Photo by Mathew Tully
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Photo by Mathew Tully |
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Garret Culhane, Matt Tully and I had arrived at Bahia de Los Angeles, on the Sea of Cortez, from the abandoned Mission San Borja. Despite some previous difficulties, Garret's rebuilt 1959 Willy's jeep (paneled version) was performing well off-road. The Argo, my modified Toyota 4X4, was in its element. We called the two vehicles our "desert ships." From Bahia de Los Angeles we planned to cross the Llano de San Juan portion of the desert to Bahia de San Fransiscito, to the South. It's a small bay at the tip of a wide cape; an out of the way place in an out of the way land. We had heard that the fishing and diving were good and that a man and woman lived there year round. We mapped out a route that would take us in a great semi circle, first going inland, to westward, then wheeling South and finally East, back to the coast. Another route, from the West is the preferred one, as the road is tolerable and clearly marked. The way we chose is poorly charted and the region was abandoned by its few rancheros many years ago. The only remnants of their dwellings are melting adobe walls and some rusting utensils. A score of wild asses, descendents of those left behind, survive.
We filled every empty vessel we had with water. We bought all the gasoline we could from a man who sold it from oil drums on a flatbed truck. We strained it through a cloth, but in spite of that it clogged Garret's fuel filter so badly we had to change it. I bought what fresh groceries were available in the local tienda, including a nice, fat barnyard chicken, fed on corn. Ice was in short supply but we were able to buy two blocks. We got six cases of beer. Our desert ships were soon victualed, fueled and made ready for their voyage across the Dry Sea. Judging from our chart, we determined that if we left early in the morning, and didn't tarry or encounter any problems, we could arrive by late afternoon. We departed at 7:00 AM. The road out of Bahia de Los Angeles is a very badly corrugated dirt track. The going was very slow. But the Dry Sea is beautiful, and no one was voyaging on it but us. We spliced the mainbrace at 10:00 AM. Shortly after, I noticed up ahead a small stone building with bars on its windows next to a fifteen foot high heap of slag. We stopped next to the little blockhouse. A bearded man in dirty coveralls appeared from behind the slag heap and waved us over to him. Rounding the heap we saw a wall tent and the stranger disappeared into it. We followed. He stood in the middle, half smiling, saying nothing. "Buenos dias," I offered. He said, "Howdy. Have seat." "You're American?" "Yep," he drawled. "What are you boys doin' way down here?" "We're on our way to San Fransiscito. How about you?" He allowed himself to smile and said, "Ha. Well, boys, this here just happens to be the Las Flores mine. Me and my buddy work it." The Las Flores mine was on our chart, but it was listed as having been abandoned long ago. He put his thumbs under his armpits and said, "This aint really the best way to get to San Fransiscito. You ought to go by way of El Arco. Know where that is?" "Yeah," I said. "But we want to go this way. We'll go out through El Arco." "Look here," he warned. "I been down that way. This road peters out in a few miles. Then it's just tire swale. After that it's nothin'. There was an earthquake a few years ago and then the winter rain washed away a whole hillside where there might of been a road. You'll never get them rigs through." I didn't tell him how the Argo is equipped. I just smiled a little and said, "We'll get through." I thought of saying something like, 'the road may be bad, but we're badder,' but I didn't. "Don't think I'm just blowin' smoke, here!" he said impatiently. "You won't be the first ones I seen walkin' back." The tent door parted and his buddy walked in, another bearded man in dirty coveralls. "Miguel," the American said in heavily accented Spanish, "Di les a los hombres como malo el camino es." Tell these guys how bad the road is. Miguel grinned and shrugged and said, "Que camino? No hay camino. Se termino hace unos anos. Ha ha." What road? There is no road. There hasn't been a road for some years. He bubbled a little laughter. "We'll make it," we said, and got up to leave. The Gringo called after us, "Oh yeah? Well I'll be waitin' for you when you come walkin' back! If I see any buzzards flyin' that way I won't wait up!" "Adios, Muchachos!" Miguel called gleefully. "Buena suerta. La nesesitaran!" Good luck, boys. You're going to need it. And he cackled. We climbed back aboard our vehicles and left the two men behind, the one scowling, the other laughing. The weather was fine, clear skies and warm. Here and there a Roadrunner scouted ahead of us. We stopped now and then and Garret and Matt would light cigarettes. The air was so still that their smoke rose up in thin, straight columns. Garret had installed a detachable sun roof in the Willy's and a man could stand up in the hole. We called it the turret and took turns riding in it. When Matt rode the turret he pretended he was reviewing his troops and would return their salutes. I pretended I was seeking the Northwest passage to the Indies. Garret thought deep thoughts. The level terrain began to roll and undulate into low hills. As we progressed the hills became steeper and more pointed at the top until they became rows of enormous knives thrusting up from the ground, towering over us and sharp enough to rip the belly of the sky. The road did peter out, just like the man said. After that we followed the tire swale until it ended abruptly where a hill had come sliding down. Earth movement or rain, or both, had broken off the knifepoint hilltop and tumbled it down across our path, leaving truck size boulders to block our way. Even a mule would have trouble getting through. We scouted left and right. Either way led to more broken, boulder strewn ground. We backtracked some distance, then probed left and right again. We found a faint, old track that wound its sinuous way through the mountainous blades. We followed it, twisting and turning, for two or three hours. Here and there other faint tracks crossed it. Or was it crossing itself, and we traveling in figures of eight? The sawtooth hills all looked the same. I remembered another time, lost in the desert's sameness of terrain and confusion of old trails. Some one had laid out markers, of three stones, that showed the way at each juncture. I had no idea where they led, but I was in nowhere and they were leading to somewhere. I followed and came to safety. Here I looked in vain for markers. After a very long time the road came to a stop where the land dropped steeply away and settled into a broad, flat valley. We needed to know where we were so Garret and I got the big chart and laid it out on Argo's hood. With compass and ruler we took bearings from all directions. We were able to determine our general area, but the quality of our chart and the riotous topography made it impossible to pinpoint. Matt, who had been busy shooting pictures, came over and asked, "So where are we?" Without looking up from the chart I said, "We're lost, Mathew." "Cool," he said. And he meant it, and went on shooting pictures. I trained my binoculars on the valley floor, looking for roads, fences, any sign of humans. I saw two bleached looking lines running East to West. I couldn't tell if they were roads or rock ribs or something else. They started and ended within the confines of the valley, leading to no place. In Baja there are many old roads that lead to no place; and many places near no road. I studied the valley's surface. It was thickly grown with cactus but the earth looked smooth enough to drive over. If we could gain the other side, we thought, we might find a way out. It was that or go back. We decided to press on. Getting down into the valley was tricky because the slope was so steep and the surface loose. The Argo, which weighs only twenty-one hundred pounds, slipped and slid several times. The Willy's, however, when fully laden, weighs two and a half tons. It came down the hill like a snowplow out of control, mashing any cactus in its way. Garret's jutting jaw was set so tight I thought it would crack, and Matt was yelling, "Yahoo! Ride 'em Cowboy!" On our safe arrival we cut engines and spliced the mainbrace. We strolled among the tall cactus. The valley was very deep and at the bottom the air was palpably warmer. It felt thick in my lungs. It laid still and heavy, and the dust we had kicked up hung in it without moving, as though weightless. It muffled sounds. We had to shout to each other, even at short distances. Walking about, we blundered onto an old track. It was so dim it looked like a giant hand had come down and tried to erase it, tried to rub it off the face of the Earth so that no one would come this way. We remounted and followed it, weaving among the cactus to the other side. Here a still loose, but gentler, slope rose up out of the valley. We climbed it, hubs locked in four wheel drive. As we crested the top the air cooled in an instant and filled my nostrils with the tang of the sea. "We're near!" I cried. "I can smell the sea!" A breeze was drifting easily in from the Sea of Cortez. We scanned the horizon, and though we couldn't see the water, we could see a smudge of blue reflecting onto the bottom of a distant cloud.
We took out the chart again, and again took many bearings, and noted the lay of the shoreline. This time we were able to fix our position exactly. The semi circle we had driven was short by a third. We still had miles to go. I looked to the western horizon and measured the sun at two hands high. "We've got about two and a half hours of light," I told the others. "You want to spend the night here or press on?" "Press on! Even if we don't get there by dark. Let's go." We pressed on, and the road steadily improved. By sunset we were sustaining a speed of ten miles per hour. I called Garret on the radio. "We must be getting pretty close, G Man." "Yeah," he answered. "I think I could make a little more speed. How about you?" "Yeah, I think so. It'll be bumpy, but at least there's no traffic." We gradually increased our speed. By dark we were doing twentyfive to thirty. The Argo was in the lead and the Willy's close behind. It was bumpy, and sometimes I caught air, but we were closing in on our goal and were eager to make it. In the corner of my left eye a dark shape zipped past me. 'Must have scared a coyote,' I thought. 'Had to be a coyote, even though it didn't look like one. It couldn't have been a...' "Argo, Argo!" the radio blasted. "We just lost a wheel!" "You mean you've got a flat?" "No, we lost a wheel!" "One of those spares tied to the roof came off?" "No! A wheel, a wheel! The front, driver side wheel just snapped off and went flying!" I stopped. 'So I guess it wasn't a coyote,' I thought. I turned my truck around and flicked on the high beams. Matt was out in the cactus with a flashlight picking up pieces of broken metal. Garret stood on the side of the road with a beer in his hand, thinking deep, and dark, thoughts. The Willy's, amazingly, was not on its side or upside down. 'Maybe it's too heavy to flip over,' I thought. It was on three wheels and a spindle. The entire wheel assembly had broken clean off. As I drove up I could see that the spindle had driven into the dirt and dug a furrow thirty feet long. I could have planted a row of corn in it. I got out of the Argo and walked over to Garret. "A bit of metal fatigue," he said grimly. "Would have happened sooner or later. Guess it's better here than on the freeway." Garret was shipwrecked, run up on the reefs and shoals of the Dry Sea and listing badly to port. We gathered up the broken bits of his desert ship. We jacked it up and put the now retrieved wheel underneath to level it out. We solemnly spliced the mainbrace. Then came the storm. The narrow Baja peninsula, and the adjacent, equally narrow Sea of Cortez, form a thin barrier between two great weather giants: the North American Desert to the East; the Pacific Ocean to the West. When pressure differences occur between the two, their natural tendency is to equalize. But the thin wall of Baja prevents it, until the pressure builds high enough to crack the barrier. When it cracks, the winds come raging through without warning, as if to make up for lost time. That night the barrier cracked. With a mighty "Whoosh" a spinning cloud of dust leaped up from the ground and stung us in the eyes and filled our mouths with earth. The blast picked up the light, dry cactus thorns that lay on the desert floor and sent them whirling through the air in a swarm of tiny darts. Choking, I dropped my beer bottle and ran for cover in the lee of the Willy's. The others followed, hacking and coughing. Matt motioned to us to follow as he opened the rear doors and we scrambled in, battening the doors behind us. The inside of the Willy's was as dark as a cave. It was all ajumble with gear thrown about in that bumpy, final, thirty foot ride. Our lantern was in the Argo, so Garret lit a match and dug out a storm candle he carries for emergencies. He lit the candle and hung it from a cross member on the ceiling. As the Willy's shook in the teeth of the wind the candle swung, casting kaleidoscope shadows. We rearranged some of the gear and did what we could to make things tolerably comfortable. We sat on, and surrounded by, cases of beer, ice boxes, back packs, camp tools and all the other jetsam in the hold of Garret's desert ship. We were so cramped our knees were touching and one man could feel another's breath when he sighed. The storm candle swung. Garret was very quiet. The flickering shadows on his face were dark and deep. "Don't worry, Garret," we told him. "We're going to get out of this. Even if we have to drive the Argo all the way to San Diego and back for parts. We'll get the parts and fix this beastie. If it takes a week!" He forced a smile and a wink and nodded. "Is there anything to eat?" Matt asked. "Yes, indeed, I could go for something," Garret said, perking up. "I don't think I've eaten all day." "Ricardo?" Matt said inquiringly. "Chef? Chief cook and bottle washer? Do you have something up your sleeve for hungry castaways?" I remembered that nice, fat, barnyard chicken. I had planned to marinate it, then barbeque it over some hickory chips I had brought along and serve it with Fettuccini al Pesto and grilled onions. 'None of that now,' I thought. 'But what? A good dinner would be the perfect spirit lifter right now. And cold rations from a can. . . from bad to worse. But what can I do into this space. . . ?' My first inkling of what to do came when my imagination's nose smelled the finished product. 'Of course!' I thought. Then in my gustatory memory I heard the cheerful "pop" of a champagne cork. "Mathew," I said. "I'll need your help, bring your flashlight. Garret, make sure we have access to the iceboxes. Watch our light through the windshield. When you see us coming back, stand by to let us in." Matt and I crouched near the rear doors and took hold of the handles. "Ready, Matt?" "Ready." "Go!" We broke open the doors and leaped out into the storm. The doors slammed shut with a "whump." The cold wind screamed in anger. It flung the Dry Sea's dusty spume, stinging our bodies and wearing the paintwork off our vehicles. We squinted and covered our eyes. "Let's Go!" "Run!" We ran, listing into the wind. When we reached the Argo we threw up the hatch and clambered in, closing it behind. "Okay. Hold the light for me," I said. I found a canvas bag and began digging through the compartments. I gathered wine, vegetables, both fresh and canned, and some things from the ice box, including that nice, fat, barnyard chicken. In my dry goods box I found the seasonings and pasta. I had a full load so I held the light while Matt gathered my little one burner propane stove, skillet, small stock pot, colander and small utensils. "What are we going to eat, Ricardo?" Matt asked. "What all castaways eat," I said with a satisfied smile. "Ship's biscuit. But, oh, what a ship." Using the flashlight, we signaled Garret that we were ready to return. We held our goods close, lifted the hatch and ran through the choking blast again. We stopped in the lee of the Willy's and banged on it. As soon as the rear door swung, we threw in the supplies and leaped in after. Garret had rearranged the gear to make a little more room for cooking and provide a bit of shelf space. We had no room to move or turn about, but at least everything was in arm's reach. From my canvas bag I drew out a bottle of Codorniu Brut, Spanish Champagne. "Here, Garret," I said. "Ice this down." A grin cracked his weary lips. I set up my little kitchen in the space Garret had made between me and the rear doors. It was about a foot square. My cutting board went on a case of beer, the stove on the floor, spice box in Matt's lap and the canvas bag hung from the wall. While the bubbly cooled I poured water from Matt's canteen into the stock pot and set it on the stove to boil. I borrowed the G Man's pocket knife and quickly boned the chicken, removing the skin, and cut it into bite size pieces. I sliced some scallions, thin. When the water boiled I dropped in the pasta and cooked it al dente. Then came the tricky part: draining boiling water from pasta inside a cramped, six foot square space with a raging storm outside. I was sitting cross legged and could do no other, but I was, at least, near the rear doors. Matt was able to get to his feet, though bent over at the waist ninety degrees, lean over me and grasp the handle of the windward, rear door. If he were to slip and fall on me there would be hot water and pasta to go around. At my signal Matt lunged at the door and opened it about ten inches, forming a lee in which I could operate. A little dust got in but, hey: at that point who cared? Colander in one hand and pot in the other I drained the pasta, returned it to the pot and tossed it with butter. "There!" I said. "Cover that with something so it won't get cold and give me some Champagne." Garret had the bottle out and was twisting the cork, letting it ease out ever so slowly so as to prevent a too rapid expansion of the bubbles and a ricocheting of the cork through our little cabin. When the long cork had almost wholly cleared the bottle he gave it a tug, and the "pop" echoed off the metal walls. The sound cracked the vessels of mirth and let it gush forth. A canteen cup and two coffee mugs did good service as crystal flutes. The happy liquid gurgled in the bottle as it tumbled into our cups and frothed over. We drank to the beastly weather: "To the storm!" Garret offered. "Yes!" I agreed. "To Meteora!" "The bitch," said Matt. "She's in a snit now, Matt," I said. "She doesn't like being pulled back and forth by the two giants on either side here. She'll rage tonight, but come the morning she'll be beautiful again and charm us out of our beds. Just you wait and see." I lit the stove again, and in the skillet melted unsalted butter. As it foamed, its sweet, dairy smell filled the cabin. Into the pan I put the chicken, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and began to brown it. We all stopped talking for a moment to listen to the sound as it sizzled; that warm, familiar sound of sizzling meat that says, "Here there is succor." To the meat I added the scallions and we savored their pungent fragrance. The swinging light of the storm candle was too dim for me to judge the meat's doness so Matt held the flashlight for me. Garret poured more bubbly. When the chicken was thoroughly browned I added tarragon, a can of mushrooms with their liquor, a box of frozen artichoke hearts (they had thawed days before but had kept well on ice), some chicken bullion and a good splash of vermouth. I brought it to a boil, then reduced the flame and let it simmer. I set the pasta next to the stove to keep it warm. The vapors rising from the pan filled the cabin with moist warmth and spread the delicate, yet earthy smells of mushrooms and artichokes and the subtle, sometimes elusive licorice aroma of tarragon. Outside, Meteora was venting her spleen, but the inside of our cabin began to glow. When the liquid in the pan had fully reduced I added sour cream and a spoonful of Dijon mustard, stirred it well, brought it quickly to the boil once more, and it was done. We had left our plates in the Argo but the forks were in my spice box. We stirred the pasta into the creamy sauce and set the pan between us on an up-ended box of tools. From my bag on the wall I drew out a bottle of red Rioja, in keeping with the Spanish sparkler. We poured the wine into our cups and toasted the sailor's toast: "To those at sea; and so, to us." After dinner I had one more thing in my canvas bag: a bottle of Warre's Warrior Port. This we passed around and drank from the bottle. The air was chill but I could feel the warmth from the bodies of my two mates. We sat as close as conspirators plotting an escape. We talked of women, we talked of friends, of cars, of things lost, of things won. We talked of women again. Several times we stopped to sing for each other. Garret sang old Irish songs about great loves and failed revolts. I sang from old movies, like "The Wizard of Oz." Matt's favorite music is that of the Rolling Stones. We decided it wouldn't sound good acapella, and so he played Master of Ceremonies instead. When the Port was gone, our songs were all sung and stories were told enough, we sat in quiet comfort. The candle was burning out, flickering its last. Our eyes drooped, heads nodded. We wriggled and snuggled and yawned one more time. In our ears Meteora's howl faded to a whisper, the sound retreating to some far horizon. A murmur sounded, "Don't worry, Garret. We won't leave your ship behind." "Somehow we'll fix it." "I know." The next morning the storm was done. The hammer force winds had become perfumed little sighs, smelling of the clean sea not far away. One or two little dust devils, the size of cats, scampered across the ground, then melted into air. The sky was cloudless and the sun warm.
I began to make coffee on the tailgate of the Argo and lay out some fruit for breakfast. Mathew came over looking for my little folding shovel, the one I call the toilet handle. "Remember the part in James Joyce's Ulysses," he asked with a glint in his eye, "where Leopold Bloom goes to the outhouse?" "Uh, yeah. I think so," I said, clutching a handful of bananas. "Do you remember what Joyce says? "What?" "As Bloom sat there he felt a gentle loosening in his bowels." So saying, Matt picked up the shovel, stuffed some TP into his shirt pocket and said, "I go now, Ricardo, to loosen gently." He turned and walked, whistling, into the cactus, juggling the shovel like a nine pin. Moments after he had disappeared, I heard him shout, "Ulysses!" Only a cavalier like Matt could turn a humble bowel movement into a literary experience. After breakfast, and a couple more literary experiences, we held a council of war. We decided that Matt and Garret would stay with the Willy's and do what work they could on it. I would go on to San Franciscito and see what aid might be available. If we were lucky, the ranchero might have a rig big enough to tow the Willy's to shelter. Then Garret would be able to stay there until Matt and I went to San Diego for a new wheel assembly. There would be no chance of getting the parts in Mexico; Willy's jeeps have never been sold in Mexico. It would be difficult enough to find the parts at home, considering the vehicle's age. It would take us a day to reach the highway, then a day or two to reach San Diego, probably a day to find the parts, and then three days back to Garret. We had no idea how long the repair work would take. We would leave all food and drink and other supplies with Garret, taking only money and fuel. I reached the little bay in about fortyfive minutes. I first saw it, and the rancho, as I came up over a rise. Out on the tip of a cape, it juts out into the sea and catches a lot of wind. A gust blew a swirl of gritty sand through my open window, forcing me to close it. I saw that the rancho is composed of about six buildings, some of wood, others of thatch. I could see no people, even through my binoculars. I rolled slowly down the hill, looking for any signs of life. I reached the first building, cut the engine and got out. I listened, but the only sound was wind. 'I wonder if that's Meteora laughing at me?' I thought. 'It would be tough to have to leave Garret out there in the desert for a week, this close to shelter. ' I made my way along the buildings, stopping at each one to check for occupants. In one I saw a rusty old car frame and what seemed to have been a work bench. 'Maybe this was their garage,' I thought. 'It might be useful to us. Although there's nothing left of that car. Like buzzards strip a corpse; not a thing left but the rusted frame and the wheels. Can't even tell what make it was. ' Then I saw the rusty, dirty, faded label. It said "Jeep." I found a man, his wife and three of their cousins living at the rancho, and told them of our plight. With the enthusiasm of an Italian soccer team they sprang into action, removed a wheel assembly from the old Jeep and mounted a three vehicle convoy to the Willy's. When we arrived on the scene, the look on Garret's and Matt's faces told me they knew we were saved. The three cousins went to work on the wheel and it quickly became apparent that we didn't have all the necessary parts and tools. But necessity is a mother, and all that. Living and working in the desert, where all things are rare, had made the three guys brilliant jury riggers. They made a clamp from an old spring. Then they made a spring from an old clamp! They supplemented their tools with rocks and nails and boot heels, and they shimmied and shimmed, pounded and prodded everything into place. They did so much with so little, I became convinced that they could do anything with nothing. Matt said, "Richard, they can jury rig a Jeep as well as you can jury rig a dinner!" After six hours of mechanical marvel they presented us with a bill for $500. They wanted $250 for the part and $250 for labor. Between the three of us we had maybe $200. "Richard," Garret said, "let me ask you something. Didn't you agree on a price ahead of time?" "Uh...Matt," I said. "Didn't I hear you talking money with them earlier?" "Money?" Two hours of hard negotiation and a couple rounds of beer brought the price down to $100. Not bad for a rare old part, imaginative jury rigging and eighteen man-hours of labor. We figured the repairs would last us only as far as the border, maybe a little farther, but that was fine with us. That was in January of 1989. As I write this in January of 1994, Garret is still driving on that Baja wheel. And the dish I prepared that night of the storm resides in my recipe file as Jury Rig Chicken. |
Excerpted from The Fire Never Dies
