanket of stars to evoke my creative spirit, a journal, a few good books, and my camera. I invested in my camping gear so I’m amazingly comfortable. My favourite kind of week is three days at home - where my best furniture, by far, is my bed, for recovery purposes, and four days out in the wild, going where the company sends me to verify land surveys, property value, dwellings, and contents.

It started with hiking. When I was younger, I would go and take the trails but increasingly I found myself straying from the path. My mother says my competitive nature must have been roused by the thought of seeing the things nobody else looks for. She always makes sure I’m wearing my GPS keyring on my pants. She says if she can check her computer and see where my pants are, she's happy. I take the keychain off its hook and weave it directly through the belt loop of my hiking pants. It’s more out of sentiment than for safety. I have check-ins with my company at the end of each workday and all my tech is fitted with geo-tracking.

In places left to nature, I find my muse. Like the shadow box of beetles, I found nailed to a tree by a lonesome waterfall. I kept that one. It was rotting and the glass was slipping out of the bottom right corner of the frame but miraculously not broken. After the photoshoot I gently lifted it down from its vigil, careful of its broken place, and brought it home with me, wrapped in a towel and strapped to my pack. I was able to save the shiny beetles, pinned to their cheesecloth, and transfer them over to the new shadowbox I painted yellow. I added a key ring hook to the bottom and hung it near the front door. A foundling with a makeover and a new home, a purpose. It makes me smile every day. The other things I photograph I’ve left to let nature continue its course.

Trees wearing tin can bands, old stone wells bursting with healthy maples, iron brought down by rain, weakened while the wind and vines worked opposing forces on it until it submits to the earth. When I’m out in the uninhabited places, in the quiet, I’m happy to see mother nature getting some blows in against mankind's intrusive rudeness. Indigenous peoples left nature to its rhythms – making only temporary footprints in the land. The signs they were once there are harder to come by compared to those who stomp their metals and pour new rock to better suit their desires. Now you must look for the places left abandoned, undeveloped. That is what I do. I rediscover the forgotten places.

This morning I’m breaking camp in anticipation of heading along the eastern border of the 12-hectare property I’m surveying. So far the map that was included with the deed matches the rural county records. Today, if there is no deviation from the record, my survey will make it to the field adjacent to the barn. However much of it is left to be discovered. There I’ll make camp again to complete my assignment the following morning.

Usually, my muse for each trip will call me. Occasionally I’ll put down my work gear to snap something for my delight, but I always know when I’ve found the subject, the art worthy item. This year's most profitable finds were Springed Horse in Vines where I photographed a child's rocking horse on springs that was left abandoned around the side of a hundred-year-old shed. A yellow-flowered trumpet vine had enveloped it and the horse's face, with chipped and faded paint, seemed still set on leaping free. Wise King Owl also did well. My best guess is that the family who lived on that property used owls as signposts to keep their path through the woods. I had noticed several in various states of disrepair marking the path I took during my property survey and found the best one on the main gate. It was carved soapstone, in good condition – one horn broken – asleep on its pedestal. The draw to that one over the rest was what nature had provided in debris and overgrowth. Vines, moss, and fungus all colored the surrounding stone wall in such a way as to produce the look of a royal nest throne.

Old barns often produced a wonderful opportunity for the things I like to photograph. What gets left in the barn is long forgotten and nature has been able to have its way. This property has been left abandoned for 35 years because of a family dispute. The owner originally had a stroke back in the late eighties. It reads as though he were hospitalized and the dispute for his land began before his eyes. His own children spitting hate-fire at one another and their cousins. He decided to leave the whole 12 Hectares to a wildlife reserve upon his death. Then proceeded to live for another thirty-some years. The hearing to contest the will must be nearing as my company will provide a non-bias property assessment and evaluation. It’s been beautiful land to survey so far. Rolling hills cradling stoney brooks. The trees are tall and straight and the forest floor is covered in large green ferns. When the ferns give way to long grass, I emerge from the woods to find a low structure, the barn, still stands in the sun-bleached field. Empty windows leak darkness and a bird erupts from within. I smile.

Making efficient notes and stopping to check the well water put me next to the barn just after two pm. I decided to set camp and have a meal before exploring it, however, every time I turn my back to it, I feel I am being watched. I’d at least like to check it for signs of life. If some squatter has made a home here I’ll change my plans for camp. I leave my large pack and only take my messenger bag of work gear, my recorder for making content notes, and my camera. The small pack contains a flashlight and some bear spray as well.

An overgrown mulberry bush prevents walking directly to the face of the barn from where I am, so I circle around. Immediately after seeing the open door, I know I'm not alone. The rest of the property is still, the energy here has been recently stirred.

“Hello?” I say into the barn. The silence seems uncomfortable with the lack of response. I try again. “Hellllleewoo!” nerves taking the end of the greeting away from me.

I’m about to turn away, abort my plans, and head for the road, when a large man in coveralls and rubber boots steps from behind one side of the door frame.

We both gasp and step back at the same time. He plucks an earbud from one ear saying,

“Jesus. Sorry, I didn’t hear you – I’m working on my truck – ah, who are you?”

“Oh. Yes, sorry. I’m Jill. I work for Viddael Surveys. We are doing a survey of this property. I was going to have a look at the barn. The contents? But if you’ve...occupied it...I can defer it...I’ll come back another day.” I say, and begin to make space between myself and the big man. He’s drying his hands on a blue microfiber cloth, smiling, and taking steps toward me.

“Del” he says as he extends his hand, smiling.

“Jill” I repeat and reach my hand out towards him.

“Sorry, Jill” he says as he grabs my hand hard, pulling me forward, I trip into the knee he’s already raising to meet my face. A lightning bolt, then darkness.

I regain consciousness to the sound of crying. Gentle sobs. If not for the pain of my mouth and nose, I could have thought the sobs were my own. Since lying here barely conscious is pain enough then sobbing would surely be insufferable. My eyes are swollen shut.

“Ugh” I manage and taste blood as a reward.

“Oh my god, oh my god. Thank god.” There is a shuffling sound, the hay bedding I’m lying in shifts. “He said you might be dead. Oh hon, your face...it’s bad...” The voice says and some flighty hands grasp mine for a quick and shaky moment. “I thought...I thought you were the hero I’ve been praying for...but now we are in this hell together.”

“Whauphhck” I gurgle.

I feel her come closer. “He’s gone through your things. Left everything on and is going to dump it at a local motel. Buy some time to get away from here. It’s the same as he did for me. I was hitchhiking though, not safe, as it turns out. If I ever get to see my Mom again, I have no problem telling her she's right. So he will buy some time and then move us. I hate moving because the whole unit goes under a drop cloth, and it gets so hot under there. I'm happy the times I pass out. At night it won’t be so bad” she rambles on and I pry an eye open. I recognize a form beside me, a young woman, laying in the hay as if this is a slumber party.

We are in a cage. It’s proportionately human-sized. Both of us fit to lie like this and sit up too, but only one end of the cage is standing height. The girl sees me looking at our enclosure and says, “he transports reptiles. Puts a few decoy snakes on this part,” taps the roof of the lower portion, "in case any trailer inspectors decide to poke around. Snakes make them change their minds fast. The rest closes in a solid metal that looks like lots of little doors. It says ‘live animals” on it. I don’t know too many truck inspectors that want to poke around mystery reptile compartments on the off chance there's a secret, hidden compartment for missing girls.” She laughs, once, snorts and sobs again. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry” she says, then quiets and stiffens beside me as we hear the man return.

“Lots of fancy equipment on her...too bad it all had to go.” He says and I lie perfectly still as I feel his eyes trail over me. Small hinges squeak as he begins to fold the decoy walls up.

“No” my companion says. “She's dead. Leave her here. Don’t make me ride in the dark with it. Please?”

“Just till we are away from all the signals this one bounced around, my pet. Not too far. Be good” he says, and things go dark. There is scraping and shuffling as the enclosure is deeked out with reptiles. Then we are lifted, hydraulically. The vibrations lighting up the pain in my broken jaw.

I feel her crawl close to me again and she whispers, “I tried.”

On the verge of consciousness, visions of owls come to me. Signposts pointing the way. Then my beetles in their shadowbox, a keychain dangling from its hook. Fear keeps me conscious long enough to verify I have it.

The GPS keychain is looped securely to my pants.