Seems my folks had inordinate trust in me, or maybe it was just the times. Hmmm, then too, maybe they were just trying to get rid of me...
For a while I lived alone in an old stout trailer. It had been my dad's, maybe since it was new and he sold it to me when I was 15 or so. He helped me pull it to some property he's swapped surveying for on the Smith River and that was my home away from home. Probably told you stories about the old timers there, one living in a sheep wagon and the other in a cabin near by. If I haven't told ya the stories I should. They were interesting folks.
We got back there in the Spring, and found that a bear had broken out the window over the sink and denned on my bed! caved it right in. Ransacked the cupboards for anything edible, finally bit into a can of insect repellant and made a new exit. Took me awhile to get all that fixed. That thing served me well over the years, and I got a heck of a lot of use out of it.
Smith River was heaven for a prairie kid. Mountains, fine river, chock full of big trout and grayling, endless places to explore. A half wild horse herd that if you were wily enough to catch up, could be made to ride, after you came to an understanding. The entire area was heavily used by native peoples of long ago. Lots of caves, almost all of them had pictoglyphs on the walls and ceilings. When it came time to pick our lot in exchange for the surveying of the rest of the ranch, I got to do the picking. It was easy, and I didn't even have to think about it. It was the only place that had a small natural rock arch that had been used as an ancient shelter, and showed heavy use over the years by the smoke patina. It was my secret place, overgrown and hidden by brush and trees.
This place was cut out of a big family ranch, the Copeland place. Don't know how many acres it comprised, maybe thousands. Right next to the new subdivision there were two old-timers that had lived there, mostly forever. I can't recall the one's name in the cabin, he was just Mr. Copeland to me, uncle to the guy, Ken who was doing the development. There must have been some sort of primitive road in there to begin with, but one of my first jobs was helping Ken build the new road in. I'd follow behind his bulldozer with a shovel, filling in here and there, and rolling rock off the side. Before that road was done, I'd collected a whole sock full of various types of arrow heads, including a metal one. My best find was an old clay pipe, that I unfortunately broke while excavating it. I was able to glue the bowl back together but never could find the rest of the stem, it just had about a half inch of the stem left. Might have been why it was discarded in the first place.
Back to Mr. Copeland. Nice old feller, he welcomed having a kid to follow him around occasionally, as long as you didn't become a pest. He'd lived there full time for a good many years, must have been in his 70's then. Cabin was old, small, but plenty for him and he loved the place. His old bamboo fly rod and creel hung right next to the door, and the river was only about 30' away. He trapped a bit in the winter, fished most every day. His nephew Ken brought him in supplies every once in awhile. I don't know that he ever went out, except in the end, which is an awful story.
His buddy Scotty, lived about a half mile up the river, right below my new place, but across the river. His summer digs was an old sheep wagon. He kept a old horse and a dog. Scotty was a little slower to warm to me. I'd be fishing the river in a hole right across from his camp and we'd wave to each other, but he never came across to say howdy. After a couple weeks of waving, he finally motioned me across, pointing out the old ford, which I should have recognized, but didn't.
Neither of these old fellers were at all happy with what was going on. They knew their lives were about to change and their paradise about to go down the tubes. I was an interloper, but I think they were just so lonesome they couldn't help themselves. Scotty and I became good buds. He'd often invite me across for dinner, which was always interesting.
Don't know if you've ever been in a sheep wagon, Mary, but they're all set up pretty much the same. Just inside the doorway is a small stove, next to a small table, with a bed across the back, really the front of the trailer, and storage under the bed and on the opposite wall from the table. The roof was two layers of canvas with an air space between, I guess for insulation. Scotty was very neat and organized and you had to be careful that anything you moved or bumped into got put back in exactly the right spot again or he'd be hovering over you, readjusting it, just so. I suppose you get that way in such tight quarters. His possessions were simple. He had a couple tin plates, a couple tin cups and utensils, always laid out, upside down on a clean piece of newspaper. Oh, that's right, that's how we got to be such good buds. I always saved newspapers and brought boxes of them in, because he loved to read every word in them before using them up completely. The placemat was only their first use, and I'll leave it up to your imagination what an old trapper might find them useful for in their final sacrifice.
Scotty's dishwashing method was a bit unsettling. He'd carefully ladle whatever was for dinner. Even stew went on a tin plate, and strong, boiled coffee with every meal. When we were through eating he'd set the plates down on the floor for the dog to lick spotlessly clean, then he'd carefully turn them upside down again on a new piece of newspaper. One night we were sitting in there talking, or more likely, he was talking and I was listening, but there was a furious scrabbling between the two layers of canvas. He reached under his bed and hauled out an ancient .308 and started following the noise with the end of the barrel, while I was cowering on the floor with the dog who knew what was about to happen, trying to stay out of his way. BOOM, the wagon filled with gun smoke and the scrabbling stopped. He put his gun away, stepped over me to open up the top half of his door to air the place out, and I came to understand all the patches on his canvas roof. It appeared Scotty didn't much cotton to packrats.
No comments:
Post a Comment