``My eyes hurt,'' he says. ``From what?''
``From the wind.'' ``We'll look for some goggles.'' "All of us go in a shop for coffee and rolls. Everything is different except one another, so we look around rather than talk, catching fragments of conversation among people who seem to know each other and are glancing at us because we're new. Afterward, down the street, I find a thermometer for storage in the saddlebags and some plastic goggles for Chris. The hardware man doesn't know any short route across the Missouri either. John and I study the map. I had hoped we might find an unofficial ferryboat crossing or footbridge or something in the ninety-mile stretch, but evidently there isn't any because there's not much to get to on the other side. It's all Indian reservation. We decide to head south to Mobridge and cross there." [ZMM] The Indian Way... The town of Pine Ridge hadn’t changed. If anything, it was even poorer. And even though there didn’t seem to be much there worth fighting over, crime must have increased to the point that everyone carried guns. My cousin Mouse wondered why on earth he’d ever wanted to go there. I wondered too. It no longer seemed like home to me. We stopped by several run-down trailers with worn out tires dotting the roofs looking for old friends of mine but they no longer lived there. “Let’s go to the campground we passed on the way here,” Mouse suggested. “Remember? It was on highway 18 just west of Oelrichs back in Wyoming. I know it’s off the reservation but we can come back tomorrow if you want. I don’t like it here, Tom. It scares me.” “I’d like to go out to our old ranch,” I said. “If you don’t mind we could do that tomorrow. I suppose the Army is still there but I’d like to see anyway. I heard they’re giving some of the land back… making it into a national park. I’d like you to see where I grew up.” On our way out of Pine Ridge we saw an old woman standing by the road looking lost wringing her hands. A small boy sat beside her in the dirt. He might have been two or three years old. “Turn around,” I said to Mouse. We went back to talk to the woman. She said the boy was sick. She was his grandmother. She wanted to take him to the clinic in Martin but she had no way of getting there. “Get in,” I told her, opening the door for her and the boy to climb in the back seat. I told Mouse that Martin was back east so we’d have to either look for another place to stay for the night or come back this way after we dropped the woman and the boy at the clinic. “How far is it?” Mouse asked. “About fifty miles,” I told him. “I think so, anyway. I remember going there as a boy with my father to sell fence posts that we cut while we still had our ranch.” “Jesus, that’s the nearest clinic?” he asked. “Apparently it is. And that clinic must be relatively new. When we lived here we had to go all the way into Rapid City to see a doctor. That’s over a hundred miles. I had two brothers who got sick and died when they were babies because we had no access to medical care. It’s a wonder any of us lived at all.” “I had no idea things were so bad here,” Mouse said. “It’s like we’re in another country.” “We are,” I told him. “I guess when you’re here every day you just get used to it. We never had electricity or running water in our house on the ranch but we did okay. My God though, Tonkala… look at these houses and how the people here live.” We were driving past trailers that sat tilted and marooned in the parched landscape with garbage and old vehicles strewn all around. The few stick-built homes looked as if they were ready to fall down, with most of the shingles missing from their roofs, old washing machines sitting on the porches, and mean dogs tied in the back. “You don’t suppose what he has is contagious, do you?” Mouse asked, motioning to the boy in the back seat leaning against his grandmother. He held his stomach as if it hurt him. “No,” I said looking over the seat at him. “Either he ate something bad or he has appendicitis. I’m guessing appendicitis.” As we pulled into the parking lot at the free clinic, the old woman said she wanted our address so that she could send us money for the trip. I told her no, we didn’t want any money. If she’d write us sometime letting us know how the boy fared, that would be payment enough. I gave her a scrap of paper with my name and address written on it and a dollar for envelopes and stamps. She promised she would write. After we dropped them at the clinic we asked around town about a campground. An old Indian named Ned Little Elk working at a filling station told us if we really wanted to find a campground to go south into Nebraska. He said if we didn’t mind roughing it we could stay at his place. “Bring your own water,” he warned us. “They’ve fouled all the wells. My water is no good. I have to haul it from town in fifty five gallon drums.” I said as a boy I remembered drawing our water from the creek. Ned nodded saying that was before the army came. Now, all the creeks were too polluted for even fish to swim in, much less for drinking. He gave us directions to his ranch. He said we could sleep in his barn if we didn’t mind sharing it with livestock. Either that or we could pitch a tent around back. Ned joined us that night beside the small campfire we kindled. We drank whiskey from a brown jug and listened to the old man’s stories. He told us about how he’d been married once with five kids but they all died one by one of alcohol poisoning and disease and in accidents while working for the army and how his wife ran off after that. “I though about looking for her but she was ugly anyway,” he laughed showing his naked gums where teeth once grew. “But I do miss those kids.” I asked how long he’d lived here. He said all his life. His father gave him the land. I told him that I used to live on a ranch like this just south of Pine Ridge many years ago until the army took our land. He nodded as if he already knew. The next morning we left early before the old man got up leaving Ned a thank you note with some money in it. We drove west looking for our old ranch but there was a barbed wire fence in the middle of the road I remembered leading there and a sign that said no trespassing. We stopped and I pointed at the horizon telling Mouse that just over the hill is where we used to live. The land had grown dry and all the trees were gone. The wind blew mournfully and the black creek water that ran under the bridge no longer sang. “It didn’t used to be like this, Tonkala,” I explained when I saw the look in Mouse’s eyes. Ever since we were boys I always call Mouse by his Lakota name. “There were lots of trees and grass grew everywhere. We used to ride horses along the creek stopping to fish for our lunch and to swim. I knew everyone for miles around. It was a perfect place for a kid to grow up.” “Do you ever hate the army?” “Every fucking day,” I said. “I hated all white people for the longest time… even after we moved to California. Salla kind of changed that though.” Salla is a white girl I met in California. We had a torrid affair until she tired of me being Indian and I tired of her being white. “She was hot,” Mouse agreed. “You have no idea, Tonkala,” I told him, laughing. “I want to go home, Tom.” “Let’s go then. I’ve seen everything I wanted to see.” On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:34 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > I've always been drawn to the myth of the cowboy. A lot of it has to do > with horses. My mom loved horses and grew up on a horse ranch in Loveland, > Colorado. Her dad was an Ob doctor, but also loved horses - a sort of > cowboy/doctor. When we say "cowboy", I think what we mean in essence is > "horseman" for its not the cows that make a cowboy, its the saddled animal > underneath his seat. > > When I was framing all the time, I thought of that as being a kind of > cowboy. We worked outside in all kinds of weather and there's a requisite > skill set that goes along with walking the plate line, nailing off trusses > and there's this cocky feeling you get with your hammer hanging by your > side, a certain tilt of the hip and a fast draw. Not to mention the > frequent use of a gun. Nail gun, but nevertheless. I used to sing or hum > that Willie Nelson tune, My heroes have always been cowboys, but I > substituted "framers". A special breed of cowboy. The complete opposite > of a "settler" who worked at one office building all his life. Like the > cowboy, we moved around, wherever the work called us. We didn't work at > offices, we worked on offices. > > A cowboy is always moving on; a framer leaves something behind - an > unfinished something, it's true. An open and open-end something that later > becomes a finished structure. And I noticed when I was working in ND, that > it felt good getting back to framing. A lot of guys would grumble and gripe > about not being rich and having to come out and work and I'd always tell > 'em. I like it. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't like it. I like > creating structure. Permanent, sound, structure. And when I finish, I can > stand back and say to myself, "there it is, well done." And it's really, > REALLY nice, to have others around me, like my boss and his customers, heap > praises upon my ears. I like that. I don't think I'd get quite as much of > that truck driving. Nobody applauds at the end of the day when you get > your load in. There's nothing to see. Thus in retrospect, the way things > turned out, I'm glad ole Marvin led me on a wild cattle drive to the > heartland of the northern plains. But at the time I was stuck up on that > pass? Not so much. > > > > At the time, I was thinking more dark thoughts about cowboys. For there > was another sense of the word I'd grown up with - "Jes' cowboy 'er on in > there" - an expression that denotes "get 'er done". Often a fast and > dirty repair but considering the usual conditions of cowboying - working > with the tools at hand, whatever they be, and accomplishing the task, you > see there's a certain value there. The value of Focusing on Function. > Another thing they are called is Baling Wire Fixes. > > > > They don't make baling wire anymore, and I miss it. Very ductile yet very > strong. I use rebar tie wire now, and it's ok, but just not as strong as > good ole american baling wire. I should market the idea and sell it in the > same aisle with duct tape. If you wrap your baling wire fixes with duct > tape, they don't rust and could last a long, long time. White trash > millionaires strike again. (Tell ME about beer can shims, he mutters...) > > > > But Marvin just took this to an insane limit. He had (has) the lifetime of > experiences which give him the confidence that it worked before... and a > bunch of stories about the times they didn't. See, I think that's what I > discovered about cowboys as I got to know Marvin. Herding cows is boring > and needs a good story to spice things up, and in order to have a good > story, things have to go a bit awry. And That, is the cowboy song. Right > there. Purposefully creative self-destruction, just so you you can howl to > the sky, "why me, why me". > > > It's a bit scarier though when that attitude is behind the wheel of a big > rig and my trepidations were beginning to mount when I saw the extent of > Marvin's operation. My dad's old roomate, was living in a double wide in > Kamiah, ID, married to a mormon woman and somehow with a whole extended > family of failed earlier pairings, was the center of help to a vast network > of step kids, ne-er do wells and indians. His tool set (I'd heard it was > a great mechanic) was a cardboard box in the back of his sedan. His plan > for getting me to the jobsite - some 900 or so miles away still - was to > hook me up to the back of his empty water tank, and have me drive this > bastard triple across the Idaho mountains and through the entire state of > montana. On the weigh scale, the RV (full of my tools, btw) was just over > 11,000 and any recent trucking school graduate (ahem) could tell you that > you most carefully put the heavier load in front and I don't know how much > his empty tank weighed, but I was nervous about it. As long as there > weren't any winds across the Northern plains in the spring, we'd be fine, > I'm sure. What do I know? I've been a cowboy, but a California cowboy > isn't quite the same. Ain't had our boots on the ground long in the new > situation. I so I mostly followed Marvin's lead. heck this was my new > boss. But I was beginning to wonder. > > > The incident which convinced me that it was not going to happen, my > precious RV and livelihood hitched to the back of his, was when after I > got done bolting on a flat bed that some guy gave him for free (and it > wasn't worth that, imo - rotten, bent and rusted - except of course, he > wasn't paying me anything either so I guess it was a good deal) he insisted > on driving with a borrowed welder without chaining it to the bed > properly. Without chaining it at all, in fact. Just laying there, flat > with a chain draped over the top and a bunch of tires heaped around it. > I'd tried twice to convince him that we oughta chain the thing up. I mean, > we had the holes for the chains to go through the flat -bed - the stake > holes out at the edges - right there, the logging chain, right there. I'd > done this countless times with my old boss up in the woods, in our log > harvesting days. But he insisted that we were just going a short ways, and > there was no need. I figured maybe it was some kind of test over my > pickiness so I heeded my new boss, and got behind the wheel of his old > beatup dodge (cummins, so deep down good, but really old and thrashed) and > very carefully drove those oxy acytelene cylinders right across town, and > down main street where Marv hopped in and got a few things, and then back > across the top of town, through a school zone with a marshal parked right > across the street eyeballing everybody who was passing by as the kids were > let out of school. At the time, I didn't think that much about it, but > after we'd unloaded some tires at some junkyard, Marvin took the wheel and > very soon after, a corner. And whether he wasn't being as careful or just > too fast or we'd unloaded the tires that were holding the welding bottles, > whatever reason, off those bottles clattered onto the road, throwing up > sparks. I had visions in my head of the valves snapping off and that > mixture of explosive gas and oxygen ending up under the gas tank of a > nearby parked car. Fortunately it just broke off the regulator from the > valve and the valve was fine. > > > And that's when my mind flashed back to going through a school zone, and my > brand new license in my pocket which I could lose for the slightest > infraction... suffice it to say, that it was at the moment, that I decided > I was not hooking up to Marvin's wagon. > > > And I decided that perhaps cowboys smell better on billboards than they do > in real life. > > > Marvin is only half the story. There was another cowboy involved in the > picture - a guy with a white hat, dressed in uniform almost as fancy as > hop-along cassady's with his cool gun in his hip and his glint in his eye. > Deputy glen, we'll call him. Mty wife's brother, back in Missoula. But > I don't want to go into all that. Already wrote most of that up over on > the lilasquad and I hate repeating. Suffice it to say there are two sides > to the cowboy way, and it took both of them to get me stuck on that ridge. > Where I'd left my lights on while contemplating cowboys and indians, east > and west. > > > ZAMM is journey from the hearland to the west. A road story. Lila > companioned that by going east, by boat and thus the whole story is told. > From west to east, from bike to boat. And what is a boat but an RV that > floats? Or to put it another way, what is an RV but a boat that runs on > dry land? What I was contemplating on that ridge, is that you find a sort > of antipathy for the extremes in those books. On the west coast, a "fuck > you" disinterest that sheens every face is described at the end of the > journey, in the farthest west. In Lila the New Yorker is described > differently, its a flicker of sneer and cynicism "I won't be taken in by > you" which distances one heart from another. I think I see what he meant, > but I have a different perspective having grown up out here on the edge. > Out here, there's a sort of self-aggrandizement that is bequeathed by the > love of Cali for her animals. "I am the one!" seems to be the > undercurrent. Eureka, I have found it, is what made this place from the > beginning. The easterner is more steeped in a classic and static social > pattern that recognizes almost immediately in every transaction "you ain't > the one." When they meet in the middle, you get some real crazy > misunderstandings. But in the middle, in the heartland, what I found > mostly in the faces of the people is openess. The land is open, so are its > people. To an extent. Nothing beats a farmer for conservatism when it > comes to new ideas. But there is an openess that is willing to listen. At > least, that's what I found. > > > But what finally got me down off that divide, was not AAA road service > (they put me on hold forever) was not some cowboy/macgyver fix. Nor > pleading for the tender mercies of busy truck drivers, it was angelic help > in the form of southern hospitality and friendliness. My favorite things > in the world. Tourists from Georgia, stopped at the rest area to > photograph something they rarely saw back home - the snow. With a brand > NEW cummins turbo-diesel and big battery under the hood. Jumped me right > up and down that mountain, and on into the Walmart parking lot in Bozeman, > where I lived for about a week. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
