There is little
traffic on Route 16. A couple of four-wheelers fly by at an incredible speed. A
small boy driving a two-ton pickup truck in the opposite direction nonchalantly
tips his cowboy hat as he passes; he can’t be a day older than twelve. Mostly I
have the road to myself, empty pavement rolled out through a flat land of
grass, with little more than barbed wire fence and telephone lines occupying
the vacancy between the earth and the sky—what many people would describe as
“desolate.” My portable radio picks up nothing but fuzz, so I listen to an
arrangement that is created by the clicking of my rear wheel combined with the
howling of the wind, a song that only I can hear.
I see something in
the road, in the distance, but I can’t make out what it is. I only know that
it’s wide and it’s dark and it’s moving. As I get a little closer I realize
that it’s a herd of animals, but I can’t tell what kind. Did a group of cows
break through the fence? A little closer and I see that they’re not cows, but
horses, a hundred strong, and moving straight towards me. From where I stand I
can’t tell how fast they’re travelling. If they’re at full speed I might be in
world of trouble, for the animals are stretched across the entire road, from
fence line to fence line, leaving me nowhere to go. So I wait it out, and as
they move closer and closer I realize that they’re at a mere jog; and I see a
half-dozen cowboys riding high on a half-dozen horses, so there is a sense of
control. But since I’ve never been in a situation like this before, I have no
idea of what to do. So I do nothing; I stand still and let them come. The
animals are smart; they create space, parting like the Red Sea and converging
again once they pass the foolish man on the bicycle. They casually trot by, and
I am emerged in a jumble of tans and browns and grays of different shades. The horses
are tall and elegant, with beautiful mains blowing in the breeze, and long
tails swaying in the rear. The sound of a few hundred hooves simultaneously
clicking against the asphalt is more beautiful than any noise my bicycle has
ever made. A few stragglers stop to eat some grass and one of the cowboys
circles around and corrals them back towards the group. I remain still, staring
at the herd of magnificent beasts as they exit my life just as quickly as they
came. When I can see them no longer, only then do I begin moving again,
wondering if what just happened was a dream or one of the most incredible
realities of my life.
I am jealous. Not of
the horses, but of the cowboys. I think at some point during his youth every
adventurous young boy aspires to be a cowboy. I know I did. I would run around,
wearing my cowboy hat and shooting off my toy cap guns at make believe outlaws.
But then you grow up and forget, or come to the realization that the “cowboy”
way of life—at least the one you had perceived in your mind—doesn’t so much
exist any longer. Sure, there are still cowboys—I just saw six of them—but it’s
not like it was in the old days. The guys I passed were driving a herd down a
paved highway, and they had walkie-talkies clipped to their belts, not guns.
They’ll sleep in beds tonight, not on the hard ground, and they’ll probably
listen to bad country music instead of singing songs around a campfire.
I come across a
building, the first I’ve seen in I-don’t-know-how-many-miles. There’s an old
oil sign out front, rising twenty feet out of the ground, colored red, white,
and blue, with the word “STANDARD” written across the center of a giant oval.
In front of the sign is a life-sized replica of a horse, painted black with
white spots, standing as tall as a horse can stand on its rear end, its front
legs bucking high in the air. The building is stucco-white, with an ancient red
telephone booth standing out front. Sitting next to the outdated communication
device is a bench with three connected seats, like the kind you’d find in an
old bus station, its bland-yellow upholstery torn to shreds; and adjacent to
that, a long concrete cylinder with grooves running horizontally, which I
assume is for cleaning off the bottom of your boots before going inside. In the
front window there is a red-lighted sign flashing the word “OPEN,” and beneath
that a green and white sign that once belonged to the side of the road. It
reads:
SPOTTED
HORSE
POP 2
ELEV 3890
I
walk through the front door and there are exactly two people inside, a lady
bartender and a man drinking beer. “What color?” asks the woman.
“Excuse
me?” I say
“What
color beer do you want?”
“Whatever’s
cheapest.”
“They’re
all the same price.”
“I’ll
take a red then.”
“Three
dollars,” she says and hands me a red can of Budweiser. It seems awfully
expensive but when you’re in the middle of nowhere, in a town with only two
residents, you don’t have much of an option. “Did you see all those horses?”
she asks.
“So,
that was real,” I say, “I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not.”
“Pretty
magnificent, wasn’t it?”
“Does
that not happen often?” I ask.
“No,”
she says, “that’s not something you see every day. Say, I was ‘bout to close
the kitchen. You hungry?”
“Oh,
no thanks. I’m actually just waiting for my friend to show up. He shouldn’t be
that far behind.”
“Where
you guys riding from?” she asks as she hands the man another beer.
I
tell her about the trip and she mentions that she once worked in Yellowstone.
Charlie shows up and gets the same greeting that I did, “What color?”
“Blue?”
he says without really thinking.
She
hands him a Keystone and says, “Three dollars.”
I
walk around the room and look at all the junk that’s piled on the floor, and
covering the pool table, and hanging from the walls and ceiling. It’s apparent
that these people haven’t thrown anything away in decades, causing the place to
look like a miniature flea market. There are old hubcaps, oilcans, beer
bottles, license plates, and beverage memorabilia. There’s an old standing
scale, a pipe stove, a pair of chaps, a couple of children’s pedal cars, and a
whole bunch of cowboy tools that I don’t know the names of. The walls are
covered in mirrors and posters and framed pictures, some of characters like the
Marlboro Man, but most of friends and family, and their trucks and horses and
hunting trophies. There are a handful of dollar bills pinned to a slab of wood,
with black inked signatures and initials scribbled across Washington’s face.
Above that, an old bicycle, single speed, with flat handlebars, a spring-loaded
front suspension, and wide fenders fashioned with a built-in headlight.
“Some
pretty neat stuff in here isn’t there?” says the lady.
“There
sure is,” I say as I sit back down.
“That
horse outside,” she says as she hands the man yet another beer, “it’s from an
old whorehouse up in Montana. Didn’t have the spots when we got it. We painted
those on.”
“I
see the bicycle up in the corner,” I say. “Do you get many cyclists coming
through here?”
“Bicyclists?
No. Never. But motorcyclists, we get them all the time. Even have some famous
people come through here from time to time.”
“Like
who?”
“Oh
let’s see, that Fonda guy, from the Easy
Rider movie. He’s been here.”
“So
you’re telling me that I might be sitting in the same chair that Peter Fonda
once sat in?” “Well, I can’t remember
where he sat. But he was definitely here. You know who else was here? The hair
guy.”
“The
hair guy?”
“Yeah,
you know, the hair guy.”
“Dennis
Hopper?”
“No,
no, no. The hair guy.”
“Fabio?”
“No.
Just wait a sec, I got a picture of him. Why can’t I remember his name? It was
only a few years ago.” She flips through a photo album until she finds what
she’s looking for. “Here it is, the hair guy. What’s his name?”
She
shows me a photograph of a group of men standing around their motorcycles.
There’s Peter Fonda with a big smile across his face and next to him a stocky
man with a dark beard. “That’s the guy,” she says, pointing to the man.
“Paul
Mitchell?”
“That’s
it. Paul Mitchell (note: it’s not actually the
Paul Mitchell, but his more recognizable business partner, Jean Paul DeJoria),
I couldn’t think of his name. Yeah, the two of them come through all the time
on their way to Sturgis.”
She
says they were here “a few years ago,” and they “come through all the time,”
but the photograph is clearly a couple of decades old, as I can tell from Peter
Fonda’s appearance and the fact that the photo has the rounded corners that I
haven’t seen on printed images since I was a child. But, nonetheless, the story
makes the woman happy, for her eyes light up while mentioning the two
celebrities that once passed through. And I’m sure that for the next couple of
months she’ll be telling others of the two crazy cyclists that once stopped in
for a drink.
I
run outside and grab my water bottles. When I ask if I can fill them up in the
sink the woman says “no.”
“No?”
I ask in surprise.
“Can’t
drink the tap water here. You’ll have to fill them up with the bottled water in
the kitchen.”
“What
do you mean; you can’t drink the tap water here?”
“This
is natural gas country. The water’s not fit for drinking.”
“So,
the gas companies just tell you that you can’t drink your own water, and that’s
that?”
“They
bring us as much bottled water as we want for free.”
“That’s
unbelievable. How do you shower and do dishes?”
“The
water is fine for that kind of stuff, just can’t drink it.”
“So
you’re not allowed to drink the water, but it’s alright to bathe in it?”
“That’s
what they tell us.”
I
fill my bottles from the water cooler in the kitchen and before leaving I ask
the woman if she knows anywhere in the area to pitch a tent for the night.
“I
can’t think of anywhere,” she says, “but Thomas here would know. He knows
everything about the area.”
“The
only place I know of,” says the man at the bar who’s had four beers in the time
I’ve had one, “is the side of the road. But even there, you’re trespassin’ on
somebody’s property.”
I
stare at the lever-action rifle hanging above the bar and decide that Wyoming
isn’t the kind of place you want to get caught trespassing in. “So, I guess
we’re gonna try to make Gillette,” I say before walking out the door.
A
few miles down the road there’s a pickup truck pulled off to the side. A man is
standing on the driver’s side, waving at me in the sort of manner that means,
“Come here.” I pull up to the rear of the truck and notice that it’s the man
from the bar. He’s in his mid-forties, wearing work boots, a stained white
t-shirt, a pewter belt buckle and dirty blue jeans; his balding head shows
through the plastic mesh of a large-brimmed trucker’s hat, and he carries a
thick mustache that is just short of what you would call a Fu Manchu. He looks
through me with piercing eyes and says, “I got a place for you to stay.”
I’m
immediately suspicious. Just twenty minutes ago he didn’t know of a spot for us
to camp, but now that we’re in the middle of nowhere, and there are no
witnesses, he suddenly knows of a place. “Where’s that?” I ask.
“Just
follow me,” he says. “I’ll show ya.”
“Follow
you? I can only go so fast on this bike.”
He
talks in a rumbling voice, with a slow drawl, always pausing for a couple of
seconds between each thought. “It’s not far.” Pause. “I won’t go fast.” Pause.
“Follow me.”
I
follow him for about a mile before he makes a left on a county road and stops
the truck. I pull up to the side and say, “Is it down this road? If you just
tell me where it is, I’m sure I can find it. I’m pretty good with directions.”
“I’ll
show ya where it is.”
“Well
alright, let’s go.”
“Don’t
ya think we should wait for yer friend?”
I
look back and see Charlie about half-mile up the road. “He’ll see us turn,” I
say. “He’ll catch up.”
“I
think we’ll wait for him.”
The
man keeps his eyes on me and after only a few seconds the situation feels
extremely awkward. “So, your name’s Thomas,” I say, hoping to relieve the
tension. “I’m Jon, and that’s Charlie back there.” Thomas says nothing. “So you
live around here?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
Pause. “Up the road.”
“What
do you do?”
“Work
on a ranch.” Pause. “Say, when’s the
last time you had a hot meal?”
“Well,
I had a burrito for lunch, and dinner yesterday at a restaurant in Buffalo, and
I carry a portable stove, so I eat pretty well.”
“But
when was the last time you had a real home cooked meal?”
“I
guess it’s been a while since I’ve had a home cooked meal,” I say, “but you’d
be surprised what my little stove can do. I’ve made some pretty good meals with
it.”
“Your
friend’s here.” Pause. “Follow me.”
As
we follow the truck, I tell Charlie what’s going on. “Seems kind of strange,
doesn’t it?” he asks.
“No,”
I say, “not kind of strange, really strange.”
A
half-mile down the road and we take a right onto a long dirt drive. There is a
sign that reads:
RECLUSE
TOWN
PARK
This town is called Recluse? Who
names a town Recluse? Only bad things can happen in a place called Recluse. It
sounds like it’s straight out of a horror movie.
Thomas
stops his truck at the entrance and says, “This is it.” Pause. “Come, I’ll show you around.”
Show
us around? It’s literally nothing more than an overgrown baseball field with a
giant chain link backstop, an outhouse, and a dilapidated swing set. How is he
going to show us around?
We
follow the truck to the rear of the backstop. Thomas cuts the engine and climbs
out, an open beer in his hand. “So, it looks like you boys have two choices,”
he says. “You can stay here for the night, or you can ride another thirty miles
to Gillette.” Pause. “And I don’t
think you can make it there before the sun goes down.” Pause. “So, what do you think, do you wanna stay here?”
“Yeah,”
I say apprehensively, “I think we’ll stay here.”
“Alright
then,” Thomas says and then points to the ground in front of him, “you’ll set
up yer tents right here! And nowhere else!”
“Alright,” I say, “whatever you say.”
“I’m
just joking.” Pause. “You can set up
yer tents wherever you want.” He doesn’t laugh or so much as crack a smile.
“Now, you set up yer tents and I’m gonna go home and bring back a home cooked
meal for you boys.”
“That’s
really alright,” I say, “We’ve got our own food to cook.”
“Don’t
bother,” he says, “I’ll be back.”
He
hops in his truck and leaves the park. Charlie and I look at each other, both
unsure of what to think. “So, should we just leave now?” Charlie asks.
“I
don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I say. “What happens when he comes back
with our dinner, and we’re not here? What if he gets really pissed off? The
guy’s got a truck. There’s only one way for us to go. It’s not going to be hard
to find us.”
“But
what if he poisons our food, waits for us to pass out, and we wake up locked in
his basement?”
“You
don’t think I haven’t thought about that?” I say. “This town is called Recluse
for Christ’s sake.”
“So,
what do we do?”
“I
guess we set up our tents, eat his food, and just hope that he’s not a crazed
maniac. Oh, and if your phone gets service here, you might want to let somebody
know where we are, just in case.”
After
about an hour Thomas returns with a small Tupperware dish for each of us filled
with steak and potatoes and mixed-vegetables. “You don’t mind if I drink while
you eat?” he asks as he cracks another beer.
“Not
at all,” I say, wondering how he would react if I did mind. The food is good, but an eerie silence settles in as
Thomas watches us eat with his ever-piercing eyes. So I try to break the
tension with some small talk. “This is a pretty nice looking baseball field you
got here,” I say.
“Yep.
My brother once hit a homerun here.” Extra
long pause. “He’s still alive.”
He’s
still alive? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why would you need to
mention that he’s still alive? I hope this guy is just screwing with us.
“Yep,”
Thomas says, “lot a history in these parts.”
But
that’s it, he doesn’t add anything. What history? What could have possibly
happened in the town of Recluse, Wyoming that would qualify as “history?”
“So,
what’s the town of Gillette like?” I ask.
“I
hate drugs,” is Thomas’s answer.
What
is this guy talking about? What does drugs have to do with anything? “Yeah, I
do too,” I say in agreement.
“Well,
if you boys are done, I’ll take those dishes back.”
We
hand Thomas the empty plastic containers and he takes off in his truck. “Well,”
Charlie says, “that was awfully creepy. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to
fall asleep tonight.”
“Don’t
worry,” I say, “the sedatives should kick in soon. Then you’ll have no problem
passing out.”
“Word.
Don’t joke around about that.”
“Oh,
I’m not joking.”
The
sun goes down, but I can’t sleep. Every time I begin to doze off I think I hear
somebody walking around outside, but every time I get up to investigate there’s
nothing there. Plus, I’m paranoid that if I do fall asleep, I’ll never wake
back up. So I just sit in the dark and wait.
At
the first sign of daylight I wake Charlie; we pack our things and head east
towards Gillette. I’m relieved to have survived the night in Recluse, but as I ride
away, I realize there was probably nothing to worry about in the first place. I
remember something that Thomas told us last night. Just before he drove off, he
stopped, rolled down his window and said, “Now, you boys get on that Internet
of yours, and you tell people about this place.” Pause. “You tell them it’s safe to come here.” I suddenly realize
that Thomas couldn’t have murdered us, because he needed us to lure others in—we were simply his bait.
Note: This story is from my book, The Road and the River: An American Adventure. Currently available by clicking on the link above, or on Amazon.com
