Two Wheels on my Wagon

by Paul Howard

  At 6 p.m. there were still 25 miles ahead of us before we even made it to the road. Nightfall under clear skies was 10 p.m., but it already felt dark. Time was of the essence. Fortunately, the intensity of the rain seemed to help, creating rivulets through the mud down which we could ride. Perfumed by earlier trips into the sage scrub, and sweating profusely with the effort in spite of the driving rain, I felt like a stuffed chicken. All that was missing was the onion and breadcrumbs.

  At last the scenery began to change. We were now in what one might call ‘injun’ country: a limestone gorge, the flanks of which were replete with prominent bluffs and caves carved by an ancient river. Apart from the lamentable absence of native tribes it could scarcely have changed much since they were formed.

  As we finally spilled out of the gorge onto the paved road that would take us to Lima, I looked behind to read a sign we had just passed.

  ‘Road impassable when wet.’

  The pace had taken its toll. Even the prospect of eight smooth, flat miles seemed too much. No amount of effort could now compensate for the bone-deep chill. A handful of cars and lorries, headlights already blazing, sped past, oblivious. Motivation finally came through salivation. ‘Think of the food’ was our rallying cry.

  It can be a dangerous thing to seek incentive in the realm of the possible rather than the certain. Having relied on the prospect of something appealing, subsequent disappointment at its absence is all the more acute. There was no guarantee that anything in Lima would be open at such a late hour on a Sunday night to meet our needs. With a population of only 242, there was no guarantee that there would be anything there at all.

  We were in luck. Tucked in a crook of the Interstate, Lima was still buzzing – relatively speaking – when we finally arrived at 9 p.m. More importantly, Jan’s Café and Cabins was open. Yet, famished as we were, we hesitated on the threshold. We really weren’t very presentable. How best could we exploit our plight to ensure a warm reception? I was elected spokesman.

  ‘Use that charming English accent of yours,’ said Stephen in his Deep South drawl.

  With unjust trepidation after the warmth of all the hospitality received thus far, I sploshed into the diner, followed by a trail of mud. I need not have worried.

  We were not the only cyclists to have passed this way that day. Seated at the bar, considerably cleaner than when she had arrived earlier in the afternoon, was Cricket, for whom this whole adventure was a ‘Mommy holiday’ (some holiday, some Mom, I had thought at the time in Banff).

  ‘Boy, am I glad to see you guys,’ she beamed.

  Then, shortly after Cricket’s display of enthusiasm, a lady with nearly as much makeup as I had mud on my face – though hers was considerably more flattering – batted nary an eyelid as she offered both food and accommodation. She then made all four of us swoon by leading us on stilettos through the yard to a hosepipe where we could clean body and bike.

  ‘You can order food up to 10 p.m.,’ she said once she had demonstrated how to operate the manual pump.

  The work of a woman in rural Montana was nothing if not varied. Cleaned and as presentable as possible, we returned to the diner. We ordered five burgers.

  ‘Are you expecting someone else?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘No,’ said 6-foot-6-inches Per. ‘Two are for me.’

  CHAPTER 14

  THIS IS NOT PERU

  DAY 11

  At 7 a.m. it was raining. Half an hour later it was still raining, which was encouraging. At 8 a.m., with no let-up yet in sight, we admitted defeat. We were delighted. It was just the excuse we needed to go nowhere.

  ‘I’m not riding through any more of that mud today,’ said Trevor emphatically. Murmurs of approval came from under piles of bedclothes. We had already decided the previous night that only brilliant sunshine and Hawaiian temperatures would tempt us to depart again in the morning. Our luck was in – such an unlikely improvement in meteorological conditions had been avoided.

  This turned out to be just as well. Even getting out of bed to go to the café for breakfast was something of a reluctant pleasure but, as with the night before, an empty stomach was a powerful motivator. In the café, Cricket was still nursing a cup of coffee. Her plan for an early start had also been stymied by the rain. Yet she remained intent on sallying forth, alone if necessary, as soon as the rain abated (surely it couldn’t go on much longer); attempts to persuade us to accompany her fell on deaf ears.

  To try to make myself feel better for such a lack of gallantry, I tactlessly listed the reasons why waiting for a day would be a better idea.

  ‘One of the messages on the website from a rider ahead said there were 80 miles of mud after Lima,’ I pointed out.

  The road had also apparently been closed less than a week ago due to flooding. But, like Margaret Thatcher, the lady was not for turning.

  ‘I have to keep moving. I’ve had two short days already.’

  In fact, she had been caught in the worst of the mud in the worst of the weather and for the past two days had struggled to cover less than 100 miles through the quagmire. The days may have been short, but they had not been easy.

  Nevertheless, Cricket’s experiences thus far seemed to have inured her to such difficulties. She had already had a face-off with a bear that had charged her after being spooked by her arrival, and which then sat in the middle of the trail in front of her for an hour, refusing to move.

  ‘When it got dark and I couldn’t see him any more it was a little frightening,’ she admitted.

  As we were still devouring breakfast, she seized on a break in the clouds and rode off. She had been chivalrous enough to save us from guilt at letting her venture forth on her own. Yet guilt there still was, not least because there remained so far to go. How could we conceive of a day off? Only an atavistic urge for food and sleep – and the timely arrival of another round of toast – saved us from succumbing to the perverse temptation to continue. Within seconds, however, Per, Stephen, Trevor and I were lazily and gluttonously justifying our inertia. Even though the clouds were continuing to disperse and sunshine was a real possibility, it wasn’t difficult.

  Shortly after we had finished breakfast we were mightily relieved to be rejoined by Ray. Our relief was as nothing compared to his, however. If he had looked only semi-thawed when Steve and I had met him in Wise River, he now looked to have only recently climbed out of a deep freeze.

  ‘I’m done with this thing,’ he said.

  Having tried to dissuade Cricket from continuing, we now found ourselves trying to persuade Ray to keep going.

  ‘Hey, have some breakfast, man, you’ll feel better,’ said Stephen.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere until tomorrow,’ added Per.

  But it was to no avail. It was easy to understand why. While we had spent the previous night warming ourselves in Jan’s Café, Ray had had to chase a herd of elk from a derelict barn high on the pass to find somewhere to shelter from the storm through which we had cycled. It had been a long and cold night for a man from Dallas, and it had not been his first. The cumulative effect of the chill and having only one gear had clearly taken a heavy toll.

  ‘My knees are just shot,’ he confirmed.

  Shortly after Ray had left to search out a box to put his bike in for the long journey home there was a knock on the door. It was one of the chefs from the café.

  ‘Could one of you guys come and help out the other cyclist? He’s cut himself real bad.’

  Simply because I was nearest the door I traipsed with some curiosity but no particular urgency to the porch.

  ‘Hi, Ray. Oh . . . what happened?’

  A grey-faced Ray was sitting with a large pool of blood at his feet. One hand was clasping the other in a blood-stained towel.

  ‘I just cut my hand when I was trying to box up my bike,’ he said with some understatement.

  He had done the same thing while un-boxing his bike in Banff, though clearly not to the same degree. An ambulance had bee
n called, and Ray asked if I would mind tidying up his stuff and locking it into his motel room so it would still be there when he got back from hospital.

  ‘That’s quite an extreme thing to do just to make sure you don’t change your mind about keeping going,’ I pointed out as he was bundled into the ambulance to be taken to Dillon, 45 miles away.

  Ray smiled. At least I thought he smiled; it might have been a grimace. After he had left, I followed the splatters of blood across the drying car park to his motel room. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I sorted Ray’s belongings and made a half-hearted attempt at tidying up before I was saved from such a noble act by the cleaner.

  ‘Leave that to me, I’ll do it later,’ she said.

  I decided not to argue.

  The rest of the day was spent on more mundane activities. Bikes and clothes were cleaned. The sun came out and a strong, drying wind came from the east.

  ‘It’s a headwind for Cricket,’ said Trevor.

  I rang home to try and find out some more about the state of the race and conditions to come.

  ‘Everybody’s suffering from the weather and the mud,’ said Catherine.

  She meant it as a reassurance but, given the geographical spread of the participants, it was also alarming. There was a lot of mud still to come. We were not out of Montana yet but, in spite of conditions every bit as bad as we had experienced, Matthew Lee at the front of the race was nearly into Colorado. I didn’t want to work out how many miles ahead that meant he was. Chris Plesko and Kurt Refsnider weren’t far behind, and neither was the Petervarys’ tandem. After that came a group of riders at least three days ahead of us, with a few more stragglers in between. Behind us, it was a relief to hear that Deanna was still plugging away on her fixed-gear bike, but 12 riders had now dropped out. We were guaranteed a place in the top 30, assuming we finished.

  I also checked the Tour Divide website. There was a message from Tim, my brother-in-law, and his wife Lisa. Lisa had been remarkably prescient.

  ‘Lisa’s view on the mud problem (getting stuck, pushing your bike, cleaning your bike, pushing some more) is: don’t bother. Find a nice little café somewhere, cup of tea, piece of malt loaf, read a book, and soon enough it will be time for dinner. Mmm, yummy pizza, perhaps a piece of cheesecake and then go to bed nice and early. Wake up for a lovely cup of tea, and then some more malt loaf a bit later. Stuff the mud and biking nonsense.’

  Tim, on the other hand, was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘I view your noble endeavour with the utmost admiration and approval. I’d almost like to be there myself. It’s just the mud and cycling bit that puts me off.’

  More food was consumed. In fact, the day’s theme was food, and the food at Jan’s was excellent. This was just as well, as the more I ate, the hungrier I became.

  Breakfast had been a fry-up preceded by porridge and followed by several rounds of toast. The aching hours between finishing that feast and lunch had been filled by a meagre snack – a slab of chocolate cake and a banana. Lunch itself was a main-meal salad followed by fish and chips and apple pie with ice cream. Afternoon snack was more pie.

  By dinner time – we could scarcely make it past 5 p.m. – this conspicuous consumption provided an opportunity to learn some more about the peculiar vocabulary of US cuisine.

  ‘What exactly is a chicken-fried steak?’ asked Per.

  Stephen, being the only native in our group, took it upon himself to explain.

  ‘Basically, it’s nothing to do with chicken, it’s just a steak covered in breadcrumbs and fried in a pan. That’s what it is in Mississippi, anyway. And you sometimes get brown gravy with it.’

  ‘Sounds good, I’ll try one of those,’ Per decided.

  It was something of a surprise he didn’t ask for two. Bereft of imagination I ordered the same as at lunch time.

  In between meals I read the mighty Lima Ledger, subtitled The Preservation of News in the Red Rock River Valley.

  Preservation had obviously been something of a recent concern – this was only issue 34 of Volume Two – but the headline suggested ‘news’ was something of a rare commodity.

  ‘Come enjoy 4th July in Lima! “Celebrate Small Town America”.’

  The events to be enjoyed were still nearly two weeks away, and the edition I was reading was dated a week earlier. Yet it sounded promising.

  ‘Start your day with a pancake breakfast sponsored by the Lima Voluntary Fire Department. Pancakes, sausage, eggs and coffee or juice $5.’

  Thereafter, an eclectic range of activities would be on offer: bed races; a horseshoe tournament; half a beef at 2 p.m. (to benefit the Springhill Assisted Living centre); and FREE swimming at the Lima Community Pool between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. The day’s festivities were to be rounded off by a ‘Patriotic Community Sing-A-Long Karaoke’ and a firework display. If my race came to an end before the 4th of July, I knew where to come.

  There was also some real ‘news’ in the form of an article about the hospital in Dillon to which Ray had been taken and which had signed a deal to purchase land for its expansion. Construction was not due to be finished until the end of 2011, however, so Ray would have to make do with the existing services.

  Further diversion came in the form of the brief history of Lima provided on the back of the café’s menu. I learned that ‘in former days, Lima flourished as a railroad town’. Its principal attributes had been a spring providing water for passing steam engines and a location ideal for crew changes on the route between Pocatello and Butte. The tracks still passed through the town, but not many trains.

  After the demise of the railroad, ranching had become the biggest business in the area.

  ‘The rest of us are hanging in here, proud of our community and making it with hard work, diligence and social security,’ the menu continued.

  Clearly a sense of humour was an important attribute too. Then came the somewhat vexed origin and pronunciation of the town’s name.

  ‘If you want to know how Lima acquired its name, ask the waitress, she can probably make up as good a story as any.’

  I asked the waitress.

  ‘Oh, you mean the lime in the water that fouled up the trains’ boilers?’

  I said that sounded plausible.

  ‘But nobody really knows,’ she added.

  And the pronunciation?

  ‘Lyme-ah – like the bean.’

  ‘Not Leema like the city in Peru, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Perhaps that explained the absence of Paddington Bear souvenirs.

  There was even the chance to explore Lima. It didn’t take long. Apart from Jan’s, the town’s services consisted of the Mountain View Motel, a sports bar, an Exxon gas station and store, a post office, a surprisingly well-stocked hardware store that had provided Ray with a cardboard box big enough for his bike, a school (home to the Lima Bears basketball team), an antiques and curios shop, a church and a swimming pool.

  Of more interest, however, than the current meagre existence scraped from a rump population and passing traffic were the remnants of Lima’s busier past. This included a timber-and-brick building seemingly on the verge of collapse that had been the original stage wagon stop and mercantile. A lean-to porch proudly bore a sign that read ‘Lima Historical Society’, but the door was closed.

  Further evidence of the obsession to legitimise the tenuous present by celebrating fragments of a not particularly glorious history was found nearby. In a small display cabinet, under a handwritten heading ‘Parts of Our Past’, were a dozen or so black and white photos with explanatory notes. Perhaps the most intriguing had no accompanying photo, however.

  ‘In 1904 a fellow named Walter P. Chrysler was working as a machinist in the machine shops in Lima. He went on to build his Chrysler car and form his own corporation.’

  Across the railway that bisected the town was a small grid of residential streets. All were fetchingly tree-lined, and the gravel roads faded pleasingly into informal lawns outside each plo
t. Pick-up trucks, preferably old and slightly battered, were the vehicle of choice. One bumper sticker read ‘I love Ronald Reagan’. The houses themselves were mostly low and detached, with well-tended gardens. As if to prove the point, a large woman in a flowery nylon frock, blue slippers and pink rubber gloves mulched her rockery in front of a US flag.

  ‘It’s a lovely evening now,’ she said as I ambled past.

  In the warm glow and long shadows of the lowering sun, still just above the imposing flanks of the Tendoy Mountains, I couldn’t help but agree. With the wind temporarily concealing the noise of the Interstate it was a delightful spot.

  I returned to the diner for one last feed before bed.

  ‘A piece of your delicious pie, please.’

  After having already sampled three varieties (apple, pear and apricot), I needed only pecan to complete the set.

  ‘They really are good,’ I enthused to nobody in particular.

  The still heavily made-up proprietor, who had further won our hearts by mopping up Ray’s blood and uncomplainingly sweeping away the mud that inevitably accumulated after each of our visits, pointed to her husband.

  ‘It’s the big guy who makes the pies.’

  His size suggested he was a keen advocate of tasting his wares, too. A fellow diner asked where I was headed. I said down the Centennial Valley into Idaho.

  ‘Jeez, I wouldn’t even take a goddam’ horse down that trail.’

  On that much, at least, we were agreed. Another visitor, a huge man who could not be described accurately without descending into a caricature of lumberjacks past, joined the conversation. I explained we were then headed to Mexico.

  ‘I sure admire your intestinal fortitude,’ said the newcomer.

  I wasn’t sure if he meant the food I was eating or the route I was taking. Nevertheless, given the size of his own waistline, this was praise indeed. We watched the weather forecast on the TV.