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The Real Stuff – 2011.10.01(a)

Published on December 28, 2015 by Ry Austin 10 Comments

In the dawn-cast shadows of the Westwitness Peaks, the short-o’-forty miles of interstate through south City of Contradictions, around Transit Point, and into north Shamton were as dull to Surtch Pherther as any ever. Though he loathed slab by bike, avoiding it when possible whatever the weather or time of day or quality of light, he took it that early morn to get there quick, to the real stuff–to sooner hit the dirt of Smuggler Road.

Just in from the teeth of Shamton Canyon, he caught it sneaking off the highway and into the brush. From there, Smuggler’s first few miles were a gravel-strewn, worn blacktop up-snake with curve-pit erosions plenty hollow to wholly swallow the wheel of a jacked pickup and thus gaping enough to single-gulp a reckless rider too. With some road-know, Surtch might have slain the steep serpentine, but as he hadn’t before been there, he carved the curves with care.

At its first fork the pavement veered right into a dead end lovers’ lot overlook while the left turned to a poof-dust and loose rock meander up a broad bench past gulch-heads and valley views along the face of the south Westwitness in the chill morn that still pledged a mild day among thickets and dry glades and hardwood groves with papery leaves all shades of flame wherein the blue and white were clouds and sky and all that was left after autumn’s slow burn.

From a high point turnout where Surtch lingered over granola bars and thermos brew and views of south Shamton and Friar Canyon’s mouth, Smuggler Road, now prickly with stones and gouged from four wheel wallowing when wet, swung around a nameless peak to tease the lips of little gullies on its wander down a thirsty dell to a T-junction with the left fork of Fetter Draw–asphalt again already after a mere sixteen miles.

Within a few sweeps at street speed, Surtch shook off the dirt-feel of peg readiness and hands happily clutch- and brake- and throttle-tired from the rough stuff and re-embraced the full body bike-hug that winding pavement promotes.

At the draw’s fork he put a foot down for a gang of wild turkeys on the trot for a hidey-spot ahead of Thanksgiving dinner and then hung a left up Fetter’s right, where–after nine-ish miles, and to his delight–the blacktop vanished before another poof-dust meander over the head of the draw and beyond, into open range and a tangle of dirt roads.

For his area-ignorance and the vagueness of his map, Surtch lost nearly an hour to probing dead ends and other wrong ways, even toppling once from a frustrated quick-stop at a bad lean in a turnout’s deep gravel. He managed to right Escape Artist just as two dudes in a beat-up pickup with windows down to let the smoke out clattered over a rise and skid-stopped nearby in the shoulder’s soft dirt.

“Hey, man. We heard that somewhere around here is a way through the hills to San Cosme Reservoir. Do ya know where it is?”

“Shit. I can tell you where it ain’t–been lookin’ for it myself. I’ve a sneaking suspicion it’s back the way you came, near that last stream crossing.”

The dudes exchanged glances, said, “Thanks. Good luck,” and resumed their shake, rattle, and roll down the road.

Morning had blossomed by the time Surtch found the way in question–a weathered two-track atop a spur a throttle-twist past a wrecked gate-for-no-good. Shortly thereafter he gained the main ridge above the water.

From there his route leapt side to side deer-like for six or so miles up through nakey quakies and past hunters here and there–more here, after Fetter Draw and in the warming day, than there, in those chill, dawn-cast shadows on Smuggler Road.

Then, at its highest point on San Cosme Ridge, it as good as took flight. Here the vague map indicated a split: a fine right leg hugging the pine-covered mound ahead to a soon union with a gravel road out of sight, and a rough left leg plunging down a zigzag ravine. Yet scan the scene as Surtch did, the right leg didn’t exist, likely never had.

Well, he thought, I could return to the overlook to hit that other road to the reservoir and lose even more time, or…

Applying theory anxiously–on pegs, ass back–and the front brakes gingerly to load the fork, Surtch engaged the ravine’s drop-in. A third of the way down, though, for its steepness or looseness or his inexperience or all, he had to lean heavy on the back brake too. Escape Artist’s rear chattered, locked, and then skidded the rest of the way, swinging out to the right all the while.

Damn, thought Surtch in a lull at the base, if I wasn’t committed before, I sure as hell am now. I couldn’t buck and chuck back up that thing if I wanted to.

From the ravine’s sheer walls, thick-trunked pines stretched out and up with their limbs entwined and their prickly needles meshed, straining sunlight. Though morning was well-on, this place was dim and cool, and pungent from moss and constant damp, from soil–a place to keep all that throughout the summer, though the sun would peak and the surrounding ‘scape go dry.

Among random boulders, through patches of shifty, streambed stones, and over terra-folds and surfaced roots all greasy, Surtch worried and weaved Escape Artist, a capable machine somehow tackling an earthbound pitch and roll with an inept captain at the controls. Though a mere fragment of a mile long, the ravine was as good as endless to new-to-dirt Surtch, who was surprised to finally return–he and Escape Artist, unscathed–to the candor of the mid-morning sunlight, a gravel road in sight.

After a short stretch off the saddle to calm his jello-jiggly limbs and to consult that map of lies once more, Surtch was back astride his ride and hard-throttling steep, washboard curves toward the next fork and fairly familiar roads–those he’d fooled ‘n’ tooled around on a month and a half back over a family weekend at San Cosme Reservoir, back when the aspens still held all their li’l, green tremblers and lush was the undergrowth of tender grasses and wildflowers and small ferns.

Indeed, at higher altitudes, season shift is swift. Surtch had seen it when a younger self and his brother and his sister and their dad once backpacked their typical twenty-odd miles deep into the Cairn Mountains Wilderness and camped there eight days straight.

At the usual eleven, twelve, thirteen thousand feet and then some, they’d climbed rock pile passes and peaks, tromped through marshes and meadows and woods, weathered downpours and dodged hailstones and lightning bolts, fire-gazed after nightfall, and they’d witnessed the wildscape’s dash from summer to fall’s foreboding doorstep. It barely was late July.

As for this small fall adventure, Surtch had embarked for reasons typical and not: to catch and snap some autumn leaves before they all took the short flight to that long decay on the forest floor; to reduce pavement to mere stepping stones between the real stuff; to nudge the dirt closer to home, and his riding horizons farther out; to forge links from the sensational to the divine; and to further explore and finally begin to embrace dual-sporting.

Sadly, the seed planted by that once-upon-a-time, Vespa trip to Lake Mackenzie and the next year’s rerun with his brother at his side, to merge into a master passion his lifelong love for camping and his fresh obsession for riding, had been neglected–nay, ignored–for too long: For two years he’d had Escape Artist, and he had yet to put it through its paces. Though Surtch certainly had been put through his.

Sure, there’d been challenges inherent in lover-swapping a short, smooth Italian for a seriously tall German–he had expected a learning curve. But what a blind corner that shred of time had been, and oh, the motley hazards that had lurked around the bend: a swift smackdown by an early misadventure in the remoteness; continued abuse by folks he’d generously served for too damn long; loved ones’ deaths and, ugh, the closeted skeletons that started a-clackin’; plunging and twisting of countless other knives; and a seemingly calculated strike by a mindquake out of the blue–and all at once. None could have foreseen that.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin — One Ba-a-ad Traffic Jam

Of course, there’s always “pick yourself up, and dust yourself off” and “every cloud has a silver lining” and “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, but cliches and simulated sympathy never aid when one’s been broadsided by circumstance and the absurd.

Surtch had instead seized upon “this too shall pass”, a balanced mantra that can humble the haughty and render hope to the hopeless.

But enough! Enough of that–that way-back-when. Now?… Now his sights were set on spring and his family’s yearly, first of the season retreat to a remote spot amid sand and rocks–a new chance to put Escape Artist through its paces after all, to shoot for a sense of accomplishment, and to stalk that master passion.

Yeah, on this small, fall adventure, Surtch had embarked for a reason and with a plan: to know, before burdening his bike and perchance encumbering others, if his new-to-dirt skills could deliver; and for some peace of mind in the face of the tough terrain he required, to ride light. Well, save for petrol aplenty.

Sure, he could have run the numbers from charts and specs, but Surtch was all thumbs with math like that. Besides, he’d always reckoned that fuel off road was like water in the desert: have for every day and then some–in case of a breakdown, in case of a delay, in case of a fellow traveler in need.

The lashed-on cans were a mere security blanket–because Surtch was still learning the ropes and shaking down his bike; because the road ahead might be more than he could chew, and he didn’t wanna bite; because he was riding by a proven map of lies; and then…

After sixty miles since the last asphalt in Fetter Draw–sixty miles of that hour lost to seeking the way and then toppling in a turnout’s deep gravel, leaping side to side deer-like up San Cosme Ridge and then plunging down that zigzag ravine, re-riding roads he’d fooled ‘n’ tooled around on a month and a half back, and being astride Escape Artist for seven-ish hours already–Surtch arrived for the second time that year at the T-junction of Ourantah Ridge Road and the rural highway between Trapper and Portcullis.

Ahead?… Well, south by ninety-odd miles of blacktop through small towns and a tiresome shot across a clayscape waste flanked by the Bucksaw Cliffs lay Blakesville, where Surtch would overnight in a cheap motel. Doubtless countless dirt roads also lay between, but they’d have to wait, to remain hearsay for now, rumor roads–routes of rides to come.

And behind?… Well, behind was a good day of nudging the dirt closer to home and reducing pavement to mere stepping stones, of catching and snapping autumn leaves and further exploring dual-sporting, of forging links from the sensational to the divine.

Indeed, behind?… Behind was a great day of the real stuff.

A few miles out from little Amalgam town, where he would stop for fuel and–in lieu of a late lunch–trail mix and a cold Coke, Surtch was approaching the junction at Portcullis when he spotted a cemetery just off the highway.

Though he’d driven this stretch once before, it was an after dark detour for a wreck in Friar Canyon. Nevertheless, he knew what this place was about.

At the turn of the century, in the town of Snowbound, near Friar Canyon’s summit, a coal mine exploded. Over 200 men were killed.

At the time, Surtch’s great grandfather and great, great grandfather were living in Portcullis and working its mine. They left shortly thereafter for somewhat safer lives as farmers, shepherds, lumberers, teamsters, you name it.

A few years later, in the Portcullis Mine, three explosions in quick succession destroyed the surface operations, hurled utility poles and a coal car almost a mile across the canyon, embedding that wreckage in the talus, and killed nearly 200 men between the ages of 15 and 73. All were immigrants from Greece, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Japan, and Slovenia.

Between the explosion at Snowbound and those at Portcullis, several hundred wives were widowed and many hundreds of children were left fatherless.

Now, except for a low hum from the coal-fired power plant at the nearby junction, and highway noise from occasional, passing vehicles, the Portcullis town site was quiet.

No structures were left: Such company towns had commonly moved those from boom to boom. Scattered masonry walls, well-built by proud, Italian immigrants, and weathered headstones bearing exotic names and cryptic characters were all that remained.

Through his mother and her father and his father and his father, Surtch was linked to those laid to rest in this melting pot cemetery, the men and boys put here by the great equalizer. With them, his ancestors had toiled and rested and sipped coffee and eaten and smoked. Perhaps they’d rejoiced and lamented together, maybe even worshiped.

To them, through them, with them, Surtch was connected, as through humanity’s beautiful, dreadful, and fascinating past we all are connected.

Oh, the mutual respect that such a fathomless, shared history should afford…

poof-dust (poof dust) n.
1 especially fine and light, dirt road or gravel road dust that becomes airborne easily and settles onto and into anything and everything

Thank you, Bill Bass, for introducing “poof-dust” to my vocabulary. Bill is a fellow dual-sporter I met in the middle of nowhere in September 2015 and with whom I lunched and shared great conversation for over an hour at an equally middle of nowhere truck stop. Though it’s been said a thousand times, it bears repeating: You meet the nicest people on motorcycles.

Worknight Runaway – 2011.08.30

Published on July 27, 2015 by Ry Austin 6 Comments

Frigid river water washed the countless casualties from Surtch Pherther’s glasses and visor, and the workday’s salt and the evening’s dust from his face. Ten feet out, given the chance, the Shamton Waterfall could have washed away so much more, but Surtch hadn’t taken this path on his O’Mahoney’s Grill trip the year before, back when food had no flavor, the jukebox no tunes, sunlight no warmth, and he no desire.

Here it was a midweek worknight a mere three days after he’d got the ’09 XR1200 “Riot Machine” with just 300 miles for a steal from a DeLusiville dealership because this bike was never given a fighting chance stateside because it seldom saw the showroom floor because Harley’s typical customer didn’t give a realtime damn because it just can’t seat a big spare tire… And though Surtch was fine with all that, he thought it a shame just the same.

He’d bombed the eastbound I at 80 to 100 mph after work because he’d craved it, because Riot Machine had roared for it, and because broad Big Canyon, with few lurk-spots for cops, had beckoned. On the back side he’d throttled down and let the naked bike’s 1200 ccs rumble-vibe through Silvervale’s ranch-lands turned rec-lands and cash cows for the one percent and then down Middlefield Draw to the midweek-empty diner for a pastrami on rye with chips and a dill spear and coffee as the sun nestled west in the virga-streaked and cloud-strewn sky. Afterward, with nowhere to be and anywhere to go, he’d set off southeast for West Cairn Road and into the mouth of the Shamton drainage at a speed to match the meandering route and its swift shifts from sunlight to shade.

Riverside, Surtch rinsed and wrung the microfiber, wiped his glasses and visor of lingering streaks, and folded the cloth and tucked it damp into his jacket’s right pocket. Pebbles on the path back crackled under his boots, and the cooling air raised aromas of evergreens and damp soil and cradled the spray from the waterfall that continued to shush as though to hush others with whom it had been babbling before the rider’s arrival. It was shift change in the woods–day was turning in, night was stirring to stalk a bite to eat, and Surtch, fresh from the riverbank, was aware.

With a turn of the key and a press of the starter, road-hot Riot Machine barked right back to life, and soon thereafter Surtch was clearing Bardom Pass. Taking the tight switchbacks slow, he sank into the other side, into the Mackenzie drainage that for 15-ish miles runs along the Cairn Mountains Wilderness, and into a night that seemed to fall as suddenly as its dangers arose. He’d seen no deer before the waterfall and the pass, but now there were only signs of their abundance: fuzzy forms in the brush, just within the headlight’s reach, and here and there large eyes glinting like early ornaments among the boughs.

A few miles beyond where the mouth of the drainage yawns wide, where lush graze-land lies out flat and far, he crossed the state line and then thundered into the first fuel stop he came upon in weeknight-quiet Booth Union. After filling up and then sipping a Gatorade and munching a granola bar at the station’s front walk, he joined the westbound I, busy with cagers and big rigs to serve as possible blockers against wildlife would-be tacklers.

Combined with the increasing mugginess and the drone of steady revs, the pastureland links between Bromley’s Draw, Silvergate Gulch, and Big Canyon might have rendered Surtch body-bored and mind-numb had it not been for a coming storm: The sky, which had been building tension and making threats all late-day long, was finally throwing a fit with light but steady rain–refreshing, really–and random, remote flashes that silhouetted the tall and toothlike Westwitness Peaks on the otherwise blackdrop backdrop.

Finally, at about ten o’clock that night, after over 200 satisfying miles, Surtch raced Riot Machine to a fork-squeezing stop at the back of his drive and shut it off. Behind him–speeding, crashing, enfolding, and companioned by the tink-plunk tune of cooling cylinders and pipes–rushed that intoxicating odor of hot V-twin exhaust, something that proper Escape Artist never could and never would produce. Of course, Surtch loved Escape Artist: It could take him remote, to where his soul was closest to the surface. But Riot Machine roared to his flesh and his blood, was a wild thing. Indeed, where Escape Artist was spirit, Riot Machine was body alone–tautly muscled, hot and lusty.

Are you occasionally able to fit in a longer ride during your work week, or is the risk too high–that you’ll just keep heading away, from home, from work, from responsibility?…

Now, don’t rub it in too much, you… you retired people. You know who you are. 🙂

A Dirt Road to the Future – 2011.08.21

Published on June 22, 2015 by Ry Austin 12 Comments

Surtch Pherther switched off Escape Artist and leaned it on its stand at the T-junction of Ourantah Ridge Road and the rural highway between Trapper and Portcullis.

Ahead, to the east across the asphalt, badlands lay in wait, known to Surtch only through paper maps and hearsay, a rumorland–a land of rides to come. And behind him? Well, behind stretched 45 miles of the most delicious dirt he’d ridden yet, a finer way from point A to B-b-b-beyond, a tool and a toy–a promising path to his riding future. In fact, Surtch was already speculating how to extend the experience, how to nudge the dirt–by linked like routes of rocks and dust–closer to the City of Contradictions.

Civilization seems to self-assess somewhat by the amount of pavement it lays, to equate progress with wildness subdued, dirt covered, and curves tamed. It might then be the two-wheeler’s duty–civil disobedience moto style–to bypass the straight with twisty and the paved with dusty, leaving the slabs and their vanishing points to cagers and deadline riders.

That morning, Surtch had broken camp, scarfed down breakfast bars and parfait and cold coffee, bidden his folks goodbye, and coasted Escape Artist down toward the boat ramp, hanging a left just before. There, San Cosme Reservoir Road reached far to the tip of a sloped spur, then sharp-turned south, switched to gravel, and scampered up past thorny shrubs, sagebrush, and quaking aspen stands that tremble-filtered the harsh light for undergrowth of tender grasses and wildflowers and small ferns…

Soon it sprinted–a rutty, pocked, dirt traverse–through a lodgepole wood across a craggy mountainside toward a jumble o’ junctions where Surtch had U-turned the year before for poor dirt legs, throb-throb-throbbing in his full-faced head from having his wisdom teeth yanked just days before, and mind-fog and body-blahs from half a week of juggling painkillers…

It leapt through meadows and mixed forests high above San Cosme Creek–a creek to which a younger self and his brother and their dad had tromped through autumn-tan and -brittle brush in a frigid late fall to cast for brooks and browns but catch zilch…

It dashed past a shadow of a two-track down which on that same long ago trip the three had driven dad’s ’72 Ford “Blue Ox” Bronco and eaten hash browns with onions and lemon-peppered pork chops before a bonfire and slept like dead in their bags through a mute night to wake the next morn to half a foot of snow and they miles in on a “closed” road…

It hopped left and right in switchbacks tight to San Cosme Peak’s shoulder where Surtch wrong-turned twice but soon got on track for a change of scene to gray from green, to sparse pines among rabbit brush and sagebrush again and a clay soil road that went greasy from a cloudburst, causing Escape Artist to waggle about and to about go down, spooking a passing sheepdog but not the Peruvian shepherd or the pro horse he rode by on, the only creatures (short of Mr. and Mrs. Ed, of course, of course) that Surtch had seen all afternoon…

And finally it scrambled up to the last stretch of Ourantah Ridge, to the north of which the land rolled soft and somewhat green toward dinosaur digs and toward pumpjacks keeping time in fieldlings of oil and gas and toward the vast Cairn Mountains’ rock pile peaks, and to the south of which the earth broke jagged-dramatic toward coalfields and more dino digs and the Bucksaw Cliffs flanking a clayscape waste and toward–afar–the vivid desert of sandstone and dunes.

Back at the T-junction, Surtch switched on Escape Artist, heeled up its stand, and pressed its starter. By highway, the nearest town was 30 miles off. About 110 farther–through Lupo Pass and South Middlefield, past Keetstone Lake and the Silvervale roads, and over Big Canyon summit–waited the City of Contradictions, surely facing fitful sleep through another sultry summer night.

But for his hunger for a cheesesteak with fries and coffee at Pemm’s Hash House in Trapper, the lateness of the day with its shadows already presenting and the typical chill already making the usual threats and more cloudbursts abrewin’, and the guarantee that large game would soon again be jaywalking after dark, Surtch would’ve U-turned and gone back the way he’d come.

Oh well–he’d be back. Yes, Surtch Pherther would be back. For Ourantah Ridge Road had changed everything.

Was a specific road or stretch of road a game changer to the development of your skills or confidence as a rider?

Relations & Reflections, Motorbiking & Mudbugs – 2011.08.20

Published on June 1, 2015 by Ry Austin 4 Comments

Because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again. It’s a predictable answer to an inevitable type of question, a type that riders rarely ask: They know that the experience, as skittish as a wild creature, eludes definition and that words often fail. To ride might be the only road to an answer: If the experience doesn’t take, an answer won’t be given. If it does take, a new rider will be born to pursue a passion that enlivens living–one possessed striving to possess the possessor.

It had been over five years since Surtch Pherther was–himself–born again, baptized by throttle into the Vespa sect of that divinely inspired Two Wheelers tradition, and much remained to be revealed to him—technically, socially, geographically, soulfully. Indeed, because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again would have to do—for now…

“We’re going crawdaddin’,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who wants in?” The lunch-lazy camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids of all ages wriggling into swimsuits and slipping into flip-flops, grabbing buckets and nets, and shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“I’ll meet ya there,” yelled Surtch, and he geared up, saddle up, and throttled off.

He hugged the few curves on the paved road from camp (they squeezed him back, right in the adrenaline) and then caved to the lure of an unlocked DOT gravel pit, low-banking its scattered mounds and slow-going its small slopes of shifty cobble in a continuing bid for practice makes better.

Perfect riding skills, especially off road, seemed an impossibility to Surtch, and frankly, immeasurable—like judging artistic merit.

From the gravel pit, he followed a faded two-track down to the pebbly beach and rode through the shallows half up to the hubs toward where his people were waist deep—splashing, laughing, crayfish net-catching—and closing in on buckets full. The scene flashed him back to a younger self’s first memory of wild water and a snippet of something he once-upon-a-time scribbled about it:

…I was four or so when my parents first took me and my siblings to wade in a desert river. We were headed home from camping when we stopped to try to squeeze out any lingering essence. The sun was setting, and damp river-bottom coldness was beginning to rise, which is typical for the desert—it can be blistering at noon, but frigid at midnight. I tiptoed through thin willows, purple-flowered tamarisk sprouts, and beds of coarse snake grass. The alkali sand, crusty and white, broke and sloughed beneath my little footsteps, exposing organic under-soil to which even the sparse salt grass clung fiercely. And all the while the Johnsie River just rippled, whispering its endless tale:

“I am a desert river and was dreamy in my youth. I only wanted to enliven difficult land, but of that I was deprived, doomed by the ages to dredge deeper and deeper until I flowed too far below any surface I could serve. I’m just a desert river—old and lonely—a thoroughfare for the evening breeze which to every spider delivers a fly. Look high, on the cottonwoods that dot my bank, higher than your reach. It’s where I wear my dry drift scarves and my deepest desire keep–to flood. Oh, just to flash once more. It’s when I’m at my peak.”…

Back at camp—nets tossed aside, buckets of creepy craw-dudes placed in the shade, flip-flops swapped for shoes, and swimsuits for dry duds—everyone had begun to slip into sun-stupor when…

“We’re off to hit a geocache,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who’s coming along?” And once again, as though on cue, the camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“Okay, man. You lead,” yelled Surtch, and a few minutes later, a few miles down from camp, they rolled to a stop on the hillside shoulder of a wide curve in the reservoir road. The kids goofed in the nearby brush while Surtch’s brother briefly consulted the GPS before pointing to a rocky outcrop on a low spur.

Up the gentle slope, through winding paths defined by giant, pungent sagebrush and impenetrable wild rose, along vague trails left by critters small and large, and safely past a stunning wasps’ nest sculpture, Surtch and his brother led the children. At last they scrambled the final bit onto the spur and then strolled out to its small point overlooking San Cosme Reservoir.

The kids spied the cache, traded trinkets, marked the booklet, and for a while everyone gazed upon the glimmering water below. Surtch repressed an urge to ask them for their thoughts, a query that seldom delivers anyway, and never in the moment: Most folks reserve the real stuff; impressions require digestion; and words—those imperfect tools for imperfect beings—often fail.

Oh, to be able to channel my child self, thought Surtch, to know his untainted impressions. Then maybe I’d know if I’ve grown, know if this bizarre, existential experience has been worthwhile so far.

Evening—calm, cooling, barely cloudy—was upon them upon their return to camp, so they lit a fire and soon they had a blaze. Amid the banter typical for fireside dining, Surtch politely declined his brother’s offer of boiled, um, freshwater lobster (a flattering name indeed) in favor of applesauce, beef jerky left over from lunch, and instant red pesto pasta. As night took hold, the children one by one yawned their ways to their sleeping bags and the adults followed suit until just the two brothers remained at the campfire.

“I was surprised when you showed up on Escape Artist,” said Surtch’s brother, with a knowing smile. “I had expected you to ride in on a new machine—something orange and sporty maybe?…” Surtch just chuckled.

In silence thereafter they watched the final flames die, the mound of orange coals cool and shift, the last few sparks rise and twist, and–curling smoothly around sky-pillar pines–the smoke waft like sacred incense in a grand, roofless cathedral.

To Surtch, this was the only religion that had ever made sense.

To Desire, a Satisfaction – 2011.08.13(b)

Published on May 11, 2015 by Ry Austin 2 Comments

With the armor stacked on the toilet tank, Surtch Pherther plunged his dust-choked jacket into the clawfoot tub’s warm water and suds, agitated the mix, and went back to the kitchen to seek dinner, leaving the textile tea to steep.

For riding, it had been a good day: From sunrise to -set he’d been there, immersed, reluctant to release the small adventure. It might sound trite, but if lessons lingered in the mindquake’s wake, never take desire for granted was one. Indeed, postquake, Surtch had arrived at maybe his best understanding yet of this bizarre, existential experience: To be human is to desire, and to desire is itself a satisfaction.

In the kitchen he was trying to cobble together a meal from clearly incompatible components when he became distracted by what sounded like a leaf blower, distracted less by the muffled hum than by the incongruity: It was late evening, well after dark, so “why the hell would anyone be using a leaf blower”? He stepped down the back stairs, out the door into the sticky night’s big arms, along the dim drive to the walk, and stopped… Aside from the chirping of crickets, the street was quiet.

Yes, for riding, it had been a very good day: From the Tumen Creek kilns, he’d taken that ridge-cresting road past a wind farm vast and new since he was last through, back when his dad, siblings, and a younger self were regularly backpacking deep into the Cairn Mountains Wilderness, back when it seemed that such times couldn’t possibly end. But they had ended, and recently–with his dad in denial and no one discussing it–and in life’s typical style too: by its stealing from aging man what it granted him in youth. The key was for all involved to evolve or wither in soul, to pursue new pastimes, to seek new adventures.

I don’t mind your doing your job, Father Time, Surtch had often thought to the universe, Lord knows that the cosmic clockworks would be nothin’ without you. But it’s when you wrench the throttle of this absurd conveyance… You can give us mental whiplash, you know, leave us essentially changed.

Back in the kitchen the incompatibility of dinner’s components refused to be resolved through their combining, and though Surtch tried to dismiss that nagging, muffled hum, distraction was again taking hold. He strode down the back stairs, out the door into the night’s muggy hug, along the dark drive to the walk, and stopped… Crick-crick-crick-crickets was the only sound on the street. “Weird,” he mumbled, “weirdness is goin’ on.”

From the wind farm, he’d descended a short dugway and then headed south into the Hacker Creek drainage to re-find westbound Rose Pitch Road. It was a route that, midweek, might have offered a relaxing ride through forest and meadows, but this Saturday in August the heating air was abuzz and a-gag with noise and smoke and dust from wild herds of two-strokes and four-wheelers tearing recklessly along the road and without restraint across trackless terrain. Surtch knew that they were only providing the state with more reasons to tighten restrictions, but he also knew their type: If challenged, they’d be eager and ready–pistols in hands, rifles in arms–to defend their “right” to abuse the places they “love”.

Late in the day–with shadows growing long; with the wetlands chill rising to roost in the woods, and large game milling down to the marshes to water; with the twisties of West Cairn Road through Bardom Pass and the south end foothills near ahead, and far ahead, sleepy Middlefield and the Westwitness Peaks–Surtch had finally hit pavement.

He agitated the jacket once more in the tepid, sudsless murk before reaching in to scoop it out. Dirty water fell into the tub, and in his arms the wet wad was buzzing like a hive of livid bees. “Oh, shit!” He dropped it–splat!–in the hall, fumbled open the jacket’s inside pocket, and yanked out his cell phone that was vibe-ing its life away and popped off its back and flipped its searing battery onto the kitchen floor.

It had been his phone–the noise of its dying vibes amplified by the water and the tub–that for half an hour or so was sounding like a blasted leaf blower…

WELCOME: smart-alecky comments and caption suggestions for the poor tripod placement for the photo above. Here’s a start…

“Hey, Propeller Helmet, you’ll need wings as well if you hope to take flight!”