Read Online Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jordan Fisher Smith
Ads: Link
had brought from home. When he finished, he wiped his beard with a paper napkin, put the book away in one of the kitchen cabinets, and walked outside into the covered alleyway between the kitchen and what had been a walk-in cooler, now used for storage. I heard the raspy click of his cigarette lighter. When he finished his cigarette, we got back into the Jimmy and headed for Cherokee Bar.
Cherokee Bar was on the south side of the Middle Fork, about twelve miles upstream of the dam site and four hundred feet beneath the dam's high-water line. It took about forty minutes to drive there from our office. Given a vehicle with decent ground clearance and traction, you could have reached Cherokee Bar from the gilt-domed state capitol in Sacramento in an hour and a half. But somewhere in between, the normative influence of the capitol and its laws was exhausted. In those days the situation at Cherokee Bar resembled those peculiar 1970s Westerns in which the bad guys all looked like armed rock-and-roll musicians.
We crossed the North Fork canyon into El Dorado County, headed east toward Georgetown, and then turned off the main road onto a smaller one, up a gully into the pines. Three and a half miles out the pavement expired. We lurched into a muddy wash surrounded by a thicket of blackberries and Scotch broom and then emerged onto the canyon rim. A meek little state park boundary sign stood to the left of the road, thoroughly ventilated with bullet holes. A thousand feet below, the rapids of the lower Middle Fork glittered in the afternoon sun. From there the road got better, but the improvement was temporary, and three miles farther we rattled down a last precipitous switchback onto Cherokee Bar.
Cherokee was a large sandbar on the inside of a slow bend in the Middle Fork. In front of us the road petered out into multiple sets of vehicle tracks across an expanse of beach, shimmering with heat. In the distance along the water's edge, thickets of willow and a few cottonwoods and alders formed oases of shade. The only other refuge from the withering sunlight was a narrow strip of overhanging live oaks along the canyon wall. In their shade, to our right, stood an outhouse coated with that chocolate-brown paint park maintenance workers use on everything. The outhouse was riddled with bullet holes. On its far side was a campsite: a couple of old pickup trucks parked next to some piles of dredge parts, two wall tents, and a large blue plastic tarpaulin strung between them as an awning. Underneath the latter was a fireplace made of stones, around which were arranged a few threadbare aluminum lawn chairs and a couple of ice chests.
"They owe us," said O'Leary, steering toward the camp.
Before we got closer than seventy-five feet, two dogs, a massive Great Dane and a hulking mongrel, emerged from the campsite and charged us, barking furiously. I looked at O'Leary. He sighed and stopped the truck. The dogs circled us, barking and snarling through the open windows. O'Leary didn't look particularly alarmed. Apparently this was normal.
A man in his early thirties appeared from the campsite and ambled toward us, yelling at the dogs. His long brown hair was tied in a ponytail down his back. He wore a broad-brimmed cowboy hat over a red muscle T-shirt. His jeans were stuffed into cowboy boots. From a cowboy gun belt festooned with bullets around his waist hung a holster containing a huge, long-barreled revolver. The holster was tied to his lower thigh with a leather thong, gunfighter-style.
One fundamental of all parks, state and national, is that they exist to preserve wildlife. Further, parks are used intensively by hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, and boaters, and this kind of recreation is generally inconsistent with gunfire. Most park system regulations are designed to promote civility between users and make casual visitors feel at ease. So, not surprisingly, it's illegal to walk around wearing a pistol at almost every park in
Cherokee Bar was on the south side of the Middle Fork, about twelve miles upstream of the dam site and four hundred feet beneath the dam's high-water line. It took about forty minutes to drive there from our office. Given a vehicle with decent ground clearance and traction, you could have reached Cherokee Bar from the gilt-domed state capitol in Sacramento in an hour and a half. But somewhere in between, the normative influence of the capitol and its laws was exhausted. In those days the situation at Cherokee Bar resembled those peculiar 1970s Westerns in which the bad guys all looked like armed rock-and-roll musicians.
We crossed the North Fork canyon into El Dorado County, headed east toward Georgetown, and then turned off the main road onto a smaller one, up a gully into the pines. Three and a half miles out the pavement expired. We lurched into a muddy wash surrounded by a thicket of blackberries and Scotch broom and then emerged onto the canyon rim. A meek little state park boundary sign stood to the left of the road, thoroughly ventilated with bullet holes. A thousand feet below, the rapids of the lower Middle Fork glittered in the afternoon sun. From there the road got better, but the improvement was temporary, and three miles farther we rattled down a last precipitous switchback onto Cherokee Bar.
Cherokee was a large sandbar on the inside of a slow bend in the Middle Fork. In front of us the road petered out into multiple sets of vehicle tracks across an expanse of beach, shimmering with heat. In the distance along the water's edge, thickets of willow and a few cottonwoods and alders formed oases of shade. The only other refuge from the withering sunlight was a narrow strip of overhanging live oaks along the canyon wall. In their shade, to our right, stood an outhouse coated with that chocolate-brown paint park maintenance workers use on everything. The outhouse was riddled with bullet holes. On its far side was a campsite: a couple of old pickup trucks parked next to some piles of dredge parts, two wall tents, and a large blue plastic tarpaulin strung between them as an awning. Underneath the latter was a fireplace made of stones, around which were arranged a few threadbare aluminum lawn chairs and a couple of ice chests.
"They owe us," said O'Leary, steering toward the camp.
Before we got closer than seventy-five feet, two dogs, a massive Great Dane and a hulking mongrel, emerged from the campsite and charged us, barking furiously. I looked at O'Leary. He sighed and stopped the truck. The dogs circled us, barking and snarling through the open windows. O'Leary didn't look particularly alarmed. Apparently this was normal.
A man in his early thirties appeared from the campsite and ambled toward us, yelling at the dogs. His long brown hair was tied in a ponytail down his back. He wore a broad-brimmed cowboy hat over a red muscle T-shirt. His jeans were stuffed into cowboy boots. From a cowboy gun belt festooned with bullets around his waist hung a holster containing a huge, long-barreled revolver. The holster was tied to his lower thigh with a leather thong, gunfighter-style.
One fundamental of all parks, state and national, is that they exist to preserve wildlife. Further, parks are used intensively by hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, and boaters, and this kind of recreation is generally inconsistent with gunfire. Most park system regulations are designed to promote civility between users and make casual visitors feel at ease. So, not surprisingly, it's illegal to walk around wearing a pistol at almost every park in
Similar Books
