By littering, I mean violation of Fish and Game Code Section 5652—“disposing of refuse in or within one hundred and fifty feet of state waters.” During the warmer months, a steady stream of cars and trucks towing boats would leave the Los Angeles area every Friday afternoon for a weekend of waterskiing and serious beer drinking. Many of these fun-seekers had never been schooled in environmental ethics. Or if they had, they forgot about them somewhere out around Twenty-nine Palms. Highway 62 was littered with thousands of empty cans and bottles. When these so-called recreationalists finally reached their destination, they naturally assumed that the Colorado River and Lake Havasu were also refuse disposal sites. Some would simply throw their empties overboard; the sneaky ones would dangle a hand in the water, all the time letting the air out of an empty can or bottle. Upon release, the container would sink to the bottom and not be visible to anyone who might object. I did object and so did the local judge. During my first year on the job, I made over three hundred and fifty cases—a third of them were litter related.
The one negative about my new patrol district was the heat. It lasted for about seven months out of the year, from mid-April to mid-October. An average summer day would hover around one hundred and fourteen degrees, cooling down to a hundred at night. I learned that in spite of extremely high daytime temperatures, the dry desert air was actually tolerable when the sun went down. During the hot months, I generally patrolled early in the morning, in the evening and late at night. The remainder of the year was quite pleasant and as Captain Reynolds had promised, there was no shortage of wildlife.
Thousands of waterfowl occupied the river’s sandbars and backwaters. Quail and doves were plentiful and during the monsoon season, the riparian zone along the river became a bird watcher’s paradise. Most of the deer stayed in the riparian zone, but I occasionally saw a big buck or two up in the desert washes. They were a large, isolated subspecies called burro mule deer. You wouldn’t think the desert could produce trophy-sized bucks, but some of the largest deer I have ever seen came out of that hot, dry country.
III
My district included ten thousand square miles of open desert and four small, low-elevation mountain ranges: the Riversides, Whipples, Old Woman and the Turtles. A small population of desert bighorn sheep lived in the Turtle Mountains, near Mopah Spring. The only time anyone ever saw these elusive animals was during the summer months when extreme conditions required them to stay near a water source. I became so protective of my little band of bighorns that I often braved the elements and made regular patrols into the tiny, isolated spring that sustained them.
The road into Mopah Spring was barely passable, even with four-wheel drive, so I found it necessary to walk the last half mile. That rocky footpath was occupied by a healthy population of western diamondbacks. I learned a lot about these fascinating reptiles during my three and a half years in the desert. A grown man could walk past a diamondback with or without a reaction. The unpredictable coontail, as they are sometimes called, might retreat without the pedestrian even knowing it’s there. If the snake feels threatened, it will likely begin its characteristic buzzing and scare the daylights out of the intruder. A western diamondback will usually head for cover, but it is not unusual for one to stand its ground or even crawl in the direction of a perceived threat. During the heat of the day, its primary concern is getting out of the hot sun. It was my experience that a dog couldn’t come within ten feet of an active diamondback without setting it off.
On two different occasions, Molly, my faithful Labrador, prevented me from being bitten when I was in imminent danger. Both times, the rattlesnake started buzzing twenty feet before Molly even got close. Not being an expert in ethology, I figured it had something to do with a long history of encounters between Crotalus atrox and Canis latrans.
Mopah Spring was really nothing more than a washtub-sized pool of water, shaded by several mature desert fan palms. It sat at the base of Mopah Peak, a majestic mass of jagged rock that could be seen from miles away. I would methodically scan the peak with my binoculars, looking for any sign of movement. Bighorns blended so well with the surrounding background that only a keen, experienced eye could spot them. Any sheep that were sighted were usually ewes or immature rams. Only once, during the three and a half years that I patrolled the Turtle Mountains, was I lucky enough to spot a mature ram. That magnificent, full curled specimen stood on the edge of a cliff as if posing for a painting.
California’s bighorn sheep have been fully protected since the 1870s. A few years before I was hired by the Department of Fish and Game, a famous undercover case was made by agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It involved a Southern California taxidermist who portrayed himself as a conservationist and staunch advocate for bighorn sheep. He and some of his associates helped build guzzlers (water sources) for bighorns living in Anza Borrego State Park and other isolated desert locations. Greed apparently set in, because this man began using his knowledge of bighorns to substantially enrich his bank account. He and his employees were guiding wealthy hunters from all over the United States and Canada on expensive bighorn ram hunts. His lust for money caught up with him in 1970, when an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent signed on as one of his clients. I had no tolerance for those who illegally profited from wildlife and often referred to this now infamous case for inspiration. Interestingly, after paying for his crimes, this former taxidermist became a successful wildlife artist. His favorite painting subjects were bighorn sheep.
IV
Early in July, 1975, Captain Reynolds advised me that they had finally filled the vacant Blythe/Palo Verde warden’s position. He said the new warden was a young man named Michael David Szody; at the time, I didn’t place the name.
One hot afternoon, Reynolds sent the new rookie up to work with me on Lake Havasu. It took a few minutes, but I finally recognized our new warden as the student from my Sacramento State zoology class. Szody had been a long-distance runner for most of his high school and college years, while I had played baseball. Along with our common interest in sports, Dave Szody and I were totally dedicated to protecting wildlife. It didn’t take long before we became good friends and working partners.
Wanting to arm ourselves with every possible edge against those who would harm California’s natural resources, we became self-taught students of the Fish and Game Code, Title 14 (California Administrative Code), the California Penal Code, the Health and Safety Code and every federal regulation that had anything to do with fish or wildlife. If one of us didn’t know a particular regulation or law, the other one did. We viewed ourselves more as wildlife detectives than game wardens, making outstanding cases as a matter of routine.
For a while, Captain Reynolds set strict limits on the amount of time Dave Szody and I were allowed to work together—he maintained the old school attitude that each warden should stay within the boundaries of his own district. That lasted about six months until Reynolds realized that he couldn’t argue with success: every time Szody and I worked together, something good happened.
Chapter Three
Squeaky
Warden Dave Szody was so enthusiastic about his new career as a Fish and Game warden that he worked practically nonstop during his first year on the job. He quickly formed a healthy network of informants and put a significant dent in his district’s unlawful hunting and fishing activity. Like the Earp Patrol District I had inherited, the Blythe/Palo Verde Patrol District had not been worked for several months and the outlaws knew it.
One of the more popular illegal activities was limb lining. The Colorado River, downstream from Blythe and all the way to Yuma, was a limb liner’s paradise. This was particularly true in and around Picacho State Recreation Area. That stretch of the river boasted a species of catfish that literally grew as long as a man’s leg—a fifty pound flathead catfish was not considered unusual. Flatheads were very difficult to catch by legal means: California law requires a closely attended rod and reel with hook and line atta
ched; the fish must voluntarily take the hook in its mouth and not be snagged or netted.
There were some very crafty characters living down along the river in trailer parks and fishing camps. These outlaws had little or no respect for California regulations and chose to use fishing methods commonly practiced in southern states like Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. One of those outlaws was a scrawny little character that the locals called Squeaky. No one along the river knew his real name.
Squeaky was in his late fifties but looked seventy. Exposure to the sun and heavy drinking had taken their toll. When Squeaky wasn’t fishing, he was usually drinking. That meant he was bragging about his illegal fishing activities. “I’ve been limb linin’ around here for a long time,” he was overheard to say. “No game warden has ever caught me and no game warden ever will.”
One July evening, Warden Szody received a telephone call. He didn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded like any number of older gentlemen who lived down along the river.
“Have ya ever heard of a guy they call Squeaky?” asked the caller, in a slow, deep voice.
“Yes,” said Szody. “I’ve heard that name mentioned a few times.”
In actuality, Warden Szody had heard all about Squeaky from his friend, Wade Somers. Somers was the proprietor of a four hundred square foot retail establishment in the heart of downtown Palo Verde—population one hundred and twenty-three. Bowman’s Bait and Tackle was the only store in town and Somers specialized in selling beer, booze, cigarettes, soft drinks, junk food, bait and a few hooks and sinkers. Most of Wade’s inventory was sold to busloads of farm workers who stopped in after a hard day’s work. The backroom of this little gold mine was always stacked to the ceiling with cases of beer, which Somers turned over every forty-eight hours.
Wade Somers was a big, easygoing, twenty-six-year-old entrepreneur everyone seemed to like. He had discovered the river while on vacation, liked the slow, easy lifestyle and decided to stay. When Bowman’s Bait and Tackle went up for sale, Somers bought it and went into business. His friendship with Dave Szody was sealed the day a customer tried to walk out the door without paying for a pack of cigarettes. Szody happened to be approaching the store at the time and chased the guy down. Wade became a good friend and a great source of information.
Nothing happened within ten miles of Palo Verde that Wade Somers didn’t hear about. Squeaky was buying beer in the store one day when Szody walked in. “That’s the guy I was telling you about,” whispered Wade. Warden Szody took a mental photograph of the little outlaw and stored it away for future use.
“Squeaky lives here in Miller’s Camp,” the caller continued. “I’m sick of hearin’ him brag about all them big catfish he’s catchin’. Everybody down here knows he’s limb linin’.”
“Do you know where he’s doing the limb lining?” Szody asked.
“Down by Picacho. That’s where all them big flatheads are,” replied the caller. “He usually goes out before daylight and comes back about noon. He’ll always have a couple rods with him to make it look like he caught ’em legal, but he ain’t caught nothin’ legal in years.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“No, that’s about it.”
“Can I get your phone number in case I need to call you?”
“I’d rather not get any further involved. Good luck. I hope ya catch him,” the caller concluded.
Warden Szody immediately telephoned me at my residence near Earp. He asked if I would like to come down and do an all-night stakeout. I said that sounded like fun and asked where we were going. Szody said down by Picacho State Park, where one of the local outlaws was limb lining flathead catfish. I was excited about the opportunity to see my first flathead. Those primitive-looking monster catfish were never seen north of Blythe. We agreed to meet at 2:00 p.m. the following afternoon at Szody’s Blythe’s residence.
July was the hottest month of the year down along the Colorado River. Dave and I packed our gear into his little tri-hull patrol boat and headed for Picacho about 3:00 p.m. The temperature hovered around one hundred and twelve degrees that day. We had traveled an hour downriver when Szody cut the motor and pulled into one of the backwaters. “It’s time for a Nestea plunge,” he said, referring to a TV commercial popular at the time.
Both of us dropped our gun belts to the deck and removed our boots. In full uniform, we jumped over the side, immersing ourselves in the cool, refreshing river water. Having temporarily escaped the relentless heat, we climbed back into the boat and proceeded downriver. Within minutes, our uniforms were completely dry.
It was about 5:00 p.m. when we approached Picacho State Recreation Area. That section of the Colorado River—located about twenty-five miles upstream from Yuma, Arizona—was heavily vegetated. Salt cedar (tamarisk) thickets were so dense that limbs reached all the way to the water. The highly invasive North African exotic had displaced most of the native willows and cottonwoods. I hated that bully of the plant world and often referred to it as the “tree from hell.” Tamarisks were choking the life out of riparian areas throughout the arid Southwest, but in this particular location they shaded the deep eddies along the California side of the river and provided limited habitat for large channel cats and monster flatheads.
“He’s supposed to be operating somewhere around here,” said Szody, as he slowed the motor and headed toward the California side of the river. Limb liners would often mark the location of their illegal sets with a rag, a beer can or some type of clearly visible object. The more sophisticated operators would place the marker a certain distance up or down stream, so as not to give away the actual location. Squeaky’s system wasn’t evident, so we had to find his lines the hard way, by trial and error.
I picked up a six-foot metal pole with a hook on the end. As Szody maneuvered the boat close to shore, I began working the pole back and forth through the water, under the overhanging branches. We soon located the first limb line. A length of monofilament was tied to the end of a salt cedar limb. At the other end was a hook, baited with a live goldfish. “We know it’s active,” I said. “The bait is still alive.” After marking the location of the first limb line, we continued downriver. It didn’t take us long to find several more lines, all rigged and baited the same way.
With the blazing sun still a dominating factor, Szody and I decided to take another Nestea plunge. We were just about to jump over the side when our boat drifted into a shaded area immediately below a hundred-foot rock cliff. “Pull in here. I think I see something moving,” I said.
Szody steered the boat closer to the cliff where we immediately spotted a salt cedar limb bouncing in and out of the water. I reached under the water with my bare hand and felt a line that was tied to the limb. As I pulled up on the line, whatever was on the other end came very close to pulling me overboard. “Hello!” I said. “We have something big on the other end of this line.”
Bracing myself, I again pulled up on the heavy test monofilament line. Suddenly, a giant dinner plate-sized mouth appeared out of the dark water. “Look at this thing!” I said, as the fish turned and bolted back into the darkness. “It’s a big flathead.” Szody cautioned me to be careful and not allow the giant catfish to escape. We would leave the big fella right where he was and find a place to hide.
It was 6:30 p.m. when we hid our boat in a backwater downstream from the large flathead. Sweating profusely, Szody and I gathered our overnight gear, an ice chest, two water jugs, binoculars and two spotting scopes. One of the scopes was a standard-issue spotting scope and the other was a night vision starlight scope that Szody had borrowed from the Department of Justice. He was familiar with starlight scopes, having used them extensively in Viet Nam. Sometime after 7:00 p.m., we reached a lava rock plateau overlooking the shaded eddy where the catfish was located. From that vantage point we could see a mile upriver and would be able to spot any boat long before it reached us.
As evening wore on, Szody and I continued to bake in the incredib
le heat that radiated from our exposed position. The blazing sun finally began to recede about 8:00 p.m., but the temperature remained in the triple digits. That’s about the time the first mosquito began buzzing in my ear. “If there’s a mosquito within three miles, it will find me,” I complained. One mosquito was followed by another and another and what seemed like a thousand more. “My favorite creatures on this earth are bats, swallows and nighthawks,” I said, “because they eat those blood-sucking little parasites.”
The pesky insects continued to drive us crazy until it turned pitch dark around 10:00 p.m. As if someone had flipped a switch, the mosquitoes disappeared and a welcome peace returned to the desert night. By then we had begun questioning our dedication. Unable to sleep, Szody and I occupied our time by testing the starlight scope. “There’s a great-horned owl sitting in that big cottonwood,” Szody said, as he handed me the scope. “Make sure you never look into a light when you’re using that thing. You can really damage your eyes.”
By midnight the temperature had dropped into the high eighties, with a cool breeze off the river. It was completely quiet except for the booming territorial calls of the great-horned owl across the river and an occasional bull frog billowing in the backwater. We took turns trying to sleep on the hard lava rock, with no success.
As day dawned, our previous enthusiasm had given way to absolute misery. To make matters worse, the mosquitoes returned and stuck around until about 7:00 a.m., when the scorching desert heat drove them away. There had been no sign of Squeaky or anyone else. My disillusioned partner and I wanted to pack up and go home, but something told us that Squeaky would show up any minute. An hour passed and Squeaky had still not come, so we waited one more hour and then another.
Badges, Bears, and Eagles Page 5