He comes down the road in a rusted out Buick that's burning oil. I heard him from far off by the hole in the four-door's muffler.
It's early morning, just before dawn, and the birds are talking things over. Redwings dominate the conversation. I've also seen canary finches, woodpeckers and meadowlarks. A dipper squats on a creekside rock, bobbing and bobbing.
I raise my hand to the man in the Buick. He waves back, briefly. We've passed this way before. His dashboard is littered with styrofoam cups, beer cans and last year's mail. The back seat is a mad jumble of blankets, clothes, boxes and utensils. He doesn't smile.
The man's been camping out again; I know the place. I've found where his tracks leave the road and bend toward the river. He parks in a willow grove, close to a streambank where fishermen have left deep ruts with their four-wheel-drives. He's on his way to work, I think, or headed back to whatever town he's drifted here from; the plates say Arizona.
There's plenty of work hereabouts these days. There's a lot of construction going on and laborers are in demand, for the fair weather months at least. A full day's pay for a full day's work. What there isn't much of is low-cost rental housing, the kind of one-room flats or cheap motel rooms that itinerant workers usually occupy.
Guys like the man in the Buick, who haven't found a spare room or a friend's sofa, end up in the forests out here beyond the edge of town with a bedroll and a six-pack. Some would rent a place in town if they could find it, or if they can come up with the first-last-and-deposit; others keep to the woods by choice because they're usually private and unobserved.
County sheriffs fret about these campers. Some may linger for weeks, months; litter is a problem, and crime. No one wants to patrol such places. No one wants to evict people who have nowhere else to go.
A few years back I traveled with an Oregon game warden on his rounds through the backcountry of the Cascade Range. It was in the year following mountain man Claude Dallas' killing of two Idaho game officers. "You never know who you're going to run into out here," he told me. "Some of these guys have felony warrants out against them and if I bring them in on a poaching charge it could mean prison."
Rural places have long been a favorite campsite of fugitives and lawlessness.
"Keep behind my left shoulder," the game warden said as we stepped out of his truck to check out two anglers.
"Why?" I asked. He patted the gun holstered on his right hip.
On an evening stroll down by the river I hear gunshots or firecrackers. A pickup climbs the bank toward me, its headlights dancing across the roadway. I step aside, watching its approach from the shadows. Though I'm just a few yards away, my stillness hides me. Inside the cab there are three of them, dark shapes against the afterglow. The truck's radio cries out for them: "True love is hard to find... You know that... true love is... true love is... true love is hard to find."
The next day I find beer cans, a scorched metal plate someone cooked steaks upon and latex traces of outdoor love. Pieces of scrap lumber are stacked beside a fire ring. The ring is perfectly circular, made of stones two deep. It's the kind of work a Boy Scout would do, I think as I kneel beside the fire where the coals are still warm. For this, someone could earn a merit badge. Outrider.