“Geronimo!” Sid tells her that they have to see Geronimo’s grave. “Geronimo!” It’s what kids yell when they jump off something. He still yells it when he’s about to dive in over his head, and now facing the Wild West… Geronimo! The warrior’s legend lives on. His spirit is certainly around, but as far as his grave is concerned, are Geronimo’s bones still there? Pat doesn’t insist on a route or even suggests that they skip something though it may make more sense to go another way. She doesn’t dare say how she feels or that she hasn’t lost anything in Texas. He sets aside a whole day for Texas’ Grand Canyon, and she doesn’t mind because she gets to take a shower. Then after they cross into New Mexico and are finished with the stark, plaintiveness of the Panhandle. This part of Texas is flat, really flat so flat that it seems to take hours to get to grain elevators or water towers after they emerge from the horizon. Pat concedes that the stop in the canyon is well worth it. She passively supposes that she wouldn’t have made it across Texas without a shower. But Sid has a new destination in mind, and Pat with her usual reluctance falls in line. She doesn’t trust him and hasn’t for a long time. She really doesn’t think that they can see the Trinity Site (where the world’s first nuclear device was exploded on July 16, 1945), nor is interested in someday developing cancer because of a whim of Sid’s.
Only first, as with Geronimo’s grave, Sid has to see where Billy the Kid is buried (one of two or three graves with his name on it and depending on who you believe). Pat says nothing; she knows better. Mercifully, Ft. Sumner isn’t out of the way, but Sid insists on looking for the graves of other outlaws, while she’s bored and hot, and he finds the graves of Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, both killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett’s posse. Then Sid has to go to Lincoln and spend time there reliving the Lincoln County War. That takes them through Roswell, extraterrestrial Roswell, and then when they get to Lincoln he promises not to be too long. So he leaves her in the shade of a tree, while he explores the main street or highway, which means he reads every historical mark about the war…as if he’ll remember it all. Then of course, it’s fool hearted to think they can get to the Trinity site, but when they pass Smoky the Bear’s birthplace Sid doesn’t know it. Indeed, along the highway there’s no marker or turnoff to the test site (or they miss it), only a tiny store at Bingham about halfway between Carrizozo and San Antonio, a full day in the saddle for them. As a way of compensation, Sid goes into the store and buys a “mushroom cloud” T-shirt, which he’s incline to wear all the time. For Pat, an unexpected victory comes in Magdalene when she spies the rock formation called Lady on the Mountain before her husband does, and he can’t help but gorge on pie in Pietown…incidentally Pat scores another one here because he should know better. Yes, of course.
Sid remains in the dark about these small victories because she doesn’t hit him over the head with them: as well as other victories, such as riding out of Salt River Canyon in Arizona without stopping. He doesn’t quite understand why she does it. And at the top, she rides on without stopping and leaves him sitting there beside the highway thinking she’s pissed. “But why?” He doesn’t know the answer and doesn’t know why it’s suddenly important to her. He doesn’t see or maybe he doesn’t want to. But it makes as much sense as choosing to go down and up Salt River Canyon on bicycles, or having Nowhere as a destination. Nowhere, Arizona, a tiny village with a bar and a gas station, straddles Highway 93 a few miles south of Burro Creek, a rock hound heaven. And why Nowhere? Ask Sid. Nowhere, to him, is as good a destination as say Rattlesnake, Rye or Why, (other villages in Arizona). Now having conquered Salt River Canyon, they’re forced to go through Phoenix to get to Nowhere, unless they backtrack (up and down the Salt River Canyon again) to Flagstaff and follow a mountainous and round about way to Nowhere. Pat certainly prefers it to going through or getting killed in Phoenix. Except Sid has a rule about backtracking and doesn’t do it if he can help it. So she’s stuck, or is she?
He may someday perhaps learn. Although it’s highly unlikely. He’ll always tell people he enjoyed his ride across America. He doesn’t know what she’d say.
Randy Ford
