By 1989, our super dog Sam, a mixed breed Golden Labrador that we chose from maybe 100 dogs at the Tucson Animal Shelter, is in his prime. With room to roam, no leashes and no dog catchers, Sam is untethered. His medium length hair is the color of dry grass with accents of Converse sneaker white.
He’s fast and willful, chasing us as we drive into town all the way at 24 mph, before he turns to go back home. We can’t prevent the chase. He digs under the shop door or jumps out the window, even chews off knobs in the VW bus if we try to contain him there.
He’s tough—two broken legs from chasing cars, and a bullet through his shoulder from harassing chickens. Luckily, our good friend in Nogales, Doc Pfister, cares for Sam in exchange for my carpentry, and I serve as the surgery assistant.
He suggests that we get Sam a female companion so he will be more likely to stay home when we’re gone. A friend of Margarita’s has some mixed breed white puppies available. Hoppie turns out to be the one.
Sam dutifully watches out for the kids. When a snarling neighbor dog, Bart Benton, knocks down Cat and pins her to the ground. Sam almost instantly appears to confront Bart, baring his teeth and growling to distract him, and not only chases Bart home, but never lets the dog return.
Sam is always waiting at the door, seemingly prescient about when we’re going on horseback rides, runs, or hides in the forest.
He’s an “outside dog,” and resourceful, no matter the weather. He and Hoppie spend really cold nights under the house, beneath the wood stove. Inside a car, he’s nervous, wedging himself between the seats so it’s hard to shift gears. He and Hoppie seem to love each other, Hoppie the sweet and faithful companion to the rambunctious Sam, cojones intact.
Doc Pfister, the veterinarian is a cool guy, warm and friendly, informal, up-front honest. He has a beach bungalow in Puerto Libertad, Mexico, a fishing board and an old British Land Rover. John Steinbeck would have liked him. I build oak cabinets and a redwood deck for his neat burnt adobe house, and he finds me work for other interesting long-term border residents, like Danny MacCarter, who remembers when there was not a fence between the countries. Twice divorced, he’s not shy with wisdom from his experiences: “Never let your kids come between you and your wife.”
Valerie’s reporter job at the newspaper is steady 40 hours/week so I can buy more pine lumber from the Mt. Lemmon Sawmill, colorful and beetle carved, circular saw cut, for windows and jambs, redwood new and salvaged for the door of our adobe. Our new neighbor Sandra Leon, who bought Salsberry house, gives me a book describing unusual doors, which I use to build a door of mosaic design. Jose, just learning at the Flores Blacksmith Shop in Tucson, forges beautiful and primitive wrought iron hardware for us. Valerie and I finally have a bedroom of our own after ten years of marriage.
I’m glad the Leons are here. Sandra asks me to build some furniture, including a bed and Jimmy bends the property line to the north to accommodate our driveway as he strings a barbed wire fence so his horses can graze on the open land.
Margarita starts 4-H competition with her horse. Watching Jack against the younger horses is like watching the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady doesn’t work very well at barrel racing, but at pole bending, he’s effective because he never misses a bend.
Winter 1990. Nine acres of open land adjacent to our north side is purchased by the Petty family. We’re happy to see they waste no time starting construction, but don’t understand why they locate the big adobe house only 100 feet from the fence line. Nice people, John and Roxy, they own a building materials company in Tucson. Their two kids, Jack and Kyle, are close to ours in age.
Adobe building on this side of the fence continues as I pour the foundation for two more bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. The kids and I make more bricks when the weather permits.
Baked by the sun every time I go to Mexico, the Lowell George song “Willin”, expresses well how Mexico beckons with the coming of June in Arizona. Last year’s trip to Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta and Oaxaca was financially possible for us only by wrapping four-year-old Catalina in a blanket, giving her a bottle, and carrying her onto the plane pretending she was a baby so she could fly for free. So, this year we decide to rough it with the same group: Mike, Dari, Margarita, Cat, Valerie, and me. We all squeeze into Valerie’s compact Toyota station wagon, a five-seater, with Cat and Margarita switching off in back with the bags. We drive south from Nogales, then east toward the Sierra Madre, looking for treasure.
Fuerte, a Spanish colonial mining town, less prosperous now with the silver gone, is located in the foothills, the last station before the Canyon de Cobre train heads up into the rugged mountains, inaccessible by car from the wet side. We get off the train on the rim of the awesome canyon, 1,500’ deeper than the Grand Canyon, and four times as wide. An hour long curvy bus ride, squeaking and rattling, delivers us to a dilapidated hacienda now operated as a hotel. The rooms are comfortable enough, but there is not much food, and electricity is unavailable after dark, so we’re in bed early and up at sunrise, ready to hike to the bottom of the canyon, as we have heard that it is a two-hour trip.
With plenty of water and trail mix, we start backpacking down the dirt road through Ponderosa pine forest. The kids are tough, and good hikers, but after a while we are slowing down. We decide to hitchhike. A logging truck stops and we find out that yes, it’s a two-hour trip to the river, but that’s driving time, not walking time. We climb on the back of the truck, sit on the logs, and hold on until the driver stops a half hour later to help us down at his turn-off. A Tarahumara man is standing there, carrying a metal bucket. He is gracious, and suggests we start walking. The sky is darkening with clouds and as the thunderstorm begins we find a dry place under some big trees. Our new friend puts the bucket on his head for a little extra shelter from the rain and hail.
The storm quickly passes so we are back on the road walking when an old pick-up approaches going our way. The driver stops, of course, and motions for us to climb on even though the truck is already loaded with cases of bottled soda pop. We find a place to sit together with a few other people, and the ride begins. We are lucky: the beverages are being delivered to the village of Urique, on the bottom of the canyon. An hour and a half later we’re there.
The weather is hotter than I’ve ever experienced, so we walk over to the river, put on our suits, and wade in, holding on to boulders so as not to be swept away. The water is refreshing, but too turbulent to enjoy for more than a few minutes.
Urique consists of about 50 simple rock and adobe buildings spread out along a few dusty streets next to the river. We pay modestly for two unadorned boarding house rooms with a bed and a bathroom, but no cooling, no fan and no glass in the screened windows. It’s still very hot.
A restaurant serves beans, rice and tacos with cinnamon tea, since cinnamon trees abound in the area. Patrons are entertained by a Mexican soap opera on satellite television. After dinner we walk back to the boarding house and try to get some sleep. Dari opens her room door for some fresh air, but still can’t sleep at all because of the heat. By morning she is adamantly ready to get out of the canyon.
We find out that another pick-up will be leaving for the canyon rim, but not until noon. Meanwhile, we have lost track of Catalina. We hurry around, asking villagers if they have seen her. Finally, a lady tells us that she saw a little girl walking down the street, following some pigs. Mike catches up to her and takes a great photograph (see above): Cat is holding a straw hat, walking with her back to him, down a rutted red dirt road between weathered rock and adobe buildings; a few dogs are minding their own business, a horse is leaning in the door of a tienda.
Dari can’t wait to go—it’s way too hot even for a Phoenix lady—but our taxi to the top is not prompt, of course. By early afternoon, we are on board the old pick-up, along with seven others. After about a half hour of slow progress, the truck sputters to a stop. The driver lifts the hood, removes the carburetor, and drains the contents. Apparently, some of the gas out here is thinned with water. Luckily, we have a frisbee to pass the time. The engine starts, and a half hour later, we go through the same routine, the driver sarcastically saying: “Hecho en los Estados Unidos,” while pointing at the stalled truck. Everybody laughs.
We sleep well that night on the rim, 9000’ altitude, and catch the westbound train next day back to Fuerte, where we check in at a once grand Colonial Hotel, now quiet and soulful, worn but clean. The high ceilings are partially beautiful-closely spaced, corbeled beams, dark brown, with colorful tiles laid on top.
After a huevos rancheros breakfast, we retrieve our Toyota, and begin the 500-mile drive back to Mazatlán. The Pan American Highway is a single lane each way for the most part, sometimes in disrepair. Smoky semi-trucks and funky, open top produce haulers whiz by every once in a while good naturedly playing ‘chicken’ by swerving into the opposite lane, and swerving back, the driver smiling as he passes. Life and death is not always serious in Mexico.
Despite the hazards, we push our red wagon to 75mph, and arrive at the Hotel Belmar, Mazatlán by late afternoon. Green chile soup and red enchiladas at Doney’s Restaurant are so delicious they’re almost spiritual, releasing the tensions from the day’s journey.
We are on the beaches north of town next morning, body surfing and relaxing with beer and seafood, marveling at the variety of our week in Mexico. After a couple more days on the beach, Mike & Dari catch a flight to Phoenix while the rest of us begin the 900-mile road trip to Nogales.
Halfway back we stop in another Spanish Colonial mining town, Alamos, to spend the night. A hotel on the plaza, built maybe 150 years ago, is quiet and spartan in the off-season, and there’s nobody to take our money. I leave $20 on the front desk as we leave. We are home by evening — crossing the border is quick and easy.