The Old West

We took a ride out to the desert today. Five days after arriving in Arizona, it was time to see some cacti, close up. We loaded up a reluctant Chuy in the FJ Cruiser and drove off toward Picket Post Mountain to find some adventure. Picket Post is big peak west of Superior where the white man settled the first mining town in this area, the town of Pinal back in the mid-1870's. The town didn't last very long. It went bust when the mine quit and died sometime in 1878. The way the history books tell it, the town just dried up and died in about six months. The townspeople and the miners who had become accustomed to the area either went southwest towards Florence or clustered into Superior which declared itself a town in 1882. Superior was only about three or four miles east of Pinal and it was there that the Silver King Mine provided work for the miners.

Anyway, the ruins of Pinal would be fun to poke around in, but I'm not certain whereabouts they are. They'll have to wait until another day. There's still some quarries in the neighborhood of Picket Post and it's also where you can find the Apache Tears rocks (obsidian rocks wrapped in a white round coating, sort of like yogurt covered raisins). So we were just taking a jaunt, seeing where we'd end up and what we might find. Bill turned off State 177 on a farm road and zigged and zagged several times, finding smaller more rutted roads as we drove slowly towards the imposing Picket Post. There were other folks out on this fine clear day: four wheelers taking the air, a small group of teenaged boys roasting hotdogs by a stream, a man trying to get his new four wheel drive vehicle muddied up for the first time, a group of hunters looking for somewhere to go. Most would nod pleasantly as we made our way over the muddy ruts in the road.

We stopped at a high overlook, caught somewhere between Picket Post to the west and the more imposing Apache Leap to our east. We got out and started picking our way down a cactied and rocky strewn hill where a little stream gurgled over more boulders and a few yellow sycamore trees vibrated in the breeze. It was real pretty. Bill found an abandoned rattlesnake's rattle first off. It had about eight segments on it and I spent a few minutes looking over the area closely, hoping the big fella wouldn't come back for it. Later, I found a nice piece of rose quartz and a freshwater snail shell. It felt 'funny' to be picking up shells in the desert. But since I'm fresh from the ocean, I guess that was apropro.

Chuy was intent on smelling every last smell that the desert served up and his little nose worked incessantly. Whether it was the straggly remains of a sagebrush, or the droppings of a brush bunny or even the glinting remains of a Dos Equis bottle, the puppy had to smell it and classify it. An hour's walk just about wore out his poor nose!

But toward the end of our walk, we heard five rapid fire gun shots. They sounded like they were coming from the area of Apache Leap. Bill and I looked at each other. "It might be deer season. But I don't know what's 'open' in Arizona right now," he said. We continued on, retracing our footsteps toward the parked car. A few minutes later, we heard a ripping slug of bullets, maybe twenty or thirty, automatic fire, machine gun fire?

It was something I certainly never expected to hear in the empty confines of the Sonoran Desert. And then, nothing. All perfectly quiet. The shooter emptied his rounds and departed maybe. Maybe. But so did we. Back in the car and back to the paved roads and civilization. Gee, what an enigmatic place this is turning out to be!