Ranch Therapy

For a few months I worked on a ranch in West Texas. No, not Lubbock or Midland, but real West Texas as the locals liked to say. Of course, the Oklahoma panhandle is west to most of the country. To the rest it’s three counties devoid of any directional significance whatsoever. There’s always a further compass heading. Fruitless, it seems, to argue over four corners of a world we never owned in the first place.

On the ranch, I guided hikers, mountain bikers, ATV-riders, big-game hunters, birders, skeet shooters, target rangers, archeologists, cameramen, actors, directors, professional pigeon killers and other forms of recreationalists, hobbyists, vacationers, nomads, and adventure-seekers. What I was, myself, was looking for a job when I found this one. As my boss liked to say, “I rode that pony till she bucked me.”

One of my chores included taking guests on a jacked-up, decked-out, late 90’s military Humvee up a long, jagged trail to a 6,000-foot overlook in the Chinati Mountain range. I didn’t know West Texas had mountains before I arrived, but they do and they’re surprisingly indelible. Growing up I watched movies and read novels pitching Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, and even Idaho as top-runners for open spaces and the last frontier. West Texas fit the bill better than any of them.

It may have been my low expectations. I wasn’t there trying to find some lost Eden. I was there to pay my bills. Before I left, I applied for jobs ranging from realtor to dog catcher to furniture assembler. All but one of them hired, and the one that did didn’t pay well enough to stay. There were other reasons. But they say you need to stop thinking about a problem in order to fix it. And if you can’t stop thinking about it, you need to distract yourself with something to keep your mind occupied. Turns out ranch work is about as good as it gets for that prescription.

I discussed some of this with the passengers as I steered them along the gradual, four-hour loop across the ranch. They came from all backgrounds and vocation, from all over the county and few outside of it. They sat high in the massive U-shaped ring seating, custom installed with ice chests, cup holders, and gun racks. It looked like a diamond plated hot tub with handrails and the passengers leaned back as if they were indeed half submerged in calming water. Except when I hit a big rock, then they’d lurch forward and curse the back of my head with their eyeballs. I tried to go slow and even if they tried to warn me, I couldn’t hear them because the engine was so loud. So, I just nodded if any of their lips moved in my direction. Most of the time it seemed to work. Anything serious was illustrated by one of them lifting off of their seat and holding their hat as they yelled into the side of my ignorant face. Nobody fell off, and sometimes we’d go a full week without one of the two Humvee’s breaking down.

The country was spectacular to almost everyone. The people that didn’t get too worked up were locals. But even they couldn’t help but take in all that surrounded them. There were long running ridges spiked with cactus, thickets, and buffalo grass. There were canyons undiscernible until on top of. Huge agave plants loomed like sentinels stamped in time. Yucca, chola, prickly pear, and more all reached out and waved with pointed fingertips. If there had been recent rain the ground soaked it up and turned a pale green, the hint of a sweet dirt musk lingering long after. If no rain had come the country was brown and arid but still beautiful because the sky was giant and ocean watered. Clouds like battleships eked across in search of some harbour not existing on this planet. And I just drove. It felt good. The sun on my skin, all that open space around me, wild animals aplenty. It was exactly what I needed at a time when I didn’t think I deserved anything.

And the animals. They appeared suddenly and without warning. Even when you didn’t see them you knew they were there, like characters of a recurring dream waiting for you to close your eyes. There were buffalo, mule deer, elk, fallow deer, scimitar oryx, barbary sheep, Coues deer, axis deer, javelina, wild hogs, African antelope, pronghorn, badgers, coyotes, blue quail, fox, and God knows what else. Mountain lions, for one, but I never saw one in person. Tracks, sure. Black bear too. I may not have been looking for Eden, and at least half of the animals were placed there by the hand of man instead of the hand of God, but it felt like the place I’d always been looking for. I only had to leave everything I cared about to find it.

One day, I picked up a couple from Houston. It was only them, no other guests signing up for the tour that morning. I waited for them in what they called the bodega – a tall porch connected to the main interior of the Spanish Fort where the guests had their breakfast. The fort had been renovated by a billionaire war hero who rubbed elbows with the president, poured cocktails for supreme court judges and private sector millionaires. He was tall, well dressed, spoke in discerning arcs, and always carried himself with purpose and direction. He seemed to like me well enough, but I always wondered what he thought of a thirty-something year old with three kids driving 1,300 miles for a paycheck. The truth is probably that he didn’t think about it. He had a job opening and I filled it.

Soon the guests walked out. He was dark complected and smooth faced, mid-fifties with broad shoulders and blue eyes. She was brunette, long, sunglasses, busty, light complected and confident. When the man shook my hand, he smiled and seemed to mean it. The woman stayed back a little. She was friendly, but also guarded. He was clearly the talker of the duo and soon we were chatting about his architecture business in Houston. He told a story about designing something for Matthew McConaughey. The woman looked away like she’d heard it all before, and yet, they seemed so comfortable around one another. They were unlike so many married couples I’d taken, unlike my own toward the end. They were...relaxed. They touched each other often. He called her baby. She reached out for his hand, and he took it whenever she did. It was beautiful without being obnoxious. But there was something else. They’d been through something, came out the other side. They had perspective, wisdom even, and they wore it like a calming shroud.

“So, what brings you two out here.”

“We’re celebrating,” the man said. His name was Michael.

“Oh yeah?” I responded torpidly, small talk long difficult for me to bear.

“We both received clean bills of health.”

            It’s interesting what people volunteer. It seems to go one of two ways. They’re either an open book or a closed one. For the first, there seems to be something about open skies and wild animals that opens their pages. Sentences and paragraphs that aren’t spoken to 15 year colleagues are suddenly read out loud to a bearded mountain guide with an easy smile. Maybe it’s because they think they’re never going to see me again. But I think it’s more than that, something I’ve seen again and again in the outdoors. There is no psychiatrist as inviting as mother nature.

            For the latter, they’re tougher cookies to crack. Maybe they’re quiet by default. Maybe their retreat is silence. Certainly, the canyon vistas and rugged landscape beg your full attention. Maybe they’re just hungover. But even the quiet ones come around by the end of the ride, if only to say thank you with eyes that hold on a few extra seconds, something they didn’t do when you first picked them up.

            Michael belonged to group one. His wife, Lisa, group two. Opposites attract and all that. I soaked in his answer, didn’t know if he wanted to elaborate.

“Well, congratulations,” I said.

            He looked off to the south with his arm around Lisa, his eyes hidden under grey shades, his chin strong.

“I was diagnosed with testicular cancer 8 months ago. Lisa was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a month after that. Both went through chemo. The whole thing. I got a cancer free diagnosis 3 ½ weeks ago. Lisa got hers 6 days ago. We booked this trip as soon as she hung up the phone with the doctor.”

            I was floored. I could not imagine the weight of that news. My own body began to feel heavy. My shoulders seemed to deflate. I had begun to like this guy since I met him, had felt that connection between men in the mountains about to do mountain things. And now this confession. A celebration of life. A celebration of today that could easily not have been. I immediately appreciated him for his frankness, felt gutted for both of their hardships.

“Michael, I’m sorry. And I’m so happy to hear you’re both cleared. I can’t imagine.”

“Son, life comes at you in ways you never imagine. That’s for sure. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing.”

            We bounced along the three-pin curve before the sharp incline to the lookout. Off to my left I caught movement. A band of Aoudad bounded away from a watering hole, the lambs and ewes in front, a large ram in the back.

“Look there,” I said excitedly.

“Oh, honey, look!”

            Lisa stood up, now the vocal one.

“Oh my. Look at those things. So beautiful. Look at them run up that hill. Look at them go!”

Michael remained quiet. Now, his book was closed. Or more likely, he was writing new pages. The African imports bounded away in bunny hops and boulder dashes that dissipated into the sweating menagerie of the Chihuahuan desert.

            We continued up to the top. The Humvee rocked and slipped over a gravel bed a hundred yards long. Michael and Lisa held each other like high-schoolers. I watched them in the rearview mirror. What difficulty they must have endured. How paltry my problems were compared to theirs. Every single outlook in life is changed by the angle in which you view it. I couldn’t see the road now that I had rounded the corner. Now, my only view was narrow and rocky, a steep hill to climb in a vehicle that could break down at any second. But from the top, I knew everything would open up. The sky would clear and the world would seem hopeful. We would get there. Was it not the same mountain? Was not everything, then, a matter of where you were on the trail and the direction you decided to point your eyes and heart?

            We reached the top. It was a long bench plateau that put us looking back at the resort below. There were sheer cliffs under our feet. To the south a slot canyon with no bottom in sight. To the north a series of spires and boulder piles, small ridges, and chutes all gathering to one prominent peak. It was Chinati, the top of the range, towering over all creation. Below it the world fell away and ran like a melting glacier sprinkled entirely with dust and thorn. Cibolo creek trickled down a gully that looked drawn in sharp pencil. Further, on the horizon that did not stop retreating into a dizzying abyss of smokey blue, was the beginning of Big Bend National Park. Then Mexico. The end of a nation, the beginning of another. All of it told there in front us over decades of toil, war, love, and tragedy, all of it buried in the sand or blown away by it. Cattle dotted the hillsides. A group of 6 scimitar oryx fed along the north fenceline, their bright white capes easily discernable but still small enough to miss with a sweeping eye.

“Kids?”

            He was looking at Chinati. Lisa stood on the other side of him, her arms crossed. She was looking at it too.

“3 daughters,” I said.

“Divorced?”

            Was it that obvious?

“Yes sir.”

“How long ago?”

“Not very long.”

            The two of them stood looking outward. I’d been asked these questions before. What the hell is this guy doing out here in the middle of nowhere, they all seemed to say. Does he not have a family? Why is he here?

“2nd marriage for both of us. It’s the only way to go. The first one you figure out what not to do. You take everything so seriously. On the 2nd one you learn not to sweat the small stuff. You learn not to take anything for granted.”

“It’s just easier,” Lisa added, her voice unwavering, her stance as strong as the wind that blew her long hair behind her shoulders. “You just enjoy life. You communicate, but not too much. You have your own life, but you share it with your partner because you want to. Because you love them. And cancer? After cancer you just know. This…everything you see…it’s a gift. And you only get it once. I used to get so worked up over the most ridiculous things. Now…”

            She trailed off as she stood peering at the mountain top. She held Michael’s hand. They were so in love with one another. Anyone could see it. She did not care when he spoke about his ex in front of her. He did not mind when she challenged him on a misspoken word, a detail misremembered. They were whatever they were. They’d been through cancer. Together. And now they were here. Living in the bonus round. Aren’t we all?

            Michael walked around the lookout, out of sight toward the cliff drop off. There were cuts you could traverse, little ruptures and crevasses the Aoudad used to scale this vertical paragon. We’d already stopped twice on the way up.

“He has to go all the time now. One of the conditions.”

            I thought of what that must be like. I thought of how I needed to take better care of myself. I thought of drinking gallons of cranberry juice, or taking supplements. Why do we only think about our health in the face of losing it?

            He arose from the divot of rock, walked slowly but confidently over to Lisa, put his arm around her shoulder. She put hers around his waist. I felt as though I had been allowed into their secret circle.

“Matt. Let me give you some advice.”

“Ok.”

“Use your pecker every chance you get.”

            I laughed and he smiled but it wasn’t really a punchline. He spoke with the vision of a man who’d been on both sides of a truth, both angles of a basic human function. While peering down from the ailing side of mortality he could now offer advice to the side of naivety.

If I’d only known then what I know now.

            After a while, we climbed back into the Humvee and finished the loop tour. They held each other tightly in the corner of the elevated backseat. Little was said. A Harris hawk circled us for a few turns before moving on in search of his next meal, probably a mouse or lizard. Mule deer watched us paranoid from brush-laden gullies and narrow alleyways in the rock. A covey of blue quail skittered in front of us on the dirt road, their tiny legs scurrying like mad, their necks craned, their white top knots vertical to the world in wild alertness. Then, behind the covey, a bobcat. I stopped suddenly, dust swarming us from behind, the smell of the diesel engine hot in my face, all of our bodies lurching forward.

“Holy shit! Look at that.”

            The couple rose and we watched the bobcat sneak low to the ground through the tangle of dried weeds and cacti. We had interrupted his hunt. He was long in the body, a little bobtail suffixing a beautiful cape of light brown pocked with black circles which seemed dipped in some mercurial paint that made him half invisible. The covey flushed, about a dozen birds. They dipped their wings like fighter jets, swooped daringly close to brush as they made their escape shooting onward to some destination they knew within their souls to be safe. The bobcat galloped for a short burst, then crested a washout and raised his back, the entirety of him sky-lined on display. He swiveled his head and looked at us. Our eyes met. They were wild. Black tufts spiked heavenward on the tips of both ears. His jowls curved underneath his chin, a few whiskers glistening momentarily in the blazing sun. He was no more than 50 yards away. All wild cats are elusive. I’ve only had a handful of encounters. This was the closest and I had never seen one in the middle of a stalk. One of my jobs on the ranch was to guide hunters. Here, I was watching a master. His future, like mine, depended on his ability to kill. He would be rewarded with sustenance, bloody and pulled straight from the bone. Mine would come from dollar bills and scraps. He would do whatever it took to stay alive. He would claw and fight and scavenge for his future. We both would.

“I’ve never seen one so close,” Lisa said.

            The bobcat looked north in the direction of the covey. Then he slinked away, his camouflage hide vanishing into a hallucination in the high desert.

“How do they live out here? How does he survive? So beautiful. Oh, what a beautiful animal.”

            I watched him go.

“You guys are lucky. That’s the first bobcat I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

            Michael remained stoic, his back against the light tan seat. Everything on the ranch seemed colored to match the landscape, both by design and wear and tear. Clothing faded after a few seasons. Paint jobs eroded with incessant sandblasting. This country took you in, absorbed you. If you stayed, you became it. I looked at Michael in the rearview mirror. He was watching me.

“You damn right we’re lucky, Matt.”

            He kissed the woman he loved then, and she kissed him back. I felt something like heartache and hope altogether. I put my hand to the starter switch, my foot on the brake. Just before I started the engine I heard something off in the distance. A pattering. A tussle. It sounded like a single quail faltering in the brush, its wings flapping against the dirt, a tiny squeal escaping minute lungs. I watched for sign, but there was nothing. Only the dirt and the cactus and the horizon. I looked to Michael for confirmation. Did he hear it? Did the bobcat find his dinner?

            But Michael wasn’t looking for wildlife anymore. The outside world could no longer satisfy his hunger. Michael was where all of us need to be, living precisely between life and death, his attention only on what was most important. Now. Today. And everything he had to hang on to.