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True Stories by Steve Keely
Hobo Memoirs
HOW DRY I AM
9 August ‘05
I thought it smart to explore a pedestrian route out of Sand Valley given the
summer flashfloods that are tossing roads and miring vehicles left and right.
Yesterday at the swimming hole, the Quick family related how they sat on their
pickup roof for hours as a three-foot wall of water struck. This morning they’ll
drive a sub-truck to town to get the Chevy clean and running. I pop the idea to
them of being dropped in the distant town to hike home.
It will not drop below 95 F as I hit a mid-morning stride in a cooling wind. I
carry two gallons of water, a loaf of raison bread, compass and penlight. The
route covers sandy tracks, animal trails and bushwhacking through the flats and
hills of the California Sonora.
‘The desert is an ocean with its life underground and the perfect disguise
above,’ the band America sang. I see few lizards, scant birds and a pink
dragonfly, but mostly rocks, cactus and things to ponder. All else aestivates in
summer. It wasn’t dry as a bone a week ago when the biggest cloudburst of the
decade bashed this region. Water enough – if captured - to irrigate the land for
a year flash flooded the washes for five hours and sank into the sands. Now it’s
dry again with wider and deeper cuts where the foliage shows a rare forest
green.
An inveterate quantifier, I measure the two gallons by the mile so that from
sunrise to sunset I drink the last drop while cresting the mountain ring around
Sand Valley. Theoretically, it’s all downhill from here. Stars twinkle
one-by-one into view as unseen things skitter the ground. Hours later, the moon
displays a desert floor crisscrossed by unfamiliar new washes rich with rodents.
In truth, I’m addled.
Tramping for hours on hopes and hunches, I get scared. My tongue clogs the oral
cavity like a horsetail and I’d drink urine if there was some. The moon
disappears, the big dipper falls behind a mountain, and the compass case cracks
during a fumble and spills liquid. It’s as unreliable as my skull. Landmarks
catch the eye that I know by heart but don’t stick on the brain. The hike
becomes surreal.
The night grows fascinating. A sidewinder says hello at my feet on raised ‘black
pavement’ whereas usually they course the washes where I shine the penlight. Up
and down these washes I climb for hours before lying back to figure how to
breathe around the swollen tongue. I discover that moisture can be captured via
a temperature gradient between the oral surfaces and ambient air. In fifteen
minutes, there’s enough saliva to swallow for the first time in miles. I doze
with a promise.
If I survive I’ll not gauge but drink ad libitum the rest of my days.
A kit fox sniffs my knee shortly and awakens me. Inspired, I resume the crazy
zigzag about the 100-square mile basin. Tired after hours, I stretch out again.
A deer gazes down and rouses me with a snort. Encouraged, I wander the dark
until water must be found.
I climb the nearest and rockiest slope to a narrowing wash and up that for two
hours to a tiny mirror of stars in the rock – a pothole! Animal tracks circle
ten stagnant gallons from which I draw one to a jug. I gulp a pint and descend
the hills for twenty minutes without ill effect before allowing a second pint.
The oath to drink freely waits till sunrise.
Sand Valley at first light takes on clarity. The sun, peaks, and tall trees
point the direction. I pour the remaining water on my head pollywogs and all,
and vow never to hike to town to escape the Valley. I’m home on strong legs
after the 24-hour match.
Today the Quicks rattle proudly by in the old Chevy as I sip ice tea and Sand
Valley bakes without protest.
For more of Steve "Bo" Keely's writings
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