Texas, beyond and back © Russ Walling
Sixteen hours of surprisingly uneventful driving landed us on a dirt road mere meters from the hueco tanks front gate. Angus had been sleeping for hours and I was working a case of highway hypnosis that a month of therapy couldn't dent. I parked the bucket about a quarter mile down "Texas farm road number 118" and went to sleep before the engine stopped turning. "Ok fellers! Nobody move! You in the front there--with the hair--keep them hands where I can count the wrinkles on 'em!" A burly law man was standing near my door and waving his service revolver with frontier authority. "When I say it--and no sooner--both you boys exit the vehicle and lay down over here." He motioned with the revolver toward an open area just off the dirt road. "Ok--start movin'--like grannys molasses in winter." "Y--y--yes sir," I mumbled not fully grasping exactly what was going on. I tried to get a better look at the lawman but the morning sun radiating over his shoulders made my eyes squint. This reminded me of an old Clint Eastwood movie, the one where he taught the importance of always having an edge. sure--the sun from behind is an edge, but a surprise wake up call at six a.m., complete with badge and gun, was easily enough to handle me and Angus. "Is this slow enough?" I asked while trying to move like that molasses he spoke of. "Yeah--that's fine. You there with the hair." He waved the gun at Angus who instantly froze. "Come on around here and join your partner--face down." The lawman watched as we receded to knees, then lay flat on the ground. "Good. Now what are you boys doing out on this here road anyhow?" I started to explain, "well, I was kinda' tired last night and--" the lawman cut me off. "Now you boys wouldn't have any surprises in the trunk now would you," he asked while pacing nervously near the low slung rear end of the bucket. "Surprises--heck no, not me. I don't have any surprises, how about you Angus? Got any surprises?" Angus replied in a very high voice, "no, none." The lawman paced around at the rear of the car a bit more and then cautiously released the bungy cord. In one quick motion he pulled the trunk lid up and threatened my pile of laundry with the gun. "Shit!--you boys had me worried for a moment there." He wiped his brow and holstered his weapon. "Get up boys. I guess your not the coyotes I thought you was." He let the trunk lid drop and leaned against it. "Coyotes? What the hell are coyotes?" I asked while dusting off. "Coyotes? Them is bad boys that bring e-legals over from Mexico. I reckoned you fellas might have been some--I mean you are out on a dirt road, in a junky car, with outta state plates. Hell, the rear end is so low it looked like there might be a handful of the little bastards in there." The lawman pushed his hat to the back of his head and laughed. "So--what are ya doin' out here anyway?" "I'm on me holidays--seeing America," Angus said. "Boy, wait till the folks back home hear about this! Just like the movies! Texas law, pulling guns on us!" I interrupted the overly enthusiastic Angus, "as I was saying. We got tired and just pulled over to get a few winks. We're on our way to Hueco Tanks, from California." I threw in, "were rock climbers." This was to verify our motive for visiting the "Tanks". The lawmans jaw dropped a little. "You mean with the rope and spikes and all that?" He was hammering in the air with a fist, the other hand held a mythical piton. "Exactly," I said, not wanting to push our luck with corrections. "Well no more sleeping out on these roads," he said with a relaxed drawl. "This is private land and I personally don't think it's safe--there's Mexican e-legals crawling all over these hills, hiding in them rocks, running wild in the brush--" The talk of e-legals got him pumped up and he panned the horizon 360 degrees and camped a hand on the oversized metal residing in his holster. "Anyway, you boys have a nice time here in the Lone Star state and be careful with them piters--pritons--hell, spikes. I've got to get back to work, findin' e-legals. Adios amigos." He walked back to his truck, fired it up, then and hung a wide u-turn through the brush and vanished. "Man that guy was a psycho!" Angus squealed. "What a maniac! He was a classic! Him and his e-legals, the molasses in winter, counting the wrinkles on me hand! Fabulous!" It was obvious Angus had never encountered local color of this variety before. I was hoping we didn't again. Angus continued to bubble over with quotes and observations about our Texas lawman encounter as we got ready to go. Once we were back on the highway it was only minutes until the rocks were visible. Angus immediately forgot the lawman and craned his neck for a better view. A stout payment at the kiosk gave us a campsite and a pass good for unlimited travel on texas park lands. It seemed like a bargain at the time. Before we left the kiosk the woman at the counter warned us to be good--or else. We motored away from the kiosk and parked in our assigned site. Before we could unload a single item from the bucket the local law had parked behind us. the officer confidently approached and then warned us that drinking, debasement, public nudity, profanity, and various lewd acts would not be tolerated. He said he'd heard about us "Californee climbers", and wanted to "nip trouble in the bud" as it were. I assured him we were different from any past trouble makers, and had no intention of performing any illegal acts. He gave me a sideways glance, eyeballed the bucket one more time, then took off on his rounds--at 3 m.p.h. During our exchange angus had managed to conceal our "travellers"--a couple of forty ounce bottles of malt liquor good for at least a week in the Texas Parks Department slammer. We collected our bouldering accoutrements, complete with eight foot extendo brush, and went in search of problems. A five minute walk put us at the base of the "Mushroom Boulder". Angus laced up his boots and warmed up on a few problems I probably couldn't bag after ten days of tries. I worked on my "pathetic" b1's and kept an eye on angus. He was pasted under a large roof, clinging like graffiti, crimping molecular holds. With two small lunges and a bit of an inversion, Angus had the holds over the lip--monstrous buckets the size of pabulum. Seconds later the summit was his. He mumbled about the rock being quite sharp and trotted off to the down climb. As most climbers will do, I immediately went over to give this problem a bit of my magic. I touched the first holds, attempted a pull and almost raised my ass off the ground. Needing some down time while I repsyched, I brushed all the holds and tried to piece it together. "Good scramble!" Angus said, now back from the summit. "Need the beta?" "Beta my ass! Just stand back and watch me work," I said and positioned myself on the first holds. I drew a few quick breaths and then began a mighty pull. Fifteen seconds later found me on the same holds, making a noise like a faulty whoopee cushion. Upward movement had stopped right where it began. "Jesus! this is horrendous" I bellowed and plopped back down into the dirt. "You're going at it all wrong," Angus offered. "Try to use your feet a wee bit more--I mean if you can get them off the ground." Angus laughed and motioned for me to try the problem again. "Ok--ok--use the feet you say." I crawled into the maw and crimped on the first set of holds, began to pull, and actually got both feet off the ground. I smooshed the ball of my foot on a protrusion and popped for the second hold--a razor. "Yeeyow!" I yelped. The razor had just filleted my index finger. Not being a total masochist, I quickly dropped back on the dirt, and grasped my bleeding appendage. "Aaach! Ya gave up too easy," Angus said in a disgusted tone. "I think you might have had it if you hung that wee razor." "Had it hell! What about the rest of this beast--it's easy or something?" I looked at Angus and checked my finger again. "Well, not exactly easy--for the crux is near the lip, but you looked good on it." Angus looked at my finger and declared it a wound a washwoman wouldn't be proud of, and offered me some tape. My flapper was sitting up like a drive-in movie screen with a red parking lot, so I was glad to hide it under a few wraps. "Another try then? A bit of a redeemer? A Yankee on the summit? Let's go then, give it another shot," Angus said while gesturing at the problem. "Maybe later pal," I said. "I've got to pace myself. I'd hate to blow up on the first day of a road trip." I felt stupid saying this with a finger already severed into the tendon sheath. I decided to do some really light bouldering, like 5.0, and Angus went off to find something "hard". Over the next three weeks or so, Angus had managed