Good Vibrations (15 page)

I was sorely disappointed. Boot Hill was consigned to the ranks of mediocrity, and the famous streets had been reduced to theme-park status within a compound that tourists were paying good money to enter. I stood on a handy crate and peered over the wall anyway, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Wild West buildings strung out 100 yards or so along a street, with tourists meandering aimlessly around the bogus frontage. A bored-looking girl sauntered out of a saloon togged up like a film extra, and the sound effects of a phoney altercation filtered around a corner.

As I stepped in despair from my orange-box, I found a passer-by inspecting the red ensign of the British merchant navy strapped across the pack on my bike. Surprisingly few people had commented on this unusual item of window-dressing, and even though he ignored the far more unusual UK licence plate, he still deserved my attention. After the standard preliminaries, he told me that he was from Kansas City. He was on vacation in his RV and he knew what he liked.

‘If you're heading west, don't miss Colorado. Most beautiful state on the planet.'

Quite how he could be so sure of this was unclear, since he also told me that he had never been east of the Appalachians or west of the Rockies. Taking the easy line out of the conversation, I thanked him for the advice and rejoined Roz who was taking life easy in a bar full of railroad men and cowhands in the authentic Dodge City. She was not surprised at my desolation over Boot Hill, but came on strong when I mentioned Colorado.

‘Places we're advised to visit are turning out to be bad news,' she stated. ‘We almost never like them. Nobody said, “Don't miss Medicine Lodge”, but it was a winner. So many people have told us to go to Colorado that the whole state must be log-jammed with tourists.'

‘You can't tell me every historic site is a fallacy. What about Mystic Seaport?' I reminded her about the reconstructed shipbuilding village in far-off Connecticut that is an example to the world on how to handle heritage.

‘I think we need to learn from all this,' she said firmly. ‘Mystic's great; so is Jamestown and there are plenty of others, but every time we go looking for organised history you get hacked off and say we're sinking into tourism. And it's true. We are. You'll love the mountains, but you'll hate Colorado. I've been looking at the map.'

I took a long draught of my fizzy beer and said nothing. Incongruously, my mind was diverted by a wobbly ceiling fan that looked as if it would crash down on the drinkers at any moment.

‘The direct route to Dakota from here passes though Nebraska.'

I missed the hint about Dakota, and fell on the route instead.

‘But absolutely nobody goes to Nebraska!'

‘Don't you think that might mean it comes with a zero nonsense factor?'

I couldn't argue.

‘How about this? You want to go to Sturgis and I'm not interested in hairpin passes in Colorado. Why don't we head up to Dakota through Nebraska, see the bikes, check out the Indians and give the snow peaks a miss?'

‘Let's do it.'

12
POUNDING THE
PRAIRIES

When the 1854 Kansas and Nebraska Act opened up the central plains, 50 million acres of virgin grassland became available in Kansas alone to the first-comers to stake their claims. Many settlers made a success of their farms, but an equal number returned to the East, or even to Europe. In the early years of the twentieth century, another boom time for immigration, fifty out of every hundred immigrants to the US from Italy, Russia and the Balkans went back home again. Out on the plains, some homesteaders were defeated by their own indolence, others became sick and a few fell foul of dispossessed natives or whites working to a different agenda. Many collapsed under the pile-driver of the climate.

Tribulations crowded in from all sides. Prairie fires destroyed crops and left famine in their wake. Blizzards scourged the plains in winter, and rainstorms washed away whole homesteads. If the deluge missed you, the drought would not. Sometimes lasting from one winter to the next, these parched the harvests and their desperate cultivators. The drought of 1860 saw a fall in state population of almost 30 per cent.

Alongside these apocalyptic forces strode destitution at the hands of Man. In the very early days, border raiders encroached on the young settlements. Next, Kansas found itself in an equivocal position during the Civil War, suffering ugly guerrilla action from both sides. Outlaws, rustlers and the foreclosing banker followed with such ruinous effect that one retreating pioneer is said to have announced wryly, ‘In God we trusted. In Kansas we busted'. But for total destruction, no adversaries, either human or natural, could compete with the humble grasshopper.

As Roz and I approached Nebraska, these hefty insects became a serious menace. They bounced off our leathers and wrecked the paint jobs on the leading edges of the bikes. If they caught us in the face we bruised, and the ‘crack' as a heavy one hit the helmet at 60 mph woke the dozing rider with a start. It occurred to me that it wouldn't take much for this substantial population to swell out of control, so we investigated a roadside library and dug up facts that made the plagues of Pharaoh's Egypt pale in comparison.

In 1874, the previously moderate grasshopper nation found conditions particularly to its liking. In response, its numbers exploded to cosmic proportions which ate their way clear across the state.

According to Mary Lyon, ‘… this day there was a haze in the air and the sun was veiled almost like an Indian summer. They began toward night, dropping to earth and it seemed as if we were in a snowstorm where the air was filled with enormous flakes.'  The green army landed to a depth of 4 inches or more and blanketed every speck of ground and foliage. Tree branches collapsed under their weight and even when the frantic plainsmen covered their vegetable plots with tarpaulins, the insects munched straight through the oiled cloth. They attacked anything made of wood, even kitchen utensils and furniture. Curtains were left in shreds and any clothing out in the open was eaten. Adelheit Viets had her dress eaten clean off her back. The material had a green motif. ‘The grasshoppers settled on me and ate up every bit of green stripe in that dress.'

So thickly did the pestilence fall from the skies that the numbers extinguished a burning field lit to ward them off. They even stopped a train.

When they had gone, the water tasted of grasshoppers.

Our first 50 miles out of Dodge City led down a white, shining road across deeply undulating, untamed grassland, then onwards through a waving prairie of high sunflowers the colour of Betty Boop. We passed fields watered from the subterranean aquifer by giant irrigation machines that would dwarf a football field. Late in the afternoon we stopped to watch a team of harvesters and their enormous combines converting the client farmer's labour into saleable wheat. This crew were among the many who move north with the sun, following the seasons, harvesting America for the world. Right of the sunset and coming ever closer lay Nebraska. A tourist-free zone.

As we crossed the Nebraska line, the change in road surface and hence in the impression of less spare money was dramatic. The surface switched from motorcycle heaven to rough concrete, occasional stretches of tarmac and intermittent gravel. The eastern half of Nebraska is comparatively populous, although the towns are still spread out. The west, particularly the north-west, is sparse in the extreme, with roads spanning 50 miles and more between unmarked junctions.

Crossing the state from east to west around 70 miles north of the Kansas line flows the Platte River, a main tributary of the Missouri. South of its fertile, tree-lined valley, the plain becomes ‘dissected', which is to say, hilly land with moderate undulations and salient ridges. These survive from a higher, more ancient plain now eroded by wind and water. The impression is of poorer soil than Kansas, and of remoter country.

The town of North Platte lay across our path to Dakota. It was an obvious stopping place, but McCook came up first. This community of some 8,000 inhabitants is one of western Nebraska's larger settlements outside the river valley. We cruised around hunting a bed and rejecting several for being too soft or too dirty, before signing the guest card at the small, privately run Sage Motel. Sonia, the lady who welcomed us was an extraordinarily positive individual, glowing with conviction and mental health. Above the bed was a tract we hadn't yet encountered. Rather than offering the usual ‘store-bought' wisdom, this one was written personally. I read it out to Roz as she brushed her hair.

‘“Because this motel is a human institution to serve people and not merely a money-making organization, we hope God will grant you peace and rest while you are under our roof. May this motel be your second home. May those you love be near you in thoughts and dreams. Even though we may not get to know you, we hope you will be as comfortable and happy as if you were in your own home.

“May the business that brought you our way prosper. May every call you make and every message you receive add to your joy. When you leave, may your journey be safe.

“We are all travellers from birth till death. We travel between eternities. May these days be pleasant for you, profitable for society, helpful for those you meet and a joy to those who know and love you best.”'

It was signed, ‘The staff and management.'

That Saturday night, for the first time, we didn't lock the bikes. We slept deeply and awoke refreshed to find a ten-year-old girl playing with a skipping rope in the yard outside. She was wearing her Sunday best, a patriotic knee-length stars-and-stripes frock, with white socks, button-down shoes and a pink hair ribbon. Sonia came out of the office, also dressed for church. ‘Breakfast, Sweetheart!' she called to her child, then she saw me. ‘Good morning, Thomas,' she greeted me. ‘Did you sleep good?'

She must have read my name off the registration form, because my full handle is used only when I'm in trouble. Coming from her, it had a satisfying, biblical ring. Thomas, the doubter. Suddenly I was seized with a nostalgia for the Sundays of morning church that had been the time signals of my childhood and adolescence. The open face of the little girl, the honest message on our bedroom wall and the mother going about her Lord's Day routine touched a nerve somewhere in my agnosticism.

‘Would it be possible for us to follow you up to church?'

‘You can come in the car if you like.'

We dug out clean shirts and climbed into the Dodge.

The Church of God was all I expected. Although less militant in its exterior manifestations than back in Tennessee, prosperous-looking places of worship in all the plains towns had augmented the ‘God-spot' radio programmes, implying that Christianity, rather than the bars, was still the core of social living. Smartly clad folks met us, pumped our hands and scurried away to advise the preacher. He obliged by greeting ‘Friends from Overseas' after the first hymn, rather as our own minister used to welcome visiting African church dignitaries back in 1960s Manchester. In some ways, Roz and I were as far removed from his flock as the self-conscious Nigerians had been from Lancashire, yet the clearly drawn values of the community reminded me irresistibly of my upbringing. Not for them a slide from the post-war climate of moral certainties into the present-day ethical maze. In southwest Nebraska, still heavily influenced by religion, the American idea of ‘what's right' is understood, even if human frailty means it is not always followed to the letter. Here in the bright, packed Church of God, we were aeons from the insecurities of more fluid societies.

Further hymns were now sung lustily, then our preacher, youthful in his middle forties and an auctioneer on his ‘day job', socked it to the congregation in a voice like Moses booming down from Heaven's gate. A powerful country message with the tang of the open range on its breath. ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,' rang the text.

The exposition started off with solid biblical theory, but lest any might accuse the congregation of being ‘Sunday Christians', the preacher was soon calling for testimonies from members of a team who had spent their vacations working in downtown Chicago with disadvantaged black teenagers. ‘Let the Lord get to them before the drug gangs do!' was the message.

I could only marvel at these people, sufficient amongst themselves in their close-knit community and knowing almost nothing of what went on outside the US, giving their time at some personal risk to offer a starting chance to hard-bitten youngsters from another universe. Next, we heard from Sonia's sister who was teaching English in Romania (‘Now where in heaven is that?') and spreading the Word of the Lord as part of the deal. It is a mistake to draw conclusions about America as a whole without recognising the effect on the national character brought about by the tens of millions of regular, enthusiastic church-goers.

Meanwhile, 5 miles out of McCook on the dusty roadside, a very different sort of plainsman had been trying to flag a lift since breakfast time. Riding north after church, I recognised him as the man who had stayed in the next room the previous night. We'd said ‘Good evening,' but that was all. Now he was wearing a Jesus T-shirt, jeans and a felt cowboy hat. Flowing yellow hair curled out from under it and his narrow face drew personality from a huge moustache and a miniature beard developed from the central section of his lower lip in Buffalo Bill Cody style. He was carrying a small, ex-army satchel and what looked like a metal detector. My pack left me strapped for space on my buddy seat, but I was too intrigued to ignore him, so I swung around and stopped alongside. As soon as I killed the engine I realised that, for once, the prairie wind had dropped and the heat was becoming oppressively damp, despite the cruel sun.

‘Where you bound?' I asked.

‘You guys took your time starting,' he observed laconically as he mopped his sweating forehead. ‘But you're the best of transport. This humidity's killin' me. I'm headin' up for the old Jones place. Track must be around thirty miles north.'

‘You familiar with the turn-off?'

Every few miles, dirt lanes wandered away into the hills. Some were marked by a lone mailbox. The rest could have led to the rainbow's end.

‘Nope. But I reckon I'll spot it. You runnin' about sixty?'

I nodded.

‘I'll time us. I'll know the place.'

We gave him a drink of water, then reorganised the luggage to make room on Black Madonna. He hopped aboard, jammed down his hat and away we went across the fractured plain, the bike note deepening as we powered up hills, and settling back to a sweet purr dropping down into the valleys. My washed-out green cotton shirt flapped in the heat and my forearms burned an even deeper brown above my hands, wet with sweat inside skin-tight black leather riding gloves. The road was so empty that Roz came up alongside, using the whole highway to maintain a safe distance in case either of us weaved. Betty was a grand sight, pounding the prairie as she was born to do, her buckskin tassels flying in the slipstream. I thought about the die-hards back East who'd said the bike didn't have the guts for the long haul. From the general bike scene around the larger towns, I now understood why they thought so. Most 883s are used only for short-range pottering, but then, so are a lot of full-sized Hogs. It was all a question of perceived image and nothing to do with the facts. The sunshine Harley was performing far better than any traditional bike I'd ever owned. There was no question of Madonna leaving her behind. There was still a long way to go, but so far Betty Boop was gobbling the job.

Exactly half an hour after we'd picked him up, the hitch-hiker dug me in the ribs. I leaned the bike into a run-down track to the left and we climbed off as Roz propped Betty on a carefully selected piece of ground that was hard enough to hold the stand. The silence after the engines would have been oppressive but for the chirping of the grasshoppers.

‘You got relatives up there?' I asked. The lane was grown over and could not have taken a vehicle for months.

‘Nope. Never knew the people. Reckon they've been gone twenty years or so.'

I looked across the prairie. We were on a high section. If there were any valleys in the vicinity, they were well-hidden by the tall grass. There was no indication that anything had changed since the Indians and the buffalo left, save for the roughly metalled road and the telegraph lines withering out into the distant haze. It was none of my business, but curiosity bettered social caution and I asked him point-blank what he was up to.

Robert was a treasure hunter, a modern-day prospector. He was broke, unemployed and homeless, but he had hit a winning streak on the Keno lottery. He had also met a woman up in North Dakota who drank his whiskey then told him about a stash of buried silver coins on the abandoned Jones farm.

‘People there died,' he said. ‘He had a cancer. His wife hung on five years on her own. The woman I met was with a group of hippies – come up here years ago lookin' for the simple life. They didn't find it, but they discovered the old lady and they didn't like that at all. She'd been dead three weeks, the sheriff said. Coyotes had been in. Seems they didn't have no children. Preacher came up next with some folks from the town. They took away what was left an' they buried her.'