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Show Flrmage had to find Abbey's address for her. Clarke proved her Frisbee superiority and Finnage managed to find Abbey's post office box address in Oracle, Arizona. 1 sat down and wrote this ridiculously long letter to Ed and then I threw it away. I figured .there was no way he'd ever read it So I started over and ended up mailing a very short version. I just said that I wanted to thank him for his books. That I didn't normally write fan letters. -- that, in fact, this was my first, and I closed by offering to take him to dinner if he was ever in Salt Lake. A few weeks later, Ed called." Abbey was making a speech before die Western River Guides Association and asked Clarke if she could pick him up at the airport Ed delivered his standard inflammatory words of to the river runners and later, he and Clarke ate dinner and danced local Greek restaurant They agreed to get together a few weeks later for a trip across at a southern Utah. The rendezvous was an underwhelming success. To Clarke, the great Ed Abbey was just a bit too grumpy and serious to get..welL.adrious about. Then there was the age difference- Ed was more than 20 years older than she. For Clarke, "it was not love at first sight" Besides, Clarke Cartwright had other plans. For a long time, Clarke had wanted to leam Spanish and now, with her future wide open, she traveled to Mexico, to the town of Morelia in the southern state of Michoacan. Clarke spent six months there, taking Spanish classes, traveling, visiting ruins and, following her mother's example, watching the extraordinary birdlife. When her six months were up, Clarke journeyed farther south into Central America, to a small village in Guatemala called Huehue Tenango and fell in love with the place. But her funds were running tow and when a group of physicians, about to visit the US., wanted to hire her as an English tutor to improve their pronunciation skills, Clarke grabbed eco-rebelli- on What else did the Abbeys do? WelL.we got stuck a lot the job. These were especially dangerous times in Guatemala and Clarke soon found herself caught up in the political turmoil As the government attempted to suppress social and land reform movements through terror and intimidation, Clarke fell in love with one of the government's targets. His name was Leonel, a physician, and he was active in the reform underground. Leonel kept a vast library of books buried in a field near. his home the government would have considered the subject matter a threat to its internal security. And he secretly provided medical assistance to guerrillas wounded and injured by government forces. Leonel's brother, a radio disc jockey, took his protest above gfound and used his radio program as a soap box to promote the rebellion. One night he never returned home from the radio station; the next morning he was found dead, shot in the back. After five months in Guatemala and uncertain of her future, Clarke returned to the United States. She continued to correspond with Leonel, but then one day she received a letter from his mother. She wrote to tell Clarke that her son had disappeared, presumably another victim of the government Leonel was never found. Clarke hid out in College Station for a while, asking herself the question: What next? The answer came in the form of a phone call and the voice belonged to Edward Abbey. Letters flew back and forth between Cartwright and Abbey, Ed flew to Texas for a visit, the postal romance continued and in the autumn of 1980, Clarke moved to Tucson. She went back to school, was certified to teach special education and taught for two years in the Tucson public school system. Finally, on May 23, 1982, Clarke and Ed got married. The next seven years were, for the most part, "very happy times" for the Abbey family. In January 1983 Clarke discovered she was pregnant and gave birth to daughter Becky on ' October 10, 1983. Ben came along less than four years later on March 19, 1987. The four of them spent most of their summers traveling and exploring the canyon country of southern Utah and in 1986 and 1987 rented houses at Pack Creek Ranch and then in Moab. When winter approached they returned home to Tucson. Ed was never the most talkative person in the world and as Clarke put it, "Ed lived inside his head a tot" Still the time with Clarke and his new family was transformative for Ed. He had been haunted by his own failure as a parent to his other children; now for the first time he basked in the role of father to Becky and Ben. What else did the Abbeys do? "WelL.. we gpt stuck a tot." For Clarke, the memory of her life with Ed Abbey seems to be measured by the many times Ed drove them and their truck into deep sand and bottomless mud holes. When Clarke was nine months pregnant, hovering on the brink of birthgiving, she and Ed took a drive into the mountains of New Mexico, in search of the headwaters of the Rio Grande River. "It started to rain and I said, 'Ed, maybe we should go back,' but he was determined. Soon it was coming down in buckets and we kept climbing, ever upward and onward. Ed Finally the hillside in front of us slid across the road, blocking our forward progress. favorite is this not tried to back up and another mudslide blocked our retreat. I thought, my a to place have baby." Bighorn Express Salt Lake Canyonlands SERVICE '-SHUTTLE (daily scheduled shuttles between Moab & Sait Lake airport) ITS GETTING CRAZIER! They're tearing 15 Finally, Ed had Clarke get out of the truck and, in reverse, he plowed over the top of the mud slide and barely to safety. T still remember that truck swerving toward the edge and thinking of Ed going with it But they made it So did Ed always get stuck in mud holes? "Na..Ed could get stuck just about anywhere. One he drove through a gopher field. Every two feet we broke through the burrows and sank in deep sand. Took us two days to get out of there too." If there was any kind of dark shadow in their lives, it was cast by Ed's health. A few months after they were married, Clarke and Ed went to visit their friend Jack in New Mexico. While there Abbey became desperately ill and was rushed to a nearby hospital A CAT scan suggested pancreatic cancer and the Abbeys prepared for the worst But exploratory surgery instead discovered a condition called 'esophageal varices.' Severe hemorrhaging was the symptom and it delivered blow after blow to Ed's health for the next seven years. Toward the end of 1988, 77k Foci's Progress was published and Ed Abbey took an active role in promoting the novel, a supreme effort he often called his Fat Masterpiece. The book tour was brutal and in January, another bleed almost IHIIaH him. But he worked feverishly in a race against the dock to complete what he knew would be his last book, the sequel to The Monkey Wrench Gang. He finished Hayduke Lives! just days before his death on March 14, 1989. Although she had been preparing for this moment for a tong time, it still took Clarke by surprise. As she watched him deteriorate, death had seemed inevitable and at the same time impossible Suddenly she found herself a widow at 36, with two small children and an uncertain future. Clarke had not involved herself directly in Ed's 'business' of writing. Now she was making publishing decisions on Ed's behalf. There were new books to deal with, movie rights, cover designs, archive decisions. There was so much work to do, she didn't have time to grieve. Ed's presence was everywhere and it almost seemed as if he never left. Two years after Ed Abbey died, Clarke and her two kids finally found themselves struggling with their toss. It was a mud hole deeper than anything she and Ed had ever traversed together; now she waded across without him In 1991 Tucson newspapers carried a story that enraged dark Abbey. A rancher in Aravapai County wanted to rid his property of bears that he thought endangered his cattle herd so he went to ADC (Animal Damage Control) with a request to clear his land of the unwanted animals. ADC, an agency of the federal government, was happy to oblige. Government trappers set out spring loaded steel jaw traps and ultimately caught nine bears. Most of them starved to death or died of dehydration. Paul Tebbel, from Patagonia (the outdoor clothing company) knew of ADCs reputation and was looking for someone to organize a protest With Malinda and Yvone Chouinard and Lisa Peacock, Clarke agreed to get some friends together, discuss the idea and see what could be done. With an $8000 start up grant from Patagonia, the Wildlife Damage Review (WDR) was bom. With Clarke and Lisa, Marian Gierlach and Nancy Zierenberg became a watchdog quartette to the then mostly uncontested actions of ADC Wildlife Damage Review's mission statement was simple: to dismantle ADC It has been an uphill battle. ADC operated for decades with little or no public scrutiny. Required environmental Assessments were not written, rules and regulations were ignored. WDR set out to put Animal Damage Control in the public's eye and to a great degree, it has succeeded. Similar grass roots organizations have sprung up across the West and WDR has been instrumental in shining a bright light on the agency. and ADCs solution to the bad reputation it was earning has been to change its name from the more descriptive 'Animal Damage Control' to the innocuous 'Wildlife Services.' And several yean ago, when a referendum to ban steel jaw traps in Arizona went on the ballot, the opposition poured millions of dollare into an advertising campaign to defeat the measure. By election day, nobody knew just what they were voting on and the initiative foiled. Yet kill figures increased in 1997 WDR-promot- ed Last year, Clarke gave up her staff position with .WDR but remains a member of its Board of Directors. According to Clarke, "It's Ben's last year in elementary school and Becky's last year in junior high...we're transitioning. I'm going to sit back and think for a while and then make a decision about the rest of my life." Where will it lead? She could go and back to schooL While with WDR, Clarke learned she had a talent for it entertains the idea of working again for a organization with a cause she believes in. More than anything, she takes great delight being the mother to her two extraordinary children. Tm an optimistic person and I took forward to whatever comes next I enjoy raising my kids and I'm having fun." More bogs up ahead? Maybe. And she might get muddy. But I'd bet the bank she comes out of it with a grin on her face. grant-writin- non-prof- WOMEN OF THE WEST? My favorite is my wife Ruth. She's Bighorn Express's best driver and she's quite a looker. ' And you could see for yourself if Stiles could just learn to cartoon her. Maybe next time? apart faster than you can scream "GRIDLOCK!1 Let us do the driving. C IT V I M 1 PPV J g |
