“Get out,” she yelled, “and never come back!” So, he did, on
the only transportation available--a heavily used and rarely repaired BMX bicycle.
That’s what the 200 lb., 20-something-year-old kid told me as we sped north toward
Blanding. I first met “Begay” as I walked across the red concrete porches from
the cafe to the trading post. It was 5:30 in the evening on a Saturday and
still over 90 degrees outside. I was going to check in with Susie and Rick
before they closed the store for the night. The young man was resting outside
the Kokopelli doors in the shade of the wide, wooden porch. He stood there
shakily holding up his rickety ride and empty water bottles, literally panting
with exhaustion.
He was dressed in a baggy grey t-shirt, oversized knee-length
polyester shorts, and a pair of off-brand, high-top basketball shoes. On his
head he wore a black, heavy woolen, Rastafarian-looking beanie thingy that must
have caused his body temperature to skyrocket in direct sunlight. “Hey man,
it’s all about style, not comfort.” On his wrists and forearms were several
self-imposed tattoos done in heavy, dark ink. Laying his small bike on its side,
he followed me into the trading post. “Can I use your phone?” he asked
politely. “I need to call my mother to have her come get me. She works in
Moab.” Not wanting to risk subsidizing an international call, I asked for and
received, his mother’s number, dialed it into my cell, and handed it over.
Luckily the mother of our overheated cyclist was available
and answered immediately. She wasn’t happy about it but agreed to come to Bluff
and bring him to Moab. I was surprised that “Mom” didn’t even ask the obvious
questions. “Give me two hours,” was all she said. The young man passed back my
phone and asked if he could wait in the shade of the porch and replenish his
water supply from the faucet there. Just then I saw our general manager, Miss
Frances, drive up in her tiny, white Ford pickup, and I hustled back to the
cafe to report in and pass over the reins for the evening. It took me another
20 minutes to finish up.
As I prepared for departure, I thought about the cyclist and
his mother having to come one hundred miles south to rescue him. Because I
listen to recorded books when I travel back and forth to Blanding, I am a
little selfish with my time on the road. The fact that the kid's mother had
been so kind and generous about coming for him finally won me over. If the BMX
would fit in my trunk, I would haul him to Blanding and save the gentle woman
50 miles of travel. After moving my Scout stuff from my boot to the back seat
of my Camry, I called the young man over and made the offer. He was pleased and
respectful, shook my hand, and offered up his family history. It was not long
before I knew who he and his people were.
As we drove up Hwy. 191 through Cow Canyon, “Begay” began to
share his adventure. He told me that around 11:00 o’clock that morning, he and
his wife began to bicker. Soon thereafter, the disagreement became heated and
she asked him to leave, metaphorically throwing his saddle from the hogan. As
Begay mounted his mechanical steed to hit the road, he grabbed their credit
card from the kitchen table thinking at least now he would have money enough to
buy food and drink on his way home to mother. Begay was living with his wife’s
family in the middle of one of the wonders of the world, Monument Valley, and
one of the monument’s greatest tourist attractions---Forest Gump Point. From
there, he began to ride.
“Traveling along the dirt road to the highway was not too
bad,” he told me, “but my ex caught up to me on the highway.” She was driving
her father’s monster pick-up truck with oversized tires. At first, she pulled
up beside the biker and politely asked him to come back home, then tried to cut
him off and make him come back home. When Begay stubbornly refused all
overtures at reconciliation, the frustrated lady sideswiped him, forcing him
off the road, then turned and drove away leaving heated verbal expletives in
her wake. Begay was now hell bent on beginning a new life. Hauling his freshly
dented toy bike from the ditch, he remounted and began peddling east in the
direction of new beginnings.
By the time Begay reached Mexican Hat, he knew this trek
would not be an easy one. The temperature was now in the high nineties. Because
it was tacky from the heat, the asphalt seemed to be holding him back and he
was being cooked from both heaven and earth. He was tired, thirsty, and hungry,
so he stopped in at the convenience store where he quickly discovered why it
had been so easy to get away with the credit card. “Declined!” His wife had
maxed out the card before relinquishing the now worthless plastic plate. No
matter, thought Begay, it only made him more determined to make his escape from
a bad marriage. “Onward and upward!” he cried into the wind, as he cranked the
BMX up the next hill.
At the intersection of highways #163 and #261 near The
Goosenecks and the Mokee Dugway, Begay saw a porcupine and a jacked-up pickup
truck collide. “That poor little dude didn’t have a chance,” he told me
sadly. I think seeing that calamity caused our two-wheeled traveler to become
much more aware of oncoming traffic and the consequences of a wandering
attitude. When I mentioned that speeding down the seven-mile, ten-percent-grade
of Lime Ridge into the lowlands of Comb Wash must have been a bit of a thrill,
Begay quickly agreed. He said, “I got going so fast that my handlebars would
start shimmying like the bike was possessed. Standing on the brakes quickly
burned them up. Before it was over I had to use the bottoms of my shoes as
friction brakes to keep me from spinning out of control!” At that point our
bicycling maniac lifted his right shoe to show how worn his high tops were.
There was not much more than a fraction of an inch between his foot and the
outside world.
It took Begay two hours to walk up the steep roadway which
ascends Comb Ridge. He was completely out of water and no matter how much he
wagged his thumb or empty water bottles at the passing traffic, he could not
get anyone to stop and help. On top of the Ridge just past the cut, our now
weaving wanderer said he saw a huge rattlesnake. Begay raised his eyebrows in
amazement, touched the middle fingers and thumbs of both hands together, and
said, “The snake was huge, this big around and half as long as the highway is
wide!” Either Begay saw the mother of all rattlers or by then he was
hallucinating mightily. Who knows though, he had just hiked to the top of Comb
Ridge, the geologic formation the Navajo people call “The Great Snake.”
From that point on, except for the big dip in the road known
as Butler Wash, it was mostly downhill into Bluff proper. Begay told me that
the people at Desert Rose Inn let him rehydrate by drinking all the water he
could hold. He said, “I drank until I could hardly walk. I was staggering under
the weight of all that water.” Feeling refreshed and ready for another round, Begay
remounted his BMX and pedaled through Bluff and up Cow Canyon. That is where he
hit the wall. He said, “I just couldn’t go a foot further. I turned around and
coasted back down the hill into your parking lot and onto the porch of Twin
Rocks.” All in all, Begay figured he had covered just over forty-four miles in six
and a half hours.
As we drove north, I realized that Begay was worn to a nub
by his incredible journey and starving to boot. I rummaged around in my pocket
and ash tray coming up with enough cash to get him a decent meal at the A&W
while waiting for his mother. After unloading his bicycle, I wished Begay well
and thanked him for his story.
Driving home and entering our comfortable kitchen, I was
lovingly embraced by my dear wife. I swore my allegiance and told her, “Honey,
I love you so much that I would ride forty-four miles on a busted BMX bicycle
just to be with you.” “Huh?” she asked. “What the heck are you talking about?”
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