Two Wheels on my Wagon (34 page)

For the next couple of hours our journey was as nice as the pie. It was mainly spent riding on undulating, hard-packed dirt and gravel roads through stands of piñon and juniper trees. We passed the occasional ranch, as well as signs offering land for sale: ‘Big Parcels: contact Pie Town realty'. The American homesteading dream was still alive and well; there could hardly have been a better location than Pie Town for getting away from it all and demonstrating your self-reliance.

We were also passing through another slice – excuse the pun – of the history of the exploitation of the West. This was the land once covered by cowboys and their herds on the Beefsteak Trail that brought animals from grazing lands in New Mexico and Arizona to the railhead at the town of Magdalena, a few dozen miles to the north-east. The Beefsteak Trail was the last regularly used major cattle drive in the country, surviving right up until the 1950s. At its height, in 1919, more than 20,000 cattle and 150,000 sheep passed along it in one season.

After three hours of increasing heat and decreasing shade we began to know how the cowboys felt. Or perhaps the cows. A long descent from Continental Divide crossing number twenty-three (only six more remained) brought us to a particularly desolate spot.

We were at the crossroads with State Highway 12. The by-now anticipated absence of the promised gas station, the last chance to restock for nearly 120 miles, was but a minor frustration. Of far greater concern was what lay ahead: the Plains of San Agustin.

A former lake bed, now long since desiccated, the pan-flat plains extended more than 50 miles from north-east to south-west and were up to 15 miles wide. Vegetation was conspicuous only by its absence. There were no trees. There was no shade. Even the sage scrub of the Great Divide Basin had been beaten into submission by the sun's brutality. All that replaced it were reluctant clumps of grass that clearly demanded a lot of personal space, such was their distance from their neighbours.

It was featureless and terrifying. What San Agustin, or Saint Augustine for that matter, had done to deserve the association could only be guessed at. Nothing could have been better designed to deter a roaming Yorkshireman. For the first time since the lonely forests of Montana, my presence here seemed questionable. And, frankly, ludicrous. Riding out into such inhospitable terrain at 2 p.m. seemed utter folly.

Still, there was little point in getting cold feet now. Not that cold feet was likely to be a problem. Under a white-blue sky and an armada of clouds like those seen in documentaries of African droughts – full of unfulfilled promises – we rode forth. This was
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
territory, though which roles we might each assume remained to be seen. At least there was no pot of gold for us to fight over.

The heat bore down on us like a drill. Brows sweated, eyes stung, mouths parched. Yet the sense of desolation was so great as to be seductive. I stopped to try and capture it in a photograph. Then I noticed a peculiar, blowsy, white flower that had a prickly stem. It was, it seemed, half thistle and half poppy.

‘Pistle, or thoppy?' I wondered to myself, Per and Trevor having wisely continued.

Thoppy, I concluded, sounded better. ‘Howard's Thoppy' sounded better still. I bent over to record my discovery (or conceit, if you prefer) for posterity, and immediately regretted it. Somehow, even though I was no longer actually riding my bike, I managed to fall off it. Or fall over it might have been more accurate. Either way, I sprawled miserably onto the dusty ground, looking round for somebody to blame like a five year old who has just tripped over his own feet. There was no one. Vultures circled, if not above my head then certainly in it.

The blow to my pride and the damage to my left shin, in which was imprinted a mirror image of my front chain ring, coloured with oil and oozing blood, was nothing, however, compared with the blow to my supplies. I had left my snack pack open and had now lost most of my supply of Skittles. With an appetite that was finally beginning to wane due to the past few days of heat, the loss of such sweet, easily digestible calories was verging on a disaster.

In a fit of pique, I grabbed the bike and made to ride off as quickly as possible. That, too, was a mistake. Impatience caused me to miss the pedal, as a result of which I only narrowly missed castrating myself on the cross bar. I then overcompensated and, for the second time in as many minutes, fell off, or rather over, the bike while not actually riding it. The remainder of my Skittles disappeared into the dust at my feet. I nearly cried.

I rejoined Per and Trevor just as the route turned away from the plains at last and into La Jolla Canyon. A few miles later and we were once again riding through the shade of trees. Under one particularly fine example of a Ponderosa Pine we called a halt. It was siesta time. Before attempting to doze, I unpacked my bags in search of food as appetising as Skittles. I found none. I did, however, find the still pristine shirt I had purchased in Steamboat Springs. It would have proved ideal for the past two hours. Now it served equally well as a pillow. It was 4 p.m.

The rest was fantastic, but it was, by normal siesta standards, shortlived. Less than two hours later we resumed our trek. Per, clearly benefiting from his rest and the slight waning of the sun's power, set a fearsome pace. We sped through delightful open forest below rugged, rocky peaks. We saw one, then two, then thirty head of elk, both cows and calves. Then the forest gave way to the broad, grassy valley of the imaginatively named O-Bar-O Canyon. The isolation was splendid. White butterflies flocked around us like an incongruous snow flurry. As dusk descended, last night's beguiling courting between moon and sun resumed. We pitched camp for what we hoped would be the last time on the entire ride.

I
t was something of a incident-packed night.

The first disturbance was a rather alarming dream about Johnny Cash. Before we pitched camp I had pointed out to Trevor and Per that the Man in Black had first been arrested for possession of amphetamines in El Paso, which wasn't a million miles away. Cycling, after all, has something of a long and rather chequered association with such artificial stimulants.

Now, in the middle of the night, I was riding a bike that magically grew into a tandem to accommodate Cash himself, who had appeared, somewhat flustered, carrying a concealed package. As sweaty as if he were in the middle of a live performance, he urged me to pedal faster and faster.

Obligingly I turned forward to redouble my efforts, only to find we were not alone. Sandra Bullock was miraculously seated alongside me, the bike having become a sort of tandem rickshaw, though the exact design remained unclear. At first I was delighted to find I had such a charming travelling companion. It soon became clear, however, that Sandra was here on business rather than pleasure. She kept motioning to my bicycle computer and saying ‘Speed! Speed!'

I responded by saying ‘Yes! Yes! And it also tells me how many calories I've consumed', which was in fact a lie but I was keen to make an impression. But Sandra was unmoved.

‘It's Johnny.'

Beguiled, I'd forgotten he was even with us.

‘If we don't keep above 15 mph all the way to the Mexico border he'll explode.'

I woke up in a cold sweat. There was a lot I would be prepared to do for Miss Bullock, but this seemed too much. Even Per hadn't been quite so demanding, though as far as I knew he wasn't carrying a small explosive device.

I had scarcely recovered from this disconcerting interruption when I found myself aware of another peculiar intruder into my subconscious. This time it was not Johnny Cash. Instead, it was a loud, haunting howl that came, if not from inside my tent, then from very near to it. I dismissed it as another dream, only to realise that I was already awake.

Apprehension began to mount. Then, belatedly, it crossed my mind that it wasn't me the coyote-wolf-monster-whatever-it-was would be interested in but Per. I pricked up my ears and listened for anything that suggested he was being mauled but there was only silence. I would like to be able to say that I then got out of my tent to reassure myself of Per's continued safety and that we weren't surrounded by a pack of the hungry Mexican wolves that had just been reintroduced to New Mexico from over the border and which had already established themselves in the Gila. But I didn't. I simply fell straight back to sleep.

The next disturbance was equally unwelcome, yet more expected. It was the alarm clock, which meant it was 4.30 a.m. and time to rise. There was no evidence of our howling companion, and Per was, again, still intact.

‘Did you see what it was?' I asked.

‘No,' he said.

In fact he seemed more pleased that he'd managed to go back to sleep afterwards than that he'd not been the victim of a midnight feast in the first place.

‘I heard it, then nothing happened, and the next thing I knew was being woken again by your alarm.'

Our first port of call was Beaverhead Work Centre, 10 miles away. We didn't know what a Work Centre was but, as even the regularly over-optimistic map didn't predict any services, our expectations weren't high. First impressions suggested we were right to have been cautious. There was a collection of utilitarian buildings that seemed designed to provide facilities for forest service employees, as well as what appeared to be a visitor information point.

There was also an interpretive sign detailing the links between the surrounding area and one of its most famous inhabitants, the great Apache war chief Geronimo. He had been born nearby and, along with other leaders such as Cochise and Mangas Colorado, had regularly sought refuge in these hills during his long-running guerrilla campaign against encroaching settlers and the US and Mexican armies. Nothing could have given a better indication of the inhospitable, chaotic nature of the terrain, and his ability to survive and even thrive here enhanced my own feelings of inadequacy. Until we found a fully-functioning, refrigerated drinks machine, that was.

‘Aha. I bet Geronimo wouldn't have been able to figure out how to get hold of a nice cold can of Dr Pepper!' I exclaimed.

It turned out to be something of a struggle for us too. The machine said ‘exact change only' and it required prolonged rummaging through bags and pockets for us each to find the requisite 80 cents. That none of us was particularly thirsty at such an early hour of the morning seemed beside the point.

After Beaverhead the terrain became even more challenging. Whereas the route had previously seemed to follow the path of least resistance, now it had decided, or been compelled, to traverse an incessant series of ridges between steep-sided drainage basins. The result was an arduous and seemingly endless series of ups and downs, neither of which offered any respite from the other due to the roughness and the gradients encountered. Every now and then the trail topped a rise and provided dramatic views of the tortured landscape. Even more dramatic were distant plumes of smoke.

‘A forest fire?' I asked.

‘Maybe,' said Trevor, once again demonstrating the sanguinity with which he had faced every obstacle on our journey thus far. It seemed unfair. He still had a much better beard than I did as well.

Then, 50 miles and more than six hours after we had started, we finally came to the long descent to the Mimbres River Valley and something approaching civilisation. Initially that civilisation seemed quite sinister, in spite of the delightful greenery of the valley itself, with large, handsome cottonwood and willow trees standing on the riverbanks. First came what appeared to be an arms race in the naming of the steep gorges feeding in to the main valley. ‘Soldier Canyon' was followed by ‘Big Gun Canyon' and then by ‘Six-Shooter Canyon'. Reassuringly in the face of such bravado, a sign at the entrance to Big Gun Canyon said ‘No Shooting'.

Less reassuring was the advert for the Gila Rangers, whoever they were: ‘Live Cowboy Action Shooting. Every Second Saturday.'

To my mind, this could be read two ways, at least one of which was somewhat alarming. Was it the ‘action shooting of live cowboys'? Or was it the more innocuous ‘live, cowboy-action shooting'? It wasn't Saturday so we didn't have the opportunity to find out.

It was a relief, nevertheless, to find the store in Mimbres village considerably more hospitable. Indeed, Per and I were once again confronted with being minor celebrities due to the unmistakable ‘foreignness' of our accents. Surprisingly, Per's origins were quickly determined. Mine took a little more time.

‘Are you Australian?' asked the friendly woman behind the counter.

I explained that I wasn't.

‘That's a shame. I don't like our new president too much and I was hoping to move to Australia but they said I was too old and too dumb,' she added before immediately descending with her two colleagues into gales of laughter.

I was in the middle of searching for the right combination of words to assure her that this surely wasn't the case when I was confronted by new evidence to the contrary.

‘Do you know if Australia has a socialist economy?' she asked. ‘It's just I know it has a queen and a parliament.'

I was, I sensed, treading on thin ice. I said I was pretty sure that having a queen and a parliament didn't mean it was necessarily socialist, and that as far as I was aware it had a fairly robust enthusiasm for the free market. I waited anxiously for the reaction. There was none, which was fine by me. Instead, conversation now turned to soft fruit.

‘Would you like some peaches?' she said, pointing to the plump, ripe fruit that were filling a basket by the door and for which she had just been attempting to determine a price. We appeared to be about to eat her profit margin, but she was resolutely unconcerned. Whatever the merits of the assessment made by Australian immigration officials, lack of generosity was certainly not one of her failings.