Accidental Mexico and the Mothership (a nice outing)

Mrs. Weaver and I used to do a lot of rock hounding when we lived in Tucson. It was a great way to explore our new state, and provided both recreation and economic opportunities. One of our favorite spots was just a few miles from the Mexican border. Our first visit, on the way home, we saw an unidentified object in the sky. We had to follow it. We'd had grand adventures already that day, but we could not have expected what awaited us.

I bought a bundle of old west tourist booklets at the swap meet, and included among the mandatory “Death Valley Scotty” and “Lost Dutchman Mine” tracts was a book of Arizona Rock and Mineral sites from 1954. People would tell me these places had been picked clean years ago, but a generation later, erosion and percolation would present new material. We also found a lot of good rock exploring near well known areas. We failed to locate either of our targets for the day, but found so much more than if we had.

The page from the map book read “Patagonia Area” and showed two promising sites. One was an Agate collecting area, and the other was an old mining town that no longer existed. Pavement ran out before we were through Patagonia, but the road was very good until our turnoff to the Agates. The side road only traveled about ten feet before it dropped into a creek. We continued south toward the Ghost Town, hoping to find another, more viable side road but nope. That was the one.

I watched the odometer, guessing where this old mining town was, but at the proper mileage, we saw nothing to report. Another half mile and we came to a crossroads, but there were no signs or evidence of tailings or anything so we just kept driving. We were out of the desert now, into some big trees and lush vegetation. We passed moving water twice.

I loved driving the dirt roads. As a fugitive, any time I was behind the wheel was a nervous time for me. If I should get pulled over for anything, it could be my last day as a free man. I didn't sweat it on the dirt. It was my land. It was freedom. I was toking a lefty and just idling through the forest on a two rut track without a care in the world when we passed a small sign, square, just inches across. I backed up to read it.

“U.S. National Border”.

Shit. My illegal ass just snuck into Mexico.

And back.

I'd like to say I had the sense to stop right there and let Mrs. Weaver drive, but I didn't. They had to be watching the fucking border, right? This was a trick wasn't it? DEA Guerrillas in the trees (!) and facial recognition software and oh fuck just look natural and turn this car the hell around. Act natural. Pretend like the doobie is a cigarette. Don't look in the mirror! don't look in the mirror! don'tlookinthe mirror!

There were no Guerrillas in the trees. No Stool Pigeons. No Rats. It was fine. The paranoia passed. We doubled back to the road that dropped in the creek and I got out to breathe and look for dust clouds behind us. No Guerrillas.

The creek flowed north to south, and disappeared around a bend to the west after about a hundred feet. The creek bottom was solid rock, not gravel or sand, and the water was barely over my ankles. I sold the idea to Mrs. Weaver and downstream we drove through the creek, around the corner, and the road popped up on the other side of a low hill after about 150 yards. There was a 70 foot mud cliff where we exited, and I thought I saw something sparkling in the face of it. We got barely another mile, and the road took to a hill that was too much for our sedan to climb. It was made up of big goonie rocks like basketballs. I turned the car around and went to check out that sparkling cliff.

Still no Guerrillas.

Mrs. Weaver set up the picnic, and I set across to check out the geology. The sparkles in the cliff were Selenite crystals. Nice ones; nearly a foot long and clear with globular inclusions of the same clay that made up the cliff. (In years to come I would do well carving these and selling them as wands and athames in the new age shops on fourth avenue). It was a nice afternoon. I've returned to this spot many times. We even brought our daughter as an infant. I considered filing a mining claim there at one point. I still haven't ruled it out.

About two in the afternoon, we loaded up for the return trip. There were some spots at the base of the Santa Ritas I wanted to check out. This time, Mrs. Weaver drove, for legality's sake. North to Patagonia and then northeast to Sonoita. There was a gas station there with the best Broasted chicken, but we didn't know that yet and got a bag of chips and sodas for the ride home. I waited in the car while Mrs. Weaver shopped. That's when I saw it.

At first I thought it was a cloud, but there were a few other sparse clouds and they were moving in unison. This one just hung there. I thought it might be the moon for a minute, but the shape was wrong. Besides, the moon was over there. I forgot all about Guerillas. What the fuck was this? When Mrs. Weaver returned, I ran back through that train of thought and she was as bewildered as I.

It was obviously a mothership and we needed to follow it. Mrs. Weaver took back the wheel, and I commenced to navigating and rolling the stash. If I was going to be an emissary to otherworldly creatures, I was going to vibrate at the right frequency. Also it would be a good way to ditch the evidence before the Guerrillas show up, be they DEA or X-Files. Things were about to get stranger than we expected.

We took the 83 south of Sonoita until it turned to dirt, then just followed the mother ship.

Turning on one dirt road after another headed steadily southeast. This was scrub desert for a while; Creosote bush, Prickly Pear, Cholla. We dropped into a valley and suddenly thought we were on private property. It was an old Spanish Mission, with church, ranch house, and outbuildings. It was populated by little brown people in great striped shirts who stared at us as we idled through. I wondered for a minute if we'd crossed into Mexico again, but we'd gone much farther east than south at this point.

More scrub desert forever, then around a corner and there were Teepees! I was about to warn Mrs. Weaver that we were in Injun Country, when I saw the chuck wagon and about twenty cowboys on horseback riding toward us. We'd wondered into a roundup! They stared us down less friendly than the brown people back the way, so we idled down and waited for them to pass.

Another mile or two and a corner and we dropped down into a lush riperian area and an old covered bridge. Mrs. Weaver stopped on the bridge, and I asked what the problem was. She pointed out that the bridge only went halfway. The roof was all there, as were two I beams spanning the water. But the floor of the bridge only went about fifteen feet across then stopped. I got out to take a look.

The important part of the bridge was made up of two by tens laying across the I beams. After about three feet in front of the car, they stopped. I had an idea, but I thought it was going to be harder selling it to Mrs. Weaver than it was. She was a trooper, and let me move planks from the back of the car to the front as she inched her way across. I was very proud of her that night, she obviously understood the import of chasing spaceships in the Sonoran Desert. The local flora prevented us seeing the sky for a while. It was maybe another five miles before we could see the “mothership” and shortly after that we hit a roadblock.

The road ended at the base of some mountains in a wooden barricade. The barricade was facing the other way, so we couldn't read it. I got out and climbed the fence to read it. It said “Government Property: No Trespassing”. We were on the wrong side! How did this happen? What about the cowboys and little brown people? They didn't look like Feds? Fuck! Now we had to go across that goddamned bridge again! Guerrillas! Guerillas!

Still no Guerrillas. But the mothership was right above us. I scanned the perimeter one more time for Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, or Spielberg, then we headed back. We crossed the bridge in record time (#MrsWeaverisatrooper) and didn't stop until we caught up with the last straggling cowpoke. Exasperated, I implored him for an explanation, which he was happy to give a couple of Hoosier greenhorns like us.

The “mothership” was a spy balloon, one of several watching the border, and monitored by an army base just north of us. Turns out the Guerrillas were watching us. They were just much higher than the trees.

So was I.

Police complicity in the deaths of thousands

The crack epidemic was engineered to take down the poor black man. The Meth epidemic is engineered to weed out the ignorant white people. For every one pot meth lab busted, fifteen bigger dealers go free...and they (as snitches) provide the fodder to make the system look like its doing it's job. Nobody's trying to take any of the dangerous drugs off the street. It is all just a numbers game to generate revenue and control the populace. Heroin, Meth, they do not care who lives and dies! Save your town! Stop the cycle. No more get out of jail free for snitches. Stop police sanctified sales of hard drugs!

They put everything they seize back on the street! That's why I am free. Those awesome blue squares of LSD with gold stars...The cops sold them as part of their "investigations". Proof enough. If they cared and wanted the drugs off the streets, IF THEY GAVE A SHIT! they wouldn't put them back out there after they were confiscated. They do this with DANGEROUS DRUGS TOO! Heroin they confiscate? Back on the street. Meth they confiscate? Back on the street. And you call them heroes.

"We don't want to bust people for crack and hard drugs, because they're junkies. They don't own anything. People with marijuana, people with LSD, they have bank accounts. They own property. That's who we want, people with something to lose". - Muncie Police (1992)
It is these policies that advanced things to where they are today

"Talk to the arresting officers, they have authority to make decisions in this instance" -Rick Reed, former prosecutor

"I am probably the most intelligent man in Delaware County and I am telling you, if you try to run, you will never make it. You need to talk to Rick Reed. I made you an appointment. He's waiting". - Geoffrey Rivers, Public Pretender.

"They are going to hang you, boy. Don't you know Americans hate drugs"? -jailhouse guard

"Where have you been getting your information? America LOVES drugs!"-TSB

  It's not about me now. I had my time. People are dying. Towns are dying. Our children are dying, and this is why. Fuck you war on drugs and fuck you war on drug mongers. I have a lot of fun with my story, but this part of it really pisses me off.

Anasazi Bellows Part III

I slept fourteen hours. The nearby white noise of rushing water was not only relaxing, but served to drown out any campground revelry. I probably would have slept even more, but was awakened by a klaxon and rose to investigate.

I found myself in a mesquite grove at the bottom of a mountain. There was a steep rock wall to the rear of my tent, and a slow moving river about a hundred and fifty feet in front of me. There were several camps set up along and in front of my own. The alarm soon ceased and I found it wise to locate the shitter we passed on the way in before investigating my whereabouts.

On the way there, I passed the dog-catcher's truck. I thought it odd that there would be such services this far into the wild. I waved and the woman driving stopped to tell me she had come on the report of a vicious dog and asked if I had seen one, I told her I had not. I later learned that Goat's puppy had bitten somebody and they had gone to town and reported it.

Wandering around, I noticed stuffed animals hanging in the trees and lurking behind rocks. As I continued, I began seeing eggs; both boiled and plastic. I hadn't realized it was Easter.

I spotted some signs and verified that I was at Childs campground on the Verde river. I had studied this area at the library, hoping someday to visit. I hadn't planned on it, as the road was too long and dry to hike (for my purposes anyway). I worried how I would ever get out of here.

There was no vehicle at the camp across from me, but a rafter had drifted in, and older guy, and he crossed the path to introduce himself as Frank. He asked me if I had ever had Apple Pie. I thought that odd. “Of course”, I replied. “No” he said, “I mean APPLE PIE!”. I conceded that perhaps I hadn't. He asked if I had a cup and, producing one for him, he dashed back to his camp and poured me a few fingers. “It's a local favorite”, he told me, and urged me to try it. It was delicious. Cider and apple juice and cinnamon and spices. “It's made with everclear”, he divulged, “Be careful”. And he went on his way.

I sat there, in front of my tent, enjoying my sweet, fruity breakfast. It wasn't long before another gentleman came by with a prosthetic leg and invited me to a pancake breakfast, to which he said the entire camp was invited. I followed him to the shade of a Mulberry tree where indeed, the entire camp had assembled. Ron started on the flapjacks and his wife, Penny, busied herself giving haircuts to the hippies. Barely sprouting stubble, I would wait a year to avail myself of this kindness. I learned that it was Ron and Penny who had hidden the toys and treats for the kids, and that it was an annual endeavor for them.

Johnny, the naked kid from the night before, was there in filthy jeans. Goat was with him and dragging a gallon wine jug full of keg beer on a leash. Goat handed me a sack of grass. “What's this”? I asked. “You said you didn't have any” he said. “Enjoy”. Then he tried to sell me some rocks. I traded some lapis I had worked for a local crystal. That month, everybody I met got a piece of lapis or malachite from me.

The shy guy, in the hat with the fire-dick diagnosis was standing off to the side (as he does) and motioned me to come over. He asked if I had any pot and handed me a carrot.

The strangeness and incongruity of this group of people and the words they used seemed to have no end.

“Turn it over” he told me. Turns out, the carrot was a pipe. “Rangers don't think anything of a black old rubbery carrot in the bottom of your pack”. He smiled and pulled a small drill bit from his pocket, explaining that it was better to carry fruits and veggies and a drill bit than a pipe around these parts. “There's a ranger here called Frau Bluecher”, he warned me, “and she's a real ball buster.

Rusty had a white Toyota van and a little dog that looked like a cross between a Jack Russel and a Javelina and behaved likewise. He also wore the most magnificent hat. He called it a Dorfman. While we talked and smoked, a white truck had joined up with Frank. A woman and a young man with coke bottle glasses and an enormous grin got out. Not long after, a Sherrif's SUV showed up at their camp with a Ranger behind.

All the authority this morning was making me nervous. It appeared Rusty felt the same and he suggested we walk. We went south as far as the trail would allow. Rusty would occasionaly dash up a hill or reach into the bushes and retrieve some piece of camping gear he had previously stashed. He gave me a grill grate from up a wash. I still have it, as well as the Dorfman, but the hat didn't come into my possesion for another year.

On the way back to camp, we saw the ranger, in fact Frau Bluecher, with a clipboard writing down peoples license plates. Rusty said “Hey sis! How are you doing”? “Fine”, she replied, “and you”? Rusty gave her a sly look that I would learn often proceeded a sally of wit and asked if she was German by descent. “Why yes”, she said. “Why do you ask”?

Rusty gave her that squinty eyed crosswise look and said “Because you're acting like a fucking Nazi, that's why!”

I walked the other way, pretending not to know him, and asked a few different people how to get to the Hot Springs. I received as many different directions as people I asked. I ended up following footprints north, and actually found it. Turns out the klaxon I had heard was the alert that the power plant to the north was going to open the turbines. It was a warning to steer clear. The white noise that gave me such restful sleep, was the turbines, churning out water from Fossil Creek.

I returned to camp about an hour before dusk. Ron and Penny had left, and Rusty was at Frank's camp with Dee, Mikey, Goat, and Johnny. There was a fire going and people kept blowing through their fingers at the coals to stoke it up when it died down. This was curious to me, as it was a mannerism I had never seen before.

Rusty cut the fat from a pork loin and threw it on the grill grate. It was a sheet about 18 inches square. Vultures circled overhead. We drank Apple Pie and laughed at the vultures. When the fat was cooked, Johnny and Goat fell upon it, gnashing it with their teeth, oils dripping and running down their elbows. Sated, they moved on and Rusty cooked the loin for the rest of us.

By the time it was done, Dee was passed out in her truck and Mikey had bloodied himself falling down while professing for the umpteenth time that “I believe in US man, I believe IN US!”. The Apple Pie was taking it's toll.

I asked Rusty about the blowing through the fingers, because it seemed so affected and I couldn't see how it was effectual. I'd noticed people at different camps doing it.

“The Anasazi's came down once, and taught us all that”, he said. Everybody nodded in understanding.

Once again, I was bewildered at the customs and language of these people. I was under the impression that the Anasazi tribe had disappeared or died out a thousand years ago. I stated as much, wondering if there was a lost sect hiding out here.

It turns out the Anasazi Rusty referred to were a group of troubled youth who were sent out to a camp a few miles south to learn responsibility through hardship and survival in the desert. Apparently, they would sneak off in the night and party with the hot springers. Since then, the project had been shut down.

Their technique, silly as it may look, is a very effective way to coax fire from coals.

To do this, take your thumb and index finger and hold them together like you would if holding a joint. Now do it with your other thumb and forefinger. If you push the two together, you will see a diamond shape about one quarter inch across. If you place this diamond to your lips, it has the property of focusing your breath into a concentrated stream. It works really well, and prevents the hyperventilation sometimes experienced by normal blowing on coals. I call it the Anasazi Bellows.

The Anasazi Bellows Part II of III First Trip to the Hot Springs

I disembarked from the Greyhound behind a motel in Camp Verde. The sun was behind the mountains and wouldn't show itself until it rose on Easter Morning. I had to go all the way to the other side of town on Hwy 260 and didn't want to be tramping after dark in an unfamiliar municipality. What's more, with my two oversized duffels, I had to hike ahead with one and return for the other; suspicious behavior.

Lacking a government issued ID, I couldn't get a room for the night. I could talk my way into lodging at a mom and pop operation with any number of excuses. “My pocket was picked on the bus” and “I had a fight with my wife and left without my wallet. It's best I wait for her to cool off” are a couple I had used successfully over the years. I particularly liked the one about the pickpocket, because it made me look like a rube. I played the yokel card often. People aren't so wary of hayseeds, yokels, or rubes, and those conditions help cover possible inconsistencies. I often looked to Woody Harrelson for inspiration. His characters in “Cheers” and “White Men Can't Jump” were largely above suspicion with their portrayal of corn fed Indiana innocence; a role I had a face for and can play well. Unfortunately, these motels were all national chains. I learned that if you are poor or on the road, Corporate America could give a shit if they have your business or not. I bet they wouldn't let Woody Harrelson himself stay there without proper documents.

I found a Denny's, left my bags in the foyer, and asked for a booth where I could watch them. I was famished. I hadn't eaten since sun up. I ordered an omelet with everything, well done hash browns, and a side of slaw. I love slaw. Soon, I would have to subsist on hard rations. After my meal, I ordered coffee and asked for the manager.

I told her that I was headed out to hike the General Crook Trail and delays had brought me to town a little late to begin. She gave me permission to review my maps and journals over coffee in her establishment until morning, provided I tip the servers generously.

It was raining when morning came. The waitress who served me most of the night hooked me up with a ride to the other side of town with the night cook. He dropped me off at a combination Shell Station and Indian Tobacco joint called “Ernies”.

I left my bags on the sidewalk in front of the store and went inside. I bought a can of tobacco, rolling papers, lighters, a large cup of coffee, and a six pack of hostess chocolate doughnuts. There were a couple of booths in the store, but I went outside for my coffee and doughnuts so I could have a smoke.

I'm sure I looked bad. My head was sunburnt and peeling and just starting to show stubble. It was my third day on the road in these clothes. My lips were chapped and cracked, and I hadn't slept since Chavez Park. The doughnuts were gone and I was standing under the awning next to my bags with a cigarette and coffee when Ernie showed up. He didn't like the looks of me.

He told me to leave because he wasn't going to have me bothering his customers. I told him that in spite of appearances, I was no panhandler. I had patronized his establishment and was just finishing my coffee and cigarette before I hit the General Crook trail. He became irate. Actually, he was a giant asshole and threatened me with the police if I didn't leave. Thinking I would have been better off at a booth inside, I carried first one bag and then the other to the edge of a bridge over the Verde River where I would resume my journey. I was tired and angry and distraught. I'd had enough of society for a while. It had been a rough couple of days. All I had to do was make it a few more miles, and I could set up camp and sleep.

That asshole Ernie (he didn't look like an Indian to me), must have called the cops because it wasn't long before a white car pulled up with U.S. Marshall emblazoned on it's side.

I've mentioned before my thoughts on the various branches of law enforcement. City and county cops didn't worry me much, but feds are a little smarter, a little more educated, and have a lot more resources. As Americans, we are subjected to the scrutiny of local law almost constantly. It is a matter of course, for both them and us, to interact in an official capacity. Because of this familiarity, and their limited perspective, I had grown more comfortable in explaining myself to them. Feds, on the other hand, scared the crap out of me.

This G-Man exited his vehicle and asked me where I was heading. I told him and he said as long as my ID checked out, he would let me be on my way. I carried two photo ID's. One was from a swap meet, and the other was from a check cashing joint. Both were stamped in bold letters across the bottom “Data Provided by Signatory”, which is legalese for “These Documents are Bullshit”. I'd used both cards on deputies and city cops, but I reckoned a fed would know better and might be curious. I told him I had no papers.

He said “In that case, let's have a look at what's in the bags”. I had those questionable cards in my day pack, and a little grass in a pipe in one of the duffels. I chose the third bag, which contained mostly groceries, and started emptying it.

I'd gotten about halfway down into the bag when a Mexican guy in a truck came around the corner and took out a couple of the traffic cones that marked the beginning of the new bridge. The fed pointed at me sternly and told me not to go anywhere. Then he jumped into his ride and tore off after the pickup.

I shoved everything back in the bag as soon as he was out of sight and stuck out my thumb at the next passing van. It was a brown conversion van from the seventies or eighties and had a back window shaped like a star. God bless 'em they stopped for me. Noticing a girl in the passenger seat, I got in the side door and offered my thanks as I stowed my gear and closed the door. The trail to the rim and to Fossil Springs was nearly within reach.

As if reading my mind, the girl I had noticed asked me if I was going to the springs. When I answered in the affirmative, she produced a cardboard hitch-hiker's sign that read “The Springs”. I had lucked into a ride with people heading right were I was. I thought.

We blew right by my trail head from the 260 and turned onto a dirt road. The driver offered me a Guiness and the girl rolled a joint. I tried not to be nervous that we had passed my turn. The rain was annoying, but not hard. The dirt road they had turned on though, had become mud. We came to one wide bend where the road was a thick red clay and we slid toward the edge of a ravine and I might have yelled a little. Don, the driver, and Leslie, the passenger, thought this was hilarious. I was terrified. I had another beer.

After nearly thirty miles of this, we came to a cattle guard with a sign that said “Nudity Prohibited”, and they announced that we were home.

Just then a bearded homunculus and a naked hippie kid leaped in front of the van, barring our way. They told us there were rangers in camp and suggested we surrender any drugs or alcohol or extra cash. We told them we would take our chances and they walked along side as we eased our way down the precipitous hill to the camp.

Don parked, and I removed my gear and found a spot about thirty feet away to set up. It was pitch dark and I sat a lit zippo on the low branch of a mesquite tree for the little light it offered. The two would-be highwaymen came to my camp and warned me not to have sex with Leslie. I was really in no danger of sleeping with Leslie. The blond, naked guy told me she had raped his friend Goat (to which the homunculus nodded emphatically). It was then that I noticed another guy, older than myself, lurking in the shadows. “She gave me the fire dick” he said shyly. “Good to know” I responded, not knowing what else to say. 

I had no idea where I was. I crawled in my tent and slept like a fugitive that had been pinballing on the road for three days with no sleep.

The Anasazi Bellows Part I, Leaving Phoenix (again)

I thought I had already written this story, or parts of it, but I can't find it in the index. I need to be more organized. If it's already posted, well, here it is again. Probably a little different. I wanted to work in The Apache Bellows. I just can't help but think it was already written. I get confused sometimes, because I often work through the telling of these stories orally, to a lot of different people, before I write them. This is certainly a story I tell a lot, and cannot imagine I haven't written it.

I'll lay a little back story out on this version.

After Maya passed and I broke all those bones, I spent a few weeks back in Phoenix, in a tin shed. When I was just healed enough to ride a bicycle, I headed back out to The Forest.

It was March, and brutally cold yet up at my home at Bear Canyon, but a heatwave in the Valley of the Sun.  I was going to have to find a place to lay up until about May. I consulted the fourth floor at Burto-Barr library. I searched the trail maps and topographs for a location the easiest distance I could find from the Mogollon Rim that would provide me with the climate and resources I would need.

Fossil Creek, below Strawberry, seemed my best bet. I could get there via trails I had found that traverse the Matazal Mountains I could always be within three miles of water. Then, when the weather broke to the north, I would leave the Fossil environs and follow The General Crook Trail up to familiar haunts in the high country.

I'm glad now, that the plan didn't work out that way or else I might still be waiting for somebody to find my bleached bones out there in that vast underexplored Matazal Wilderness. We'll get to that.

I acquired a mountain bike and outfitted it with solid tubes. I built a trailer for the bike, and loaded it with water and food and all my gear in two duffel bags and a big rubbermaid container that resembles the tool box of a contractor's truck.  I also carried a few personal Items that I wished not to take. I intended to leave my home at 75^th avenue and ride to Chandler Arizona and leave these few mementos and family photos with my friend Sunshine.

I rode down 74^th avenue to Broadway and then took 67^th avenue across the Salt River and past a farm stand. As I turned onto Southern, my bike trailer collapsed with no hope of repair. I found a piece of cardboard in the ditch and made a sign. “Bike for Sale. Need Help. A truck full of Mexican Landscapers stopped and sold me a four wheeled cart from Home Depot for $50.00 and took the remains of my trailer with them. From here, I had to steer with one hand while with the other I dragged the heavy cart with my gear.

Progressing eastward on Southern, I began to see how rough this would be. It would take me days at this rate to reach Sunshine's place in Chandler. It was more than a hundred degrees. I was sweltering. I turned south on 59^th avenue. It being mostly desert I thought I would have to worry little about traffic. I'd gone about a half mile, my arm failing me as a trailer hitch, when I was overtaken and accosted by a stereotype.

I should say here, that I was taking up about a third of the road with my unlikely caravan. I had chosen 59^th for it's lack of housing and hopefully traffic. No such luck.

The huge white Cadillac crept up on me silently and laid on his horn. Then he sped up and with a screech of tires, pulled around me and cut me off. A fat white man in his early sixties emerged from the behemoth with the admonition that I knew not who he was. He wore Bermuda shorts, penny loafers with corroded nickle in them, and a Hawaiian shirt. He was right. I didn't know him. My mind wound back through news footage of local authorities and came up blank. His attitude bespoke Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but his face was unfamiliar.

He wore mirrored shades and a Greg Norman Shark hat. The hat failed to hide the fact that he was balding, sweaty, and angry.I could see belly hair between the gap at the bottom of his too-short shirt.

He told me it was illegal for me to be taking up the road like I was and that with a single phone call he would call down upon me a fury of law enforcement the likes of which I'd never dreamed. Then he continued to tell me the numerous indignities and inconveniences I would be subjected to as well as repeating his assertion that I did not know who I was dealing with. He finished his rant by asking me what I thought of it.

I told him I wasn't any happier with the situation than he was. I unfolded the tale of the collapsed trailer and the journey so far. I assured him that at the nearest pay phone, I would make arrangements to ditch the trailer and that I chose this road for it's lack of traffic, pointing out that he had blocked the road completely now for several minutes and no traffic had approached. He returned to his caddy, shouted that he'd see me in jail, and sped off. 

I wondered why an upstanding citizen like him, Greg Norman fan and all, would be in jail. It was probably about then that I realized my newly shaved head was blistering from the sun.

I made Cesar Chavez Park at sundown, and made myself a bed. I woke several times throughout the night with police spotlights in my face, but none ever hassled me further. In the morning, I set up my camp stove and proceeded to make oatmeal when a squad car approached and two officers emerged. Apparently, it was okay to sleep at the park, just not to cook there. They recommended I adjourn to a nearby Circle K to prepare my morning meal and I obliged, thankfully. 

The Circle K at 35^th avenue and Baseline is frequented, in the early morning hours, by workmen in search of coffee, water, ice, and gasoline. After breakfast, I sold the Home Depot cart and Rubbermaid container to visiting contractors for the fifty I had in the cart and twenty more. They left me with some milk crates into which I sifted the contents of the container. I called Sunshine to appraise her of my fortunes, and she came and picked up those artifacts I relocated to the crates that she would store for me; saving a trip to Chandler. She wept when she left, professing a certainty that I would never return and it would be our last meeting.

There happened to be a bus stop on the corner, and I loaded up the bike and mounted for the Greyhound station. I had a new plan. I would bus to Camp Verde and then hike to Fossil Springs where I could pick up the trail north. I got off the bus a few blocks from the station, at a spot I knew would have the most traffic. I worked the sidewalk there, until I sold the bicycle.

At the bus station, knowing I had more than the seventy five pounds allotted at the time for luggage, I hooked my toe under each bag in turn on the scale and lifted. My ruse proved successful, as they charged me no extra. While I waited for my bus, I was entertained by INS agents chasing a fella out and around and through the terminal. It was like an episode of Scooby Doo when they run in one door and out the other being chased by ghouls.

Eventually, I got my bus and was able to relax a few. I had no idea how profoundly the next twenty four hours would affect my life.

You Never Know What You Might Find at the Verde Hot Springs

I'd spent a couple of winters at the Verde, and thought I'd seen it all. I know now what an understatement that can be.

Spring was coming. I remember that because more people were showing up on the weekends and it was still a little cool in the mornings. Janine was there sleeping in a hammock. There were a couple of schoolteachers, fellas from Colorado, camping near her. Other than that, there was only one other truck in camp. It was unoccupied and parked in the Hackberries.

I woke at 6 O'clock on that Friday morning and decided to hike up and have a nice soak before the crowds rolled in. I packed my canister stove, coffee, water, and a worn copy of “The Monkey Wrench Gang” a hippie girl had laid on me. The river was a little high, so I took the old ranch road to the One Crossing. I approached the springs carefully, having heard a single gunshot when I was passing the old corral.

When I arrived, I found the tarp from the roof of the inside tub had been removed and hung across the doorway. I assumed a couple was in there and wanted some privacy, so I left my pack on the steps and lowered myself into the cooler outside pool.

After about an hour, I was eager to leave the breeze and 98 degree water for the warmer spring. After two hours, I began to get annoyed. There hadn't been a sound coming from the stone building just feet from where I sat. That was unusual. The water in there is pretty warm, and people usually have to at least stand up now and then to cool off. If somebody was camping in there, it was time for them to get up. Nobody has the right to monopolize the building like that. The other option that crossed my mind was suicide; that single gunshot I heard.

I had enough. I climbed out, naked and shivering, I stood at the door listening through the tarp. Nothing. “Hello”, I called. No answer. I carefully pulled back the tarp and nothing could have prepared me for what I found.

Next to the wood stove was a pile of dirty laundry about three feet high. Who in the world could have carried so much up the trail from camp. It wasn't there the night before. Odd as that was, it was nothing compared to what else I saw.

The inside tub is roughly six by eight feet. A shallow rectangle of hot water with a few steps leading down. The entire thing was covered in carefully placed sheets of glossy magazine pages. Closer inspection revealed it to be lesbian porn. In the middle was a large beach ball. Next to the steps was an empty wine bottle on it's side, a large purple rubber dildo, and a set of false teeth.

Who in the world would leave their teeth? Nobody. That’s who.

There's a cave on the other side of the outside pool, and the smart money said that whatever wackadoo owned this collection was probably in there, possibly armed, and likely didn't want to be found. I gathered my pack and my clothes and dressed on my way down the trail to the river.

About halfway back to camp I passed the schoolteachers, who shared some tasty blond hash. They asked how my soak was and I cautioned them about the gunshot, false teeth, dildo, beachball, and thirty pounds of laundry. They laughed and said they'd keep an eye open.

Later that afternoon, I was visiting with Janine and they came over. They said they thought I was just kidding. They were surprised to find everything exactly the way I described, with the addition of a little old man who appeared, packed everything up, and split.

Getting Rid of Shattsworth...The First Time

I wasn't really very nice when I confronted Shattsworth about making me feed him while he sat on a stockpile of tasty grub. He was apologetic and offered to cook dinner. He said he'd bring it to my camp, a statement I found suspicious in the following days. I took Maya back to my camp and fed her the fish. If I gave her two fish, she would eat them whole. When I gave her more than that, she would only eat the heads, saving the rest for later. This led me to believe there is something good in fish heads that dogs know about.

We had beef stew, mashed potatoes, green beans, and red cool aid. Ah, flavors. Jeff kept yammering about the beans and the correct way to accent the words. “Do you say GREEN beans, of green BEANS.” Throughout the meal he kept saying it in different ways. After dinner he tossed me a twinkie. It had been a long time since I had eaten like that and it was almost worth it to have been fishing for him.

Then he started asking if I'd eat Maya if I was hungry, or if I'd eat people. Then he told me he had a 14 year old girl tied up in his van, and quickly said he was kidding. I made him show me. There was something really wrong with this dude. There was a story here, lurking behind his weaselly persona. I was very curious to learn what his deal was. Was he hiding like me? Was he dangerous, or just damaged?

I asked if he'd ever been to jail. He said he spent the last couple of years until he was eighteen in kiddie prison in Indiana. He related that when he got out, he split for Arizona. We shared jail stories. His were mostly about smearing shit on the walls of his cell and throwing balls of it at the guards. He refused to tell me what he had done to get locked up.

He pulled out a bong and while I scraped the resin out to smoke he told me again how he would make it up to me someday for helping him and for smoking all his stash alone in the van. He said without me he'd probably be dead. While he was being amenable, I enlisted an agreement from him to help me move camp the next morning. Alone, I would have to make two trips.

My plan was to move to the south end of the lake temporarily, to organize and prepare to continue my journey and ditch the nutcase. The Tonto Forest had reopened when the rain came. I had no more excuses to remain at Bear Canyon. West on the rim road, just past the fire tower, was a little known path dropping down to Tonto Creek called the See Canyon Trail. Mike, the watcher in the tower, had told me it was the best kept secret on the Rim and the fastest way down. It would save me a long waterless hike back to the Washington Trail I had originally planned to use to descend.

I figured I'd ditch Shatts for the south of the lake for a day or two, then move to the trail head. From there, I would move to the Highline Trail halfway down, and on to Tonto Creek and southward. It would be warmer on the Tonto, and I could kill some time there on the way down to Roosevelt Lake. It would be a couple of months before it cooled off to a comfortable temperature at Roosevelt. The creek was known to be a good trout stream in the north, hopefully it would provide other options in the south. Where there is water, there is food.

As we were discussing my plans, a guy drove up and asked if we could give him a hand with his camper. He had a hard sided pop up, and the gears had stripped and he needed help holding it up while he released the supports so It wouldn't jam crashing down. We happily complied and he gave us a few beers and a tub of macaroni salad. He said to eat the salad soon, as it had been in his cooler a few days. He said by soon he meant now.

He was another odd one, and from Indiana like myself and Jeff. He kept remarking on the size of Maya's genitals and teats. Jeff asked him for a ride to Payson and back, which he of course declined, but was able to use a pair of needle nose pliers I had and crimp the leak in Jeff's radiator. It was while he was doing this that I learned how the radiator was damaged.

Shattsworth had chosen to replace the mechanical fan on his water pump with an electric fan mounted to the radiator. He scavenged the fan at a junk yard and it didn't fit right so he held it in place with zip ties. On the way up the highway, the zip ties melted and the fan cut his radiator. With the temporary mend, Jeff should be able to make it to Payson. He opted to stick around, fearful to drive with the jankity repair.

The next morning I packed up my camp and true to his word, he helped me move to the south of the lake. On the way there I was startled by a snake I almost stepped on that had two heads and let out a girlie scream that Shattswell thought was tremendously funny. He kept saying he couldn't believe that Mike West, the great outdoorsman was scared of a little snake. I wasn't scared, it startled me. AND IT HAD TWO HEADS! It was just a garter snake. It had a red stripe along it's side and the two heads forked out from the body about three or four inches back. It was probably only about sixteen or eighteen inches long.

Shattsworth left me at my new camp, and I was relieved to be rid of him. That evening, after I had set up, four high school aged boys came and camped right across from me. They were up all night hollering and drinking and playing poker. They had a sex doll propped up at a camp table where they played. Occasionally, they shouted rude things at me across from their camp. They were naked and I couldn't tell if they were simulating sex acts with the doll or actually doing it. I didn't sleep until they left in the morning, and of course they left a mess for me to clean up. They also left an oil lamp hanging in a tree. Score!

I woke that afternoon with gut wrenching cramps. I threw up until I was empty and then dry heaved for a while. I tried to drink some water but repeated the cycle of vomiting and heaving. I thought I would turn myself inside out. The spasms didn't subside for days and I had a splitting headache. I thought I might die. It was a good thing I had water and dog food, because I couldn't have fished or fetched water.  I wondered if the macaroni salad was bad, but thought it more likely that Shattsworth poisoned me with bad water or shit in the stew. Looking back, I wasn't there when he cooked the meal and plated it. I remembered how he sent me away while he cooked and that remark about "hamburger" in his cooler, and all those other stories he had told me about his vengeful and fecal loving nature.

On the morning of the second day I heard somebody poking through my camp and looked out to see him there. I asked if he was sick, and he wasn't. That ruled out the macaroni salad. I asked if he fed me untreated water in the Kool Aid and he denied that too. I told him I knew he did something and he should be glad I was doubled over in agony, or I'd kick his ass. In my delirium I may have told him I'd kill him if he was still in the forest when I got better. He looked guilty, but he always looked guilty.

After he left, I was lucid enough to remember the benadryl in my first aid stash. The next day I was able to keep some water down. By evening I felt much better, but weak. On the fourth day after I fell ill, Maya and I hiked to the north side of the lake to interrogate Shattsworth some more and see if he needed his ass kicked.

We crested the hill above the lake just in time to see an LEO truck, with the cop lights flashing, disappear down Forest road 89. Shattsworth was gone. I wondered if he was arrested. I didn't figure I would ever know, I couldn't really just walk up to a ranger and ask. I returned to camp relieved, but I didn't know I hadn't seen the last of Shattsworth.

Fear, Feces, and Fecundity part II

It wasn't the first time I had returned from the lake to find groceries. When I would meet people while fishing or in line at the shitter or on the trail, I would tell them a little about my trip. People fear what they don't understand, and I wasn't quite normal with my tarp and chair and no vehicle, carrying water and fish from the lake each evening. To keep people from speculating too closely about my circumstances, I would conversationally volunteer how I took the summer off work and was backpacking the Rim Country.

I didn't ask for charity, or rely on it. Shattsworth didn't get it. He never would. The weeks he followed me around, he kept saying he was going to figure out what my scam was. The funny thing is, I was being myself for the first time in years. My “scam” was telling it like it is. I omitted the part about the felony warrants. Most people appreciated my adventure, and wished they could do the same. I was doing something most people only dream of. I told them the hardest part was making the decision to do it. Every couple of weeks, I'd get an invitation to dinner where my hosts pried me for stories, or I would find a sack at my chair.

People wanted to be a part of my journey even if only by leaving me some food they didn't want to take home anyway. They wanted to help me to succeed. They wanted to think I could make it because then maybe, just maybe, it was possible to have their own dream someday. Whatever it may be. This is how I quit hiding after all those years, using my very freedom as an example of the possibilities you can encounter if you let go of your fears and pursue your dreams. I had a purpose and a goal and something good in my life. On top of it all, look at my front yard!

Of those two sacks, one was full of hot dog buns. I learned that people bring WAY to many hot dog buns camping for some reason. The other sack held a pack of partially frozen hot dogs, potato chips, mustard, pickles, and an apple. I tied a rope between two trees, hung the bags on the line, and covered them with a tarp. We retired to Shattsworth's camp to cook the fish on his stove. He was like a sponge. A deformed little sponge who required me to explain everything I did. He wanted to learn and I wanted to share what I learned. He left no stone unturned in his search for my “scam”. He was continually disappointed to learn that hard labor and good citizenship were the main principles of my success. He learned how to clean and cook a trout though, even if he couldn't catch one.

We cooked and ate on the side of his van opposite my camp. After dinner, he reassured me that he felt bad that he hadn't shared his grass. I told him not to sweat it and returned to my camp. When I got there, I found that my pots and pans were smashed flat and my journals and maps were missing. The groceries were camouflaged in the darkness under the tarp. Pots and maps, even hand drawn maps, can be replaced. The loss of the journals was a blow. Then I heard the explosion.

The loud bang came from about three hundred yards away. I looked and saw four teenage boys rapidly backing away from their fire. Likely suspects. I hurried to their camp and found them dripping with scalding hot Dinty Moore stew. I was feeling no sympathy for morons in the woods at this point and immediately launched into my own concerns. “You boys know anything about somebody trashing my camp over yonder?” I pointed.

The guy who looked like he'd been burnt the worst spoke up as he was toweling himself off. “Mister, I'll be honest with you. We saw a chair and some pots and pans and papers over there and thought since there wasn't a tent or car or anything, that it was an abandoned camp. When we were walking over to check it out, a guy in a camouflaged bronco drove over your gear and started poking around. Some old bald guy chased him off. We didn't take anything, honest. If anything's missing, it was the guy in the bronco. You can ask the bald guy. He;s camped down that way” and he indicated a jeep trail that led through some Aspen trees. It turns out they didn't know enough to open the can of stew so it wouldn't explode. They had no other food, so I took them the hot dogs and a pack of buns. The dogs might not be good in the morning, and I was full of fish.

It was late, and there was no sense in looking for bald Samaritans or camouflaged Fords in the dark. I went back to camp and rolled up in the remaining tarp with Maya. In the morning the sight of my flattened cookware depressed me. I had no clipboard to start my day. I set out looking for the Bronco.

I found the miscreants I was looking for about a mile and a half up Forest Road 89 by the power lines. There was a guy heating a pot of coffee on a gas burner. In addition to the bronco there was a red Ford Ranger. There were two tents. “Is that your Bronco?” I asked in the most menacing voice I could muster. “Nope” he said. “Why?”

“That truck has been identified as one that destroyed my camp last night. I need to settle with the driver.” He nodded as if he knew what I was talking about and walked over to one of the tents and stuck his head in. After a minute he came back and said “He said he's not going to get up yet.”

I pulled a lawn chair alongside his cooler, felt around for a beer, opened it, took a drink, and said “I can wait.” Even I was surprised at my bravado, but I intended to get my journals back. I was thankful for the chair. It kept him from seeing me shake. He went over and stuck his head in the tent again. After a few minutes of mumbling back and forth, I heard him say “You get rid of him then!” Neither of them wanted to face the wild man in the forest. This gave me hope of getting out of there intact.I finished the beer.

Shortly, a small round man with a black beard emerged from the tent looking sheepish. I explained that I understood that mistakes happen and told him about my trip, I stressed how I depended on the gear I had to survive and couldn't just run to the store for pots and pans. I requested he return the journals and maps. Afraid my entreaty showed weakness that he might take advantage of, I punctuated it by helping myself to another of his beers. I tipped my head back and downed most of it in one draught. I leveled my gaze at him and awaited his reply. His friend busied himself at the burner. It was obvious that he blamed this intrusion on his bearded buddy's bad behavior.

He was apologetic to say the least. He explained that he was drunk and that was no excuse. He said that once the old bald guy straightened him out, he put the papers behind a tree with a rock on them so they wouldn't get scattered (I found them later). He was genuinely remorseful and gave me a two quart pot, a small skillet, a two liter of soda, and a sixer of Coors light. I thanked him and told him he was a stand up dude.The next day I took the lid off the two quart for the first time and found a fifty dollar bill.

After leaving my new gear and supplies at camp and ignoring Shattsworth's curiosity as to my latest “scam”, I found the Samaritan and thanked him. He invited me to visit later, as he was interested in hearing about my journey. We became friends and bumped into each other in the woods for years to come. He was in charge of security at the Palo Verde Nuclear plant.

Shattsworth hung around for weeks. I fished for him and fed him and tried to teach him as best I could. He was looking for shortcuts though, and I didn't know any. One day I came back from fishing earlier than usual and found him behind his van with three crates full of canned goods and tinned meat. When I asked him where he got the food, he said he always had it. I was flabbergasted. I'd been fishing and feeding him for weeks and he was well supplied. His response was “I have to conserve, I can't do things like you.” That was Jefferson Shattsworth's scam.

There was something that had been nagging at the back of my mind for months, and before we parted company, I had to have an answer. I asked him how he got back and forth to the shitter without ever being seen that first month. He said he didn't. He took me to the side door of his van and showed me a piece of hose that ran out his passenger door through which he peed. Then he opened a cooler and revealed to me newspapers wrapped in freezer bags. “I thought about offering you some hamburger from my cooler” he told me, “Then watching your face when you unwrapped it”. The possibility that he was a deranged cannibal began to creep back into my mind. “I think it's time I was moving on” I said.

His name was seriously Shattsworth. Honestly, I couldn't make this shit up.

Fear, Feces, and Fecundity in the Piney Forest part I

My years in exile afforded me the opportunity to meet a wide variety of interesting and unusual characters. I became a junkie to the parade of personality rolling through the paradise of “My front yard”. One of the strangest cats I came across showed up on the eighteenth of July.

I awoke that day to the sound of my most recent crop of neighbors packing up and heading out. By ten o'clock they were all gone. It was the first time I had Bear Canyon to myself and I was looking forward to the solitude.

I walked around the general camping area above the lake, pulling lengths of rope out of the trees and bagging up other people's garbage to leave for the Toilet Rangers. Among the debris, I found a Leathernan tool on a rock by a fire pit and a canvas chair that was in need of repair. One of the plastic fittings had broken and the owners just abandoned it. In the next few years I would be surprised at the amount of gear and garbage that folks abandon or discard when they leave.

I once chased a caravan of church people a quarter mile and made them return and clean up their campsite. It was one of those hip congregations that targets young people. The leader of this particular cult played stupid with me, claiming he thought it was okay to leave their paper plates, coke cans, and chicken bones everywhere. He said he thought people worked on site picking up after campers.

The chair was a boon though, and I was happy to finally justify the heavy roll of bailing wire in my pack by wiring the chair together. Back at camp, and proud of my ingenuity, I sat in comfort for the first time in months. With the Maya dog at my feet, I reclined upon my new throne. I surveyed my kingdom.

Surveying one's kingdom gives pause for much introspection, so I retrieved my clipboard from my bag and documented the recent events leading up to my current position. As I was writing these few paragraphs, I heard the rumble of an approaching truck. It turned out to be two vehicles, a new Nissan Xterra and an old Dodge van. The Xterra pulled in about twenty five feet to the north of me. The van parked about a hundred yards to the south. Surrounded. So much for solitude.

The Xterra guy was a GenX-er. He was maybe 21 and wore shoulder length blond hair and surf shorts. He wasn't there long before he walked over to my camp and introduced himself as Jason. He was on a day trip, sightseeing on the Rim and he had forgotten to bring a can opener. I offered him the use of my new Leatherman and he returned to his truck and prepared his lunch on a propane stove. After eating, he invited me to join him for a couple of beers.

Jason was curious about me, as most people were. I was certainly an oddity, up here without a vehicle with just a tarp, dog, duffel, and now a chair. I told him about my original plan to hike Tonto Creek and the fires that had me cornered in this part of the forest. He looked at me appraisingly, with a glint in his eye, and produced a blue padded cloth bag from his back seat. Much to my delight, he drew a heavy glass bong from the bag.

As we smoked he questioned me about my journey. I told him the worst thing was that I didn't have a stove and there was a fire ban in effect that I was too paranoid to violate. Tired of eating raw trout, I offered to trade the Leatherman for whatever spare food he may be carrying. It took some negotiating on m y part, but I managed to end up with a few pounds of dog food, two beers, a hunk of colby cheese, and a can of beanie weenies. It was like Thanksgiving dinner to me. Before he left, we had a laugh at the guy in the Dodge. He'd parked right behind the shitter.

It was a full sized conversion van and it had come to a stop and that was it. Nobody stirred. I kept an eye on the thing late into the night, but there was no activity at all. I found this strange, but easily explained it by convincing myself that the driver had been on the road a long time and had sacked out upon arrival. The next day there was still no movement from the Dodge. By nightfall I concluded the occupants must have assembled their gear while I slept and hiked further into the forest.

After two weeks there was still no sign of life from the vehicle. I remembered the news stories I had heard about Robert Fisher, who had murdered his family and disappeared near the Rim. Having opened the door to thoughts of morbidity, I began to concoct scenarios of violence and serial cannibalism.

My sense of civic duty called for me to investigate or alert the rangers to a possible missing person or mouldering corpse. I wrestled with this dilemma for days. Then again, I thought, maybe this dude wasn't a bad guy. Maybe, like myself, he just needed to get out of town and lay low for a while. Rather than draw attention to myself, I chose a course of immediate inaction.

Meanwhile, on the weekends, campers came and went. Most of the time I was alone with the mystery van. By the eighteenth of August, I was beside myself with curiosity and fear. I caught myself testing the air for the odor of death.

I was writing how the van had been there for a month to the day when Jason rolled back into camp. I barely gave him a chance to get out of the SUV before I sprung the story of how the damned thing had been there all this time and nobody came or went. He said, “They must get out to go to the shitter, you must just be missing them”. I told him that wasn't likely, during the fire ban I would often forgo the unpleasant raw trout, instead subsisting on salads I scavenged within sight of the area. I spent entire days without ever leaving camp: foraging for greens, writing in my journals, and tending to housekeeping chores.

Jason removed a couple of chairs and a cooler from his Nissan. As he loaded that magnificent bong, he said we should just walk up and bang on the door and demand that anybody inside the van come out and explain themselves. I thought him naïve and that line of action a bit dangerous. I recounted the news stories about Fisher and elucidated with the scenarios of violence and serial cannibalism I had cooked up. Jason asked the obvious question: “What kind of person would come to such a beautiful spot and not get out of their vehicle for a whole month?”

“Somebody who goes to extremes not to be bothered, that's who”.

“There could be a dead guy” Jason exhorted, 'We have to check it out”.

After several drinks and bong rips to muster up our courage, we devised a plan. We would act like we were going to the shitter and swing wide in a broad arc that would carry us close to the van for a better look. As we neared the driver's door, it suddenly sprang open and the mysterious occupant leaped out like a demented Jack-in-the-Box.

At first glance, I thought he was just a kid, maybe kidnapped and his attacker was lurking nearby. He was small and thin, maybe five foot five. He couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds. He wore a polyester leisure suit and had his name tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand. With his slight stature, baby face, and sparse mustache, only his thinning hair betrayed his adulthood. “Do you guys know anybody who could give me a ride to Payson and back? I have a hole in my radiator”.

I was incredulous. “You're telling me,” I said, “That you've been here and haven't gotten out of your van for a month because you have a hole in your radiator?”

“I just ran out of food and pot” he said. By now I was nearly raving. “What?” I ranted, “You've been here for a month and had food and pot? Why didn't you say anything?”

Apparently I wasn't the only one keeping an eye out for Robert Fisher. The kid told me he thought I might be him, or I might be a Ranger. I wore all green, slept on a green canvas tarp, and began and ended everyday writing on a clipboard. He'd seen a uniformed ranger in camp one day and noticed him writing on a clipboard like mine. Even though I laughed with him at our mutual paranoia, things didn't quite add up to my satisfaction. I asked to see his radiator and it was indeed damaged. I figured maybe he was too. I didn't recognize the degree of his pathology, but soon would.

We found several people willing to give him a ride to Payson, but none willing to haul him back. In spite of my assurances that a fellow walking in the mountains with a radiator will get a ride, he refused to try. He was fearful he wouldn't be able to get back. Fear was a big thing in this little dude's life. He was afraid to leave and afraid to stay. He had no business in the forest. I worried he would bring heat if not handled right.

He was traveling under the ironic moniker of Jefferson Shattsworth. I asked for ID which he provided. Having already contemplated the scatological humor of his name, I lost it when he walked into my camp the next morning and informed me he was an avid collector of animal excrement. What's more, he claimed to find a prize specimen of bear dung right outside his van. I was skeptical. I had seen no sign of bear nearer than three or four miles. Jeff proudly produced a sandwich baggie with his trophy inside. It was from Maya. The erstwhile Marlin Perkins had mistaken it for bear droppings because of the squirrel fur and fish bones. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. He could not be persuaded that what he had was a sack of dog shit.

Shattsworth spent the morning hanging around my camp and whining about his food supply and radiator. He kept mumbling “I'm going to die”. I couldn't make up my mind if he was serious or begging or looking for sympathy. Some people wig out when they get too far from their comfort system. I asked him what kind of gear he was carrying. They guy had fishing gear and a camp stove. All he was lacking was know how and confidence.

I took him to my favorite spot and taught him everything I had learned about trout fishing at Bear Canyon Lake. I was stymied that even though he appeared to be doing everything exactly as I did, in two hours he hadn't got a nibble, while I had caught my limit of six nice trout. I'd seen this kind of thing before, and I swear, some people just can't catch a fish. While I was hauling one after another in to shore, he just sat there looking dejected. I suppose when it comes to angling, like everything else in life, attitude is important. You gotta believe.

I tried to explain this as I cleaned the fish. On the hike back to camp I told him my favorite story to illustrate my point.

In 1992, I was on an extended camping trip in the Colorado Rockies for the Rainbow Gathering with my ex wife. We had hiked the five miles from our camp to our car at Electric Mountain Reservoir to retrieve supplies. It was a tough hike. Being at about 9,000 feet elevation, the air was thin. About halfway to our camp, was a fallen tree where we liked to rest in the sun and have a smoke.

We hadn't been there long enough for me to finish rolling a joint when we were interrupted by a fellow in his twenties who asked if he could join us for a rest. He told us he'd read in the local paper that the hippies were out there eating al the groundhogs and crapping behind every tree. He introduced himself as Bill, a Evangelical seminary student. He had come to save the heathens. I suppressed a smile and concealed the reefer.

He said “How long have you been here?” I told him about 45 days and his eyes got real big. “What?” he responded, “How much longer do you plan to stay?” Tory told him we might stay another month. Again his eyes grew wide and he said “What!? Don't you work?”

I told him “Certainly I work, but its important for us to be here. If my boss didn't let me off, I'd just find another job”. This really blew his programming and he asked “How do you live? How do you eat?” He began to breathe hard and stood up, clutching his Bible to his chest.

I think this was the moment where he realized that despite our clean cut appearance and collared shirts, we were probably some of the heathens he was there to save. I saw an excellent opportunity to speak to the guy in his own language, put him at ease, and maybe even make a friend AND a point.

I asked him if I could see his bible a minute. He handed it over and I stood up and turned to Luke and read: “Therefore I say unto you. Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat...Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap and God feedeth them. The least of God's creatures are taken care of: how much more are ye better than them?”

Then, at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, high atop the continental divide, we were distracted by a rustling sound on the hill above us on the opposite side of the trail. We all turned and saw the weeds and grasses moving as something made it's way down the hill toward us. It broke through the brush on the edge of the path, crossed the trail, and stopped right between my feet. It was a grapefruit.

We just stared for a long silent minute. Bill the evangelist was pale. Finally, Tory picked it up and held it out to him. “You see that?” she said. “That's Magic”.

Well, you don't say “Magic” to an evangelist. He stumbled backward a few steps, promised to pray for us, declined our invitation to dinner, turned, and we never saw him again.

I like to think that someday, eventually, it dawned on him and he got the message. I'm not saying God manifested a piece of fruit and rolled it at me or anything. Obviously, some hippie on a higher trail had lost his grapefruit and it followed the designs of gravity. But when I think of everything that had to be in line for that particular event at that particular time, I have to believe the Universe was in agreement with my message.

W          As Jeff and I rounded the hill to my camp, we noticed two grocery sacks sitting beside my chair. I was beaming with the satisfaction of a point well delivered. A grapefruit wouldn't have been better. Jeff turned to me and for the first of many times asked “What's your scam?” 

                           

                           Evangelists aren't the only ones afraid of Magic.