Diners, Dangers, and Deserts (Part One)

Those early days, the survival plan was all about diners and tourist traps. A pretty girl and a skilled line cook could land anywhere and have money in their pockets. Mrs. Weaver and I fit the bill. Where possible, I waited tables as well. I hate the grease. Unfortunately, many establishments had an ovarian requirement of their wait staff, so it was a good thing I had other talents.

Before corporatism took over the restaurant business, the family diner dominated the landscape of a country that traveled on it's stomach. Anywhere there was an exit ramp, this gastronomic icon of Americana thrived. Diners were both home and hearth to the fellowship of the road. Customers drift in, Employees drift through, nobody asks many questions beyond “Can you work weekends?” or “Can you cook eggs?”.

Watching all those episodes of “Alice” back in the 70's and 80's paid off. We had a real sitcom theme going for a while. Even our names, our earliest pseudonyms: Rob and Laura, were borrowed from The Dick Van Dyke Show.

We fit right in. Actually we were a bit clean cut and naïve in comparison. It all worked in our favor. We played the part of the hard working young couple, seeking their fortune in the big wide world. Our employers ate that shit up.

Mrs. Weaver (Laura) grew to hate it. Waitresses can get ugly, especially when you pocket more than they do. Real ugly. Its also very hard work with little reward. The upside is, wherever you land, there was a diner job waiting, and cash in your pocket that night. You never went hungry.

Casteneda said Don Juan taught him the lesson of losing his self importance by sending him to work at a diner under the guise of Jose Cordoba: Illegal Alien Dishwasher (and wife). Don Juan claimed that the most difficult adversary a man could encounter is that of the “Petty Tyrant”. I located what I believed to be Jose Cordoba's diner, and engaged his petty tyrant.

It was one of those periods when Laura had enough of the situation, and split to the Keys for a few months Her latest gig was waitressing at a diner called “The South Forty”. It was situated outside of Tucson, on the other side of the mountains, right at the base of Big Cat Mountain. I made pizza a half mile further out.

Before she left, we were living at a run down trailer park on the Benson Highway. A strip of 1950's Asphalt Americana dotted with motor lodges. It had seen better days. The kitsch was still visible beneath the dust. The motels had names like “The Lariat”, “The Desert Edge”, and “Sunbeam”. There was a ubiquitous “Wagon Wheel Tavern” where membership in the Sunday Bloody Mary Club earned you dollar drinks and a punch card for the tenth one free.

Our trailer was behind “The Acadia”. It was tucked into the corner of the lot behind the motel. Our nearest neighbors were a biker couple. He was rarely there, and she wore perpetual bikini and a dog collar with a leash that was just long enough to reach the clothesline that connected our trailers. I never knew her name. She wasn't allowed to speak.

They filmed some scenes for “Tin Cup” at a closed motel up the street, but it was a much more David Lynch-like atmosphere.

I had to sell the Plymouth to get Laura to the tropics and that meant I had to find a place to live closer to work. Her boss owned an empty four room motor court next to the restaurant that had never opened. Laura persuaded him to rent me a room, based on her promise to return and work for him. The place had no air conditioning, heat, or ventilation of any kind. The windows would not even open.

Did I mention it was early June in the Desert? And this was my first summer. As the temperature climbed over 110, I needed some respite. The box fan I put in the doorway helped little. I purchased a wading pool and moved the bed against the wall to make room.

I worked the dinner shift at the Italian joint. It was a half mile walk north through some of the most beautiful desert there is. Tucson was east, on the other side of the Mountains. A half mile south was the old Ajo highway and a small market. To the west lay open desert, nearly to California. North was Saguaro National Monument, Old Tucson Movie Studios, and the Sonoran Desert Museum. All three were easily reached by foot or bicycle. I passed my days climbing the mountains, wandering the desert, exploring old mine sites and visiting with the wildlife.

I saw my first mountain lion and my first bobcat. The lion did not worry me, but the bobcat stalked me. (I've posted those stories earlier). The scariest hike I had occurred on a well traveled highway. It was late at night, after work, and I walked down to the all night market on Ajo for a soda. There was no moon, just the light from the stars. I passed dozens of dead juvenile snakes, squashed in the road. Some were partially mashed on the blacktop and writhing. I was in the middle of them before I noticed the extent. Bending down with my lighter as my only illumination, I saw they were baby Diamondbacks. I had wandered into a minefield of poisonous reptiles. I was lucky to not have cut off trail through the desert as I usually did when the moon was out.

I climbed all the peaks from Big Cat Mountain to Star Pass. The northernmost, and one of the highest, is Called San Francisco mountain, not to be confused with San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff. It would turn out to be my last stupid scary free climb.

I approached from the southeast, and had an easy hike up the lower talus to the shelves and ledges that would take me near the top. There was a higher talus slope, made up of gravel the size you would see in a driveway, that I had to cross before making the final ascent of a hundred yards or so. From the desert below, I had misjudged the angle of the incline making up this bed of stone, and when I reached it, it appeared uncrossable. It was only a couple of dozen yards across, but at nearly a vertical pitch. Even crawling across it created enough force to slide me down several yards in a small avalanche. I lay sprawled, arms and legs wide, clinging to the loose rock. Even lifting my head caused a shift in pressure that threatened to take me down and over the edge.

I stayed there, motionless for a long time. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. I was clean in the middle of the gravel and about twenty feet from skidding down and over a five hundred foot drop. I slithered, ever so slowly, like a GI Joe action figure. With each movement, I dropped a few inches. I was shaking and slick with sweat and thinking I finally met my match and not so surprised at all.

I made it across to solid ground, but wasn't out of the woods yet. There really wasn't anywhere to go. I had cliffs dropping off on three sides and the gravel to my rear. I sat and caught my breath and smoked a few one hits to gather my wits and figure out how to get down. The weed helped me realize that there was no way down, my only hope was to go up and over and find another way.

Up was a hundred yards vertical, with crevices, but no steps or ledges. Over was a mystery, I didn't know what the back of the mountain looked like. Mentally, I picked out a route where, wedging my arms in the cracks, I should theoretically be able to walk up the face of the rock. I learned that trick years before, and used it once or twice, but my confidence was shaken and that's not a good way to go into a free climb.

I smoked the rest of my weed and ate my lunch. I drank as much of my water as I could and poured the rest out to lighten my pack and reconcile my center of gravity. Up and over I went. My forearms were bloody and abraded. The view was completely spectacular. I am sure that damn few people have been stupid enough to see it. The backside proved as difficult as the front. There were two places where I had to hang and drop a few feet onto unproven ledges. In the end, I was faced with another talus slope, but this one was slightly larger stone and ended not in a cliff but on the glorious, flat, safety of the desert floor.

I knew how to handle this. A friend and I developed a technique up in Colorado, and sought out such slopes for the thrill. I leaped into the scree, causing a small avalanche that began carrying down the side of the mountain. After a few feet, the sliding rock threatened to overwhelm so I jumped up and to the side, out of the path of the slide I created and beginning another one. By repeating this move, its possible to “ski” down a dry desert mountain. It's both important not to let your feet get covered by the stones, and to jump wide enough from the slide so as to not increase it to something too large to control. It's all in the timing.

I made it down, with just minor scrapes, and stuck to the lowlands for a while.

Christmas on Big Cat Mountain.

      Christmas of 1993 found me living as Robert Weaver with my wife Laura in a travel trailer behind the South Forty restaurant at the base of Big Cat Mountain. We were Rob and Laura, a nod to The Dick Van Dyke Show. We had a potted barrel cactus, about three feet high, that we brought in and decorated for the holidays that year. Living there was a major coup for me. Lucky Tailor and I explored that mountain on our first trip to the Southwest. I tracked literary icon Joe Cordoba (Jose Luis Cordoba, also working under an alias) to that restaurant. I thought it quite fortuitous that we lived and worked there.

      Lagartija's mother told me about the legend of Big Cat Mountain, also known as Cerro del Gato, many years before on that first smuggling trip. I have heard different versions of the story since. The Arizona Star ran an article a few years ago and muddied the waters with a feature writer's blend of various legends purported to tell the story of El Gato. I prefer Senora Lagartija's tale, and will relate it as such.

      In the late 1800's, the Butterfield Stage passed through the gap between Big Cat Mountain and Little Cat Mountain. There was a bandit there who would hide and wait and rob the stagecoach, which frequently hauled gold from California or payroll for the mines. No matter how prepared they were for the attack, the bandito would appear suddenly and then disappear into the mountain, defying chase. They say he was like a cat the way he moved on the rocks, and called him El Gato. In Spanish they called it “The Hill of the Cat” Cerro del Gato. Eventually, El Gato (or some say El Tejano) was killed. But his stash of stolen loot was never found. It is said he hid it in a cave at Cat Mountain.

      I've spent thousands of hours exploring that mountain and found much more than I ever looked for. I only found one cave, and I am probably lucky to have survived it.

      A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was following a wash at the base of the north side of the mountain that had previously led me to water at an old stone cattle tank. I hoped to see Javelina there, and track their game trails to see where they would take me. Once in the wash, below desert level, I stopped for water and smoked a joint and ate a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie. I continued on, and at some point realized I wasn't in familiar territory.

      The walls of the arroyo closed in. I remembered it as being quite wide, but before long, the wash was barely ten feet across. The dirt walls were maybe ten feet high. Somehow, with the buzz, I had taken an unnoticed fork into the foothills. I am always curious about what is around the next corner, particularly when hiking washes. So regardless of knowing I was lost, I continued around the next corner, then the next.

      At one point, I had just made a ninety degree turn to the left and again about ten feet was a ninety degree turn to the right. About eye level, directly ahead in the dirt wall, was the mall entrance to a cave or dark declivity. It was about a foot and a half high in the middle and stretched to tapered ends maybe ten inches high. It was about three feet long. I approached to about two feet. That's when I saw movement in the hole.

A recent newspaper article had told me about coyote pups suffering from parvo. There was an effort from some organization, to immunize the pups by dropping meat with the parvo vaccine in the desert. I wondered if there were coyote pups in this hole.

      It was difficult to focus on the movement in the dark cave, because the sun was high above the arroyo wall. I squinted into the darkness as my eyes adjusted and the movement took shape. I was looking straight into the eyes of a mountain lion from two feet away. The puma's head filled the central opening to the cave. She squinted back at me.

      For some odd reason I wasn't scared. Continuing on didn't seem wise. I was worried I might surprise her on the return trip. I backed up to the previous turn, and slowly walked away, being careful not to act like dinner.

      But this is a story about a Christmas hike, so we will get back to that.

      Partially because of my experience with the lion, Laura and I chose to traverse the South side of the mountain to a trail head that leads to the summit, where we would celebrate the holiday in solitude far above the valley. Rather than follow the desert to the trailhead, we climbed a few hundred feet up the rock and traversed our way east. Along the way we smelled something rank, and looked around for the carcass of a dead deer. I often found skulls and antlers in the area, and that translated to tourist cash.

      We were about to search for the corpse, when my eye fell on a bush barely three feet away. There stood a young male javelina, seemingly oblivious to us. Javelina are pretty blind. They smell bad too. We edged away so's not to frighten it, and continued on our way. It was a warm day and I took off my shirt. Laura lamented that social mores did not allow her to do the same. I told her out here on Christmas day, the Javelina cared less for social mores, so she continued hiking topless. We took our pleasure then, clinging to some vertical stones (Merry Christmas), clinging for our lives somewhat frightened and high above the Sonoran floor. Such are the dangers of climbing with a topless Laura.

      Once we'd attained the apex of Big Cat, we repeated our endeavors on a long flat rock overlooking the valley, occasionally hearing a large animal moving across the gravels. We dressed hurriedly, sans T-shirts, just in time for a boy scout troop to file past along the peak. Not the large animals we expected. Two of them lingered behind a boulder for another peek. I gave them the thumbs up. They grinned and scurried away. Laura felt forced to adhere to social mores for a bit.

      We returned to our little trailer in the desert with our barrel cactus Christmas tree.She never let me nail her on a mountaintop again.

The White Wolf (I Know a Coyote When I see One)

Nearly every year on the Mogollon Rim I crossed paths with a white wolf. The last time I saw her was in 2005. I say “her” because I didn't ever see any wolf-balls or related genitalia. I've told the story around many a campfire, often to the ridicule of those who believe there are no wolves on the Rim. Nobody made more good natured fun of my wolf stories than Tim, Marc, and Becky.To be honest, I couldn't blame them. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would be skeptical as well.

The first time I saw her, I didn't think there were wolves on the Rim either. Mike, “The Man in the Tower”, had given me the census numbers on large mammals in the Bear Canyon area and wolves were not included.

About a mile north of the lake on Forest Road 89 is a wide cut through the Ponderosa Forest that extends from the northeast, southeastward toward Star Valley and Payson. In the middle of this cut runs huge towers, crackling powerlines, and a rough road that services them. Certain times of the summer, elk gather here of an evening to browse on the grasses that grow in this open area.

At the southeast corner of the Powerline Road and FR 89 is a meadow with a few large Ponderosa. It is a favored campsite of large families and RV campers who wish to avoid the crowds of the lake, but feel safer with the open environment and proximity of traffic. Beyond the power lines, FR89 becomes worse and greenhorns become fewer. Bivalve fossils, three to four inches in diameter, are abundant beyond the power lines.

It was a Tuesday. The weekend warriors had pulled out, leaving me to my forest. Often the RV folk left behind bags of store bought firewood. They sold splits of alligator juniper at Woods Canyon and it was good for cooking. It was better than pitchy old pine for sure, and with the recent rains, drier than the dead-fall oak I preferred to grill with. I walked FR89 toward the power lines, mentally marking the camps who'd left the dry bags of juniper and taking one-hits from my dugout.

Between the trees in the corner meadow, I saw something gleaming in the sunlight. It was a small reflection and didn't look like a beer can. I'd become an expert at recognizing beer cans littering the forest. I maintained my focus as I crossed the hundred yards of meadow so I wouldn't loose sight of it.

When I was twenty five feet from the object, I caught a movement in my peripherals and stopped. Twenty feet to the left of the object, and on an intersecting path, was the white wolf. She was also looking at the object and didn't appear to have noticed me. Not wanting to surprise a large white wolf, I coughed. I coughed in as friendly and nonthreatening a manner as I possibly could.

Startled, she stopped and turned her head toward me, just for a split second, then she bolted straight across the meadow and disappeared into the thick pines. She was mostly white, with just a touch of gray at the shoulder and haunch. Her head reached my waist. This was no coyote. I put my dugout in my pocket and stared after her.

I'd seen a wolf only once before, high in the Rockies on Mt. Elbert. This one was larger, and more white. I wondered if she didn't see me because I was stoned and vibing with the forest. It seemed odd to surprise a wolf in an open meadow. I'd heard they had released wolves near the Arizona and New Mexico border, but that was half a state away.

The shiny thing that drew me into the meadow was a child's compound bow. I fashioned an arrow from a hollow piece of tent pole with raven feathers and a handle-less phillips screwdriver (for the point). It would drive the arrow into a log enough to make it hard to pull it out. I gave to bow to the parents of Gavin Dvorak the next time I saw them. He was about to turn four, I think, and was maybe a bit young yet.

That winter at the river, I think Grizz, Lee, and Rusty were the only people who didn't try to convince me I saw a coyote. I know what a coyote looks like. Grizz said he thought they had released some wolves in the White Mountains.

Fourteen months later, I had my second sighting.

About a third of the way down the western side of Bear Canyon Lake is a still, shallow finger just before the shore curves to the left. There's a steep ravine that ends in that finger. At monsoon times, that ravine feeds the lake. I had some success floating homemade flies on the calm water there.

On the morning in question, I was maybe forty feet from the point of the finger, having a smoke before trying my luck. My most recent creation was a red dragonfly I made with a rooster feather. There was a mother duck and ducklings up at the point, and I was watching them to see if they shed any feathers. Suddenly, the white wolf sprang from an unseen spot in the tall grass, snatched a duckling up into his mouth and trotted up the ravine and out of view. The remaining ducks made quite a commotion and hastily retreated further into the lake and around the corner.

The activities had no harmful effect on the fishing, I caught three nice trout on the dragonfly. That night I tied up three more.

That winter, the gang at the Verde could barely keep contained in their mirth that I would think a coyote was a wolf. Tim said he'd seen some pretty big coyotes, and I should realize they get bigger in the mountains than the scrawny desert variety. I know what a coyote looks like.

In July, one year, Marc was camping with me at the northernmost camping area by the west side of the lake. He didn't like that spot because it was so populated, but Tyler had my fishing gear back in Phoenix and I had to spend long hours at the lake to keep fed on crawdads and dandelions. Marc had the idea to have a fourth of July party out there and invite our friends from the Verde. When the time came, we'd move out to Marc's usual spot at near where FR89 merges with FR91 near Willow Creek.

We invited about thirty people in all. Maybe half that showed up. Early on, it was just Becky, Marc, Grizz, Trapper,  Rusty, a friend of his, and Janine. One night just before dark, we drove out to the rim's edge to get a cell phone signal and call some people with specific directions to the party. I think everybody rode along but Rusty and his friend. Somebody was following us. Maybe Corona Brion and Dave the Pirate.

About a quarter mile from the lake turnoff the white wolf raced across the road, the meadow on our right, and into the forest's edge where we lost sight of it. Marc hit his brakes and said “Did you see that? That was a big white wolf!”

“Oh, no!” I replied, “That was just a coyote.” They believe me now.

The next year, toward the end of the summer, I was walking south on FR89 toward the Bear Canyon Loop Trail (a favorite of mine). I wasn't planning to hike far. I didn't have my day pack or any water on me. Then I saw the white wolf yet again. This time she crossed the road at almost the same place we had seen her the previous year, only this time she stopped at the forest's edge and looked back at me. I put my hand in one of her tracks and her paw was nearly as big as mine. Certainly not a coyote. I know a coyote when I see one.

She hesitated as if waiting for me to follow. I was high again, just like the last three times. That's actually pretty remarkable as I look back. It wasn't often I had grass on the Rim. Anyway, I got the idea that if a possibly magical white wolf wanted to show me something in the forest, who was I to refuse?

We went west, for the most part, and slightly north. We crossed out of familiar territory and down ravines and over meadows for a couple of hours. Just when she would be almost out of sight, she would stop and wait for me to halve the distance between us. We were miles from the lake, far beyond any trails or fire roads. I knew that the rim road was to my left (south), FR91 was ahead, and the power lines to the right. FR89 was behind me. Even if I got lost, I knew how to find camp.

Eventually, I began to speculate on my lack of water and the wisdom of allowing a wild carnivore to lead me deep into the forest. I couldn't discount the possibility that she was leading me to her pack for dinner. I didn't have a flashlight or jacket and it was growing dark. Insert whatever excuse you want, I quit following and rolled a cigarette, Thinking again how thirsty I was and how good that water was going to taste back at camp. I turned to head back to FR89.

Between the roots on the west side of a pine tree facing me were two water bottles and a pair of binoculars. I didn't see them on the way past because they were on the other side of the tree. Did that wolf just lead me to water and binoculars? It was obvious they had been there a while from the dust and dirt. I assumed a hunter had forgotten them last fall. I opened a bottle and drank. It tasted like the bottle. It was obviously old, but I was glad to have it.

I thanked the wolf and went home. It was dark when I crossed FR89.

The following year was the last time I saw her, and I saw her several times over the course of my last week ever at Bear Canyon. I was camped in the forest between FR89 and the lake, about a mile and a half north of Rim Road 300. I wasn't more than a quarter mile from the place I picked up her trail the previous year. My camp faced east toward the lake, and sat about two hundred feet from the top of the ravine leading down to that fly fishing spot.

Each morning, that wolf would trot right past my camp, as I sat there with my coffee and morning puff. Sometimes I'd wave and say “mornin'”. She was never in a hurry, traveling along with that familiar trot. Neither of us were afraid. I wondered if she recognized me as I did her. One morning, on my way to the lake, I saw her trot right through somebodies camp while they were fixing breakfast. They didn't even see her.

I watched her wind through the forest among campsites and up and down that ravine to the lake and never saw anybody even look at her. I stopped to ask a few people if they'd seen a wolf but got the same derisive comments my river buddies used before they saw her. There is much that goes on, sometimes within feet of ourselves, that we do not see.

In 2012, ten years or so from my first sighting, wolves appear on the census as living on the rim. I found an article dated 2002, that says wolves were released in Apache-Sitgreaves Forest. This is where I saw the white wolf.

I know what a coyote looks like.

 For more information check out The Mexican Grey Wolf Recovery Program at: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/brwrp_home.cfm

Journal Days 8-9. Eating Grasshoppers and Trading for Supplies. A Trout Technique.

Journal Day 8

Maya and I did a lot of hiking today. Her paws are all better and my lungs have grown accustomed to the thin air. I no longer wake at night gasping. We went down the bear track trail and explored a few old fire roads with trees growing in the middle of them. We found a whole elk skull, and met a family in an RV camped to the east of the bear trail in a secluded meadow. Their names are Mike and Ann and they have three teenage sons. I gave them the skull because I certainly can't hike with it. I'm not sure how I'll manage what I have.

Mike works for a power company in Hawaii that is a test market for something he calls geothermal energy. It sounds very interesting. They're letting him work from his computer while he travels with the family for the summer. Every morning he drives out to Strawberry to transmit his work. He says he used to be a Forest Service fireman in Utah. They call them Hot Shots.

Back at camp, I went around collecting grasshoppers for dinner. It took me about two hours to find and catch fifty of them. Fifty looks like a lot of grasshoppers when they're jumping around in a bucket, but once you remove the head, legs, and wings, there isn't much left.

I roasted them in taco powder. They made a tasty snack, but it would take a powerful lot of them to actually feed me. Maya liked them too. They were crispy, but didn't have much meat to them. I sure hope I don't have to rely on eating them. I probably expended more calories catching them than they provided. We'll have to get to where there is fish soon.

Just before dusk, we trekked up to the lake and saw about twenty elk in a meadow. Man, are they incredible animals! You can't hardly look anywhere around darkening time without seeing one. We saw several more on the way back to Onion camp.

We're out of coffee.

Journal Day 9

We're down to dog food, hot cereal, mushroom gravy mix, bread crumbs, a couple of cans of green beans, spices, and of course the popcorn. I took some sinew from my roll down to Mike. He's making bows for the boys and was going to use boot laces for the string.I gave him one of my six foot rolls of leather too. They can make slings or whatnot.

We did some trading, and I dumped a lot of the crap I am unable to carry for a few supplies. I gave him the guitar, acrylic paints, and all my books except the Book of Outdoor Lore. In return, he gave me a box of cigars, a big can of coffee, and more dog food. I realized after returning to camp, that I gave him all my paint brushes and have nothing for the water colors I kept. Oh well, Maya and I have plenty of hair.

Saw a turkey this morning by a small watering hole we found. Thought we'd been hearing them.

Tomorrow, I'm going to spend the day paring down my gear some more and packing up for the trek to the Washington Trailhead. It's going to be much warmer below the Rim. I had hoped to spend more of the summer up here, but with a fishless lake, that's just not wise. I'll do better in the creeks and rivers below. My maps show three sources of water between here and the trailhead, which is maybe ten miles away. We'll take our time and only cover about 3 miles or so per day.

While I'm loafin' with a cigar over a cup of Maxwell House, I'll tell you a fish story.

Growing up in Ohio, I fished for bass and catfish mostly. One night some friends of mine and I snuck into a trout hatchery, but that's all the trout fishing experience I have. They would hit on a shiny hook there, or corn, or even bubblegum, so I still really know nothing about trout fishing. I expect to learn. I kind of have too.

Before I left town, I asked a friend how to trout fish and he related this technique: “You take some bread and wade out into the water until you are about waist deep. Sprinkle bits of bread on the water and stand very still with a big stick raised over your head. When the fish come up to eat, Wham!”

I'm skeptical, but haven't had the chance to try it yet.

Journal Days 4-5

Day 4

I just noticed I've been writing in this book upside down from the back so I turned it over and started at the other end.

I got up and the sun was high again today. I don't know if its the altitude or the cold, but I've sure been doing some sleeping. I breakfasted on canned green beans, mashed potatoes, and Knorr's Mushroom Hunter gravy. I have a big canister of the gravy mix and it has chunks of dried mushrooms.  Its very good and the 'shrooms rehydrate nicely. I'll have to remember that. I found it in the trunk of my old Oldsmobile. I've never seen it in the stores. I hope they still make it.

Maya and I walked down the track we're camped on to Forest Road 147. It was only a few hundred yards. Maybe a quarter mile give or take. Her feet are improving, yet tender. We stuck to the trees and walked on the thick, soft, pine needles. She wanted to go farther, but I noticed her react if she stepped on rocks so we'll have to wait a bit before we do any real hiking.

We returned to camp and I polished off a can of yams before napping from three to six. I wonder how long before I get used to this thin air. It doesn't seem to affect Maya, but she doesn't smoke like I do. We're above 7,000 feet up here. I had to turn my lighters up to get them to work properly.

Dinner was soups. Cream of Mushroom and Cream of Celery. Smoked my last cigarette and picked some Mullein. Mullein makes a decent tobacco substitute in a pinch. The herb books say that smoking it is actually good for the lungs. The trick to smoking Mullein is to remove the veins in the leaves. That makes it taste much better. I'm carrying a few dozen packs of rolling papers.

Just before the sun went down, we were serenaded by three different Ladderback woodpeckers. I hope they are eating Bark Beetles. With the drought, the beetles have wiped out a lot of the trees. At night, I can hear the click click click as the beetles munch away. During the day you can see patches of rust throughout the forest where the trees have died. We hit the sack at nine and within a half hour there was an elk barking within feet of our tarp. It's another cold night. My breath has been visible since dusk.

Day 5

Again the sun was high when we crawled out of the tarp. I hiked up the ridge to the northwest with Maya. We were scouting the area for a place to retreat for the upcoming weekend where we might be seen by less people, and not visible from the road. I guessed I could wait another day to fetch more water. Maya was looking and walking well, but I didn't want to walk her down the rough gravel roads to the lake. I cooked spaghetti at about four o'clock.

At about seven, I followed last night's fresh elk track up the ridge behind us and found the fresh elk himself. He was a young fellow, and had four points still in velvet. Maya was riveted, and the creature allowed us to watch it for a bit before crashing away through the brush. That was her first sighting and she learned the word elk that night.

We climbed down and had a dinner of macaroni and mozzarella with tomato sauce. Afterward, I reconfigured the tarps to be tighter and warmer. By time I finished, the first three stars of the night were out and we heard coyotes in the distance. An hour later, as I was pulling the last pot of coffee of the night off the fire, we heard an elk bugling. This wasn't the same sound as the warning barks we had been hearing. It was similar to the sound a pool hose makes if you swing it over your head.

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.

An Encounter at Willow Creek

The only thing I knew was that I was frightened and far from camp.

 It surprised me. I had no reason. I froze and looked around and listened. It took me while to realize it wasn't anything I had seen or heard that had put me in such a state, It was what I didn't see or hear. The forest had suddenly become very quiet. The birds were still and out of sight. Perhaps the most disquieting thing was the constant white noise of the insects had stopped as well. The only sound was the wind in the trees and the brush and the grass.

I was several miles beyond the far turn of the Bear Canyon Loop Trail and radically off path by just as far, blazing my way north beyond even the most ancient of fire roads. I carried water, tobacco, sardines,and grass. I was in no hurry, save the waning of the day. I had may be an hour to return to the trail before dark and probably another hour or two to camp.

I had kept a steep ravine a couple of hundred yards to my right once I left the trail. It was overgrown with Ponderosa, Doug Fir, and all manner of rim cover. I remember thinking that elk could never fit between the trees if they were even able to negotiate the grade. I knew that Willow Creek (one of many named that in the high country)ran along the bottom. The deadwood alone, on these pristine uncut slopes, was probably chest high or better.

I decided to follow the edge of the ravine back south, to a point where the trail curved in sight of it and so, find my way home. When I was about twenty feet from the tangled line of growth, I heard a sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck and arms reach for the sky. I had faced big cats from ten feet away, I chased a wolf once.Nothing frightened me like this growl (for lack of a better word for it).

“Don't act like food!” Was my first thought. So I stilled my shaking and calmly, but with purpose, continued on my way.

There was a crash to my left and behind, like a large branch falling from a tree, then another just ahead. I did the only thing I could do. I had another one hit of the grass that woman left me. After a while I continued and the howl repeated. The crashes repeated. I rolled and lit a cigarette and pretended not to be food as best I could. I never looked to the left, for fear I would see what was stalking me and immediately and involuntarily act like food. I remember thinking something was protecting it's young or home. I remember hoping that.

The sun was behind the trees. It would be dark very soon.

I thought of the sardines and how hungry I was, but dared not open them for fear it would bring trouble.

It was terrifying walking like that, in the surreal landscape of twilight. It seemed like hours, just waiting for the inevitable. I peed once, hoping to offend the creature with my foul human scent. I stumbled up a low incline and into a clearing. I had found the path.

Once I got back to the old fire road, it was pitch black, my way was lit only by the stars and bright, glorious Venus. I hadn't heard anything for awhile, but still I walked down the middle of the trail, as far from the inky blackness of the trees as I could. I was still shaky hours later when I returned to camp.

Rememberings

High in the Ponderosas, I missed the woodlands of my childhood home. The deciduous trees with their fruits and nuts seemed almost like a made up story to me after 10 years in the desert. Sometimes, of an evening, I would find myself in the company of those with whom I shared the trails. I would tell the stories then, of Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Where the trees were different. Where you could hike a mile and see thirty different kinds of trees, not two or three.

I told them about the trees and about the spaces between the trees, how varied and lush the plant life was. I told them about the Hedge Apples, the strangest darn thing I ever seen growing on a tree so covered in thorns you’d think a bird couldn’t land. And Hickory nuts and hardwoods and Limestone cliffs overlooking the streams. About how we fished for Bass there, and not Trout, Water Moccasins and them tiny rattlesnakes that live in the grasses. I told these stories and they carried me home. Home was a place I never thought I’d see again.

Big Red

     It looked like part of a big hairy red ass sticking up out of the bushes. It was jiggling in a manner that suggested the fabled Mogollon Monster. Was Big Red himself bent over hiding in the thicket and giggling like a little child playing hide and seek? Was I just high?
     Even as I was walking closer I thought about how stupid I was. I closed to within about fifteen feet of the great beast. There was a giant rusty furred ass cheek at about eye level. Its shaking stopped and mine started. I froze in place. Then it started jiggling again. I took another hit of the joint.
It was 2005, and the forest was showing signs of recovering from the drought. There was to be no summer fire ban that year in Apache-Sitgreaves. The vegetation was lush and blocked my view of the creature. Was it a bear?
     I inched closer until there was only about ten feet separating me from the mysterious red ass. The rustling of grasses at my feet seemed to echo through the hills in spite of the care I was taking to creep silently through the trees. Again, the jiggling stopped. I dropped to a squatting position and took a few more tokes of the doob.
     At five feet I stopped again and put the joint in a 410 shell casing I was carrying in my pocket. I thought: “Damn, I could jump on it's back! What a story that would make!" Then I realized dead men tell no tales. I changed my thought to: "I could lunge and smack this thing on the ass”. I seriously considered it. I figured it would make a better story than just standing there with a smoldering pocket and wondering whose ass I was looking at.
In the end, I eventually sneezed or coughed or did some other dumbass thing I was trying not to do. The massive creature rose to its full height and turned to appraise me. I froze, gaping. That’s the closest I ever got to an elk.

   

Gettin' Squirrely

     I found that Bear Canyon is home to a curious creature known as the Abert squirrel. Aberts have high, pointy ears of sometime more than three inches. They are a very large breed of squirrel. One of them would make a good meal. It takes three or four common grey squirrels to fill me up.
     I made a mental not to construct a snare.
     Each day, at camp, A large Abert would dart over to the gold pan, which doubled
as my dogs bowl, and steal some kibble. Maya would chase it up the nearest tree where
the scoundrel would turn and chatter and tease her. I can only take a couple minutes of
pissed off squirrel noise. So I’d throw a rock and the little bastard would scurry away. It
became a routine.
     Eventually there came a day when I couldn’t bring myself to catch any more
crawdads or fish so I foraged up a salad. I found plantain and dandelion greens and I
mixed up a dressing using powdered milk, sugar, and wild dill; which grew in abundance.
     I was cleaning the greens when that damn Abert showed up to rob the dog. As usual, I hucked a rock at it as it tore off up the tree and nailed it square! It fell to the ground, twitched, and died. I couldn’t believe it. It was a one and a million shot, taken from about thirty feet away. I jumped to my feet and raced over intending to hide the evidence before neighboring campers noticed what I had done.
     But I was too late.
     Several A.S.U. kids camping next to me had seen what I had done and were
sprinting in to my camp. As I turned to face them I was worried that they were maybe some militant animal rights faction. The biggest one took a step forward and I realized I had no good excuse to offer. He assumed what I thought at first was a threatening pose but surprised me by saying, “ Dude, can you do that all the time?” I squinted one eye, assuming my best grizzled mountain man visage, and replied, “Ah only take whut ah need.”
     I never let on that it was an accident.
     They told me they had a keg of Fat Tire and they’d be happy to share if I’d be willing to show them how I skinned, gutted, and prepared wild game. I love to teach wilderness skills almost as much as I like applying them, and I sure could use a nice cold beer. when carcass was eviscerated and smoking over some mesquite chips, I showed them how to scrape, salt, and cure the hide. My inclination was to tie it spread out on the back of a tree where the ranger wouldn’t see it.
     All six of them, men and women, took their pictures with the hapless rodent at various stages of it’s disassembly. The way they carried on you’d have thought I brought down a rhino. Sure, I hammed it up a little.
     When it was done I saw to it that everybody got to try a little piece. We drank beer, smoked a few bowls, played some horseshoes, and just as I was about to leave, one of the girls brought me a plate. She said she appreciated my sharing my dinner with them and they wanted to reciprocate. There was bacon wrapped filet mignon, roasted corn on the cob, and potato salad. Then they brought out a cherry cheesecake and carved me off a big slab.
     I was so happy I coulda cried.
     A few days later they pulled out, leaving me with the remainder of their provisions. I didn’t have to fish for a week. Then one day I awoke to an empty campground.
     I was sitting on a round of oak and writing in my journal when a huge RV pulled up and stopped in front of me. An elderly man got out and walked in to my camp and just scowled at me. I thought, “Why would this old guy take the trouble to get down out of his rig just to give me a dirty look? “ I concluded that he must just have a face that looks like that. Maybe he was lost and mentally preparing to ask me directions. I didn’t know the protocol for dealing with crazy old coots behaving oddly, so for lack of any other ideas I waved and smiled.
     He immediately turned and hobbled back to his Winnebago, where I heard him tell his family to stay away because I looked like I’d been in the forest a while and I might get a little “Squirrely”. Not being one to miss an opportunity, I retrieved the hide from the tree and jogged over to where he was standing. “You are absolutely right.” I said, “I just got a little squirrely the other day.” and I held my skin up by the tail and shook it above my head.
Would you believe that out of the whole huge forest, they camped right next to me?