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Draft Field Report-
El Ultraterrestre
Bikescouting Across the Rio Grande.
May-July, '04 With the light heart of a loose dog, i left Austin on a bike for remote Tex-Mex borderlands to refine such nomadic arts as Instant Friendship, finding chill Stealth Camps in twilight, staying comfortable and well fed with minimal cargo, swimming divers new rivers, pushing XC bike performance against 104° headwinds (secret- lots of salt to stay hydrated), gliding in moonlight, stalking and dodging storm supercells (playing Supercell Chicken) at ~18 mph. Below is my impression of such a storm, in pencil, ink, and watercolor.)
Omitted here is the description of lands already scouted and documented elsewhere.
On this trip i fell into a giant rabbit hole, the Kerrville Folk Festival- see Folk Monster. The folk fest lasted a month, so in the middle i left and first night out hit the stretch between Tuff and Vanderpool, the grandest Hill Country, under a full moon, and the toughest climbs, what glorious delirium! Outside Uvalde i made camp under the Neuces river bridge, bathed, and kindled a Tiny Fire to make soup. Probable undocumented immigrants were walking around in the moonlight. i called out invitations to share food, but the very strange sight of a streamlined mutant bike seemed to scare them, and they moved off. Oh well... next day i picked up trash and left some provisions behind for whoever. Everywhere you go along the border, there's the border patrol parked or tooling along slowly looking for tracks in the dust. They drag tractor tires to reset the dusty etch-a-sketch. The trick would be to jump unseen onto the drogue and ride it north. i struggle to nod or wave just a bit to these folks- to be friendly by default.
Next on the Mexico trail was historic Fort Clark Springs- What happened after the elderly Black Seminole Scouts' settlement contract was broken by the US and they were meanly driven from this hard earned paradise (1913)? How was notorious Brown and Root Co. then able to snap up the springs as "salvage" (!) (1947) and develop so insensitively? How did this oasis, this Temple of Nature end up as a private gated resort community under a Klan cross logo (white cross on red background) (1971)? i rode in, spent by June sun, passed the guard house directed to the campsite. Arriving there i dipped in the adjacent springs-fed human-clouded Las Moras creek and then was accosted by security due to a complaint about an "suspicious intruder" ("lurking for "hours"; maybe 1/2 hour; ice still present in a fountain drink biked in, air temp 101°). Being car-free, and Mexico-bound, i presented a passport for ID. This in itself was "pretty suspicious". The security scare got sorted out, but the historical questions still hang.
The next morning was cloudy; fast riding. i made Del Rio early, and, on a tip, found the headwaters of San Felipe Springs/Creek, a surprise; in childhood, passing thru, i had never seen them and thought the place barren. i pulled a truck tire out at an Elks retreat. Unlittering nature is one of our nomadic customs and a strong mitigating defense against wrongful criminal trespass prosecution. Texas is very hard to random camp or even just hang out, almost all the land is fenced and private. One may sleep anywhere along the highway. Bridges provide access to a semi public corridor, by a quirk of old frontier law. Avoid trespassing signs. Lay low and haul out litter.
Crossing into Mexico i drank the afternoon away with off-duty border officials. The new twist is how the old extortions morphed into citizen partnerships to evade federal domination. Today's bribes are discounted gratuities to avoid the formal levies of Mexico City. i was hooked up with the Green Angels, popular lords of highways to be scouted, which proved very useful in anticipating most of the death traps. Despite warnings, it was a shock to be rolling along a sci-fi Superhighway of Doom in a black dustbowl on an apocalyptic autopista of speeding giant trucks laden with strip-mined coal to gorge satanic power plants. A cyclist's hell; passing trucks billow hanging dust trails and flying coal chunks are a special, potentially fatal, hazard. In still air or downwind lane, biker beware; don helmet, goggles, and dust mask. i was lucky to be on the upwind side of the highway, minutes behind a rare rain shower, and still it was barely ridable. i partly held my breath while pedaling, squinting blue-faced, shirt pulled up over nose and mouth (collar mask trick). Its an irresistible extreme experience, an infernal sublime to be lived and resisted.
The distant Sierra del Burro grows out of the smog, demonic highway gives way to pleasant country roads, then pavement ends and a rocky lane wanders toward the mountains. This must be biked slow, the sun was very hot. There are three ejidos here against the Sierra del Burro- Black Seminole (Mascogo), Kickapoo, and a Mestizo community, Pancho Villa's direct heirs. These folks speak 2 or 3 languages and ride a horse or drive about equally. They are acutely aware of their respective storied pasts and love each other, but squabble passionately.
After a couple of hours i enter the Black Seminole village, score cold soda, meet the school teacher, and ride on to find the commisariado, Don Manuel. A child is commandeered to take me to the Mascogo elder, Henry Fay (as referred by Shirley Mock) This guy is amazing, the oldest elder raising kids as a single dad (wife deceased), cooking, and everything else, a Mr. Mom Vaquero. He was a most graceful host and answered many questions.
Next day i rolled over to the Kickapoo village and introduced myself to the "mayor" chief who delighted in explaining to another elder (passing on a bike) that i was a "contratista de la luna" there to hire Kickapoo for work on the moon, a notion made plausible by my streamlined puppet bike. i am struck by the gentleness and wry humor of the Kickapoo. The bike opens strange doors wide. Tourists, and journalists especially, are not welcome and mostly stay away.
Kickapoos began far to the north, near Canada and came to range from hot Tex-Mex climes to Montana, picking your vegetables as migrants. They have evolved an amazing architecture, the wickiup, a cat tail reed lodge superbly made and detailed. i listened to Henry Fay and a Mestizo elder jealously marvel how these lodges are cooler in summer and warmer in winter than any thing else. The village has dozens of these spacious marvels and its singular that they are unknown in their glory, given the tribal photo ban.
i drew the sketch below, from memory, on the return trip, and am grateful for the lessons that will inform some of my own building. One error was to label this a "summer lodge". This lodge is year around adapted for everything from sub arctic to neo tropic and the Kickapoo tend to reside here in the mild Mexican winter, the agro off season.
Snap-Shooters, Photo Opportunism, POParazzi- We bike circus folk are a magnet for the billions of cheap cameras carried by the masses. Returning from Mexico, on the last hill back into in Bandera (Bad Cop, No Donut!), a young SUV person pulled over, yanked out a little camera and snapped away. So cute she was, yet my face curdled into a sour mask, having so recently been in the Kickapoo no-photo zone. Then i felt bad and have resumed waving and smiling, yet support the Kickapoo position. Over centuries of struggle, the Kickapoo refined a noble concept, "Acculturation Without Assimilation" and the photo ban is a complimentary defense mechanism. Their astounding reed lodges, their faces, their spirits are so beautiful that mechanical copy profanes them. Its a paradox that this most-sharing-of-people draw this line, one must see directly to understand. 25 years ago in Mexico City, mi maestro, Vlady, taught me how an photo improves a bad painting and ruins a great one, a setback for Malraux's "museum without walls". The following lines appeared in my tired head, in cadence with my labored breathing and hi-cadence pedaling, and stuck-
Gringo must take picture,
Take picture, take picture.
Don't take picture,
Don't take picture.
Take my picture,
Take my spirit,
If you need it,
I'll make more! (repeat)
Thanks to Oscar Valdez, Ricardo Trevino, Patrick Suke, Fidel Roderiguez, and Juan Gonzales of the Kickapoo Tribe. Thanks to Henry Fay, Mascogo elder, Don Manuel, Comisariado, and Shirley Mock, ethnographer at ITC/SA. Thanks also to John and Lyly, Jaen and Estella, and many others who helped me on my way. The famed Angeles Verdes (Mexico's roadside assistance corps) promise to help our future caravans- Thanks to Angels Don Juvenal and Roderigo Menchaca Rosas who assisted my scouting for bikable highways from Cd. Acuňa and Piedras Negras.
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