FROM THUNDER TO BREAKFAST by Gene K. Garrison (LadyGene)
Written from the viewpoint of Hube Yates

Chapter 7

"WHERE'RE YA HEADED, BUB?"

When I was only about eighteen years old I used to go up to Colorado with my family and work on some of those cattle ranches with my friends. It was just a way of spendin' the summer.

I got to likin' a girl over in Bayfield. I always managed to get there the Fourth of July so I could show off in front of her and ride some of those buckin' broncos out of the chute.

I got real close to her. I mean we thought we were in love anyway. I used to leave Phoenix each year when my family would go up into Colorado. I'd always go up and see this girl—red-headed and cute as a bug's ear.

We had been there most of the summer and it was gettin' near school-time. My kid brother, Skeet, and my kid sister, Esther, had to go back to Phoenix to start school.

Rather than put them on a train that took a roundabout route, my father decided that I should take the T-Model Ford and drive them straight through to Gallup, New Mexico and put them on the train there. That went straight through the pie. We could do it faster and cheaper. Then I'd turn around and go back up to Colorado and bring my mother and father to Phoenix maybe a month later.

We packed up all of their stuff and started out. There were just the three of us and my big old fightin' bulldog, Sam, who looked like he was doctored up for the movies with his one black eye. He had a head twice as big as he ought to have. If somebody had a dog that wanted to fight, why it wouldn't take long to discourage them. I used to be pretty proud of him.

Comin' off the Wolf Creek Pass down at the bottom on the south side was what they call Pagosa Springs. The mountain had switchback after switchback.

We were comin' down off of this Wolf Creek Pass battin' along. I kept feelin' my brake-bands. You'd just run in high gear and away you'd go. Everything had to be braked. You had to keep hittin' them and hittin' them. I'd use my reverse because you didn't use reverse much anyway. There were three pedals—low, reverse and the brake. You fed the gas with a lever up by the steerin' wheel.

I wore out so many of those T-Model Fords. A fellow gets so after a while he can feel what he can pull and what he can't pull with them.

I kept afeelin' my brake to see if it was gettin' hot. I finally decided it was, and I shoved it down in low. I tried my reverse. I tried them all. The first thing I knew, I didn't have anything. I was goin' about thirty miles an hour around one of those bends and there was no way to stop.

I could see way off to our right—the bottom of this canyon and the river. We were travelin' like the dickens. I didn't say nothin' to anybody. I didn't have time to say anything. I kept watchin' for a place to dump the car over.

Finally I hollered back to Skeet to roll down to the bottom of the seat, and I reached over and grabbed Esther around the shoulder and pulled her down under the steerin' wheel where she'd be protected. I just laid that car upside-down right in the middle of the road, all four wheels in the air. The luggage and everything else we were carryin' went from thunder to breakfast all over the road.

Nobody was hurt. We got out but I didn't have any bulldog. I said, "Where in the thunder is he?"

We looked to a kink in the road, a switchback about three-quarters of a mile or better, and saw him runnin' away from us just as hard as he could run. I called and called and yelled and yelled. My voice was echoin' through the canyon.

Finally he stopped in the middle of the road, way down. He had run a couple of miles, but he was down on the mountain, below us. He barked and barked like he had seen something spooky in the sky. Then he turned around and started runnin' back toward us.

The three of us dumped that silly Ford back over on its wheels, pushed it off the road and put some rocks in front of the tires so it wouldn't roll away. I relined the brakes. I always carried an extra set of brake-bands and oil. In those days you carried oil as much as you carried water. I had two or three gallons of oil, five gallons of water, lots of patchin' material, a pump, tools, and a jack.

We went on to Bayfield that night.

This girlfriend's family and ours were pretty close together. Skeet and Esther knew them all.

I told my girl's family I was goin' to make this run to Gallup and I'd leave early in the mornin'. I was goin' to go through Farmington, across the San Juan River and go through a hundred and four miles of Shiprock Desert.

Today it's all black-topped and you can travel that just like nothin'. It used to take about a day-and-a-half to make it. It was just like drivin' in plowed ground. Cars today couldn't go over that road any more than they could fly. It was something.

I said, "I'll try my best to make it back day after tomorrow. Then I won't have to be back up to where my family is for a couple of days and I can stay and visit my girlfriend."

Her mother was all fired up over it. She said, "That'd be wonderful!"

We went across that Shiprock Desert and I found the train for my brother and sister to take. We only had a couple of hours to wait. We got the tickets, got everything organized and I saw them off.

Then I went to the gas station to fill up. The fellow there said, "Where are you headed with all this equipment? You're not headed for Arizona?"

I said, "No, I'm goin' north."

Just kind of soft like a prayer he said, "North? Across the desert?"

"Yeah."

"When you goin'?"

"Tonight. Just as soon as I get this thing filled up."

"You're goin' across the Shiprock Desert at night?"

I said, "I just came over it today."

"Yeah, but what in the world do you want to go back for?" He swore like a Trojan.

I couldn't understand his reaction. "I'm not afraid of the dark. What's wrong with tonight?"

He said, "You haven't been readin' about what's goin' on, have you?"

I said, "No, I just got here. I just came down from Colorado to take my kid brother and kid sister to the train so they can go back to Phoenix to go to school. They've got to enroll next week. I'm goin' back to pick up my mother and father."

He said, "Well, I'll tell you somethin'. You'd better wait and go in the mornin'. You won't meet one car out there in three or four days."

"I know it."

"Yeah, but you know what they've been doin'? They've been robbin' people out there. There are a bunch of thugs nobody's been able to find. It's a hundred and four miles from my service station here to the San Juan River. That's all bad country now. People have been beaten and robbed. Why, I wouldn't go across there tonight for all the tea in China. Who've you got with you?"

"Nobody."

He said, "I won't sleep tonight thinkin' about somebody goin' out there by himself. You're outnumbered. You'd be outmaneuvered. There's just absolutely no sense in that."

I said, "Well, there is when I've got a red-headed girl over in Bayfield that I want to see. If I get over there tonight I can spend a day and a night at her parents' place."

"Oh, man, what a guy won't do for a woman. You're crazy!"

I had a couple of hours before dark, chuggin' along the old Shiprock Desert in low, then in high, with my bulldog, Sam, sittin' beside me.

The road looked like plowed ground. Boy, ridges and ridges. Those old high-wheeled Fords could just crawl over them, bumpty, bump. I had to hang on to the wheel with both hands. I was feedin' the gas with my right hand and the spark was on my left. If it was timed a little bit too fast I'd shove it up. Course, in those days you reached down and adjusted your carburetor to fit your elevation. There's no sense in it not bein' that way now either. It would save gas.

I had been drivin' an hour or two after dark. I was someplace in the middle of the desert, chuggin' away in low gear. If I saw a blur up ahead but could not see clearly, I'd shove my clutch in and race my motor so the magneto lights would brighten. Then I'd let my clutch out. It was almost like havin' a lantern.

I saw somethin' flash up in front of me. I was goin' through a big cut in a rock pile. You couldn't pass anybody in there. If you made it yourself, you were lucky. When I raced the motor and the lights went up, all the yellow in the Yates family went up and down my spine. There was a high-wheeled 1914 or 1915 touring car. The driver rode straight across the road and closed the gate on that gap.

I thought, "Well, this is it. I'm goin' to go out like a light. When they come out here to pick up my body they'll have a few other bodies to pick up too. I'm goin' to kill every jackass that walks up to my car." I was scared to death.

I was wearin' one of those big old Army coats. It was too big for me. I slipped my forty-five into my sleeve.

I drove up to the car blockin' the road. It was empty. Sure enough, right out of the dark came a guy. There was a reflection off of that Dodge car from my lights. He came over to the passenger side of my car and leaned in. I can still see the evil smile on his face. He said, very slowly, "Where're you headed, Bub?"

Right then something happened that I never had a dream of. I thought I was there all by myself. I knew I was goin' to feel somethin' on the back of my neck, and he'd tell me to get out. When that guy leaned forward, good old Sam lunged at him, missed his throat and bit him between the neck and shoulder. You think he'd turn him loose? He shook that guy until he looked like his head was goin' to go clear off his neck.

And scream—I've never heard such screamin' in my life. Boy, he was just beggin' and pleadin'.

Well, I was scared. I knew what had to be done. That dog was goin' to kill him, that's all there was to it. That old sixty-five-pound bulldog shook him just like a sock. He liked to have knocked that guy's brains out on the end of the windshield.

Sam was wearin' a harness, not a collar. I reached over to hold him, but I couldn't, so I just let him go ahead and shake him. I still thought somebody was goin' to shoot me from behind. There were guys there, all right, but they didn't know what was happenin'. They were just as scared. The screams this guy was lettin' out, if he had been a partner of mine, I'd have wondered just what demon had him.

I had this blamed gun in my hand. I stuck the gun-barrel in my dog's mouth and pried it open so the guy could get loose. I said, "You move that car or I'm gonna kill you."

I was all fuzzy up and down the back, scared to death and lookin' around, ready to shoot somebody because I was afraid somebody was goin' to shoot me.

The guy jumped up runnin' and fell down, jumped up and fell down again. Dust was just like powered sugar in those ruts. I could see the blood runnin' all over. He jumped in the car, started it, killed it two or three times. He made three or four attempts and got the thing out. Boy, I stepped on that low gear and ground away through there. My lights were bright. I expected every minute for somebody to shoot me all to pieces.

I went chug, chug up the road, got it in high gear and went on out. I was sweatin' like a Trojan.

I looked at Sam and saw part of a blue shirt and an undershirt that he brought along. He got that guy down where he lived.

When I got into San Juan I told a fellow in a gas station about it.

This guy said, "Say, I want to tell that to the Sheriff because there sure have been some terrible things goin' on out there. They rob people of their watches, rings and everything. We'll be keepin' an eye peeled for somebody that's torn up."

I said, "You won't have any trouble. He's tagged on the left side."

And off I went toward Bayfield to see that little red-headed gal. At the time I thought it was worth the night's ride.