The Code Of The West

From the R.M. Dolin novel,”AN UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE – The Book of Darwin”

Chapter 13: Code Of the West

Victor unzips his wool-lined canvas vest before sitting down, even though fall’s officially two weeks out, it’s what Northern New Mexicans call Indian Summer, the post-monsoon season where days are hot and dry while nights creep down to increasing cold temperatures. He tosses himself against the back of the well-worn hard-wood chair, “Tell me again how many you got,” he says as Darwin approaches with a tray of coffee and breakfast burritos.

“Twelve, at least that’s what Anna says.”

“And for four years you had no idea?”

“Not a clue, she’s set everything up, says she used to do for her dad.”

“Eee Cabron!” Victor moans while using his fingers to count. “That’s like fifty you could have had.”

“Forty-eight, but who’s counting.”

“Ay ay ay, over half-a-million slipping right through your fingers.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“For reals, my cousin Tommy’s a guide, he buys landowner permits for like ten grand each then sells packages to rich Texans for thirty K a pop.”

“Now you’re just bullshitting me.”

Victor washes down a burrito bite with coffee. “It’s a whole package, Cabron, wilderness camp, food, bedding, and he guarantees an elk. He field-dresses and packs it out, Thirty grand’s a steal.”

“No way he can guarantee an elk.”

“Tommy can; and if the guy’s all aim but no shot, like most Texans, Tommy takes the shot.”

“If he’s doing a dozen hunts a season at 30K each, he must be the richest man in the valley.”

“Oh no Cabron, one maybe two times he goes out, lots of competition for landowner tags. I can’t believe you never put in for yours, they’re automatic based on all your property.”

“That’s what Anna says. I wouldn’t even know what to do with that many tags.”

“Sell them Cabron, like all you rich landowners do.”

“I don’t need more money.”

Victor scoffs, “The one thing certain with you rich Anglos is the more you have, the more you have to have.”

“If I want more money, I’ll go back to California and sell what little is left of my soul.”

“Think about your friends, Cabron. You start handing out elk permits and I guarantee you’ll jump past even Calvin Kincaid as the best damn Anglo this valley’s ever known. Nothing gets you sainthood faster than giving away elk permits.”

“Probably oughta keep one, you think I can live for year off an elk?”

“Skinny nerd like you, probably. I actually thought you were part of the latte drinking Taos vegetarian café crowd until I saw you order burritos like a real man.

“Seriously dude? I’m as much a meat and potatoes American as you. You are American aren’t you, Senor? Can I see your papers?”

“They ain’t caught me yet, Cabron.”

“Well don’t get too comfortable, you ask me, your Spanish is a little too fluent.”

Victor sets his burrito down clearly annoyed. While Darwin enjoys messing with him, he knows in these parts not to push deportation jokes too far. “If the state’s gonna give me twelve permits that I can transfer to anyone, does that mean I have to let people crawl around my mountain shooting the shit out of stuff, I don’t know if I or my mustangs would like that?”

“That’s the beauty of New Mexico corruption Cabron, you can sell your permits to someone then tell them they have to hunt somewhere else. This state’s so corrupt, they give you twelve permits to control the elk population on your land but then let you decimate herds in other places. Follow the money, Cabron, it always goes straight to Santa Fe.”

“I wouldn’t sell them but am okay giving them away. I would have rules.”

“Like what?”

“They can’t go to someone for resale, so not your cousin. Preference for families who need the meat, then for first time hunters who didn’t draw. I’d want to harvest two, maybe three, that I process and distribute to elderly folks who grew up on elk and just can’t get out anymore.” Darwin considers his rules in finer detail. “I’d let people hunt the valley portion of my property as long as the mustangs are in the upper meadow, but not my meadow, I don’t want wildlife there harassed.”

“I’ll have Mateo take you out for your elk, but what I advise for the rest is to trade everyone you transfer a permit to for something; even kids can cut firewood. I’d think an elk tag is worth many cords of pinon, an entire winter’s worth. People won’t feel right having you just give them a permit no matter how poor they are. Letting them trade for work, Cabron, a man feels right about that, and grateful for the opportunity.” Victor grins with satisfaction.

Darwin grows uncomfortable. “What are you looking at?”

“The new Calvin Kincaid, Cabron. We will call you Saint Darwin of Marquez Mountain.”

“Ha, ha.” Darwin sardonically smirks while tossing back what’s left of his coffee before getting up to leave the crowded café filled with a mix of rich east coast retirees in LL Bean rugged-wear and eclectic trust-funders posing as artists. “You coming or not, we got work to do.”

#

It’s naturally nostalgic to surmise life in Northern New Mexico is not nearly as hard now as it was three-hundred years ago when rugged mountain-men like Kit Carson first moved in along the Rio Grande gorge. The argument’s compelling, modern homes have heat, air conditioning, running water, and sewer lines that render their content an afterthought. Power lines deliver dependable electricity, and solar panels provide off-grid areas whatever they need. We dine on processed food to enjoy year-round treats and use satellite Internet for streaming entertainment. We have pickup trucks for getting around and washing machines that permit the occasional change into clean clothes. And let’s not discount our all-important gas stoves for cooking requisite morning coffee and end-of-day dinner.

In ways that matter though, things are remarkably unchanged, there’s still no way to escape the extreme heat of a desert day, the scarcity of water, the power of Santa Anna winds, and the duality of monsoon rain that simultaneously provides life while delivering destruction. The pain of black locus thorns is as unforgiving now as ever and the way earth still does what it wants when it wants leaves no doubt as to who’s in charge. The battle between man and nature still leans in favor of nature causing man to step back in respectful wonder whenever death comes calling, whether in the gliding cascade of circling buzzards or the hissing siren of a big cat taking down a darting deer, life remains fragile and firmly within nature’s domain.

It’s incomprehensible for people living in the causal comfort of concrete covered cities to appreciate what it means to face death daily while discounting the many times you walk away from something that could have easily ended with your demise. Thus is the case two weeks later when Mateo takes Darwin out to scout elk a week before muzzle loader season opens. While the bulk of Darwin’s property is on Marquez Mountain, he also owns a fair amount of land at the base of the Mountain that extends onto the flat valley floor providing a winter home for his mustangs and year-round habitat for deer, rabbits, coyotes, wolves, elk, and of course, snakes; rattlesnakes, bullsnakes, red-racers, blue-racers, and even black-racers that slither so fast a man running at full lope can’t keep up.

Snakes are an essential cog in the core gear driving high desert ecosystems, for one thing, they manage rodent populations so in that regard are man’s friend, even diamondbacks whose venom can kill, provide benefit. If a guy gets bit in the hand or leg by a rattler, he’ll most likely feel miserable for a while, maybe even wind up in the emergency room if he’s an east-coaster, but anyone bit on the face or neck dies quickly from brain hemorrhage, there’s no wiggle room on that outcome. That’s why whenever Darwin ventures onto the plateau part of his property, he’s mindful to keep his ears focused on the easily recognized rattle of a diamondback warning you to stay away and a keen eye looking out for anything on the ground that moves in any way. Rattlers do what they can to avoid conflict and keep you at distance and rattle only when they feel threatened, only sometimes they don’t and those are the times when things don’t end well. Rattlers blend with dessert soil and ragged brush so perfectly there’s no way to see them unless they move, which is usually too late. You can stare directly at a snake and not see it, then in an instant it springs at you so fast there’s no time to react. Snake bites aren’t common but they do happen with enough regularity to know you could be next.

With Victor’s help, Darwin transfers nine of his twelve elk permits; five to struggling families who rely on elk for meat but were not favored by the Santa Fe cartel during the draw, and four to first-time teenage hunters who also faced the same fate. Darwin plans to use some of his harvest for himself and distribute the rest to valley elderly. Mateo’s agrees to help Darwin as compensation for his niece getting one of the first-time permits.

The sad reason most New Mexican’s can no longer hunt elk in New Mexico is because politicians there, like politicians everywhere, long ago quit caring about their constituents, which is also why New Mexico ranks dead last in all national measures. In a brazen bit of systematic corruption from a state conspicuous for corruption, politicians ensure that over half the available elk permits each year are automatically allocated to wealthy landowners/donors who in turn sell them to rich East-coasters for upwards of ten thousand dollars a tag. Then, the wealthy landowners/donors compete with average New Mexicans for the few remaining elk tag draws and to no one’s cynical surprise, manage to secure most of those.

While Darwin grew up hunting deer and ducks in Illinois, neither prepares one for the challenges of a big game hunt in the high desert wilderness. Elk are not only more than twice the size of deer, they’re twice as fast, twice as cunning, and far less likely to be in the same spot twice. In addition to being an experienced hunter, Mateo is skilled in field dressing as well as the lost art of processing game into useful steaks, roasts, and trim for jerky, sausage, hamburger, and salami.

Elk are predominately prairie animals but like deer, bears, and mountain lions have been driven into the forested edges of wilderness mountains by encroaching civilization. Unlike most western mountain ranges, Darwin’s piece of the Sangre de Cristo’s doesn’t have foothills, the mountain transitions immediately from steep forested slopes to flat open high desert terrain. With the Jemez Mountains across the valley floor on the western horizon, the Sangra’s seem to circle around to the south and connect with the Jemez somewhere around Santa Fe. The Colorado Rockies rise up in the north to complete nature’s border wall around the flat valley floor protecting everything that once was from the persistent pressure of people and their problems.

Early October in Northern New Mexico means days can be comfortably hot with night providing contrasting cold. The elk are in full rut with bulls bugling their warning to all challengers within a multi-mile radius while at the same time coaxing uncommitted cows into their herd. Monsoon rains ended a month ago ushering in Indian Summer, leaving the valley floor so dry desert dust kicks up from any kind of traffic, whether it’s wild game, domestic herds, or man on the prowl.

The folks who had Darwin’s property before him, sunk a well in the northern third of his valley parcel to push water to various sections of property through irrigation pipes that crisscross like a well-laid city grid. The rest of the property is serviced by Kincaid Creek that flows westward along the southern third of the property. The irrigation pump used to be powered by a hundred-year-old windmill that blew down in a Santa Anna storm ten years ago and was replaced by a solar powered system. While one can’t argue against the efficiency and effectiveness of a solar powered pump, there’s a certain charm to windmills that tilts toward the wildly harsh conditions it stands in defiant deference to.

Northern New Mexico soil is not really dirt and not really clay or sand either; it’s a soft silty settling of dust that never really forms a crust so, whenever the wind blows, which it tends to do with utmost frequency, dust dithers along to its next new destination. The best way to describe the texture of Northern New Mexico soil is that it’s like powdered sugar with the blueish tan tone of a hantavirus mouse. Occasional clumps of buffalo grass hint at the land being tamable, but mostly it’s chamisa, sagebrush, and black locus that thrive, and of course whatever the hell you call that weed producing goatheads, Satan’s contribution to creation. The bastard plants have thumbtack looking seeds that pierce the soles of your boots then get carried inside the house where they dislodge so you can later step on them at night during your barefoot walk to the bathroom. Nothing wakes you with more certain clarity than trying to pee in the dark while picking thumbtacks from the bottom of your foot doing your best not to use words that’ll offend God.

Mateo explains the purpose of scouting around the week before muzzle-loader opening day is to get a feel for where the big bulls are bunching up their herds. Because muzzle loaders have at best a knock-down range of 150 feet, getting close is essential, so Mateo walks Darwin through the ins and outs of putting a sneak on a rutting bull without spooking his cows; it’s all about exploiting the bull’s intoxicated desire to mate. While this is clearly an advantage Mateo has utilized in past hunts, Darwin’s not convinced he’s on board with the morality of it all. He attempts to engage Mateo in a philosophical discussion on the matter, but Mateo shuts him down with one definitive statement, “You wanna eat or go hungry?”

Because opening day occurs on the Columbus/Founders/Indigenous-Peoples/Underworked-Government-Workers-Need-A-Day-Off holiday, lots of hunters will be roaming around adjacent properties pushing elk around, which creates skittish anxiety throughout the valley’s elk herds. Mateo cautions Darwin that when he gets on an elk, he must act quick to get off a shot, but at the same time, he can’t get sloppy because a muzzle loader only gives you one shot. When Darwin distributed his elk permits, Victor suggested he keep the muzzle loader tags for himself so he could get out while the hunting weather’s nice and the herds are as tame as they’ll likely be all season. Plus, during the rut, hunters can call elk in but once the rut ends, things get way more challenging. Darwin’s three tags include, one for a mature bull, one for a cow, and one for either sex. While cow meat is best for eating, bulls are bigger and most hunters sacrifice meat quality for trophy bull bragging rights.

Even though it only takes a few minutes to drive from Darwin’s hacienda to where Mateo decides their practice hunt should start, he insists on camping next to the tipped over windmill inside an open concrete tank that used to hold well water. The tank has six-foot high walls around a twenty-foot diameter base and Mateo’s logic is spot-on, it’s out of the wind and away from coyotes, wolves, snakes, and whatever else likes to lurk about at night. In the center of the now dry tank Mateo sets up a cut out metal drum with a grate on top for cooking and hauls in split piñon logs for fuel. After transferring gear from his pickup, he decides to use the dwindling daylight to scout around and get a feel for tomorrow morning’s maneuvers.

As they head out of camp along a game trail running along a twenty-foot-long trough overflowing with well water, Darwin steps over a sagebrush plant that’s grown around the frame of the tipped over windmill and hears the sudden rattle of a snake from within the bush. With the instincts of a varsity wide receiver, Darwin leaps into the air just as a rattlesnake springs toward him just missing his foot. With the calm pocket presence of a former high school quarterback, Mateo draws his 9mm sidearm and puts three rounds into the snake before he can launch a second strike.

After that drama the boys don’t make it out of camp because Mateo insists on skinning the snake and stretching the hide over a weathered two-by-ten to dry. He then announces that he’ll get a piñon fire going so they can roast the snake for dinner. Darwin’s adamant that there’s no way in hell he’s eating rattlesnake, but Mateo informs him, “you have to homes, it’s the code of the west.” Unaware logic won’t matter, Darwin argues against the need since they brought plenty of tasty food, but Mateo’s resolute, “don’t matter dude, we’re obligated.”

“There’s an unwritten code,” Mateo explains as the piñon fire builds, “as much alive today as it was when Mountain men first came to the valley, the code doesn’t contain many rules, but they are unyielding, things like stopping to help someone who’s broke down, shoveling your elderly neighbor’s driveway when it snows, coming to the aid of a woman regardless of the risk or reason, always paying your way, and eating what you kill. Besides,” Mateo finishes with a devilish grin, “a man’s gotta earn his bones so quit whining like a lost little schoolgirl.”

The following morning Mateo wakes Darwin to the smell of hot coffee percolating over the piñon fire that’s been smoldering since supper. When layered alongside the crisp dark air filled with the romantic roars of multiple bulls declaring their willingness to take on all challengers, Darwin decides he’s not only absolutely going to enjoy hunting but needs to loop Vincent in on all this, but not this season, he first needs to bag a trophy elk to establish prima facie bragging rights.

After a quick breakfast Mateo can’t help but tease Darwin, “hope you don’t up-chuck breakfast like you did dinner.”

Darwin disgustingly spits into the fire’s dwindling embers suddenly re-tasting last night’s dinner, “that shit tasted like piss soaked in vinegar.”

“He was a bit gammy,” Mateo laughs, “I’ll give ya that.”

The boys quickly pack up their gear and head into the pre-dawn darkness to find a bull for Darwin to practice putting a sneak on. They hunt for an hour or so after sunup around the tipped over windmill before deciding to drive to the northwest corner of the property to see if there’s any sign along the fence-line separating Darwin’s wilderness land from the large-scale commercial alfalfa farmer next door. It’d be a stretch to call what they’re driving on a road but at some point, someone cleared something of a path through the sagebrush, chamisa, and locus. Mateo’s F150 lumbers along slowly because he has the window down to listen for bugles and doesn’t want to kick up too much dust and startle any satellites that may be in the vicinity. He’s partway through telling Darwin the story of the six-by bull he shot near Red River three years ago when suddenly and abruptly, the front passenger side of his pickup drops so violently the only thing keeping Darwin from catapulting through the windshield is the seat-belt Mateo shamed him into strapping on.

When the dust settles, the boys get out to see what’s up and are amazed to find the front passenger wheel dangling in the air over a six-foot wide, eight-foot-deep hole that wasn’t there seconds ago. The diver’s side front wheel is precariously supported by a tall tower of dusty dirt rising up in the center of the sinkhole that’s just wide enough to keep that side of the truck from falling in. The dirt tower holds its shape like a precarious house of cards one light breeze away from complete collapse. The rear driver’s wheel is off the ground due to the way the front of the truck leans into the sinkhole ledge leaving the rear passenger tire as the only one on semi-solid ground.

Unsure how one goes about getting extracted from such a calamity, Mateo calls Victor who, an hour later, arrives with the requisite gear and after debating possible solutions, each with some sort of sub-optimal consequence, they settle on a strategy for pulling Mateo’s pickup out of the hole that wasn’t there before. Once done they dutifully build a rock barrier across the road and stick long two-by-fours in the hole that lean against the side walls like a flagpole with surveyor’s tape tied to the top.

With their morning hunt diverted and the elk having bedded down until late afternoon, Mateo heads to town to get the front end of his pickup looked at while Victor and Darwin hang around to study the sinkhole more closely. By now the per-dawn chill has turned to hot desert heat as they set about examining the origins of nature’s rage. A quick forensic analysis concludes the sinkhole’s part of a long fissure that’s mysteriously opened. They follow the fissure west toward the front of the property for about two-hundred yards where it appears to end. In some places the fissure’s just a crack in the ground while in other places it opens to as much as a three-foot wide gap that’s six or so feet deep. The interesting thing about the gaps is it’s unclear if the earth opened to create the fissure, or if some sort of underground stream eroded the soil away. Evidence of dirt clumps along the bottom of the trench appearing to be damp suggests the underground stream theory, however, the side walls present more like the earth opening rather than water eroding, so, there is that.

They speculate that if the earth opened to create the fissure, there’s no telling how deep it really is because the dust that’s settled over what appears to be the bottom could just be a false bonnet. They throw heavy rocks into the hole to test that theory, but the rocks don’t fall through, which doesn’t mean they wouldn’t if they hopped down so they opt not to. Besides, if the earth could suddenly open a fissure of such length and depth, what’s to say it couldn’t just as quickly slam it shut.

With the fissure’s west fork thoroughly vetted, they decide to see how far it extends to the east and start along that section of the fault line. Darwin works up the line faster than Victor but stops at a place where the gap opens from just a crack to about twenty-five inches wide. What fascinates Darwin about this gap is it’s significantly deeper than anything they’ve seen thus far, perhaps as much as twelve feet deep. Between the sinkhole that tried to eat Mateo’s pickup and this deep twenty-five-inch-wide gap, the fissure’s mostly just a crack. Before kneeling on the fissure’s edge to have a closer look, Darwin takes a moment to marvel at the way a sagebrush straddles the crack in the earth just as it starts to open into the twenty-five-inch-wide section. With roots firmly planted on both sides of the crack, it’s as if they’re the only thing holding the earth together and Darwin can’t help but wonder if the earth were to open further and the plant wasn’t able to keep the crack from expanding, which side of the line would the plant cast its loyalty?

It’s interesting to consider the way earth does one thing and nature reacts. Of course, the sagebrush isn’t preventing the fissure from opening but if the fissure does decide to expand and the plant must choose a side, does it matter which side? If the plant were to split in two, would it flourish and prosper on one side of the fissure and wilt away to nothing on the other? Is it like being on the American side of the Rio where everything’s good and prosperous versus the Mexican side where hopelessness prevails. It’s a fascinating dichotomy the way arbitrary lines can decide the difference between life, death, and prosperity.

Since one can only stare at sagebrush roots stitching the earth together for so long, Darwin scoots over a foot or so to better peer into the twenty-five-inch-wide gap to see how deep it goes. At first glance there does not appear to be any damp soil which suggests the erosion hypothesis is invalid. About then Victor meanders over to have a look for himself and as he approaches the sagebrush whose roots stitch the earth together, the constant competition between life and death in the Northern New Mexico wilderness catapults into the next microsecond with so much intensity it should require multiple moments.

Victor’s about to step around the sagebrush to join Darwin’s side of nature’s arbitrary line that may or may not have been carved by an underground stream, when from the bush Darwin was just staring at, comes the unmistakable sound of one rattle; not the long melodic warning of a snake attempting to keep you at bay but the single solitude note of a warrior announcing that time for negotiations have ended and all-out conflict is the last logical step in a confrontation that was never going to be avoided.

In the next nanosecond a four-foot-long rattlesnake springs from the sagebrush bush launching like a long missile heading straight for Darwin’s face that’s leaning over the fissure to look inside. It’s in this instant Darwin knows that later he’s gonna have to thank God for blessing him with good hearing and great peripheral vision because between the single rattle of a pre-launch strike and the time it takes to fly two feet through the air, Darwin catches the movement of incoming fire, or fangs, depending on how he’ll later tell this tale. He pulls back from the fissure just as the snake flies by so close his subconscious counts the number of repeated diamond patterns on the snake’s back before the attacking reptile falls harmlessly through the gap landing twelve feet below on the fissure’s false bottom leaving behind a faint contrail of piss and vinegar.

Somewhere between shocked and stunned, Darwin looks at Victor who’s looking back at him, before they both turn to stare into nature’s newest rattlesnake pit as one very pissed off reptile slithers into his coil, rattling like a madman filled with a vengeance he knows he’s earned. As the last micro moment replays in Darwin’s head weighed alongside all the ways things could have gone horribly wrong, Victor leans over the gap saying in a calm matter of fact tone, “Ya know, Cabron, when a rattler bites you in the face, you die. There’s no surviving that.”

That’s all that gets said about the entire incident because in the Northern New Mexico wilderness just a tad north of Taos and bit south of Colorado, it doesn’t much matter if it’s the earth wielding its might, nature challenging you to a dual, or goatheads stabbing you into submission, absolutely everything is trying to kill you and the best you can do is cheat death one more time and move on. The boys discuss retrieving Victor’s shotgun and blasting the bastard snake who tried to kill them because in an odd sense of frontier justice, it’s the code of the west and the snake certainly knows that. Ultimately though, they decide neither of them is willing to jump into a hole that is at best twelve feet deep to fetch a snake local chefs claim tastes like piss soaked in vinegar.

Darwin now understands why Victor constantly cautions east-coasters in Taos cafés wearing their rugged LL Bean attire while sipping latte mocha mint cappuccinos. He tells them in grave seriousness that if they plan to venture into the Northern New Mexico wilderness, they need to be careful where they drive and should their hybrid SUV fall into a large hole that wasn’t there a micro-moment ago, to be careful getting out and not to peer too close into neighboring sagebrush bushes, or walk around with thin soled shoes, and make sure you’re packing a pistol for coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions, and some sort of protection from all the other things trying to kill you. “On second thought, Cabron,” Victor always concludes, “probably best you plan a relaxing weekend at a populated beach somewhere because in Northern New Mexico, one can only cheat death so long before death balances the ledger of life, after all,” he finishes, “that’s the code of the west.”