That old black ragtop Cadillac rolled by me coming to a stop,
and I looked inside. I says to myself, “I’m going to die today. It’s all over,
at nineteen.” That car hadn’t seen new shocks since the Truman administration
and, as it stopped, the front-end rose and dove like a colt eating grass. There
wasn’t any place to run. I was standing in the Wyoming wilds with the nearest
city over two hundred miles away.
I think I mentioned not long ago about meeting a couple of friends
once, when I was young and taking a trip from Jackson Hole, Wyoming down the west
coast to Mexico. Well, I had to get to Jackson Hole first, and that meant hitchhiking
through Wyoming to get there. There were bad and good assets connected with hitchhiking
in those parts.
First, it was hard as hell to get a ride. There just weren’t
that many people in Wyoming back in those days. But, and this is the good part,
if you got a ride, you were going somewhere. There weren’t that many places to
stop, either.
The first ride, the man took me to Cheyenne and asked me why
didn’t I come stay with him for a while, get to know the city and all. I told
him I sure would like to, but I had two friends waiting up north and they
wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t show up. He understood, or said he did.
The second ride was with a traveling salesman who took me to
where he turned off about 200 miles from where I was going. He acted as a
hunting guide when he wasn’t selling and showed me plenty of prime places if I
ever returned to go hunting. I never did.
He let me out and I was about the most alone I think I’ve
ever been. The mountains off in the distance and the vast plains didn’t take long
convincing me that I had maybe made a mistake. Would the winter snows find me
there?
That’s when I saw the Cadillac coming. The closer it came,
the more I wanted to take my thumb down, but I was in for this adventure like Sherman
was in for Atlanta, so I waited. My apprehensions gathered force as the car came
to a stop.
I mentioned that what I saw scared me. It was three of the roughest looking hombres I
had seen in a long time. All had cowboy hats ragged denim jackets. They had mustaches
that made them look like part of Poncho Villa’s band. They were the kind of
guys who could hush an entire pool hall by just walking through the door.
The driver was a tall, lanky man who got out, opened the huge
trunk and threw my travel bag in with their gear. I supposed they would divide
up my belongings after they had disposed of my body. Then they made room for me
in the open seat in back and inquired as to where I was headed. I told them,
and they told me I was in luck, for they were going right through there. The driver,
before we started off, asked if I was comfortable and I said was.
Then something odd happened. He asked the other two if they
were comfortable. That seemed a bit strange for the leader of a small band of
outlaw killers.
Well, you know what? Those were the nicest three men I think
I ever spent time with. They were cowboys, headed for work, and shared some
good stories about the profession. Of course, they asked me about myself. I wasn’t
about to tell them that I was a snot-nosed college boy spending a part of his
summer indulging in insanity. I offered something vague about meeting some friends
and then looking for work.
“You’re in luck,” one said. “We’re headed for Cody. They’re ‘haying’
up there and looking for hands. You can just come on up with us.” That put me
in a pretty pickle. I allowed as how I would find my friends and see what they
were up to first.
It was a fast couple of hundred miles. We stopped once for nature’s
call and they just stood around afterwards talking about how they loved the
smell of clover that time of year. We stopped near Jackson Hole for gas, and I pitched
in. That pleased them quite a bit, though they hadn’t asked me to.
We reached Jackson Hole in a mood of high fellowship. They invited
me to come have a meal with them, but I had to find my friends. “Well,” said
the driver, “if you don’t find your pards, come on over to the diner, and we’ll
all head for Cody after we chow down.”
I thanked them and, with mixed emotions, found my buddies on
the other side of the square, talking to some locals. One friend was talking as
if he had climbed mountains all summer, but I found out later he had only done
a little “bouldering,” and had not really done very well at that. The locals
seemed pleased that I had arrived.
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| Life is a series of choices, no doubt. |
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