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Trench Warfare
War-talk was running high when they threw the loaded packs in back of the
Gold Pony and left Flagstaff, headed north across the Navajo Reservation.
Television and the newspapers had nothing to say about anything except the
towering evil of Hubbub Ihnssain, while National Public Radio had suspended "All
Things Considered" to concentrate on One Big Thing: Even the scandal of the
Christian broadcasting stations had been temporarily set aside. And the
President of the United States was appearing almost hourly in the Rose Garden
with the rock band Guns 'n' Roses by his side to proclaim that Hubbub was the
Anti-Christ come to earth as the Good Book predicted. To the Three Amigos, it
seemed the right time to get out of Dodge and down in the Big Ditch.
On the way across the reservation, Tob drove carefully to avoid running over
sleeping Navajos taking time-out from celebrating the coming war. Their hogans,
patriotically draped in red-white-and-blue, looked festive, as if the defeat of
Kit Carson and his men had recently been announced. At the Monument Point
trailhead above the North Rim, Mr. Peanut's green Chevrolet pickup truck with
the Park Service decals on the doors stood parked. Mr. Peanut was a girl ranger
from the Bronx called Doreen who had the perfect peanut shape, though lacking
the top hat, cane, and monocle. "She'd look good with the top hat in addition to
her pack," Cor said. "If she could carry a pack, I mean."
From Monument Point they had a view into the tangled green depths of Tapeats
Creek, overlooked by Steamboat Mountain, on its way to the muddy Colorado;
across the main gorge, the Owl Eyes stared blankly from the shadowed wall below
the South Rim at Great Thumb Point. The sun was dropping toward the southwestern
landline and the air at 7300 feet of elevation felt chill. The Three Amigos
hoisted their packs and grinned at one another.
"Cocktails will be served on the Esplanade in two hours and a half," Tob
suggested.
It was steep climbing off the Kaibab, down through the Toroweap to the top of
the Cocononino Formation, where they traversed below the rim another mile before
switchbacking to the Esplanade, its rocky bays glowing in tender shades of
orange and rose beneath an ultraviolet sky where early stars quivered. They
hiked in silence for the most part, Cor keeping close behind Tob, Chib lagging a
hundred yards in the rear. The Three Amigos had traversed the Esplanade halfway
among the crooked piņon and juniper trees and were already in sight of the
dolomite turrets overlooking the campsite when a brilliant light flashed in the
ecliptic of the vanished sun directly ahead, a high-atmospheric explosion whose
detonation was absorbed by layers of darkening sky. It was a beautiful explosion
like that of an artistic Chinese firework, fiery debris hurtling in arcs of
smoke away from the central fireball and drifting earthward, lazily. Cor was too
young to remember the Challenger, but Tob and Chib exchanged knowing looks.
"It's started already," Tob said. "Chalk one up for Hubbub, I guess. That one
must have come from Nellis Air Force Base near Vegas. The government doesn't
know how to operate its own toys, anymore."
Twenty minutes later they had reached camp and were setting up kitchen on a
ledge beneath an overhang of rock when a shadowy figure appeared in the trail:
Mr. Peanut, her ranger's badge glinting in the light of the full moon, with her ticketbook in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Tob. "What's that you have
hanging out on the rock there?"
"That's the Bonnie Blue Flag," Tob told her. "I carried it with me all
through the Civil War, fighting for the Confederate States of America. And
since."
Mr. Peanut shone her flashlight on the flag. "You mean, it's something
Southern?" she asked. "Well, I'm afraid you'll have to take it down right away,
sir. It might offend somebody. I'm offended."
"The last time you had me take something down, it was my shorts hanging out
to dry."
"Don't be sexist, sir. You're on Federal property, remember. And may I see
your permit, by the way?"
The moon, a pale wafer above the western horizon, remained up for a good hour
after sunrise next morning, as if to keep the restored flag with its single
white star company. The Three Amigos ate a good breakfast before making camp
secure against Raoul and Ramona, the marauding ravens, and also Mr. Peanut,
should she visit them again. They stowed the food supplies in the tents
away from the deer mice and Tob, after consideration, hid the booze with
them. (Mr. Peanut, a teetotaler, had a prepared cautionary lecture, approved by
the Park Service, on the dangers of drinking while hiking.) Then they packed the
empty water bottles into the day packs and hiked off the Esplanade to Surprise
Valley and from Surprise Valley down to Deer Creek, where a party hiked in from
a passing river trip was eating lunch. All the passengers carried American flags
sticking from their fanny packs, and had their ears glued to the transistor
radios they brought along.
"What's the score?" Tob asked. He had in mind the Broncos-Packers game.
"We just nuked Baghdad! And a bunch of towelheads set off a string of cherry
bombs outside the Israeli embassy in Los Angeles!" one the river clients told
him.
"WAY-TO-GO, U-S-A!" another shouted, and they all joined in: "WAY-TO-GO,
U-S-A!"
"War ain't a football game, folks," Tob told them, at which they all quit
cheering and looked at him through narrowed eyes.
"You'd look good as a towelhead yourself, buddy," a fat middle-aged man said,
"what with that beard and all."
"You mess with my Pa, I'll wipe you up with a towel--you big mound of
cold pig lard," Cor promised him.
Following the creek, they hiked on down to the river and Deer Creek Falls,
plunging 120 feet to a clear cold pool edged by water-polished pebbles and
monkeyflower, whose windblown spray stung like sleet. Tob and Chib pulled off
their boots and shirts, plunged into the pool, and swam up under the falls,
while Cor sat on the beach cooling her feet in the water. When they emerged,
hugging one another and guffawing, Mr. Peanut was waiting for the Amigos with
her ticketbook out. Since she was known to be a weak hiker whose practice was to
lurk, like a troll under a bridge, in easily accessible spots along the trail,
the ranger's appearance out of nowhere surprised them.
"Sir," Mr. Peanut began, ignoring Chib and addressing Tob directly, her faint
mustache quivering, "it is absolutely against regulations to bathe in a pristine
waterway, as specified in Article 73, Section 29(iii) of the Rulebook. This pool
is utilized by four native species of fish, twelve different species of
invertebrates, and thirty-eight species of insect life, all of which have been
shown by federally sponsored studies to be adversely affected by human
perspiration and other bodily excretions. The Federal government is committed to
preserving pristine natural environments wherever they exist, within the United
States, the Middle East, and everywhere. All fines are payable to the National
Park Service, which dedicates the money to its NPS First! emergency fund. NPS
accepts payment in dollars only, not rubles or Euros.."
She wrote Tob a ticket for $450, which he tucked into the front of his
dripping hiking shorts. His practice room at home was papered with similar
citations, which he had so far avoided having to pay by claiming one-sixteenth
Hualapai ancestry on his mother's side.
The Three Amigos returned along Deer Creek where the patriotic boaters were
attempting to retrieve one of their party who had fallen into the 150-foot-deep
crevasse, up through Surprise Valley, and back to the Esplanade, 4000 vertical
feet above the river, in 90-degree heat reflecting from the cliff wall. They
arrived at camp late in the afternoon, brought out the supplies from the tents,
and sat in their stiff salt-rimed clothes, shaded up beneath the overhang, to
drink beer before Tob started supper.
"This is how life should be," Chib told the other Amigos. "Your play is your
work, your work is your play, and both work and play are forms of prayer. For
the person who really knows how to live, all of life is prayer."
"I wish I had my guitar," Tob said. "That would have made it absolutely
perfect."
"Mr. Peanut would have written you another ticket," Chib told him, "for
breaking the pristine silence the Park Service created."
The sky was still golden in the west when the first space objects appeared,
hurtling high overhead like white-hot stones hurled by giant catapults,
traveling west to east. "Looks like Taking It.com for Hubbub," Tob observed,
chasing his beer with a swig of whiskey.
"Or maybe it's North Korea doing Washington from behind," Chib suggested.
"Do you suppose they've got all that stuff up there going round and round and
they can't bring it down when they want it?" Cor asked.
The lightshow between moonrise and sunup was spectacular, a half-century's
worth of space R&D circling the planet at incredible speeds and coming, finally,
from all directions to score the dome of the heavens with long rips and tears of
fire. As with the explosion the previous evening no sound was audible, but at
daylight a pall of dust mixed with smoke shrouded the world at high altitude.
"Cheney's oil fields could be on fire by now," Tob said at breakfast. "Come on,
man--eat up! I'd like to make it over to Thunder before Nuclear Winter sets in."
The Three Amigos, carrying their empty bottles and a light lunch, took an
hour and a half to hike down the switchbacks and across Surprise Valley to
Thunder Spring, a water-wall dropping ninety feet to a series of pools set in a
green oasis of oak and box elder in the Muav Formation beneath the Redwall to
form the headwaters of Thunder River. They climbed up among the exposed tree
roots to the bottom of the falls and sat on the bank to eat, taking the cool
spray on their faces and watching as a variety of tiny bird flew straight into
the cataract. Looking for bugs underwater, Tob explained. The Amigos had just
popped the three lunch cylinders they'd chilled in the icy water when they heard
heavy breathing at their backs and, looking round, spied Mr. Peanut leaning on
her stick. No doubt she'd hiked from Deer to Tapeats Creek by the river trail
and followed the drainage up to its junction with Thunder River, rather than go
the long way around through Surprise Valley. One way or another, it had been an
exceptionally energetic 24 hours for Mr. Peanut.
"Hi there," Tob greeted her. "Care for a cold beer? You like you could go for
one."
Mr. Peanut's eyes were dull with fatigue and her sweat-darkened shirt stuck
to her belly and back.
"I'm on duty, sir. Are you aware that the Surgeon General has determined that
drinking alcoholic beverages while hiking causes dangerous dehydration in
pregnant persons, and--?"
A sonic boom followed directly by an aerodynamic whine interrupted her,
followed by a terrific concussion as some large aluminum thing crashed onto
Great Thumb Point, taking out a sizable chunk of cliff that included the Owl
Eyes and sending it crashing into the river below. Mr. Peanut appeared oblivious
to the disturbance.
"According to Article 54, Section 41 (vi), of the Rulebook, all
nonbiodegradable--as well as biodegradable--refuse must be packed out by the
undersigned permittee. I have to remind you that the Park Service, a branch of
the Federal Government, is dedicated to protecting pristine natural environments
wherever they--"
Tob stood and placed his empty beer can on end on the ground. He flattened it
with a single stamp of his hiking boot and chucked the compressed medallion at
Mr. Peanut. "I'm not pregnant," he told her, "but, here--you carry it
out."
In camp that evening the Three Amigos sat over filets mignon and red
wine, observing the aerial bombardment that had intensified to the degree it
seemed as if all the so-called civilized nations on earth--as well as some less
civilized ones--had resorted to flinging every available piece of mechanical
scrap at one another, in a total war between a dozen and a half competing
super-junkyards. Now the visual display was no longer silent but accompanied by
remote booms and a confused underlying roar, like that of a giant forest fire
sucking the oxygen from the atmosphere. Even past moonrise, the horizon around
glowed with the light from distant conflagrations burning beneath shelves of
greasy cloud advancing from the west to blot the unfathomable, sempiternal
pattern of the brilliant stars.
"I told Barbara to join us down here if things got really bad up top," Tob
said worriedly. "I hope she's on her way by now."
"Before now," Cor corrected him.
Nobody slept well, from worrying about Barbara. They were up several hours
before sunrise to strike camp and load the packs for the climb out. The sky was
not as active as it had been throughout most of the night, but the glow beneath
the spreading smoke pall was pervasive. The Amigos drank a cup of coffee and
shared a chocolate bar between them before they got on the trail, marching
steadily in the track of the headlamps.
They had crossed the Esplanade and started up the switchbacks rising to the
north rim when a light appeared ahead and far above them, but below the paler
sky where it rested on top of the black canyon wall. The light bobbled steadily
downhill until presently Barbara appeared behind it in the trail, carrying an
enormous pack on her back and in her hand a guitar case.
"Hello, dear," she told her husband, holding the battered case forward. "I
knew you'd never be able to survive without this. It's terrible up there, by the
way. You can't imagine how terrible."
Tob accepted the guitar from her and turned about to face the Esplanade,
already paling in the early light .
"Suppose we go on back to camp," he suggested, "and I'll make us a real
breakfast."
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