Page 36 - the NOISE August 2014

Last month’s installation concluded with Shan & Buck embarking on their hike into the mysterious Farley Canyon, to a well known Moenkopi landmark called the Sewing Machine.
They were looker-hikers, not talker-hikers, therefore, no chit-chat as they slipped be- tween the creamy breasts of Cedar Mesa sand- stone. The farther they descended, the deeper the potholes became, Shan stopping to plop into most of them.
“Hey, water ousel, supposing I want a drink out of one of those? I’d like one or two left in pristine condition and not all stirred up by your butt.”
“I’ll save you a couple. Meanwhile, turn around and look what’s next to the cliff there on the sand about ten feet behind you.”
One of the Glen’s small pink rattlers was slowly making for the wedge of sunlight just ahead of it. Buck took a side step and reached for the Ruger.
“NO!” she shouted. “It’s not bothering you. You aren’t sleeping here tonight. Let it be.”
Buck was in the habit of shooting anything that wiggled, bit, leaped, or stung, something Shan had done when she was a kid, growing up in the desert, but the Glen had given her an entirely different outlook, and it was one of the things she and Buck had serious disagree- ments about. Okay to shoot to eat, not okay if some varmint just happens to be in your way — it was here first.
Jason and Step would fork-stick the rattlers behind their heads, pick them up there, and loose them many yards away.
One time she’d gone so far as to call Buck a misguided Redneck and he hadn’t spoken to her the rest of the day. Usually he’d capitulate when she was around, but she was convinced he reverted to his old habits when she wasn’t.
He holstered the gun and they kept head- ing down.
Half hour later they came to some serious drops. As long as the intrusion of Cedar Mesa sandstone held out the drops were negotiable, but they were coming to the underlying layer of crumbling Moenkopi mud-stone, less easy to negotiate. Above them, the upper layer dripped red over the smooth, fleshy sandstone like jagged knife cuts into soft, vulnerable flesh.
The canyon deepened. A drop they couldn’t negotiate sent them along its upper side as it narrowed even more, until ... a bend or two far- ther the sandstone gave out entirely and they looked down fifty feet into a crevasse with a muddy snake of captured water at the bot- tom. Where they stood on the lip of the pour- over it was only thirty feet across — above, the walls rose another fifty. Shan danced from side to side trying to look around abutments that zigzagged to the river, which they could hear, but not see.
“Damn it,” said Buck, “we’re close!” He leaned over the drop to see any possible hand and foot holds and shook his head, “No way down that!”
Shan let go a sigh, “Fine ... canyon just said, ‘No!’”
“Looks that way.”
“Sometimes, I like it when they do. Oh, I’d like to see the hanger and the wildness that has to be around that bend; but the fact that no human prints, or animals either, have touched that turf kinda pleases me.” She took off the shirt and tied it around her waist.
“I wouldn’t be so sure — those guys with ropes and ... “
“Don’t spoil my illusions. C’mon, lets get back to the potholes. I’ve got an idea for a pho- to to illustrate a story I’m writing about cow- boys.” She’d noticed one lengthy pothole, fed by a side drainage as well as the main, where she’d be able to set up her camera and run in for the shot.
When they approached it, she stared at it for a long minute, then looked at Buck. “Time for a bath,” she said.
“Is that your fifth or tenth? Be my guest.”
“No, you. It’s real warm today ... you’re all sweaty ... you could get cooled off.” She leaned over, put her hand in the water and smiled, “just right for the likes of you, not cold, not scalding.”
“Just call me Cucumber, I’m fine.”
They argued for five minutes before Buck,
in a truly benevolent mood that day, agreed to humor her. The camera had a timer, and what she wanted was a photo of him in the pothole, with her sitting on the shelf above, pointing the Ruger at him. In picture words: The only way to get a cowboy to take a bath.
“I bet it isn’t for a story at all, you must have something else in that rattled head of yours.”
“Maybe I’ll tack it on the inside of my closet
door, like the one you have of me, dressed in my guitar, inside your outhouse door.”
After a couple tries, she got her picture, with Buck grumbling all the time, which made it perfect, as far as she was concerned.
He rolled out of the pothole and dressed. She handed him the Bearcat and put her camera back in the case. Over the years, she’d watched him bring down rabbits on the run, and even ducks in the water, when they need- ed a meal. She was a fair shot, herself, and the little gun fit her hand nicely and was light weight for a chunk of steel, which is why Buck chose to carry it on hiking trips, in preference to others he had.
Instead of holstering it, he aimed for the sky- line a couple hundred feet away; took a pot- shot at a small steeple of rock with a perfect ball of stone balanced on its tip ... and missed.
She was surprised.
“Can I try?” she asked, reaching out a hand. “Be my guest ... safety’s on.”
Shan laid her camera down, took the Ruger,
turned sideways to the target and took a firm stance on the sandstone, feet slightly apart. Raising her gun hand high, she pushed the safety off, slowly brought it down toward the target ... and shot.
The ball disappeared and the steeple be- neath it crumbled.
She looked at him and smirked ... pushed the safety on, blew into the barrel like some hot gunslinger, and handed him the Ruger, grip first.
He looked at the gun as if contemplating its betrayal — looked at her satisfied grin, tucked in the corners of his mouth and said, “Keep it!”
“Wh — what d’you mean? I can’t carry it ... got no pants on.”
“I mean keep it. It’s yours. You now own a Ruger Bearcat 0.22 caliber pistola, complete with Bucheimer Made leather, snap-strap hol- ster. I’ll carry it for now.”
~*~*~*~
“Hey, look who’s on the ferry!” Shan yelled
to Jason. “Kinda looks like the old beanpole, doesn’t it? Buck!” she called, crawling back over gas cans, tackle and bait, to where he sat at the tiller of Rintintin, “See who’s there?”
“Don Quixote hisself, I’ll bet.”
“Ol’ Step’n’fetchit, for sure,” she said, mov- ing back to the bow. They waved to the lanky figure who toyed absently with the hair at his crown. He raised his hand, spreading fingers wide in greeting. All of Step’s facial features were large, and when animated appeared even larger. A half-moon grin split open his face, his strong aquiline nose wrinkled and flared and his deep set, amber eyes sparkled. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been here for hours,” he stated convincingly.
“Like hell you have!” erupted Shan, “We heard your plane before the storm hit,” she threw him the bow rope. “Here, tie us up.”
Buck stepped out of Rintintin onto the fer- ry, extending a hand to Step. “Yeah, we heard you come in. I hit the backlash of a haystack in Sheep Rapid about when the storm hit, so we climbed into a cave ‘til she blew over. How the hell are ya, Professor? Heard you been over in the real desert. Find any arrowheads?”
“No, but we saw a canyon similar to this one — same red sandstone, same erosion pattern, little different culture, more advanced but active at the same time — place called Petra. They carved pillared temples out of the walls and the only access to the place is through a crevasse about as wide as the one in Dungeon Canyon. You’d like that, Buck.”
“When they gonna dam it?”
“Funny thing, I asked them that question and they thought I was crazy, wanted to know why I asked such a thing.”
“Maybe we can ship ‘em some Bureau guys, they’d soon find out why.”
“No,” Step replied, taking him seriously, “I wouldn’t want them to ruin both places. That As- wan Dam ... gads, what an incredible mistake!”
“Hey, knock it off you guys.” Shan bounded between them and gave Step a hug. “What were you hung on this time, Stephen Atien de la Torre — get locked in somebody’s darkroom?”
“Hi sweetie,” he smiled down at her, return- ing the hug. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Jason, last out of the canoe, joined the cir- cle and shook Step’s hand, though they were much closer than a handshake would indicate; their former trips, with the hikes, conversa- tions, and discoveries they shared, had made them a tight trio. Both he and Shan looked to Step for their best camera shots, and Jason could hardly wait for the talk about shutter speed, aperture, ƒ-stops, low angle light, and many other things.
At three o’clock, with shadows pushing into the canyon turning the water a mottled blue, the Tickaboo and passengers departed. The shower had cooled the air and both men wore jackets. Shan’s yellow shirt was tied in a knot between her breasts. As they slid into the main current she loosened it impatiently and waved to Buck, calling, “See you on the first, Cowboy. Don’t forget — Wolverton!”
He watched the boat bob through the first riffle. For a few moments it disappeared, then rounding the bend of the Dorothy Bar, popped up on a silvery flash of waves.
He saw the yellow shirt flutter like a sail and a shiny object arc over the boat into the river — her Timex watch — Shan’s final kiss-off to civilization.
He laughed and waved once more. Then they were gone.
| Katie Lee is an Arizona native who
became a Hollywood starlet, then a folk singer, then an author and activist who along with Edward Abbey, chal- lenged the Reclamation Bureau’s plan to dam Glen Canyon, now Lake Powell. Available at KatyDoodit.com
36 • AUGUST 2014 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
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