Page 36 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

animal appeared while they were there. More dumb animals?
At both the homesteads, the mule deer and pronghorn antelope grazed on the hillsides outside the cabins, and one day while I stood in the doorway of Mother’s cabin, I counted one hundred twenty-six antelope grazing just across the canyon.
Antelope had a peculiar tendency toward racing cars. Many times I have clocked them at fifty miles per hour on the level roads of the San Augustin Plains. They would be peacefully grazing until I approached them, when several of them would break away from the herd and race with me. Since it was a dirt road, and I usually came to a rough spot and had to slow down, they would pass me, cross the road in front of the car, then stop and begin grazing again — miles from the herd they’d been with. I could never understand their compulsion to cross in front of the car. That done, they were perfectly content.
I was anxious to see about my homestead, so soon after we returned to New Mexico, Red and I drove up there in my car. We parked the car in one canyon, prepared to explore on foot where we couldn’t drive. Because we thought we’d have water when we arrived we didn’t take any with us, so started out to look for some.
It was summertime and we were walking in the direct sunshine — not a tree in sight for shade. We walked all afternoon going constantly in the wrong direction, if we’d only known it. Both of us felt ill and dehydrated and our tongues had begun to swell when we came upon a sheep camp. The herders gave us a drink of their precious water hauled in in wooden kegs on the
backs of burros. We drank ravenously from a beaten-up, blackened old coffee pot — the best drink I ever had! Because I had been so greedy, I suppose, and had drunk too fast, my nose began to bleed. After we stayed there awhile to rest, we walked back to the car and spent the night.
The next morning we still didn’t feel well. All we had with us to eat was cereal with evaporated milk, and since there was no water with which to dilute the milk, neither of us ate breakfast. In order to give our bodies a little badly needed fluid, we opened some cans of tomatoes and consumed only the juice.
We decided that before we did anything else, we’d walk up the canyon where we had parked, to the top of Pelona Mountain and see what we could see from there. After struggling to the top we could see the next canyon with a big earthen tank in it.
We drove over to this next canyon and up it as far as we could and I recognized it as my section. We came upon the ruins of a cabin so old it was put together with wooden pegs. There beside it we found a clear, cold spring. We carried some water back to the car, and had a feast before we drove back to Mother’s cabin.
The summer was filled with quiet pleasure, with plenty of activity to keep everybody busy as well as entertained. Even the work was so novel that we all enjoyed it. Everyone except Mother engaged in providing wood and doing other chores. She provided us with delectable meals from the store of home-canned goods she had brought and the big store of supplies.