The Elusive (1)

The admirable  Maundering Mutterer wrote this morning about the origin of an urban (well, in her case farm) legend and it got me to considering past stories I have told. Now, I am almost certain I have never been present at the inception of an urban legend. In my time though, I have been the purveyor of some pretty apocryphal tales. I could never possibly recall all the untruths I've told. Further, I'm sure there are plenty of untruths that I've spoken in full faith and continue to believe as fact. I have a time and place in mind now, when and where, the liminality of truth and lie was such that I may have never told a truth, but never told only lies.

The Elusive: Truth

Yes it is cliche, but it pretty well describes the summer I spent guiding rafts in Colorado. I worked on one river, the Colorado, and on the Clear Creek.The former is beautiful, the latter exciting. Both historic, both powerful when waters are high, and understated when they run low. Everyday I absorbed sunlight. I think, at times, I tried to find depression out there. In lieu of it I found contented satisfaction, and a tan. It was remarkable, my PFD (Personal Flotation Device, or go ahead and call it a life-vest) tan. My shoulders were nearly black, my middle pale. I can't say it was attractive, reviewing pictures of that summer I wince a bit. The tan fit the position though. All of us, the guides for MAD adventures, had our own looks. We had bushy bearded mountain men (from South Jersey and Ohio), and city slickers out to corral the tameless waters (who hailed from Grand County, CO). And let me not forget girls, our duo of fantastic female raft guides. We all had our looks. We looked like guides. We needed the trust that look would inspire in our commercial crews. The Upper Colorado and Clear Creek, the run through Idaho Springs to Kermitt's, are generally tame. But, in case of emergencies, in the name of safety, we needed our crews to believe we had the asnwers. My PFD tan, well, it was trustworthy.
          That never meant that I knew what I was talking about. I knew what I was doing, but, again, the stretches of water I worked were not ferocious. I had time to fill, time in which to entertain, with speech and stories. If customers asked I might talk about myself. I told the truth then, unless the questions were about my experience.
          "3 years" was my standard response "3 consecutive, 4 if you count my rookie year. I took a break. Trekked around New Zealand." The New Zealand part is true. The great deceit was my experience. In my life I've spent only one summer on the rivers. Again, I built trust. I lied, certainly, flat out fabricated time. But when calm on the river dove to chaos, calm only returned if my crew would listen to. With 4 years on a raft they would listen, with only a part of one I could never be certain enough. So I learned to tell this lie, and tell it well, because I needed to.
          I should not undersell myself and my colleagues here, we knew a lot. When we saw the Bald Eagles perched, fierce, confident, and inspiring, on the pinion pines, or the bare, dead, tree after the eddy before eye-opener (the first rapid on our Upper Colorado run), we knew what to say: that they were a couple, that they mated for life, that their nest was large, that they would steal prey from the talons of a Red-Tail Hawk. One incredible clear day during a mostly wet and cold training, we saw that happen. We knew to spot the other birds too, the Golden Eagles and red winged black birds, the geese (ever present that animal) and mallards, and the occasional Heron gliding low along the water. We knew a beaver dam when we saw it, and those most innocent looking water features that would kill. We knew to never jump into the river after a dog. The dog will survive, they usually do, you may not be so lucky.Earlier that season a fisherman, in waders, without a PFD, followed his dog into a rapid called Mary's Wall. The dog found land about hundred yards after where the canyon opened up and the current eased. Water filled the fisherman's waders and pulled him under; his body surfaced three weeks later, four miles down-river.
          We never told that story about Mary's wall, never. But Mary's wall did have a history that we always told, or rather a few good histories. The rapid is no more than a big, old, hole next to a few hundred feet of cliff face. It can be dangerous, fisherman story point and case, but with oars or a good paddle boat it is easy to navigate and ends up in a soaking, satisfying, wave. It is a beautiful section of sandstone canyon where, in the middle of the western sidewall, a giant red-brick V shape spreads to the upper edge. There were three basic stories the rest of the guide crew and I told about the wall.

           *The Union Pacific Railroad runs alongside the Colorado River on its way through the Rocky Mountains. That stretch of track crosses over Mary's Wall.

           1.   The Basic: Mary, a hardy, but gentle, daughter of pioneers occupied a small log cabin in the valley above and behind the western canyon. Union Pacific bought her off the land and laid down track across it. In reverence to woman and her family (the surname of which was broadly German and difficult to pronounce) the Grand County locals named the landmark wall Mary's Wall.

            2:   The treacherous: Mary, a hardy, stubborn, fiery woman lived in a cabin on the land. She hunted Mountain Lions at night and subsisted on river water, cottonwood leaves, and the muscle and blood of wild turkeys. Union Pacific tried to take her land. In response, by cover of darkness, on an rare overcast April night, Mary sprinkled arsenic into a flour barrel of the Union Pacific Representative's camp. Four of five died. The fifth took the news to Denver. Less than a week later ten loaded rifles shot simultaneously through Mary's Windows.The locals heard thunder on a clear night. Mary's cabin was dismantled and burned, her body buried, alongside the four men she killed, deep within the bricks of Mary's wall.

            3:   The scandalous: Mary was a gruff, hard drinking, dark haired beauty. When her husband, a determined, fool hardy, silver prospector went into the western hills and vanished, she sustained herself with month long spells in Leadville, Frisco, and Idaho Springs, drawing Faro, flirting with gamblers, and selling drinks. She spent her off months in her cabin by the river fishing and, so the locals said, turning tricks for the odd passing cowboy. She fought when Union Pacific took her land, but they got it. So Mary she brokered a deal to stay. She brought in girls whose acquaintance she'd made working the boomtown bars and casinos. The railroad men built her cabin a second story with bedrooms and added a beer & liquor closet to the first. She became known as Madame Mary and at her cabin, the workers spent their nights. When work on the track was done, and the rapid current of men turned to a trickle, Mary remained. The railroad's brick in the canyon wall she named after herself.

             For different customer's we told different stories. We used discretion with boats of children, and spiced it up with boats full of bachelors. No matter the crew though, we never knew the truth. Mary's wall supported the railroad. Freight trains passed by daily. Some days the Amtrak passenger train, the California Zephyr, hours or even days behind schedule, would pass over Mary's Wall as well.
            There is a saying around the business that one can tell a raft guide is lying because he, or she, opens their mouth. I suppose that is not entirely untrue.