Road trips on lonely and desolate roads are woven into the western experience. But even the most windswept, far-off places have stories to tell. In this month’s Canyon Commentary, author Scott Thybony takes a drive through New Mexico while contemplating cattle drives and fresh-baked pies.
Some of us can drive down an empty highway through wide-open country and feel right at home. Each winter I used to take Route 60 east of Springerville, Arizona, where it stretches out to the vanishing point without a car in sight. The road follows an old cattle trail that covered more than a hundred miles to the railhead at Magdalena, New Mexico.
Cowboy historian Tony Norris, who has a knack for telling a story with a song, first gave me an appreciation for the trail. “The trip,” he said, “was a coming of age experience for young Mormon cowboys. Many a worried mother watched her child head out with the family herd, praying he would return safely from the dangers of the trail and the temptations of that rough cowtown called Magdalena.”
While covering those long miles at highway speeds I would remember his story of a mother who watched as her son disappeared down the trail and never returned. Years went by with no word from him, and whenever a strange car would pull up to the ranch her eyes would light up hoping her missing boy had come home.
Another cowboy, Evans Coleman, took a herd along the Magdalena Trail in 1895. One evening about sundown he reached camp suffering from a pain so intense he was unable to eat or sleep. The trail boss diagnosed it as an acute case of “mud fever.” He dug out a bottle of Triple-H Liniment, good for “Man and Beast” the label said, and mixed it with hot water. The cowboy took his medicine without complaint. When he showed no improvement, the trail boss brewed up a stronger concoction. He figured if it didn’t ease the pain, it would come so close to killing him he wouldn’t noticed it any more. Despite the cure the patient survived.
In the middle of what could be mistaken for nowhere, the highway reaches Pie Town. And the place lives up to its name. Blueberry and pecan pies come fresh baked, and one cafe has a New Mexican apple pie with green chili and pine nuts for the more adventurous. On a trip with a few friends we stopped for lunch. The table next to ours was crowded with young women wearing dresses with a western flair and men in their best jeans. They appeared to be a wedding party except for an unusual fashion accessory. Each person, man and woman, wore a gunbelt and pistol leaving me wondering if we’d come upon a local variation of the shotgun wedding.
Continuing across the Continental Divide, the highway passes a former ranger cabin dating back to the 1930s. It now houses the Baldwin Cabin Public Library, one of the most isolated in the country. It lies west of Dead Horse Mesa and five miles from the town of Datil, population 16. In 1999 two women filled it with books so the local children would have something to read in summer when the school library was closed. It’s open for only nine hours a week, but my wife and I managed to slide in right before closing time.
We talked with Linn Kennedy, one of the founders, and she made an observation. Over the years she had learned that thieves don’t read. “We’ve been broken into four times. They took the woodstove, they took the firewood, and they took some videos. But we never had a book stolen.”
Farther east the old trail crosses the Plains of San Agustin, once a 30-mile waterless traverse. And it’s where traffic begins to feel congested, which might mean a car or two in the distance and maybe a pickup heading west. The novelist Jack Kerouac had his open road, but I’ll take this empty one.
Scott Thybony is a Flagstaff-based writer. His Canyon Commentaries are produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and air on the last Friday of each month.
