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Show THE ZEPH YR/DECEMBER 2003-JANUARY 2004 free to help ourselves. The Chaffins had olive, fig, apricot, and apple trees, grain crops, grapes, horses with excellent stables, pigs in fine pens, and a Ford car. Everything Mr. Chaffin built was solid and welldesigned—his house, his fence, his water system. Carpentry was one of his loves. He had a large building devoted toit. Workbenches lined the long walls. Neatly organized cabinets held every kind of tool, nail, and bolt. He was clever about designing equipment to do a job. He had figured out a saw arrangement of his own. There was a forge in a corner, with a steam engine and boiler to run the power tools. The more we worked there, the more we liked the ranch and admired the Chaffins. He started us hoeing weeds in the garden. | did not like hoeing weeds very much, but I thought I was doing it with good grace. Years later he told me, “Your cousin was doing fine on that hoeing, but I could see that your heart wasn’t in it. You were ready to take off on that raft again. | had to think of something else to keep you there.” He asked if we knew anything about mechanical work. “T’ve been raised on the homestead. | repair our farm equipment and cars,” I said. “Good,” he answered. “I have a 1926 Dodge across the river that we can fetch over, if you'll work on it.” He took his two rowboats, with an outboard motor on the back of one, and two 3 X 12 planks across the river. We pumped up the tires on the old Dodge with a hand pump, then pushed the car over the sand to the river’s edge. By lining it up with the planks we were able to put it sideways across the boats, then lash it down solidly with ropes. We ferried the car uneventfully across the river.. Horses pulled it up the hill into the yard. River water had corroded the motor. Our seven days of work were almost up by the time we had taken every piece of it apart, cleaned each with steam pressure from a hot steam boiler in the shop, then washed each one with gasoline. “Tet’s knock off now,” Mr. Chaffin said, ‘‘and see if we can get the boat made.” From a pile of rough lumber, he took two 1 X 12 planks; we bent them around some ribs that had been laid together with 2 X 4’s. In three hours we had the boat completed. While Mr. Chaffin put on the boards, Ruell and I were stuffing rags in the cracks and pouring tar over them. We loaded the boat on the wagon, hauled it down to the river, and put it in to soak for the night. Our supplies were still in the corner of the porch where we had put them a week ago. We picked them up perfect hit. | rowed the boat to the bloody spot in the water where he had sunk and dived overboard. When I could feel him, I clamped the beaver between my feet and brought him up with me. “Pretty good,’ Ruell said. “Now we eat.” We made camp for the night, boiled beaver slices in a can, and got ready for a big feast. What a disappointment. It tasted so strongly of willows and mud, and was so extremely tough, that we could hardly chew it, much less swallow it. It made Ruell sick. “Let's try using it for bait,” Ruell suggested. We found that catfish liked beaver meat very much. We were pulling acatfish out about every five minutes. As soon as one was caught, we killed it, cleaned it, and laid it on the coals to cook. It must have been hours before we stopped catching, cooking, and eating catfish. With contented sighs we stretched out on Grissman Bar and let sleep overpower us. We kept the rest of the beaver meat and fished successfully from the boat for davs after that. The more we worked there, the more we liked the ranch and admired the Chaffins. He started us hocing weeds in the garden. I did not like hoeing weeds very much, but I thought I was doing it with good grace. A soft-cover edition of "My Canyonlands” is now available from Canyon Country Publications. It can be found at Back of Beyond Books in the morning and added to them a gift from the Chaffins—a dozen guinea hen eggs and several large watermelons. As we stepped into the boat, Art Chaffin said to me, “Does your family know where you are?” “Tt doubt it very much.” “Then you sit right down here and write them a postcard. I'm going to Hanksville tomorrow and will mail it.” could hardly have known that my family was less worried about me before than after receiving the card. The thought of my boating on the Colorado left them without hope for me. As the days and weeks piled up after the card came, my younger sister, Pearl, would weep, “I know he’s drowned. I just know it,” and my mother did not console her convincingly. The Gerharts also came down to see us off. “Goodbye,” they called from one shore, as the Chaffins called from the other. “Have a good trip.” A pair of oars we had chopped from poles worked well on our small boat. We were on our way to run the length of Glen Canyon. It had taken only two weeks to achieve my objective. It wasn’t long before we discovered that the cracked wheat, found at the prospector’s camp, was full of weevils. The can of chocolate was the bitter kind. This meant that once the eggs and watermelon were gone, there wasn’t going to be much to eat. On the third day I stood up in the boat. “There’s beaver, Ruell. Our dinner.” I missed him by 6 inches. A minute later he surfaced about 75 yards away. I shot again and hit him right in the ear. Beavers swim along with only the ears exposed, so this was a We still had the problem of returning home...We bought a loaf in Moab, and can be ordered online from www.glencanyon.org. “What's that?” Ruell asked, pointing to what looked like a large canyon on the left. I could hardly recognize itas the San Juan River. It was completely dry. We hiked up it a short distance, then returned and camped across from its mouth that night. Thirty years later I was able to show my companions on a different raft trip the initials I carved high in the wall there on the first journey. We were sightseers at Music Temple six miles later, and then reached the mouth of the Escalante River where I carved initials in stone for the second and last time anvwhere in the wilderness. I admit it was a thrill to find them again 31 years later. “How do vou like it, Ruell?” I asked, when we halted at Hole-in-the-Rock. He hadn't said much, and I was beginning to wonder. “Tt surely is a pretty place. I like the sand beaches. To a dry-land boy from Arizona, the river looks mighty big to me.” ‘Tt looks big to people from water spots, too,” I told him. We both thought Glen Canyon was beautiful and rejoiced that we were there. We both hushed and stopped rowing. We both saw them at the same time... a doe and two fawns at the river's edge. The current was carrving us so silently they did not see us until we were exactly opposite them. I still recall their surprised expression. When we saw a man standing on shore the first day, we pulled in to talk to him. He was hiking up to see the Chaffins, planning to return by boat. Everyone hiked upstream, floated down: no one could fight the Colorado’s current. He looked so hot and tired that we gave him some watermelon Slices. His name was Bud Vinger. Our favor was returned by three miners at Hansen Creek, farther on, who invited us to join them in a dinner of ' beef and venison. The miners had wondered how reliable our little boat was. We wished they could have seen ae PAGEI9 it the next day. We bounced over sand waves caused by a flood that carried huge amounts of silt and came out of Bullfrog Canyon, Art Chaffin had built us a worthy craft. We floated up to the mouth of Forbidden Canyon—my second visit, Ruell’s first. We hiked in. I kept the big sight a surprise. Ruell thought Rainbow Bridge was a marvel and enjoyed it as thoroughly as I enjoyed introducing him to it. “It’s the world’s largest natural stone bridge,” I told him. “309 feet high inside this arch.” “Tt must be the least known, too,” he replied, tallying the names on the register to which we had just added ours. Less than a thousand visitors had traveled to see Rainbow Bridge from the time of its discovery in 1909 to that day in July, 1939... an average of 32 people a year. “T can see why it’s sacred to the Navajo Indians,” I said with my head tipped back 45 degrees to admire the tapering top. “They never walk through it, you know, always around it.” We had not explored many side canyons on that trip. Side canyons used to be one of the glories of Glen Canyon. Like most boys, we were concentrating on the mechanics and motion of the journey. All those miles from Hite to Lee’s Ferry took us seven days. At noon we pulled our boat far up on the bank at Lee’s Ferry. Our enormous river adventure was ended. We had no further use ~ for the boat, but had grown so fond of it that we could not bear to leave it without beaching it properly. We still had the problem of returning home. A fourmile hike on a very hot afternoon brought us to Marble Canvon Lodge. We bought a loaf of bread, a jar of jam, and a bottle of pop. From then on we had 500 miles to hitchhike. The hitching was undependable. The hiking must have totaled at least a hundred of those miles. We worked at it for five days. Ruell had hated to leave the boat, and with good reason. At Kanab I led us up to the door of Aunt Annie Frost's home. I had not seen her since the days of the ‘27 trip in our Dodge touring car. When I asked her if we could stay overnight, Aunt Annie looked us over. Our clothes showed that we had been sleeping by the fire in them for three weeks. “All right, boys,’ she said, steering us towards the bathroom. “March right in there and scour yourselves. Dinner will be ready pretty soon.” It was a fine dinner, and we slept in a bed that night. Good Aunt Annie. At Richfield we asked the sheriff to let us sleep in the jail because it was cold and rainy. =| of bread,.a jar of jam, and a bottle of pop. From then on, we had 500 miles to hitchhike... “How old is this boy?” he demanded, pointing his finger at my cousin. Ruell was 17. (I must have looked aged.) “T cannot let anyone under 18 sleep in the jail. Sorry, boys, it will be impossible to let you in tonight.” At the edge of town we burrowed into a fresh haystack for the night. A few open-air, wet truck rides brought us into Price the next day, where we searched the south side of town looking for the hobo jungle or a place to get in out of the rain. There was no hobo hangout. Between us we dug 45 cents out of our pockets and persuaded a lady motel operator to let us sleep in a slightly used cabin she had not yet made up. Just recently Ruell told me, “When we split up at Price the next morning—that’s when I was the most scared of the whole trip.” Splitting up was my suggestion, because I thought it would be easier to get rides separately. A preacher from New Mexico picked me up. Soon we caught up with Ruell who had gone ahead. “That’s my cousin, there, and he is a fine fellow, too,” I said. “Would you like to take him?” He did, and the three of us rode into Monticello. Ruell and I arrived a little over one month from the day we walked away from the Blue Mountain picnic. Our families seemed glad to see us, but I have never been able to recall anyone’s asking for details of that wonderful journey. Thanks to Kent Frost for permission to print this excerpt from "My Canyonlands.” |