White Oak Mountain Ranger: February Light

  • Wednesday, February 26, 2025

The light on a cloudless February day is most unlike other winter light. Not sure why, there is a rather unscientific theory, but the light is most definitely different. It is, this new winter light, most easily perceived in the last few hours before the sun hides over the western horizon.

The optimal way to view this light is at high speeds (well above what they say is legal), driving west on a long straight stretch of the Federal four-lane. The odd light glances through the bare limbs of stunted tress, bouncing, sometimes flickering or dancing about the dead grass and gravel. This strange phenomenon is best picked up through a windshield, blasting west, somewhere around eighty to eighty-five miles per hour. The sound system must be tuned loud.

Emmy Lou, Steve Earle and an old tune or two from the Burrito Brothers helps with the perception of the fading evening’s odd light show. My theory is that the light comes from some organic earthly burp of gas and mold. Maybe ‘Old Mother Earth’ has just passed gas. This organic cloud hovers low, almost translucent, slowly warmed to perfection by the sun.

If you’ve spent any appreciable amount to time in some church pew, in the vicinity of overweight, geriatric women, hard of hearing, wearing outdated frumpy frocks, you’ve more than likely experienced this sort of organic relief. These old souls normally let a big one slip about the time that the choir is straining for their highest note.

Or occasionally, when the preacher gets a bit long winded in his prayers, trying to help us with the prevention of evil and the oh so negative powers of wealth, one old soul, now and then, inadvertently lets one rumble loose. These are emotional moments for all involved, but none of it can hold a candle to ‘Old Mom Earth’s’ organic gas passing in February.

Maybe this refractory cloud is left over ionizing radiation from above ground nuclear war head testing back in the 50s. Maybe it’s something secret dropped from some Chinese ballon drifting malevolently above. Maybe it’s what all those drones in New Jersey are looking for, or it’s an unidentified and mysterious byproduct of non-human intelligence craft, or glowing orbs among us. Who in the world knows? I just happen to lean towards the ‘Mother Earth flatulence theory’ the most. Who knows what’s plausible anymore?

When you’re driving at this speed, through this February light, it’s simply inevitable that you’re soon to be transported in time. Your focus becomes altered, woozy, and then what’s left of your focus, is suddenly lost in the blink of the eye and one good yellow flash. You go back in time. You are lost. Lost in the light of another time, another place. Teleported to some past time or year, where the light was seemingly similar, if not most definitely, the same.

The time was February, the place was the Gila River. The state was the Arizona desert. It was Javelina season. The arms were muzzleloaders and pistol. The road stretched straight, seemingly to infinity and then straight into Florence.

Florence must have been one hell of a woman. Her old man drug her out in the middle of nowhere Arizona, long before Arizona became a legitimate state. We are not really sure, but

It's a fairly safe bet that he had to dedicate the name the town he built for Miss Florence just to keep her happy in the middle of all the cactus, tarantulas, and coyotes.

My co-pilot and guide in the jeep was an auxiliary Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputy. He was well versed in Florence’s most prominent facility, which happened to be the home of one of Arizona’s largest maximum security prisons for a good many of the Southwest’s baddest men. The deputy was especially well versed with one particular inmate’s history because he had assisted with that criminal’s apprehension. “One less maggot,” as he referred to the incarceration.

Bonsai Vickers set new records for evil and mayhem in his short days of southwestern freedom. At an unusually early age, Bonsai cultivated an especially serious appetite for illicit drugs, torture and alcohol. This evil little lifestyle culminated in a remote single wide, where Bonsai took serious offense at being banished by his dear mother, his second or third new step father, and his two new step brothers. Banishment begat retribution, Bonsai Vickers style.

When the authorities found the charred and mutilated bodies in the smoldering single wide, Bonsai was on the run. It was a short run.

He immediately notified his new Warden, upon arrival at Florence, that he best be provided with his very own solo accommodations. His cell mate, according to Bonsai, was exceptionally unacceptable and just a tad unsafe. The Warden apparently was not in any mood for taking directions from mass murders, so Bonsai’s request to remove his bunk buddy was summarily ignored.

Bonsai, being a man of rather violent action, quickly set out to prove his point. First he broke his cell mate’s neck, gagged him, poured Aqua Velva all over the guy and set him alight. With a sharpened toothbrush for a stylus, Bonsai carved his name in the deadman’s charred back. The Warden immediately provided young Bonsai with a single cell until his impending date with “Old Sparky”.

On the backside of the prison the road turned to dirt. Forty miles of dirt, through cactus, mesquite, short stubby trees, wild cattle, cowboys who rarely uttered the English language, canyons, dry washes and sandstone monoliths. Past the ”Blackjack Mine” Established 1931, said the yellowed paper in the mason jar with the rusty lid. If that mine owner was still with us, we wished him wealth in this harsh environment.

Now I was new to the desert that February. That entailed a special trip to the Phoenix zoo just to lay eyes on this new hog type quarry. These bristling and hairy little pigs were milling about in their enclosure and not a one topped out at fifty pounds. None were nowhere the stature of Tellico hogs I was a aquatinted with back home. The 45 cal Hawken flint lock appeared to be well up to the task when called upon.

There was the loaner pistol. My guide had a Ruger 45 cal single action, with a tricked out hair trigger, compliments of the Maricopa County Sheriff weapons technician’s expertise. When I strapped on the leather gun belt, I immediately felt the weight of some old time posse, hot on the trail of a fleeting band of desperate stage robbers.

At dawn we drifted into the sandy washes and pig filled cactus undergrowth as quietly as Apaches. I had been warned that these little pigs were endowed with notoriously bad vision problems, but they were also given the olfactory senses of a grizzly. When stampeded, it was said best to climb some nearby tree, or suffer the trauma of loss of a knee or two. ”Shoot fast and climb!” was the warning. I suspected that all tenderfeet were given this sort of safety lecture on the Gila, even if it seemed a little like some tall tale.

By the end of the day I had wandered down one wash after another, reading tracks of big pawed cats, jumpy cattle, deer and pigs in the sand. This one narrow creek bed dropped into a narrow canyon with towering sandstone walls well above 300 feet in height. This too, I had been warned around last night’s safety briefing, was an especially bad spot when the August monsoons arrived up from the Baja to the South. The impact of the past flash floods in the deep sand were readily apparent on the silent stalk.

There was this nagging uneasy feeling of being watched all morning. I just couldn’t shake the thought that eyes were on my back all day. Indian ghosts? Gold miner ghosts? Big cats?

At about ten feet up on one of the canyon walls, a small cave materialized. It was in an odd spot and for some reason or another, it appeared strangely out of place. At the base of the cliff was a badly scattered pile of stone that slowly registered as a makeshift set of stairs to the cave entrance.

I imagined a beautiful young Apache princess, her gleaming long, jet black hair glowing in the sun, dressed in white buckskin and feathers. I visualized her dark thighs glowing in the noonday glare high overhead, as she stacked the stairs to raid the cave’s bee hive of the rich desert flower honey.

I imagined a lone, surviving stage robber, the last free-man of his gang, standing on the saddle of his dusty, lathered, heaving and weary mount, legs full of cactus spikes and deadly cholla impaled in the saddle blanket. I could easily see the desperado heaving the gold filled saddlebags in the cave before trying to make his desperate escape from a determined posse of dedicated, hard riding, mustached lawmen.

I’d found the LOST DUTCHMAN! The big Butterfield stage robbery! I’d be rich! Gold fever swept down the canyon like an eagle swooping down on a three legged jackrabbit.

The flintlock was leaned on the wall while I hurriedly re-stacked the rock steps to reach the gold filled hole above. The work was frantic, but the cave could still not easily reached. Traveling up and down the wash, I carried more stones and the stacked steps got tantalizingly closer with each addition as the light slowly faded in the deep canyon.

I’d seen the fresh cougar tracks all day and felt the odd sensation of being watched, and as I moved further down the canyon for stepping stones, I cradled the Hawken in my arm. Around the next bend there was suddenly an almost imperceptible and faint movement. What looked oddly like a knee high barrel cactus, twitched an ear, looked slowly over its shoulder at me and let out a low grunt.

I slowly mounted the flintlock and set the trigger for a ‘Texas Heart Shot’ on the small pig. The trigger was squeezed and the pan hissed a blinding cloud of blue smoke but nothing else happened other than the obligatory flinch. MISFIRE!

I dropped the dead rifle in the sand and skinned the wheel gun from the latigo leather as a multitude of unseen pigs scrambled about in circles grunting and squealing frantically. I had stumbled into a blind hog herd at their hotel.

That’s when a monster of a javelina roared out from under a low rock shelf professing his dominance by snapping his large tusks loudly, sending the rest of the bunch into a huge state of absolute anxiety. This big boy looked to be pushing 100 pounds and he looked every bit as big as a bear. He was an absolute world record desert hog. A quick look at this unfolding situation determined that I was now blocking all exits and there wasn’t a tree in sight.

I aimed the 45 Ruger, cocked the hammer and in an instant, ripped off a hair trigger shot that landed a good 20 feet over the big hog’s shoulder. That explosion instantly started a small avalanche, as the big lead round shattered stone on the canyon wall. It was also the start, as they say, of all hell breaking loose.

Four shots later, and the canyon filled with dust, grunts, squeals, heart felt epitaphs, and a stampeding melee. Terrified blind hogs sprinted within inches of my knees in the dust cloud as my hands and eyes failed miserably to get the smoking hot 45 reloaded. I stood trembling in the settling dusty twilight and realized I’d have a tough time even shooting my own foot, much less defending my lower extremities from hog inflicted infirmity.

I dug the rifle out of the sand and stumbled the five miles back to camp in the dark. That long hike was in a complete and utter state of shock. Nobody in camp was ever going to believe this one!

The gold is probably still in that cave. I’m counting on it! The monster hog left no discernible blood trail. Bonsai, by now, has probably been for his last sit-down visit with ‘Old Sparky’. I’ll bet the light is still the same in that canyon in February. When I make it back that way, I’ll let you know.

If I maintain this speed, I might make it to Florence in 36 hours or so. Maybe a stop in Memphis at sundown to pick up some fresh tunes. Jerry Lee Lewis has a good box set for long distance hauls — (All Killer, No Filler). Maybe a little Bill Monroe to get across the plains.

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