Nature Noir

by Jordan Fisher Smith

  "Oh?"

  "So if you want to collect fees, don't bother coming here on the morning of the first Thursday of the month," he said, putting the Jimmy in drive. We left the canyon, headed back to our office.

  Back in the ranger station's kitchen, O'Leary chewed a takeout taco he had picked up on our way back through Auburn and absorbed himself in a paperback Louis L'Amour cowboy novel. I studied him in silence, munching sandwiches I had brought from home. When he finished, he wiped his beard with a paper napkin, put the book away in one of the kitchen cabinets, and walked outside into the covered alleyway between the kitchen and what had been a walk-in cooler, now used for storage. I heard the raspy click of his cigarette lighter. When he finished his cigarette, we got back into the Jimmy and headed for Cherokee Bar.

  Cherokee Bar was on the south side of the Middle Fork, about twelve miles upstream of the dam site and four hundred feet beneath the dam's high-water line. It took about forty minutes to drive there from our office. Given a vehicle with decent ground clearance and traction, you could have reached Cherokee Bar from the gilt-domed state capitol in Sacramento in an hour and a half. But somewhere in between, the normative influence of the capitol and its laws was exhausted. In those days the situation at Cherokee Bar resembled those peculiar 1970s Westerns in which the bad guys all looked like armed rock-and-roll musicians.

  We crossed the North Fork canyon into El Dorado County, headed east toward Georgetown, and then turned off the main road onto a smaller one, up a gully into the pines. Three and a half miles out the pavement expired. We lurched into a muddy wash surrounded by a thicket of blackberries and Scotch broom and then emerged onto the canyon rim. A meek little state park boundary sign stood to the left of the road, thoroughly ventilated with bullet holes. A thousand feet below, the rapids of the lower Middle Fork glittered in the afternoon sun. From there the road got better, but the improvement was temporary, and three miles farther we rattled down a last precipitous switchback onto Cherokee Bar.

  Cherokee was a large sandbar on the inside of a slow bend in the Middle Fork. In front of us the road petered out into multiple sets of vehicle tracks across an expanse of beach, shimmering with heat. In the distance along the water's edge, thickets of willow and a few cottonwoods and alders formed oases of shade. The only other refuge from the withering sunlight was a narrow strip of overhanging live oaks along the canyon wall. In their shade, to our right, stood an outhouse coated with that chocolate-brown paint park maintenance workers use on everything. The outhouse was riddled with bullet holes. On its far side was a campsite: a couple of old pickup trucks parked next to some piles of dredge parts, two wall tents, and a large blue plastic tarpaulin strung between them as an awning. Underneath the latter was a fireplace made of stones, around which were arranged a few threadbare aluminum lawn chairs and a couple of ice chests.

  "They owe us," said O'Leary, steering toward the camp.

  Before we got closer than seventy-five feet, two dogs, a massive Great Dane and a hulking mongrel, emerged from the campsite and charged us, barking furiously. I looked at O'Leary. He sighed and stopped the truck. The dogs circled us, barking and snarling through the open windows. O'Leary didn't look particularly alarmed. Apparently this was normal.

  A man in his early thirties appeared from the campsite and ambled toward us, yelling at the dogs. His long brown hair was tied in a ponytail down his back. He wore a broad-brimmed cowboy hat over a red muscle T-shirt. His jeans were stuffed into cowboy boots. From a cowboy gun belt festooned with bullets around his waist hung a holster containing a huge, long-barreled revolver. The holster was tied to his lower thigh with a leather thong, gunfighter-style.

  One fundamental of all parks, state and national, is that they exist to preserve wildlife. Further, parks are used intensively by hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, and boaters, and this kind of recreation is generally inconsistent with gunfire. Most park system regulations are designed to promote civility between users and make casual visitors feel at ease. So, not surprisingly, it's illegal to walk around wearing a pistol at almost every park in the United States—outside of Alaska, where subsistence hunting is common and some people feel the need to have a ready defense against grizzly bear attack.

  When an armed man approaches you on foot, you don't stay in your patrol car. Perhaps counterintuitively, two armed men in a stationary motor vehicle are no match for a single man on foot. Wedged between your seat, dashboard, steering wheel, and doors, you make a fatally predictable target. It's surprisingly difficult to draw your weapon from the type of holsters we use when seated in a vehicle. If you do manage to get your gun out, seated facing forward, your field of fire is extremely limited. You are entirely visible to your opponent through the glass, but fire a single round from your own gun through one of those windows and immediately you will be deafened, and your aim may be warped by the bullet's impact with the glass. And the thin steel of an automobile body affords little actual protection from modern firearms fired from outside. You had better get out.

  I watched O'Leary for a signal. He sat quietly with both hands on the steering wheel, watching the man with vague interest as the latter approached his open window. The Great Dane and the huge mongrel raced back and forth from one side to the other, pawing at the doors. Arriving at O'Leary's window, the miner grabbed at the Dane, and I saw his shoulder jerk as the animal strained against his grasp on its collar. It was still barking furiously.

  "Buck! Shut the fuck up!" the miner yelled down at the dog.

  "How you doing today?" O'Leary said casually to him. The dog whimpered. The other one was over at my window, showing me its teeth.

  "Okay, I guess," the miner replied to O'Leary. "What's goin' on?" Now both dogs were barking again.

  "Buck! Moocher! No!" the miner yelled, swatting at the Dane below O'Leary's window.

  O'Leary reached for a clipboard between us on which he recorded who had paid and who hadn't. He showed it to the miner. "Seems like you haven't given us any camp fees for a while."

  "Yeah," replied the miner. "I was gonna take care of that, but my check hasn't come yet. Scott went up to Georgetown to get our mail. Maybe you can come back."

  As this exchange took place I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I couldn't see the gun or the miner's right hand. It just didn't seem dignified to offer ourselves up for slaughter like this. Even if things remained friendly and the gun never came out, we were at a conversational disadvantage, because everyone knew we were in no tactical position to make any demands.

  "Well, let's get this taken care of or you'll have to leave pretty soon," O'Leary was saying to the miner. He reached for the gearshift on the column. The miner nodded and stepped back, and O'Leary turned the Jimmy toward the river. The gunman watched us for a moment, then began trudging back to his campsite. Turned loose, Buck made one more charge, barking at our rear bumper, then bounded after his master.

  Down along the riverbank, we found another camp. Nearby, in the river, two men were running a suction dredge. The dredge was like a small barge on two metal pontoons about ten feet in length. On its deck were mounted a gasoline engine driving a powerful water pump and a sloping aluminum trough. One wet-suited miner was working face-down in the water as we drove up, his mask supplied with air by a small hose from another pump on the dredge's deck. He was maneuvering a much larger, ribbed hose like a giant vacuum cleaner along the river bottom, sucking up rocks and sand. The other man stood on deck watching the material the first miner sucked up rattle down the trough and back into the water, where it formed a muddy plume downstream. Apparently the gold had a way of settling out behind ridges in that trough. The motor and the rattle of the stones made an unholy din. When the miner on deck saw us coming, he yanked on one of the hoses, and when the other surfaced he shut the machine off. The two men waded ashore to meet us. I noted with satisfaction that they were armed with only diver's knives.

  O'Leary got out of the Jimmy and collected some damp dollar bills. T
hen he asked to see their dredge permit. One of the men produced a plastic bag containing some dog-eared papers. O'Leary removed the papers, looked at them cursorily, then handed them to me: a form filled out in blue ink, bearing the imprint of the California Department of Fish and Game, stapled to a few pages of regulations. I gave them back to O'Leary, who gave them to the miners. We thanked them and left.

  I looked over at O'Leary as we drove up the beach. "Ron, why does Fish and Game—part of our own Resource Agency—issue permits to dredge for gold here if it's illegal to use even a hand tool like a shovel to disturb a riverbank under our own laws?"

  O'Leary sighed. "Welcome to Auburn" was all he said.

  We approached the bottom of the road up the canyon wall.

  I looked over at him again. "Aren't we going to do anything about the gun?"

  "You can if you want to," he answered.

  "Okay then, I will," I said.

  O'Leary glanced at me through his aviator sunglasses—questioningly, I thought—then turned the Jimmy toward the first camp. I called in the contact on the radio, then flipped the switch to public address. "Mr. Fowler," I announced through the speaker on our front bumper, reading the man's name on O'Leary's campsite registration sheet. "Could you please tie your dogs up in camp and come meet us here when you're finished?"

  The miner appeared from behind one of the tents, still armed. He shrugged his shoulders and lifted both palms, questioningly.

  "Just tie them up, please," I repeated through the PA.

  The miner called the dogs and busied himself rummaging for ropes and making them fast between the dogs' collars and the trailer hitch on one of his trucks. When he finished, he crossed the sand toward us with a pained expression. I got out and faced him from the other side of our vehicle's hood, where the engine block afforded some cover if I needed it. He looked at me warily.

  "Is there a problem?" he asked, arriving at the Jimmy.

  I stepped toward him to stand directly to his right, within reach of his gun hand.

  "Could you put that gun on the hood for me?"

  "Why? Is there a problem?" His face darkened.

  "You've got a gun."

  His eyes narrowed. "So? I haven't done anything illegal."

  "You can't carry it in this or any other state park campground," I replied.

  "This is a state park? No way!" said the miner. "Where's the sign? I thought this was just the American River. Anyway, it's never been a problem before—like when you were just here a few minutes ago."

  He had a point, but you've got to start somewhere, I thought. Beads of sweat were breaking out on my face. O'Leary was out of the Jimmy now, but said nothing.

  "Look, just put the gun on the hood, then we'll talk," I told him.

  He gave me a don't-you-ever-turn-your-back-on-me look, then slowly unholstered the gun and clunked it down on the hot green steel of the truck's hood. I moved for it, swiftly but with studied nonchalance. Once it was in my grasp, I spun the cylinder and dumped the ammunition. It was loaded with six .357 hollow-points.

  "Could I get some ID?" I asked him.

  He gave me a defiant look as he handed me his driver's license. I called in a warrants check on him and ran a stolen-gun check. Miner and gun were clear, so I began filling out a citation. When I finished, I turned my citation book toward him.

  "What the hell is this for?" he asked. "I haven't done anything wrong, and I told you I'd pay you next time you come. You don't have to be a prick about it."

  "Your dogs are off the leash. You're carrying a gun. It's a state park."

  "The hell it is—I know better than that. It's a dam site." The man looked at O'Leary and his tone changed. "Hey, Ron—you know us. Tell your rookie to leave me alone."

  "Just sign the ticket. It's not my call," O'Leary growled through his beard. It was plain he wasn't enjoying himself. I couldn't tell if he was more irritated at the miner, or at me for disturbing his peace.

  Turning back to the miner, I continued. "You have been cited into Georgetown court; your appearance date is—"

  "You can bet I'll be there," he snapped back. He snatched the citation book and the pen I proffered out of my hands. "See you in court, asshole!"

  He scrawled his name across the bottom of the ticket and thrust the book at me, poking me in the chest with it. I tore off his copy and handed it to him. He wadded it into his pocket. "Now give me back my gun," he demanded.

  "Well, that's not exactly what's happening today," I replied. "I've taken your gun as evidence. If you have no prior felonies, you can ask the judge to release it back to you. Then we'll give you back the gun."

  The miner gave me a withering stare, then turned and stalked back toward his campsite. The dogs barked happily. We got back in the Jimmy. I put the gun in the back seat. We pitched and rattled back up Sliger Mine Road. For the rest of the drive to the ranger station O'Leary didn't say much.

  Back at our compound I found Steve MacGaff working at his desk. I told him I'd seized a gun, and I asked him where the evidence lockers were and who the evidence custodian was.

  "Come with me," he said, getting up.

  I followed him back out the door and up to the mess hall. He led me into the back room to a row of gray gym lockers and unlocked a cheap padlock on one of them. Inside were three things: a chrome-plated semiautomatic pistol, an empty beer can around which was wrapped a rubber band holding a scrap of paper with a citation number scrawled on it, and a crumpled paper lunch bag containing several pop-bottle rockets.

  "You can put it in here," he said. "And you can be our evidence custodian."

  Maybe a ranger career is in trouble as soon as you have one.

  In the beginning you just have a job. You work seasonally. Most of the rangers you see in national or state parks are seasonals—in national parks, even a lot of the rangers with guns are. These men and women have put themselves through law enforcement academies and emergency medical technician courses at their own expense and on their own time. Seasonals jump out of helicopters into forest fires and rappel down cliffs to save stranded climbers. Most of them have no retirement plans or medical benefits. But the good ones are so highly sought after that they can have their pick of the most glorious forms of employment on earth: they rock climb for the government in the Grand Tetons and Yosemite Valley, scuba dive on government time in the Everglades and Channel Islands, and go whitewater rafting and kayaking in the Grand Canyon on government per diem.

  They—we, for I was one of them before I went to the American River—keep their packs, climbing gear, sleeping bags, wetsuits, and milk crates full of dehydrated food in a van or a pickup with a cargo shell at the park's migrant-worker housing. In the summer they work as wilderness rangers or fight fires in the mountains. In the winter they migrate to the desert or the beaches, or work ski patrol and avalanche control at ski areas.

  But after a few years of this, you realize you aren't getting anywhere and have no job security, and you start looking for a permanent job. Before, as a senior seasonal, you could have your choice of assignments. Now, as a junior permanent, you're back at the bottom of the heap. So you gladly take what you can get. Then, to get back to the kind of places that were the whole point of rangering in the first place, you begin to make calculated moves instead of moves of the heart. That's when the trouble begins.

  Edward Abbey, writing of his experiences at Arches National Monument in the early 1960s in that greatest of all ranger books, Desert Solitaire, eschewed permanent employment. The poet Gary Snyder, who at once formed and echoed the environmental ethic of a generation, worked for the National Park Service on seasonal trail crews in the Sierra and as a seasonal fire lookout in the North Cascades. Under Snyder's influence, Jack Kerouac later took a Cascade lookout job too. Neither man probably ever considered going permanent. As I write this, Snyder is an old man and Kerouac is long dead, but you can still see their North Cascades from Sourdough Mountain. Abbey is dead, but the Arches National Monument he loved lives o
n. By 1986, however, Ron O'Leary, Steve MacGaff, Doug Bell, Sherm Jeffries, Dave Finch, and I were all permanent rangers on a temporary river. For most of us, our career prospects ended when we went there. The Auburn Dam site wasn't the kind of place that looked good on a resume. The department preferred to think of its rangers chatting with families in neat little picnic grounds or giving wildflower walks. Most of us were never promoted again. What we did there mattered only to us, and to the river.

  I never saw the career development plan Bell gave to MacGaff. But one day the following winter I heard the table saw running up in the metal-roofed workshop at the top of our compound. Stepping in through the big sliding doors out of the rain, I saw a fire crackling in the oil-drum woodstove. In the middle of the room Bell was cutting pieces of plywood. Some were already assembled nearby. He was making birdhouses, but they were much larger than normal. I asked him what he was up to.

  "Duck houses," he said, "for my career development plan."

  A few months later I was walking the shoreline of one of the ponds on the headwaters of Knickerbocker Creek when I came upon several of Bell's boxes nailed to pine trees. By then I knew what they were: nest boxes to encourage wood ducks—the most exquisitely gaudy waterfowl ever seen in the American River country, with their lemon yellow, cinnamon, white, and shimmering green and blue feathers and multicolored cloisonné bills—to settle and raise their young at our ponds. I didn't get too close for fear of disturbing the occupants, but later when I asked him, Bell told me that a couple of duck families had accepted his invitation.

  In a way I wish that had been my project, for it was all about birds instead of laws and lawbreakers. Bell also ran the boat-in campground at Lake Clementine, and he later became a prolific builder of hiking and riding trails. The trails and the nest boxes were Bell's signature: Faced with all the malevolence of humankind and their dam, he still genuinely liked people, but he much preferred to deal directly with the land and its creatures.