The best place to meet hardly anyone local in a new town is in a truck stop shower line, we discovered, having gone 9 days without a shower. It seemed high time. When I asked the cashier for two shower reservations, since I planned to sneak one of each of our filthy boys in with us, she gave my greasy hair a sidelong glance and only charged me for one shower. I guess she’s accustomed to more well kempt truck drivers and assumed we were homeless. I appreciated the discount because $13 per shower seemed a bit pricy. Well, until we got under the heavy stream of steaming hot water. Then it felt priceless.
It was New Years Eve and it seemed a good time to have a shootout at the OK Corral over in Tombstone. While the boys were trying out their new arsenal of weapons, we shot the shit with some local Hungarians selling their wares on the street. A husband and wife team, he was a blacksmith who had bought an old mining property and enjoyed waltzing around the Tombstone boardwalks wearing his spurs and holster and regaling visitors with stories of Tombstone’s heyday only two years after he’d moved there. While examining his wife’s handmade jewelry, local basalt polished into small porous beads encircling hand blown glass medallions, we learned from this cheery bald Hungarian that Doc Holiday’s love, Big Nosed Kate, was in fact also Hungarian, so Hungarian roots in the Old West go way deep.
It was recommended that we go to the parking area by the river, walk down a few paces and cross the small bridge where we would find the old ghost town, and while we were at it, we should visit the cemetery and several other historic places that sounded hit or miss to find. But the kids had already killed each other at the OK Corral at least 89 times, and we had some laundry to organize, so we headed back to our campsite in the shadow of Cochise Stronghold, made a cheese plate and set off some fireworks to bring in the New Year.
Cowboy Coffee in the New Year
The next morning our heat was out in the trailer and it was about 20 degrees out, so we headed to the nearest small breakfast joint down the road in a small strip of mostly defunct businesses off the highway. The sign at the business next door read, “If you Know how many guns you Have, you don’t have Enough”.
The waitress’s only Patrons were her husband and curly haired 2 year old son, who had stopped by for breakfast on their trash run. The father was dressed in fatigues and when he left, I engaged the waitress whose nametag said ShiAnne. I said, “So we saw the coolest thing the other day. A whole band of coatamundis, like 15 of them, mommas and babies with their long fluffy tails held high and their pointy rubbery noses sniffing around this dry creek bed. And then we saw all these hunters out. So do you think that was what they were looking for?”
She laughed. “Oh probably. I don’t know. They’ll shoot at anything! My husband goes bow hunting, but I don’t know why you’d want to shoot one of those little, what’d you call ‘em? I’ve never even seen one! Where were they?”
I said, “Oh we were about 20 miles down a dirt road going to rock climb the Whales Tail in Cochise Stronghold. We learned at the fabulous desert Native American Art museum, Amerind, nearby, that the wilderness area is also called the Apache Stronghold, since the Apache’s recognize that Cochise wasn’t their only celebrated warrior”.
ShiAnne said, “Oh! Well yes those mountains are beautiful. I love taking a drive up into the Chiracauas. Maybe someday I’ll see one of those coatamundis!” She then went outside to smoke a cigarette. When she came back in and filled our coffees for the fourth time, even though they were mostly full, Danny asked, “Is there somewhere we can do our laundry round here?”
She said, “Oh sure! Over at the Suna Zona Mall just down the road past the Pierce Ghost town, but don’t be expecting a Mall Mall, it doesn’t hardly even have any signs”.
Suna Zona Mall
She was right. We almost missed the low slung concrete conglomeration of buildings with two trailer parks blending into the desert expanse behind. We rolled in and found only one other person, a 30 something woman with purple and bleach blonde hair, chopped somewhat randomly in what appeared to be a utilitarian home job. She was dragging one leg in a full knee brace while her daughter about ten years old sat in a chair at the entrance wearing a taffeta blue bridesmaid gown and black cowboy boots. She was playing a video game on her phone.
While our boys went next door to peruse the second hand junk shop called “Jesus Loves You Junk” I struck up a conversation with Carrie her name was. She said she and her man did home fix it projects while home schooling their two children. But not in a stationary home. They lived in a trailer with three bedrooms and two slideouts which they had taken five times across the country. I asked what home schooling program they used and she gave me the low down. Apparently Arizona will give you some money for books and computers and all you have to do is turn in some record daily of something educational you did, “like play with the dog”. Also, they offer online classes, but she made it clear she’s not That kind of mom. She said, “Can you imagine, me lookin like his, goin in the background ‘Ok Honey I’ll help you with your homework right after I finish bakin this pie’. That would be some funny shit!” Then she explained there was no reason to call in to any classes when your main goal was to get away from all that. She said, “Can you believe that family in Texas who got in trouble cause their teacher saw a gun on the kids bedroom wall while home schoolin' and reported them? Not us. They can keep their classes and we’ll let our kids keep their guns!”
I noticed she had sores all over her face and hands which appeared to be from scratching and decided to go outside for some fresh air.
The kids showed up just in time to catch a local rancher getting out of his truck with a side piece in a holster on his hip. As they stared wide eyed he said, “Oh I don’t always carry it into the laundry mat, I just didn’t want to leave it in my car”. Then as an afterthought, “you know, I ain’t killed nothin with it but a rattler. So you don’t have to be scared. My wife carries one too just in case, cause she’s back at the trailer alone”. After picking up his laundry while we played with his dogs, he drove off and said, “Y’all have a blessed day”.
It seemed the laundry mat was the place to catch up on the local goss and see who was new in town. A woman in her 60’s dripping with turquoise jewelry approached us in the dirt parking lot. She did not appear to have any laundry in tow. It seemed she was just driving by and stopped to see who was around to chat. She wore a face mask and started telling me about all the friends in the near vicinity who were dying or already dead from Covid-19. She said, “I’m telling you, you do not want to get this thing!” As she animatedly related that two friends had just this morning been put on ventilators, she got a bit closer, and closer, until I felt compelled to take few steps back. Because we’d come to the desert to avoid people and Covid-19, I changed the subject, as the kids were beginning to look a bit traumatized.
I said, “That’s lovely turquoise jewelry you’re wearing. You have quite a collection!” She said, “Oh yes, I’ve been around here a long time and this is all the real deal. Some of its Navajo, some Hopi, some Zuni. We are, after all, in reservation Country. I’m around artists all the time because I’m a musician you see. I collect pianos and, you’ll never guess it, accordions!”
“Wow!” I said, “Wherever do you find accordions around here?” She said, “You just have to know where to look. I have five pianos and seven accordions.” Even though I myself have four harps, I wondered how she managed to keep all these instruments in tune and how often they actually got played if she spends whole mornings at the laundromat without doing any laundry. We headed next door to the unmarked convenience store to stock up, as we were told it was the only place around for supplies. As it turned out, along with groceries, they carried Traditional Baja ponchos and blankets, horse feed, tack, fishing gear, local wines, tobacco and liquor, binoculars, gun belts, a toy rack, kitchen supplies and gas and propane outside. We stocked up on some locally grown pecans, eggs and other supplies, grabbed some binoculars and ponchos for the kids, and headed back into the desert.
The Navajo Jeweler
Only a few days later, we drove to Lost Dutchman State Park and I found myself taking to a Navajo Jeweler at the nearby ghost town mining amusement park. He pointed to the silver beaded necklace I wore and earrings and bracelet and asked, “How much did you pay for that set?” I said, “thirteen dollars.” He scoffed. I was embarrassed as it seemed under valued, and then he said, “I would have given you a better deal. They didn’t even fit that bracelet to your wrist. Give it to me. I’ll fit it for you” and he proceeded to resize the bracelet. I asked, “Has your family stayed healthy through the pandemic? We’ve heard that Native people have been hardest hit, and Arizona has had some of the highest rates in the country”.
He said, “Well, we’ve been lucky until this morning. I just learned my nephew has a real bad case of it. But he’s young and he goes out all the time in Phoenix, so I’m not surprised. I just come to work here and go straight home.” As he said this, he put the perfectly fitted bracelet on my wrist and got up to start cleaning the floors and surfaces again. I wondered how anyone could pay for Covid-19 hospitalization and treatment charging less than $13 for a jewelry set in a nearly empty ghost town. Our burger dinner in Tombstone at the Historic Longhorn Restaurant, located in what used to be the Bucket of Blood Saloon, the Holiday Water Company, and the Owl Cafe and Hotel, and where Virgil Earp was shot from the second floor, had cost three times what the Navajo Jeweler earned from a whole jewelry set.
I asked the jeweler, “Have you ever been over to Cochise Stronghold or the Stunning Native American Amerind Museum that seeks to preserve and educate on local tribal history?” He said he’d never heard of either, but they w
ere a few hours away and given the ticket price to the Museum was $28 per person, it was unlikely many locals had ever been. I said It was interesting to learn how the Navajo who had come from Northern territories, had differentiated into seven distinct groups, each specializing in an area they were exposed to like agriculture, textiles and basket weaving and pottery making, and metal working. He said, “Yes. The reason some tribes specialized in silver jewelry making in the early 19th century, was because traders gave them silver coins, and they didn’t know what to do with them, so they turned them into jewelry”. Now, he attends the huge Gem and Mineral Show each year in Tucson to gather his silver and precious stones to keep the art going. As I left the small shop off the main dirt road where dirt buggies, motorcyclists, hikers, ghost town wanderers, mine enthusiasts, and horse riders were rolling in to get a meal at the steakhouse and an ice cream at the parlor. I marveled at how many people from various walks of life came together to experience the living history of this place, and how though it was one landscape people were experiencing it in such different ways.
A Desert Walk and the Gila Monster
As I walked back to our camp, along the desert horse trail paralleling the historic Apache Trail, now a highway, I stopped into a small roadside shop advertising bait, gifts and beer. The proprietor, who was himself sitting outside drinking a beer, unlocked the door that was advertised as “Always Open” and let me look around. He was skinny with a scraggly beard
and a few teeth missing, his pants held up by suspenders that covered a untucked stained checkered shirt. It looked like this might be his retirement gig after mining underground in any of the now closed hundreds of miles of underground gold mines nearby. He carried an eclectic variety of fossils, minerals, geodes, postcards, shot glasses and local history books covered in dust. I asked, “So what kind of wildlife do you see around here?” That got him going.
He said, “Well hardly anything this year. I haven’t even seen coyotes due to the fact we didn’t have a monsoon season. The prickly pear are so thirsty they are as thin as can be. In good years, we’ve seen occasional bear, Mountain lion, foxes, and raccoons. And of course the snakes always come out when it warms up.” He turned to his friend who had just walked in to grab a beer and said, "Hey did you read that story in the paper last week about the cacti? Can you believe people been comin' in and stealing the saguaro cactus right out of the desert for their landscaping projects for these new big spreads? And I read the other day that the local drug lords found a new gig. They've been scraping the sand right out of the desert and off the lake fronts to use for big cement projects. Can you believe that?"
Then, turning back to me, he leaned across the glass case protecting a small collection of consigned jewelry and said, “Oh, you know, one time I came across a Gila Monster as long as your leg. I wrestled him home and didn’t have anywhere to put him, so I stashed him in the bathtub. You should have seen my wife’s face when she pulled back the curtain for her shower that night!” He giggled and went back to polishing his knife collection, lost in the fond memory.
As the sun set, silhouetting the grand Saguaro cacti scattered across the valley below, I climbed over the fence with a “No Trespassing” sign onto the dirt road leading to the narrow horse trails that led back to our campsite. For a part of the world that prides itself on its “Live and Let Live” approach, especially evidenced by the scattered broken toilet pieces, cement blocks and asphalt that lay broken up in a wide arroyo surrounded by scattered hidden sprawling desert haciendas adjacent to “Snowbird” horse camps, there are an awful lot of signs telling you what to do, and not do. The land, in many places, looked like it had been ridden hard, and put up wet, and still, the exploitation of local resources continues. While the Amerind museum preserved local native culture, it felt like cultural appropriation to be visiting an affluent gallery in the middle of permanent trailer parks and small impoverished towns with Natives struggling to survive. But if the Connecticut born investor, who admired Native art and culture, had not excavated, collected and preserved local exquisite pieces of art and history, including coordinating and funding a joint excavation on the Mexican border of an entire Pueblo, would any of these artifacts be alive today?
And yet, it seems the West, with its sprawling new Phoenix developments encroaches ever more on the desert, while locals including those we saw passing through the Zuni reservation, continue to live without electricity, running water, reliable internet and phone service, and, most importantly health care services. Native Americans live in the most impoverished conditions in our country, resulting in the shortest lifespans on average. I wondered will a balance ever be achieved between our insatiable thirst for more resources, and the realization that without appreciating what we have, it will never be enough. While many people find freedom, independence and autonomy in the wide open desert landscapes of the West, the fact remains that without a value system that appreciates those who came before and those who will come after, people will continue to exploit to their hearts content, till the very last 300 year old saguaro cactus has fallen.
The Old West is still very much alive, as these parts of Arizona were first settled by Natives seeking water, food and protection, and in many cases, they were relocated to this arid land by the US Government, because it was seen as invaluable at the time, until gold, copper and silver were found. Then miners, ranchers, and explorers searching fortune, adventure and autonomy came. Having worked as a geologist performing evaluations of copper mines outside of Tuscon and exploring for phosphate outside of Holbrook, Arizona, the irony didn’t escape me that we were looking to extract resources, often on native lands with the promise that locals would get a share, but in reality, the work opportunities and fortunes never trickled down. Having worked with some interesting characters, I concluded there are always outlaws and pretend outlaws, people trying to make a quick buck, people hiding from responsibilities and people creating their own realities and perceptions of the world, with the help of polarizing media outlets piped in to satellite dishes in the desert.
When the Native Americans fought for this land, massacres occurred on both sides. The Apache Chief Cochise was a prominent leader of the Chiricahua tribe and resisted Western expansion by raiding new settlements of Mexicans and Americans taking over Chiricahua traditional lands. After many died, Cochise and the US Government reached a peace agreement and his tribe was awarded a reservation in the South East corner of Arizona. He did not live long to enjoy it, as it's thought he soon died of stomach cancer. His warriors buried him deep in the Dragoon Mountains, his location still unknown, which is why the mountains where we climb are now called Cochise's Stronghold.
When Cochise died, Geronmino, maybe the most well known Apache Chief of all time, took up his fight for his people after losing his wife, mother and children in a raid on his camp by Mexican soldiers. Eventually he was captured and relocated to, of all places, Florida to live out his life as a sideshow and yet another money maker for the US Government. His people were also relocated along with other Apaches to Florida where they lived the rest of their lives in exile. The fights now continue over land, water, resources, and cultural providence in the West.
Today, the Western deserts attract many who can live on less, both monetarily but also with less effort. There are sun seekers who want to shoot rattlesnakes when they please and pursue new ways of living. There are Natives trying to eek a living out of the most arid environments in the country while corporate entities continue to extract resources and land. And there are descendants of the same settlers who had the mindset that drove Wyatt Earp to establish himself in the West and try to preserve some sense of law and order, while himself benefitting from the side hustles and lack of general order.
As I passed yet another hand drawn sign stating “Not a Through Way” and crawled under the barbed wire fence border of the immaculately managed Lost Dutchman State Park, with park rangers and volunteers swooping in after each arrival and departure to share information and rake each campsite clean for each new guest, I breathed a sign of relief. Thank God and Country, being those legislators who made these places possible, for the protection of our few remaining public lands for everyone to enjoy in their natural state more or less, before so much was taken. May the Gila Monsters, Rattlesnakes and shining example of the most innovative desert survivalist, the saguaro cactus, live on.
