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 well-worn wool-lined canvas vest before sitting down at the mosaic tile table in the back corner of the crowded café. Fall’s still two weeks out leaving Northern New Mexicans with what they call, ‘Indian Summer.’ It’s the post-monsoon period where hot dry days are followed by lengthening nights of increasing cold. Darwin approaches with tray of coffee and breakfast burritos but before he can settle, Victor picks up where they left off. “Tell me again how many.”

Darwin unloads the tray and sits down. “Twelve, at least that’s what Anna says.”

“And in all these years you had no idea?”

“Not a clue. Still wouldn’t if not for her. She filed the paperwork not me.”

Victor uses his fingers to count. “Eee Cabron!” he moans. “That’s over a hundred permits you could have had.”

“A hundred-and-twenty, but who’s counting.”

“Ay, ay, ay, that’s like a million dollars you let slip right through your fingers.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“For reals. My cousin Tommy’s a guide. He buys landowner permits from guys like you for ten grand, then sells packages to rich Texans for thirty K a pop.”

“Bullshit.”

Victor washes down a bite of burrito with coffee. “It’s a whole package, Cabron. Basecamp, backcountry gear, he packs in and packs out, and not only does he guarantee an elk, he’ll field-dress and process the animal. Thirty grand’s a steal.”

“No way he guarantees an elk.”

“Tommy does. If a guy’s all aim but no shoot, like most Texans, Tommy takes the shot.”

“If he’s doing a dozen hunts a season at 30K a pop, he’s gotta 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 didn’t know they’re automatic.”

“Never had a need to, besides, what the hell am I gonna do with a dozen elk tags?”

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

“I don’t need more money.”

Victor scoffs. “The one certainty about you rich Anglos is the more you have, the more you have to have.”

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

“Then give them away to locals. You do that and you’ll surpass Calvin Kincaid as the best damn Anglo this valley’s ever known. Nothing gets you sainthood status faster than giving away elk permits.”

“You think I can live for year off an elk?”

“Probably. I used to think you were one of those snooty Taos vegans until I saw you eat burritos like a man.

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

“ICE ain’t got me yet, Cabron.”

“Well don’t get comfortable. You ask me, your Spanish flows a little to flawlessly.” Darwin enjoys messing with Victor, especially knowing it annoys him and makes up for all the times Victor messes with him. He also knows though, not to push deportation jokes too far. “If the state’s gonna give me twelve permits I can sell, does that mean I have to let people crawl around my mountain shooting the shit out of stuff? I don’t want people messing with my mustangs.”

“That’s the beauty of New Mexican corruption Cabron; the state determines you need twelve permits to control the elk population on your land, but you sell your permits to high rolling Texans then tell them to hunt somewhere else. Then they decide to decimate herds on public lands. Follow the corruption, Cabron, follow it straight to Santa Fe.”

“I’m okay giving them away but would have rules.”

“Like what?”

“No resale, so not your cousin. Preference for families who need meat, then for first time hunters. I’d keep two, maybe three.”

“For what?”

“I’d distribute the meat to senior centers. I’d let people hunt the plateau part of my property so long as the mustangs are in the upper meadow.”

“You cannot give them away; you need to trade, even kids can cut firewood. An elk tag is worth many cords of piñon. People won’t feel right if you just give them a permit. Let them trade you for something. Dignity and respect, Cabron, a man needs both to be grateful.”

Victor’s grin makes Darwin uncomfortable. “What are you looking at?”

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

“Ha, ha.” Darwin tosses back what’s left of his coffee and gets up. “You coming or not, that deadfall’s not gonna clear itself.”

#

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 came to the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The argument’s compelling, we enjoy modern homes with heat, air conditioning, running water, and sewer lines that render their content an afterthought. Power lines deliver dependable electricity. We dine on whatever we want anytime we want and have Internet for nonstop stimulation. We have pickup trucks for getting around and washing machines that permit a routine change of clothes. And let’s not discount our all-important gas stoves for cooking requisite morning coffee.

In ways that matter though, things are remarkably unchanged. There’s still no way to escape high desert heat, the scarcity of water, the power of Santa Anna winds, or the duality of monsoon rain that simultaneously provides life while delivering destruction. The pain of black locus thorns remains unforgiving, and the earth still does what it wants when it wants. The battle between man and nature still leans in favor of nature causing man to respectfully pause when 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 firmly fragile.

Folks who live in the comfort of concrete-covered cities can’t appreciate what it means to continually challenge survival while discounting the many times you walk away from something that could have ended with your demise. Mateo taking Darwin to scout elk a week before opening day of muzzle loader season is a case in point. While the bulk of Darwin’s property is rugged mountain terrain, he owns a sizable amount of land at the base of Marquez Mountain extending onto the flat valley floor. It provides a partial winter home for his mustangs and year-round habitat for deer, rabbits, coyotes, wolves, elk, and of course, snakes; rattlesnakes, bullsnakes, and racers that slither so fast a man running full speed can’t keep up.

Snakes are essential to high desert ecosystems. They manage rodent populations so in that regard are man’s friend, even diamondbacks whose venom can kill. If a guy gets bitten 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. Anyone bit on the face or neck though, dies fast; there’s no wiggle room on that outcome. Whenever Darwin ventures onto the plateau part of his property, he’s mindful to listen for the easily recognized rattle of a diamondback warning you to stay away. He’s equally keen to an eye out for anything that moves. Rattlers do what they can to avoid conflict and keep you at distance. They prefer stealth and only rattle when threatened. Only sometimes they don’t and that’s 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 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. He gives five to struggling families who rely on elk for meat but were not favored by the Santa Fe cartel. Four he gives to first-time teenage hunters who faced the same fate. He plans to harvest three elk with Mateo’s help. Some of the meat he’ll keep for himself, the rest he plans to distribute to valley senior centers. Mateo agrees to guide Darwin’s hunts 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 in Santa Fe, like politicians everywhere, long ago quit caring about their constituents. Evidence of that is found in New Mexico’s ranking in any national metric; education – last. Poverty – last, child welfare – last, access to medicine – last, literacy – last, and the list goes on. In a brazen bit of systematic corruption from a state conspicuous for corruption, politicians ensure over half the available elk permits 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 publicly available elk tags and to no one’s cynical surprise, manage to secure most of those.

While Darwin grew up hunting deer and duck in Illinois, neither prepares one for the challenges of big game hunting in high desert wilderness. Elk are 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 wilderness 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 that like deer, bear, and mountain lions have been driven into the forested edges of wilderness mountains by encroaching civilization. Darwin’s piece of the Sangre de Cristo’s doesn’t have foothills. His mountain transitions immediately from steep forested slopes to flat open high desert terrain. Early October finds days comfortably warm with night providing contrasting cold. The elk are in full rut with bulls bugling their challenges to all males within a multi-mile radius as they seek to coax uncommitted cows to join their herd. The monsoon rains ended weeks ago letting Indian Summer dry the valley floor, so now dust kicks up from any kind of traffic, whether it’s wild game, domestic herds, or man on the prowl.

The previous owners of Darwin’s property sunk a well in the northern third of the plateau parcel to push water to various sections through irrigation pipes that crisscross like a well-laid city grid. Kincaid Creek flows westward along the southern third of the property providing water to areas not irrigated. A hundred-year-old windmill used to pump water around the property until it blew down in a Santa Anna storm ten years ago. Darwin replaced it with a solar powered system. No one can argue against the efficiency and effectiveness of a solar powered pump but there’s a certain charm to windmills that tilt 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 stable crust. 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 and 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 elk before a muzzle-loader hunt is to get a feel for where the big bulls are bunching their herds. Muzzle loaders have a maximum knock-down range of 150 feet, so getting close is essential. Mateo walks Darwin through the ins and outs of putting a sneak on a rutting bull, it’s all about exploiting the bull’s intoxicating desires. While this is clearly an advantage, Darwin’s not convinced about the morality of using sex as a weapon. He attempts to engage Mateo in a philosophical debate, but Mateo shuts him down, “You wanna eat or go hungry?”

Muzzle-loader opening day occurs on the Columbus/Founders/Indigenous-Peoples/Underworked-Government-Workers-Need-A-Day-Off holiday, so lots of hunters will be roaming around adjacent properties pushing elk. This creates skittish anxiety throughout the valley’s herds. Mateo cautions Darwin that when he gets on an elk, he must act quickly to get off a shot, but at the same time, he can’t be sloppy because with muzzle loaders you only get one try. When Darwin distributed his elk permits, Victor suggested he keep the muzzle loader tags for himself so he could get out while hunting weather’s nice and the herds are as tame as they’ll be all season. During rut, hunters can call elk in but once rut ends, hunts get way more challenging. Muzzle loader hunts follow archery season but come before the rifle hunts that extend until late December. 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 quality for trophy and bragging rights.

It only takes a few minutes to drive from Darwin’s hacienda to where Mateo decides their practice hunt should start but he insists on camping. The spot he picks is 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. He hauls in split piñon logs for fuel and transfers gear from his pickup. He decides to use dwindling daylight to scout around and get a feel for tomorrow’s terrain.

They head out of camp along a game trail that runs parallel with a twenty-foot-long trough overflowing with well water. When Darwin steps over a sagebrush plant that’s grown around the base of the tipped over windmill, he hears the sudden rattle of a snake within the bush. With the instincts of a varsity wide receiver, Darwin leaps into the air as a rattlesnake springs toward him, his fangs just missing Darwin’s foot. With the calm pocket presence of a former high school quarterback, Mateo draws his 9mm pistol 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. He then announces that he’ll get a fire going so they can roast the snake for dinner. Darwin’s adamant 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.” Darwin argues against the need for reptile protein since they brought plenty of tasty foods 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 the Conquistadors 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, coming to the aid of a woman regardless of the risk or reason, always paying your way, never sleeping with a married woman, and eating what you kill.” Mateo rolls the snake pieces over the wood fire grate to roast the other side. “A man’s gotta earn his bones in this life,” he lectures. “So quit whining like a lost little schoolgirl.”

Darwin awakens before dawn to the smell of hot coffee percolating over the same piñon fire that’s been smoldering since supper. When layered alongside crisp morning air filled with romantic roars of bulls declaring their willingness to take on all challengers, he knows he needs to loop Vincent in on all this. Not this season, he first needs to bag a trophy elk to set the bar for bragging rights.

After a quick breakfast Mateo can no longer hold back. “Hope you keep breakfast down better than dinner.”

Darwin disgustingly spits into the fire’s dwindling embers re-tasting last night’s disaster. “That shit was nasty, like piss soaked in vinegar.”

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

The boys pack their gear and head into the post-dawn darkness of deep arroyos to find a bull to put a sneak on. They hunt the area around the tipped over windmill for an hour then decide to drive to the northwest corner of the property to see if there’s any sign along the fence-line separating Darwin’s plateau parcel from the large-scale commercial alfalfa fields 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 slowly because he has the windows 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 does settle, 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 tower of dusty dirt rising 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 passenger-front leans into the sinkhole. This leaves the rear passenger tire as the only one on semi-solid ground. Unsure how one goes about extracting themselves from such a calamity, Mateo calls Victor who, an hour later, arrives with the requisite gear. After brainstorming an impressive array of solutions, each possessing a sub-optimal consequence, they settle on simply 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 bright red surveyor’s tape tied to the top.

With their morning hunt diverted and the elk bedded down until late afternoon, Mateo heads to town to get the front end of his pickup evaluated while Victor and Darwin study the sinkhole more closely. By now the morning chill has turned to hot desert heat as they set about examining the origins of nature’s rage. A quick forensic analysis concludes that 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. Evidence of dirt clumps along the bottom of the trench appearing to be damp suggests the underground stream theory. At the same time, the side walls present more like earth opening rather than water eroding, so, there is that.

Darwin and Victor 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. It 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.

They work their way east to see how far the fissure extends 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 him about this gap is it’s significantly deeper than anything they’ve seen thus far, perhaps as much as twelve feet deep. Between the spot where the sinkhole 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. Darwin wonders 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 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 so long, Darwin scoots over a foot 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 around the bonnet which suggests the erosion hypothesis is invalid. Victor meanders over for a confirmatory look. 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 such 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. In this instant Darwin already knows 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. The attacking reptile falls harmlessly through the gap landing twelve feet below on the fissure’s false bottom leaving behind the odorous contrail of piss and vinegar.

Shocked and stunned, Darwin looks at Victor who’s looking at him. They both turn to stare into nature’s newest rattlesnake pit as one very pissed off reptile slithers into his coil. The snake rattles like a madman filled with a vengeance he certain 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 matter of factly states, “When a rattler bites you in the face, Cabron, you die. 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 briefly debate 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 least twelve feet deep to fetch a snake local chefs claim tastes like piss soaked in vinegar.

Darwin at least 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 with 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 in Santa Fe, because in Northern New Mexico, one can only cheat death so long before death balances the ledger of life. After all,” he always finishes. “That’s the code of the west.”