The Monkey Wrench Gang (40 page)

“No digressions.” Smiling at him, eyes shining with ill-concealed
love, Bonnie field-stripped the roach and packed the remains into her Tampax tube. “Go on.”

“Okay, I put the jeep in neutral, started the motor and pushed the jeep back over the edge far enough to take up the slack in the cable—about four feet. Winch is locked now, you see, and the jeep hangs there, just the front wheels still on solid rock, motor idling. Then I put the winch in reverse and rode her down.”

“You rode her down?” Doc says.

“That’s right.”

“You rode the jeep down? Down through the air?”

“Yeah.”

“What were you going to do if the winch failed?”

“It didn’t.”

“But suppose it did?”

“I’d rappel down the rope.”

Silence. “I see,” Doc said. “Or I think I do. How much does your jeep weigh, Hayduke?”

“About thirty-five hundred pounds with all that gear in it. And the gasoline.”

“And the winch held it?”

“It’s a good winch. A Warn winch. Of course we twisted a lot going down and that worried me more than anything else. I was afraid the cable would twist itself in two. But it didn’t.”

Smith rotated the shish kebab (sirloin tips, sliced tomatoes, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions—nothing is too good for the wooden-shoe people) and looked away and below at the canyon rims, the forested plateau, the distant road coming from the east. “George,” he says, “you’re something else.”

Hayduke opened another beer.
La penultima
. The next to last. Every beer is
la penultima
. He said, “I was sweating some, I don’t mind telling you. We hit bottom pretty hard but nothing got busted. I braked the jeep and let the winch unwind far enough to get slack in the cable, gave a good yank on my rope, pulled the hook free, and let go of the rope. The cable came down like a ton of bricks, and the rope after it. The hook went through the windshield and mashed up some
gear but I didn’t feel like complaining about it. Maybe I should have put the jeep under the overhang first, but you can’t think of everything. I was feeling pretty fucking good anyhow. After the cable dropped I drove the jeep under the overhang, out of sight, and pulled in the cable. Then we waited. We had a long wait.”

Bonnie said, “Who’s we?”

“Why, me and my jeep.”

Smith began removing dinner from the spit. “Grab your plates, pardners.”

Doc said, “They couldn’t see you down there?”

“It was an alcove in the cliff. Like a cave. There was no way they could see me or the jeep from the rim. But they hung around all afternoon. I could hear them arguing up above, with J. Dudley doing almost all the talking, of course. My main problem then was how to keep from laughing. Along about evening they left. I could hear them driving away. I waited until midnight to make sure they were gone. Then I wound up the cable on the winch and picked out a route down to Comb Wash. That took me all the rest of the night. In the morning I hid out under the cottonwoods. When nothing showed up by afternoon I came on up here. Let’s eat.”

“George,” said Doc.

“Yeah?”

“
George
…”

“Yeah?”

“George, do you really expect anybody to believe that story?”

Hayduke grinned. “Fuck no. Let’s eat. But next time you see the bishop, ask him what happened to Rudolf the Red.”

“
Deus ex machina,”
Bonnie said.

They ate and drank and watched the sunset flare and fade. Dr. Sarvis gave his celebrated lecture on the megamachine. The fire flickered low. Smug Hayduke, victorious, gazed inwardly toward the smoldering coals of juniper and thought of the look on the bishop’s face. Had he risked his life for a laugh? Yes and it was worth it. While Seldom Seen, quietly alert, relaxed but attentive, looked west at the mellow sunset, south into twilit canyons, east toward encroaching
night, and north at the butte, Elk Ridge, the Abajo Mountains. Not worried, not anxious—but aware.

Don’t like it here too good, he thought.

Hayduke yawned, beginning to unwind at last. Bonnie opened one more beer for him. “Time for you to get some rest, beast.”

Dr. Sarvis dried his hands on a rag and contemplated the rich red-golden half-clouded sky. “Well done, Yahweh.”

“Weather’s comin’,” Smith said, following the doctor’s gaze. He wet his finger and held it in the air. “Wind’s right. We might have a sprinkle or two tonight. On the other hand we might not. You can’t never depend on the weather in these parts, like my daddy used to say. When he couldn’t think of anything else to say, which was kind of often.”

“I’m taking to the sack,” says Hayduke.

“And like I
meant to
say,” Smith went on, “reckon we might as well keep a lookout from now on. I’ll stand the first watch myself.”

“Wake me up at midnight,” Hayduke said, “and I’ll spell you.”

“George, you better sleep. I’ll get Doc here.”

“How about a friendly little game?” says Doc. “A little nickel ante? Table stakes? Pot limit?” No response.

“Doc’s drunk,” Bonnie said. “Wake me.”

“You and George can stand watch tomorrow night.”

Bonnie led Hayduke to the love nest she had prepared: their sleeping bags zipped together on a pair of sheepskins on the rim of the mesa under the sweet air of pinyon pines.

“I don’t know,” said Hayduke.

“Don’t know what?”

“If we should do this. Tonight.”

Bonnie’s voice became chill. “And why not?”

Hayduke hesitated. “Well … Doc’s here.”

“So?”

“Well, won’t he … I mean, Doc’s still in love with you, isn’t he? I mean—Jesus Christ.”

Bonnie stared scornfully at Hayduke, her eyes twelve inches away, six inches below. He could smell the smell of her wilderness
cologne—what did she call it?—L’Air du Temps. That fragrance meaning: North Rim. Cape Royal. Point Sublime.

“Such delicacy,” she said. She grabbed him by the shirtfront, firmly. “Listen Hayduke, you flake, you yo-yo, Doc’s not like you. Doc’s a grown-up. He accepts the fact that you and I are lovers. We don’t have to be sneaky about anything.”

“He doesn’t care?”

“Care? He cares about me and he cares about you. He’s a decent man. What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know. He’s not jealous?”

“No, he’s not jealous. Now are you going to go to bed with me or are you going to stand here arguing all evening while
I
go to bed? Make up your mind quick because I am not a patient woman and I detest wishy-washy men.”

Hayduke considered the matter carefully for two and a half seconds. The broad and bristly face softened to a sheepish grin. “Well, shit … I am sort of tired.”

Late that night, with Doc on guard by the coffeepot, where it simmered on the hot ashes of the fire, Hayduke was awakened, gently, by a few raindrops falling on his face. He came out of a troubled sleep—dreams of falling—to find himself staring straight up at a black and inky sky. No stars. For a moment, terror gripped him. Then he felt Bonnie’s warm smooth body stirring at his side, and comfort came back, peace and reassurance; and a sense of laughter.

“What’s the matter, Rudolf?” she said.

“It’s raining.”

“You’re nuts. It’s not raining. Go to sleep.”

“It is. I felt it.”

She poked her head out of the hood of the bag. “Dark all right … but it’s not raining.”

“Well it was a minute ago. I know it was.”

“You were dreaming.”

“Am I Rudolf the Red or ain’t I?”

“So?”

“Well goddammit, Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear.”

“Say that again?”

Early in the morning, up in the cloudy sunrise sky, they heard an airplane.

“Don’t move,” Smith said. They were all except Hayduke eating breakfast under the trees, under one corner of the camouflage net. “And don’t look up. Where’s George?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Is he under cover?”

“Yes.”

Smith glanced at the ashes of yesterday’s fire. Cold and dead. Breakfast they’d cooked on the Coleman stove. The airplane droned past, slowly, not far overhead, bearing west. As it went on toward Hite Marina on Lake Powell, Smith scanned it with binoculars.

“Anybody you know?” says Doc. He thought of heat sensors, infrared spectrography. No place to hide from the techno-tyrant.

“Can’t read the markings. But it ain’t the state police or the SO. Probably one of them Search and Rescue boys. Eldon flies a plane. So does Love himself, come to think of it.”

“So what do we do?” Bonnie says.

“We stay under the trees all day and keep a lookout on the road below. And listen for planes.”

“I’d say we’ll need a little amusement to pass the time,” says Doc. “How about a friendly game of five-card stud?” No response from his victims. “Two-bit limit? Just happen to have this deck here….”

Smith sighed. “Three things my daddy tried to learn me. ‘Son,’ he always said, ‘remember these three percepts and you can’t go wrong: One. Never eat a place called Mom’s. Two. Never play cards with a man named Doc.’ ” He halted. “Deal me in.”

“That’s only two,” Bonnie said.

“I never can recollect the third, and that’s what worries me.”

“Seldom, put your money where your mouth is and shut up.”

Doc riffled the cards; they sounded like autumn leaves, beaded curtains in a Spanish bordello, the fall of Venetian blinds, Friday night
in Tonopah, a babbling brook, all things good and sweet and innocent.

“We need another hand.”

“Let the boy sleep. We’ll play stud till he wakes up.”

Ten minutes later the airplane came back, cruising slowly past two miles to the north. It disappeared over Elk Ridge, headed toward Blanding or Monticello. A morning of silence followed. The game went on, through the heat of a humid day, in the shade of the trees, under a solumn sky, far out on the wooded flat beyond the end of the stub road to Hidden Splendor. Hayduke joined them at noon.

“Where’s the magnesium?”

“Buried.”

“Whose deal?”

“Doc’s.”

“Deal me in anyway.”

The plane, or a plane, made another pass and return, two and four miles south.

“How many time’s that fucking plane been over?”

“Check the bet. Four times.”

“Make it a dime.”

“Raise you a dime, pardner.”

“Called. What do you have?”

“Aces over, pardner.”

“Flush here. Who’s watchin’ the road?”

“I can see it. Deal ’em.”

“Cards?”

“Three.”

“Three.”

“One.”

“Dealer takes two.”

“Watch that bastard. Your bet, Abbzug.”

“Don’t rush me, I get nervous.”

The play: Abbzug lost her last chip.

“This is a crooked, dumb, boring game,” she said, “and if I had my Scrabble set here I’d show you dudes some real action.”

Hayduke was the next to fold. Siesta time.

All but Smith crept into sleep. He climbed to a high point east of camp, above the mine, sat on a slab in the piney shade, binoculars in hand, and watched.

He could see for a hundred miles. Though the sky was lidded with heavy clouds there was no wind. The air was clear. The stillness was impressive. Filtered sunlight lay on the strange land, and waves of heat, shimmering like water, floated above the canyons. Must be a hundred ten in the shade down there. He could see Shiprock, Ute Mountain, Monument Valley, Navajo Mountain, Kaiparowits, the red walls of Narrow Canyon, the dark gorge of the Dirty Devil River. He could see the five peaks of the Henrys—Ellsworth, Holmes, Hillers, Pennell and Ellen—rising behind the maze of the canyons, beyond the sandstone domes and pinnacles of Glen Canyon.

Hell of a place to lose a cow. Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place, thought Seldom Seen, to lose. Period.

“
Okay okay okay, let’s get this motherfucking show on the road. Come
on, Doc. Off your ass and on your feet. Out of the shade and into the heat. Come on, Abbzug, fix us some supper. Where’s Smith?”

“Cook it yourself you’re in such a big hurry.”

“Goddammit, where’s Smith?”

“Up on the hill. He’s coming.”

“Bloat and sloth, sloth and bloat; the sun is going down.”

“What do you want me to do about it? Jump off the rim or something?”

“Both.” Hayduke, now feverishly coming back to life after twenty-four hours of recuperation, pumps up the Coleman, lights the burners. He peers inside their big blue battered community coffeepot, dumps out grounds and leftover coffee and one sleek soaked drowned mouse. “How’d he get in there? Don’t tell Bonnie,” he adds to the figure at his left rear.

“I’m Bonnie.”

“Don’t tell her.” He shovels in eight tablespoonfuls of coffee, fills with water, sets back on stove. “Chemicals, chemicals, I need chemicals.”

“Aren’t you even going to rinse the pot out?”

“Why?”

“There was a dead mouse in there.”

“I threw the fucker out. You saw me. What’re you worried about? He was dead. Start slicing potatoes. Open four cans of chili. We’re going to
eat for
chrissake.” Pulling his warlike Buck knife from its sheath, Hayduke slices a two-pound slab of bacon into thick strips, lays them overlapping in the camp-size cast-iron skillet. At once they commence to sizzle.

“Who’s going to eat all that?”

“I am. You are. We are. We got a hard night’s work ahead.” He starts opening four cans of beans. “Will you open that chili or do I have to do every fucking thing around here? And boil some eggs. You’re a woman, you understand about eggs.”

“What are you in such a bitchy mood for?”

“I’m nervous. I’m always like this when I’m nervous.”

“You’re making me nervous. Not to mention mad.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry? I think that’s the first time I ever heard you use that word. Is that all you can say?”

“I take it back.”

Dr. Sarvis and Seldom Seen Smith now join them; late-afternoon supper begins. The four discuss the Plan. The Plan is for Hayduke and Smith to work on the bridge, or bridges, depending on amount of time, materials and “local conditions,” and for Abbzug and Sarvis to act as sentries, one at either end of the project. Which bridge of the three is to be restructured first? They agree on the smallest—the White Canyon bridge. The second, time permitting, shall be the Dirty Devil bridge. With the two access bridges knocked out, the central bridge over Narrow Canyon, Lake Powell, the inundated Colorado River, will be rendered useless. A bridge without approaches. With or without it, the road—Utah State Highway 95 joining Hanksville to Blanding, the east and west rims of Lake Powell, the western canyonlands to the eastern canyonlands—will be effectively cut. Sundered. Broken. For months at least. Maybe for years. Maybe for good.