DESERT RAT JOURNAL -- Installment 2, 5/22/08

On the Way to Colorado City

I broke camp this morning and headed west toward Colorado City, driving again under the brooding contemplation of the Vermillion Cliffs. But by morning light the cliffs, while still impressive, had lost some of their solemnity. The clouds had dissipated, the sky was brilliant, and the empty desert road lay beckoning before me like a date on prom night. I felt good. I was old enough to rent a shiny red sports car, but not old enough to drive it cautiously, I hadn’t seen a cop since Flagstaff, and maybe I had made my camp coffee a little too strong, so I decided to see if the Mustang could reach triple digits. I will not report the results of this experiment and, for liability reasons, I advise against repeating it. I will say that the Arizona Strip is a sweet place to drive a sports car.

I sped west in the chill morning air with the top down wearing a sweater and rain jacket with the heat on full blast. The road kept rising. As I climbed into the hills on the far side of the scrubland where I had made camp, the low brush gave way to stunted junipers, and as I got deeper into the folded, creased rock that marks the eastern edge of the Kaibab Plateau, the road wound through valleys and drainages where the wind couldn’t reach. Tall conifers stood beside the road, shading the needled ground below. I topped 7000 feet, and there were patches of snow on the ground. The road climbed above 7500 feet, and snow covered the blanket of pine needles. I stopped to make a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese. I drained the water from my cooler and refilled it with snow. I climbed back in the saddle and headed west in the Mustang again. On the far side of the Kaibab Plateau, the road switchbacked down into another stretch of windswept scrubland called Antelope Valley. The grade was steep and the turns were tight. I conducted more speed-related experiments, and again survived.

Antelope Valley was another semiarid flatland of red sand, red rocks, and scrubby vegetation. It is the type of place where our government has frequently sited Indian reservations. Accordingly, I soon found myself driving through the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation. My Blackberry had just enough coverage to get a data connection, so I stopped on the side of the road to upload last night’s journal entry.

I was sitting in the sand leaning up against the tire with my computer on my lap when a gold SUV pulled up beside me. One kind gentleman had already stopped to make sure I hadn’t broken down, so I got ready to smile and say I was okay, but thanks for stopping. The lady driving the car pulled up right next to me and directed the child sitting in the passenger’s seat to open the door. She looked at me across her son’s lap. He looked straight ahead.

I smiled. “Hi,” I said.

“Hello.” Then she sat looking at me for a second. Her eyes were dark, and her face heavyset. Her features and those of her son were Native American. Her face was creased, although she was not old. Her hair was black. She wore gold earrings.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

“Can I help you?” she said in the voice of an uppity shopkeeper who wants to kick you out of his store because he doesn’t think you’ve got enough money to buy anything.

“No, I’ve just stopped here to get on the computer,” I said. I wondered at her tone. “I’m all right,” I said. “But thanks for . . .”

“Have you been digging?”

I hesitated. “Digging?”

“Do you work for the tribe?” she asked.

I looked at her child, and he met my glance then looked away. “No, ma’am, I just stopped here to get on the computer for a minute. I don’t work for the tribe, and I haven’t been doing any digging.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“One of the kids said he’d seen you digging.”

I had just scooped a hole in the sand with my shoe, pissed in it, and covered it back up, but I decided not to confess to this crime. “No . . .” I tried to think of a way to persuade this woman that I had not been excavating, mining, or tilling the soil of the Paiute Reservation. “What is there to dig for around here anyway? Minerals or artifacts or . . .”

“Sometimes people come out here to dig for things. We have to tell them to put them back. If they take a rock, we have to tell them to put it back.”

“Well, I haven’t been doing any digging, and I’m not packing any rocks,” I said. I thought the last part of the comment was funny but she didn't smile.

She stared at me for a moment, as if I might break down if she waited long enough. “Well, okay,” she said. Disappointed, she told her child to shut the door and she drove away. Everybody someone to bitch at, I guess. Her son probably appreciated the break.

Colorado City

I slowed down as I approached Colorado City, wanting to appear, at least for a time, a well-intentioned and law-abiding citizen. I had been able to see the city for miles as I drove across the open scrubland. It sits on the northern edge of Antelope Valley, pushed back against steep red walls called the Vermillion Cliffs, although they bear no topographical connection to the cliffs by the same name that overlook Marble Canyon and the Colorado River. Colorado City looked like any other small desert town. I saw white splotches of buildings and trailers against a backdrop of red, sunlight glinting off the glass of automobiles, a simmering stretch of blacktop extending from the town limits to the tires of my car. The town straddles the Arizona-Utah line. Its northern half is formally called Hildale, Utah. I felt apprehensive as I approached. I could not have said why.

Just outside the outskirts of town, if there is such a zone, I passed an old white sign with rows of plastic block letters under a big black arrow that pointed to the establishment the sign advertised. The sign was dusty, and the light bulbs in the arrow appeared to have burned out long ago. The block letters advertised “6% AZ BEER.” I remembered that fundamentalist Mormons usually don’t drink alcohol so, feeling that the proprietor of this establishment might be the last person with whom I could relate for several miles, I turned in the drive.

It had occurred to me that the alcohol concentration permitted by law in Utah beer was probably lower than that of Arizona beer, hence the advertisement. But I hoped that “6% AZ BEER” referred to some home brew available only in Arizona, in which case I would make a purchase. I imagined a earthenware jug filled with a dark, rich concoction that had at least a 6% chance of giving me the skitters for a week but would taste really good. I walked inside.

The proprietor wore an ankle-length, long-sleeved blue dress that puffed up a little at the sleeves and tennis shoes. She had graying hair and wore no makeup. I asked about 6% AZ BEER, and she explained that the alcohol concentration permitted by law in Utah beer was lower than that of Arizona beer, and that she sold the superior version to travelers passing over the state line. Oh, I said. I turned to go. Then, with my hand on the doorknob, I stopped and asked:

“What’s Colorado City like?”

She drew her breath. She’d answered this question before. “Go down the road and see for yourself,” she replied. “It’s just like any other small town. You might see women in longer dresses than in other places, but it’s just like any other small town. It’s just like the Amish. Just normal people.”

I should have put the pieces together here. I should have realized that her dress was long and old-fashioned, that she did not wear makeup or put dye in her hair, and that she did not like explaining why Colorado City was just like any other town. But I curious about what lay ahead, unsure of myself, and still convinced that no member of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints would sell beer. So I continued:

“I was just wondering . . . I read the Krakauer book, and I heard the place was like, no TV, no radio, no dancing . . .” I let my voice trail off, hoping she’d open up on the FLDS church and the lifestyle of its members.

“It’s just like any other small town,” she said firmly. “Everyone is different. Some might have a TV, and some might not.” She said, “I don’t have a TV in my house, but I have one here. Just normal people.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Thank you, and have a good one.” I smiled quickly. Feeling like a jackass and wishing that I hadn’t asked the kind woman to share the peculiarities of her religious practices with me, I opened the door walked to my car. Then I drove into town.

Despite the town’s appearance from a distance, and despite the admonitions of the woman selling 6% AZ BEER, the inhabitants of Colorado City did not appear normal by any contemporary standard with which I was familiar. Despite the hot sun, almost every boy or man I saw wore dark pants, usually jeans, and a long sleeve shirt, uniformly buttoned up to the second-highest button with the sleeves rolled down. The shirts were invariably blue or plaid. I saw one exception to this dress code for males. Every woman or girl I saw wore a long dress, usually puffed up at the shoulders. None wore makeup. I saw no exceptions. Lots of the boys rode bicycles; a few rode short ponies on the town sidewalks. I have read that members of the fundamentalist church wear long underwear at all times but, having learned not to ask prying questions such as “Hi, are you wearing long underwear?,” I am unable to verify or repudiate that claim.

I cruised the town for a short while, conscious that I stood out in my bright red convertible. Adults cast surreptitious glances at me, but children stared openly. I preferred the children’s open curiosity to the adult’s furtive investigation. There were a few businesses in town – a “shoe shop,” an auto parts store, an Alltell store, etc. – but few places to eat, which concerned me because it was lunchtime and I was hungry. I asked around a little bit, and at length would up at the “Candy Shoppe,” which I believe was the only restaurant in town. Two letter-sized paper signs were taped on the glass door. The first said WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE. The second sign was authored by the state of Arizona, and it stated that the Candy Shoppe did not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, etc. . . . or religion. It then listed a number that patrons who felt discriminated against could call. It was not a sign I had seen elsewhere. I went in, ordered at the counter, and sat down.

I sat waiting for my cheeseburger in a booth next to a long table full of women in long dresses. I had brought a novel into the restaurant with me. I opened the book and set it on my table, but the children who had come to lunch with their mothers were much more interesting. They ran circles around the long table like satellites whizzing through outer space as they giggled and chased one another. I kept my eyes mostly on the pages of my book, but the children weren’t as bashful as I was. Occasionally they’d stop and look at me. If their faces stayed turned me for long enough, I’d look up and smile or wink or wave at them. They never smiled, winked or waved back, but as I sat in the booth waiting on my cheeseburger doing my best impression of a non-threatening, law-abiding citizen, their glances grew bolder.

One girl of about eight was chasing a boy of about five around the mother planet, and she slowed before she passed my booth. She strolled slowly past me, eyes on my face, and she dragged her fingertips across my tabletop. I looked up. She had fair, freckled skin and sandy hair. Her gaze did not waver. She was unsmiling but unafraid, the picture of calm, confident curiosity. Her eyes were piercing, icy blue, like the eyes that Dean White uses to intimidate law students. Her hair hung down and framed her face. She withdrew her hand from my table and turned away. She wore a dark blue shin-length dress and black leggings underneath with white socks and bright yellow Crocs.

I smiled and lowered my gaze to my book. I tried to eavesdrop on the mothers, who ignored me as a patient shopkeeper might ignore a child who, wide-eyed, fingers merchandise that he cannot afford. But the mothers talked all at once, and anyway I am losing my hearing these days, so I could make out nothing. The waitress brought me my cheeseburger, and I tried to thank her but she turned away too quickly, so I ate and watched the children from the corner of my eye. The clear-eyed girl in the yellow Crocs stopped by again, this time standing so close beside me that our shoulders almost brushed. My mouth was full of cheeseburger, however, so I couldn’t smile or say hello. She left before I could chew my mouthful. That was, as it turned out, our last interaction. I wish her well.

I paid my tab and tipped my waitress, then walked out to my car. I climbed inside and sat with the top down looking at a map, trying to figure out where I would go next. The door opened to the shop in front of my car, and a big ol’ momma stood holding the door open. She glared at me. I smiled at her and thought, don’t be a bitch, lady, I’m not bothering you and haven’t done anything rude since I left the beer store, which was at least two hours ago. She went back inside. I looked back at my map and sought a road leading south toward Yuma to the west of the Grand Canyon. My options were limited; it looked like I’d have to pass through Utah and Nevada before getting back to Arizona. The shop door opened and the woman came out again. A brood of children came with her. She expressed no hostility toward me, and I thought, well maybe that’s just how she looks at everyone and I’m being oversensitive. I was tracing my finger down US 93 southbound when a young boy holding an infant walked up to my passenger door. He had come out with the woman.

“Ahm, how do you make the roof go back on?” he asked. I looked up. He was fair skinned and had bright blonde hair and the same piercing blue eyes as the girl in the Crocs. His face was serious and his expression intent. I pegged him for a future engineer.

“Well, there’s this little button right here,” I said, pointing to the switch near the top of the windshield. “You just press it, and the top comes up.” He bent to see the button, so I pressed it and raised the top about a third of the way.

“I see,” he said. He stepped closer and bent a little lower to get a better view of the switch. By this time the mothership had noticed our encounter and she moved toward us, standing at the bumper of my car looking at the boy.

“You can try it out if you want to,” I said, “if your momma will let you.” I glanced up at her, intending to appear harmless, but she did not look at me. “Get back in the car,” she said to the boy and the other children who were starting to come closer. “Get back in the car.” The boy moved away, and momma herded the children into her nearby suburban.

Figuring that I had seen enough of Colorado City, and surmising that its adult residents would not mourn too greatly if I were to depart, I cranked my car. But before I left the parking lot I turned on the radio. I figured the mothership could use a pedagogical tool to illustrate the various paths to hellfire.

* * *

I am not sure if I should have gone to Colorado City. I left with the distinct impression that the adults of the town did not want me there, which makes sense – the fundamentalist church founded the town in the Arizona Strip because they wanted to live alone. That does not mean they should be free from all intrusion, of course. The state of Arizona could clearly enter Colorado City to enforce its generally applicable criminal laws – e.g., those outlawing polygamy and underage marriage – despite the religious practices of the town’s inhabitants. But that’s not the same as saying that it’s morally permissible for private citizens to wander into town simply to satisfy their curious urges. Yet, if we say that private citizens should not wander via public roads into a community simply because that community’s adult populace does not want visitors, then the state becomes the only morally acceptable vehicle of investigation. And if only the state could enter communities in which the adult populace didn’t want visitors, then journalists would no longer be able to investigate and document breaches of the law. Such journalism often prompts legal action – Krakauer’s book, Under the Banner of Heaven, may be an example. Further, why should a citizen to whom the government is accountable not be able to investigate and weigh the claims made about a community against the claims made by the community itself, and thereby evaluate the propriety of government action regarding that community? Within the past couple of months, authorities in Texas have “raided” a polygamous community and taken custody of some 400 children. Evaluating the propriety of such government action is, therefore, very much a live issue.

Suggested reading:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-04-07-Polygamy_N.htm

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-polygamy23-2008may23,0,3665627.story