The Best of Edward Abbey
A good bar, the B & G. A Henry Lightcap kind of bar. Buzzing finely, chromatically from three more brimming schooners, I wander the streets for a while, looking into the windows of the Becky Thatcher Bookstore and contributing my dollar for a visit to the Sam Clemens Museum. Here I see the expected first editions, the photographs, Sam’s cap and gown from Oxford, the Norman Rockwell paintings of top scenes from the stories, the author’s riverboat pilot’s certificate, the towering “Orchestrelle” machine. I drop my quarter in the slot and set off a jerky medley of 1890s dance hall tunes. But somehow I find no shade of the great old man himself in this place. Not in this room, not in this building, not in this town.
I leave and walk the streets till evening, treat myself to a catfish supper at the Missouri Territory Restaurant, a grand echoing hall of stone that was formerly Hannibal’s main post office. The meal is good, the atmosphere baronial—but where are the people?
I walk back to the waterfront, feed my dog, take her for a short walk with a rope for leash. Darkness settles in, the cool night of April, the endless twilight of the humid lands. We return to truck and drive south, out of town and under the stony bluffs that line the river on the west. Tom Sawyer’s cave is up in there but I haven’t the heart to search for it this evening. I’m now on the Great River Road and the compulsive pull of homeward suction keeps me bound to the asphalt for another twenty, thirty miles. Finally we pull off the highway onto the kind of narrow winding dirt road that looks good to me, friendly, comfortable, hospitable, leading into dark woods and the smell of leaves and mud, the music of tree frogs, mosquitoes, screech owls, the feel of rain on the air. My sense of safety and relative well-being is always strengthened by the sight of forest, hills, rocky dells, valleys, undammed and meandering watercourses.
A place for rest, for sleep….
Morning comes, once again. One more time at least. We perform our ritual, the dog and I, and carry on through the fogs on the riverbank and into the villages of Calumet, Elsberry, Foley and Winfield. At Winfield I turn east and wait near Lock & Dam #25 for the ferryboat across the Mississippi to the state and condition of Illinois. From there to New Harmony and Louisville. Kentucky today! West Virginia tomorrow! Rest and peace, simplicity and order thereafter. Such is the master plan.
The ferry comes, I drive aboard. No other vehicle appears. The ferryman in his little offdeck cabin pulls the throttle and the ferry churns toward the shore of Illinois, three hundred yards away. A pretty red-haired girl, the assistant ferryman, comes to me and takes my two-dollar fare. I take her picture with my Kodak Instamatic and ask her why she’s not in school today. Playing hooky? She has freckles, green eyes, bountiful breasts, small waist, a round compact heart-shaped bottom like an inverted valentine. Yes, my type.
“I’m twenty years old,” she says. “Ain’t gotta go to school no more.”
“What’s your name?” Always was my type.
“Anna-May McElroy. What’s yourn?” From her lovely lips the word comes forth as “urine.”
“My name is Henry Lightcap and I’m in love.” Always will be. “Do you like this job?”
“It’s boring. All we do all summer is go back and cross and back and cross. Who y’all in love with?”
“I’m in love with you.” Why do my girlfriends all look alike? Because they all look like the type I like.
She eyes me briefly. “You need a shave.”
“Always do. Come with me. Come with me and be my love.”
She smiles and looks across the golden sun-glinting waters of the great river. The wooded banks of Illinois float toward us. “My gee,” she says, “if you only knowed, mister, how often you men say that. Seems like ever day I hear them say that.”
“I believe it, honey. You look ‘em over and you make your choice when you feel like it. Don’t let nobody like me sweet-talk somebody like you.”
The landing board of the ferry grates onto the graveled ramp. The girl unlinks the chain, smiling at me but thinking of somebody else and who can blame her. “I’ll send you a picture,” I say as I climb in my truck. “Winfield, Missouri, right? Lock and Dam Number Twenty-five?” I drive away into the woods and cornfields.
FROM
Hayduke Lives!
(1990)
Bonnie’s Return
Deep in the outback back of beyond, far into the hoodoo land of naked stone she walked, she walked, she walked and walked. The noon sun blazed down from a semi-clouded sky and there was no wind, no trace of breeze. She stopped often to drink from the canteens she carried in her small backpack and when she came, from time to time, upon a pool of rainwater evaporating silently in a slickrock basin, she dropped to her knees, as if in prayer, cupped her hands and drank from the pool. The water was lukewarm but clean, sweet, pure, inhabited by nothing but mosquito larvae, a few of the strange little crustaceans called fairy shrimp, and the occasional spadefoot toad. Their presence in the pools, far from repelling her, attested to the water’s purity. She carried two liters of city water in her pack but preferred to save that when she could. She remembered this trek as requiring five to six hours of dogged hiking but—but that had been years ago, in cooler weather, and without a fetus in her womb.
The route—not a trail—was difficult to follow. His old cairns were in place, three small flat stones piled vertically, placed on strategic high points along the way so that, from any one, at least two others could be seen. But there were no other markers of any kind and the route led mostly over solid slickrock, following the contours of the ledges, avoiding shortcuts across sandy basins and cryptogrammic flats that would leave a footpath discernible to the eye. Of course, even on stone and especially on sandstone, enough foot traffic would create a trail. But this was a secret route, rarely used, known only to its discoverer and his few friends.
She plodded steadily on, wearing her big straw hat to shade her face, a loose long-sleeved cotton shirt soaked in water to keep her cool, baggy knee-length shorts, good stout lightweight old walking shoes on her feet. She carried a long staff in one hand, for snakes and for descending steep pitches of stone, and a rolled topographic map in the other, large-scale, which she consulted now and then when the way forward seemed doubtful.
She remembered most of the landmarks, for she had named them herself (he refused to apply human labels to natural objects older than humankind and destined to outlast humankind): the Goblet of Venus, a twenty-foot vase-shaped boulder perched on a tall and slender pedestal of Moenkopi mudstone; Candlestick Spire, a thin tapering pillar of sandstone one hundred feet high; Cleopatra’s Throne, a monolith of golden Navajo sandstone about the size of Ayer’s Rock in central Australia; the Playhouse, a winding maze of tunnels, windows and intersecting corridors corroded and eroded through a mass of fractured stone; Manhattan Skyline, a file of blocks and pinnacles high on a ridge; the Spectacles, a pair of natural arches, each big enough to fly an airplane through, set side by side in a free-standing tailfin of Entrada sandstone; Deception Arch, not apparent until you entered deep within it and suddenly discovered the huge skylight beyond, up through which the route led; Seldom Seen’s Often Seen Prick, a massive shaft of purplish mudstone topped by a bulging red knob of sandstone (Entrada member); the Joint Trail, a sinuous crevasse in the rock six hundred feet long, fifty to one hundred feet deep, and two to three feet wide. At the narrowest point, which she had named Fat Girl’s Misery, she had to remove her backpack and turn sideways in order to squeeze through; once beyond that the going was easier. Not far beyond the mouth of the Joint Trail she came to the first of a series of natural watertanks—Salvation Pools—sat down beneath a big juniper, took off her shoes and socks, and lit up a joint. Relaxing, soothed by the stillness surrounding her and the pleasant shade, she was about to lean back against the trunk of the tree, close her eyes and dream, when she noticed, with shock and disgust, the used condom on the ledge nearby, ill-concealed beneath an inadequate stone. Not very old either; a file of little black ants was coming and going at the mouth of
the thing, gorging on what remained of its rich contents and lugging them, by the sacful, back to headquarters.
The woman broke a dead twig from the juniper, picked up the condom—”Yuck”—and carried it away from the pool to a clump of brown bunch grass on the edge of a sand flat. Pulling a book of matches from her shirt pocket, she lit the dry grass and watched the condom curl, shrivel, smoke, burn and vanish in the flames.
That bastard, she was thinking, that son of a bitch, he brought some girl out here, to our place, our secret sacred pools, and screwed her right there under our personal special tree. The dirty slut—I wonder what she looks like? probably not even legal age, some stupid little teenybopper barely out of junior high, the rotten bastard, how dare he do such a thing? Here? In our magic fairyland right out of Rudolfo Tamayo and Salvador Dali and New Age Art and the Hearts of Space, how could he do it? that ugly dirty hairy ignorant foul-mouthed two-timing treacherous toad of a no-goodnik.
Her first reaction was to sling on her pack and tramp straight back to the end of the jeep trail and her little Suzuki four-by-four. But when she felt the weight of the pack—like an ingot of pigiron between her shoulder blades—and recalled the six seven eight miles of rock and then sand under the afternoon sun … why then she hesitated, thought again, returned to the shade of the juniper and thought some more.
Why not go on? she asked herself. We’ll give him a piece of our mind, the rough edge of our tongue, drop a rock on his head. Let him know what a bastard he really is, in case he’s forgotten, which is all too likely for a rotten son of a bitch like him.
Besides … it’s closer. He’ll maybe have something good to eat, e.g., poached beef on compone maybe. Fresh spring water. I can sleep on his cot tonight (alone of course) and not have to curl up on the ground with the tarantulas and kissing bugs and scorpions and those tiny whatever-they-are that crawl in your ears at night and go roller-skating on your eardrums. And what a delight to tell him what I think of him face-to-face and if he tries to grab me I’ll, I’ll … I’ll what? Run like hell? Climb a pinyon pine? Try to knee him in the balls? Pull out my little .32 and shoot him in his hairy old beerbelly? He’d pick me up by the ankles and whirl me around his head like a, like a …? apache dancer! Guess not.
Smiling unconsciously, she marched on and over, between, beneath and around further marvels of patient erosion and ancient geo-logic until she arrived at the last of the big potholes before his hideout camp. This was no mere ornamental pool like the first, where she’d found the condom, but a genuine slickrock waterpocket ten feet deep, ten wide and twenty long, enclosed by steeply sloping walls of nude sandstone. Two small junipers grew nearby. The water was dark green but inviting, certain to be cool and offering her a final chance to freshen up a bit before descending on the bandit’s lair. She undressed quickly and eased herself toward the water, hunkered on her heels, began to slide, and jumped the last three feet into the pothole. As she jumped she remembered something she was not supposed to forget: the rope.
Too late. The waters, colder than expected, closed above her head. Her feet did not touch bottom. When she came up she gulped for air and reached the edge of the water in two swift strokes. Fighting off a wave of panic, she clutched at the sloping stone and tried to pull herself up. No go; she could find no purchase for hands or feet, fingers or toes, on the smooth, if slightly gritty, sandstone.
Relax, relax, she told herself; take it easy, try to think. Forcing calm, she floated on her back and gazed up at the oval of blue above her head, the hard-edged crest of a snowy cloud beginning to show itself at one side of her piece of sky. It was like looking up from the bottom of a well. Again she felt the surge of cold fear in her bowels and heart. Again she fought it off. Think, woman, think.
Howl for help? Possibly, just possibly, if she screamed loudly enough, often enough, he might hear her from his camp below the rim, not more than a mile away. Possibly—not likely. Too much massive monolithic Navajo sandstone between here and there, too many walls and towers and hills, humps, holes, and hollows for the human voice to thread, too much for even the wailing cry of extreme distress to penetrate.
She’d attempt it anyway, of course. At the moment she could think of nothing else to do. She backstroked to the nearest bulge of stone, got her head and shoulders out of the water’s pressure, and essayed a coupled of tentative yelps.
They sounded strange, pathetic, utterly useless. Even if he heard me, she realized, how could he locate the source of my voice?—down there among a spreading ripple of echoes and the echoes of echoes.
Oh my God, this is ridiculous. Absurd. Reuben, she thought, Reuben, I can’t die now, dear sweet precious little Reuben, I can’t die now, here, so soon, much too soon, he needs me, needs me, oh my one and only darling little solitary angel of a boy …
Told Doc I’d be back tomorrow night. Didn’t tell him where I was going, naturally. I lied about that, naturally. He’ll know where to look for Reuben when I fail to show up but he’ll never dream of where to look for me. And even if he did and even if they found me—I’d be—1 will be—ah, hmmm, how they say, dead. All pale and bloated-up and dead, nothing showing but my big white ass, floating in this deathtrap.
She remembered a strange line from a strange book: “The mute, implacable buttocks of the drowned.” That’s me. That’s old Abbzug all right, mute, implacable, mouth underwater and shut up finally, forever. She giggled; she trembled; she felt the tears of self-pity flowing down her cheeks.
Poor Doc, he’ll miss me. Poor bumbling helpless old man, how will he ever manage without me? And with a three-year-old child on his hands?
Seldom’ll miss me. Good old Seldom, that sweet and wonderful man, he’ll miss me. He always loved me. I could have been Wife #4, anytime. Should’ve done it too, maybe, except—no Reuben. Yes. No Reuben without Doc.
Forgive me, Doc.
And what about him? Him? The oaf. The toad. The gorilla. The lying sneaking unwashed bastard. Him and his crazy projects. Him and his urge to self-destruct. His pissing in the kitchen sink. Blowing his nose in his hand and wiping it on a rock. Wiping his ass with juniper twigs. Drinking beer, always drinking beer, and throwing the cans along the road. Old garbage-mouth, always swearing, can’t talk unless I swear, he said, can’t even think if I can’t swear.
I think, therefore I swear.
I think I think, she giggled. I guess I think, therefore I guess I am.
And such a violent brutal aggressive reckless lover, the bastard, always in a hurry, always looking over his shoulder like he thought someone was watching, somebody with a gun, an enemy. The Enemy, he said. The Enemy is everywhere. Good thing I’m an easy comer, quick on the trigger….
“George!” she screamed, loud and clear. “George!” she screamed again.
She waited, gasping for air. She listened. No response but silence. Not even the croaking of a raven, not even the cry of a redtail hawk. No canyon wren, no desert solitaire. Nothing. The only answer anyone ever got, appealing to the sky. Not even the bluegray feather of a dove, spiraling down and down from the false beatitude above.
She trembled. The cold was seeping through her flesh, crawling into her bones. Think, my dear, think, there must be a way to, well, weasel out of here. Ouzel out. Oooze … like a snail, like a banana slug, like a slimy thing with pseudopods.
She looked about the pool again, taking some care to gauge the angle of the various curving slopes of stone. The closer to the water the steeper, but a few feet higher, only two or three or four feet higher, the slopes began to curve outward, gently, toward the horizontal.
She swam toward what appeared to be the easiest gradient, swam hard, swam fast, and coming close, hurled herself up out of the water like a hungry trout, arms outspread, clutching at the rock. Her fingers found nothing, but something else, something vacuumatic, glued her to the slope of stone, and held her there, out of the water from the waist up.
My tits, she thought. Thank God for big tits. Big wet tits, the suctorial
power of a pair of plumber’s helpers, by God they’re going to get me out of here. I always knew they’d be good for something.
Maybe. She was half out of the water. But how to proceed? If she tried to move now she’d break the seal, lose suction and slide in her bare and tender skin down into the tank again. The sacrificial well. But by God I’m no virgin, I’m a veteran, and if they think they can drown old Bonnie Abbzug like a rat in a barrel they got another think to think, the swine. I’ll show ‘em.
Keeping hands, arms, chest and belly flat to the rock, vacuum-sealed, she spread her legs frogwise, wriggled her hips, and succeeded in oozing, like an amoeba, several inches upward. Now her bottom was half out of the water; she felt the cooling evaporation in the cleft between the cheeks. She rested for a minute, then performed the movement again and gained another six inches.
Again she rested.
“Give up yet?”
She recognized that mocking voice but dared not look up. One careless move and she’d be floundering in the middle of the tank.
A rope of braided blue and gold Perlon slid down beside her, touching her right arm and hip. “Grab the fuckin’ rope,” he said, “I’ll pull you up.”