Part 12

As the Sunset Limited rumbled through the darkness towards Arizona my thoughts turned again to Deer Springs. It seemed that we and the whole world had been shaken from happy, adventurous, and seemingly secure lives by the tumult of a war not of our making. I wondered if ever again there might be an opportunity to enjoy the sense of freedom that hard work and focused self sufficiency, as we had experienced it, brought with it.

The train rolled on as I recalled riding Blaze bare back, with no bridle to control him, after the he and the rest of the horses had strayed some three miles away. I walked until I found them in a grassy hollow near the ocean cliffs. Blaze came when I called him, and I hopped on his back and rode him all the way home as he leaped brush and rock following the running herd back to the corrals.

Another time riding Skippy came to mind as well. We were skirting the edge of a brush covered hillside when suddenly he fell with me into a hidden ravine. He landed on my leg in such a way that searing, strength draining pain momentarily overcame me. That fall tore the cartilage in my right knee, and the after effects still cause pain if I turn my knee a certain way.

Another event I thought about that night was climbing a nearly vertical cliff face and coming to a place where I could neither go up or down. I was close to panic when I realized that panic was the sure route to real trouble. The fear I felt was sobering to say the least, yet there was no help to be had. I had to continue on up alone and did so after a lengthy rest to collect my thoughts. A great deal of careful study of the rock face above me, searching out tiny hand and toe holds, provided a pathway that saw me at last to the top of the cliff and out of danger.

Yet another time I drove a bulldozer down a mountain slope so steep and loose that the tracks spun uselessly when I tried backing up. The brush that I had cleared on that long push and slide down the mountain side saved days or weeks of clearing a fence line, and fortunately lady luck riding alongside me that day saw to it there were no vertical drops to contend with before I reached the bottom.

The second time "Old Buck" tried to throw me I was ready for him. Whipping him soundly with the short length of leather lariat that I'd carried looped over the saddle horn ever since the first time when he got the best of me, all the while spurring him mercilessly, he finally grew tired and quit. After that he was well mannered enough that others could also safely ride him - as long as the short length of lariat was in place over the saddle horn.

The colt we called Blaze was responding well to the hair rope reins of the hackamore, and carrying a bit with a cricket. I hoped he was far enough along to respond properly to the leather reins that I knew would be used on his bridle now that I was gone. I was also worried about the tremendous problems the Houstons would have caring for the Angora goats. I felt they would soon find the herd far more work than they really wanted to be involved with.

Fox Movie Studios once used Deer Springs Ranch as the location for a cowboy movie they were making, and that had been an interesting and informative diversion from the daily routine. Mary liked being treated special. Each morning a big car called at the house and took her to whatever location they were filming so she could watch the performers at work, which she greatly enjoyed.

Faces and friends left behind, unfinished projects, things I should have said but did not, letters we needed to write, all these and much more came to mind as the train rumbled through the darkness towards whatever our new life held for us.

Mary, baby Ann and George slept soundly, while thoughts of what was past as well as our possible future competed for my attention. I felt a bit guilty and sad at parting with Henry. He had asked me to move to Burbank and work for Lockheed Aircraft where he could secure a good job for me. He was disappointed when I told him we'd decided to go home to Arizona. Our future at this point was a complete blank, and knowing that was a difficult thing to come to grips with.

I needed work to care for my family. No longer was I secure from the draft now that I'd given up my agricultural worker classification. Draft boards were alert for registrants they could call up, and they seemed to put off drafting established community members in favor of those who were in transition.

I was quite suspicious of the Oxnard board, and dreaded even thinking about the tightly regimented life that armed services personnel led as I observed it all around us. Nothing about military life was attractive to me except for becoming a pilot. I would have plunged into that immediately except I was two years beyond the age limit for Army Air Force pilot recruits.

Exploring my most earnest desires as the train rattled through the night I realized I had no desire to partake of any part of armed forces life. Wondering if I might be a conscientious objector at heart I began to believe I must be. I believed that wars, killing people and destroying homes and the products of man's best efforts, could never prove anything, including wars imposed on us not of our choosing. Before I dozed off the name of a friend Henry told me to look up once we were in Phoenix came to mind, a name I immediately wrote on a card and placed in my wallet.

The early light of a new morning began sweeping away the darkness of the long train ride as the Sunset Limited rolled into the Salt River Valley with me and my little family aboard. It was good to be back home again. Somehow I sensed that everything would turn out alright, but I had no real idea how we'd proceed.

We had been invited to stay at my parent's big house on Culver Street. Once there family and friends stopped to see us and called on the telephone. We went places we had not been to in a long time, and it was good to catch up first hand on family happenings. Being home again was a true joy, and the beginning of a new direction which at that moment we had no clear view of.