A table for five anyone?

‘Did you see anything?’

‘Some mule deer’, I answer, ‘making their way down to the lodge for their evening treats.’

‘Many birds?’

‘Nothing I recognised, but you could’ve probably put names to them.
A slow smile lights up Vernon’s eyes and then spreads right on through him as he nods in acknowledgement of my gentle flattery. He zips up his windcheater against the cool evening air and turns to look up the hillside, anxious to move on.

‘Think I’ll head up there and take a look’, he says, tapping the binoculars that hang around his neck, ‘although it’s still a mite cold for the migratory birds to be this far north.

I watch him walk away as he moves swiftly along the single track that winds through the dried-out meadow of last summer’s Rudbeckia and up into the trees beyond.

Vernon has driven down from Michigan with his wife Barbra for a week’s bird watching, but the weather here has been unseasonably cold and the smaller birds, insect and seed eaters, are still south of the Rio Grand, waiting for some spring warmth to draw them across the border. He’s disappointed, but is trying his best not to show it, filling time by signing up for a day-long ranger tour of the surrounding Gila National Forest and also visiting the massive crater in the mountainside east of town where copper has been gauged, blasted, shipped out, used up and since abandoned by the mining companies, leaving a scar you can see from space.

I‘m staying at Bear Mountain Lodge, about three miles out on the northern limits of Silver City. Set in 178 acres, the original adobe hacienda dates back to the 1920’s and was then run as a ranch, cattle grazing on the surrounding slopes. But any grass was soon cleared and the juniper pines that now cover much of New Mexico moved in, making the continued raising of livestock unviable. The owner, not wishing to leave, opened the house to paying guests, provided bed and breakfast and turned the land over to whatever wildlife settled or passed through. When she died, with no close blood relatives she ensured the future sanctity of the land by leaving it to The Nature Conservancy, who remain as its present owners.

Meals at the lodge, breakfast and dinner, are served in a communal dining room and the staff ensure that the atmosphere is friendly and informal. This, together with the distance from town and a common interest in ecology and the environment, encourages greater interaction than is usual in the anonymous, transient world of chain motels and hotel lodgings. As Farquhar, the mystery Englishman, I’m much in demand as a table guest and in the lounge afterwards, although my first evening meal here was taken alone, providing the opportunity to listen to all surrounding conversations masked by the pretence of reading a book. It was Orson Wells who said that dining alone will hold no stigma or be a cause for loose gossip and unwelcome speculation if one’s attention is given over to the activity of reading intently while one eats. It works. But, when, next morning I neglected to take my book into breakfast I was soon engaged in discourse and have had no call to take the paperback beyond the confines of my room again.

Aside from Vernon and Barbra, there’s Louis and Denise, also from Michigan, Larry and Jean from New York State, George and Betty from Illinois and Guy and Hilary from California. Tact and diplomacy are put severely to the test as I juggle the requests to join one table or another without appearing to favour one above the rest. Balance is possible and cordial relations are maintained by joining one or more of the eager couples for coffee in the lounge after the meal is completed, thus ensuring that I am seen to spread my favours evenly.

Conversations range wide and far, covering everything from conservation, terrorism (or ‘tourism’ as pronounced by George Doubleya), drought, immigration, through to a performance of The Who at the LCP in 1968 and the fact that fish and chips don’t come wrapped in newspaper any more. Fascinating stuff. And they can’t get enough of it. Tonight it’s blackened catfish, a dinner date with Vernon and Barbra and possibly Larry and Jean if we can get the big table. My mouth is watering in anticipation.