We never found the wolf trap
hyped in our Hiking Portugal guide.
It jazzed us with the blurb: Fojo do Lobo,
where hunters ambushed and slaughtered wolves.
But after a day of climbing, the light receded
and the gorse and heather thinned to gravel.
We’d reached the peak to find nothing—
except a lone performer’s side show,
the silhouette of a stallion rearing by itself
against the dimming sky, forelegs suspended
in air, statue-like but faintly moving as if
in dance. It teetered back, leaned left,
then veered forward.
As the dancer danced, we could only think
of how we hadn’t found the wolf trap.
But later the image returned to us,
a horse dancing singly against the sky.
It was something.
