Читать книгу Coastal Missouri: Driving On the Edge of Wild - John Drake Robinson - Страница 10

The road reveals unalterable truths. One such truth is this: You can take Jane out of the Walmart, but you can’t take the Walmart out of Jane. Jane, Missouri, is the tiny suburb of almost-as-tiny Pineville. Well technically it sits halfway between Pineville and Bella Vista, Arkansas. It’s just south of Big Sugar Creek State Park and Huckleberry Ridge Conservation Area. Campers and hikers flock to Jane, since this small town has a mighty economy, boosted by the county’s only Walmart.

Local history suggests the James Gang hid in the caves around here. There’s no solid proof. But if Jesse was looking for a place to hide, he couldn’t find a more remote location. Driving around these rugged backwoods, I can see how outlaws could still hide in its nooks and crannies, and get their supplies from the Jane Walmart.

Back in 1938, filmmakers chose this remote location of Greater Jane for the setting of the movie Jesse James, starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, and Randolph Scott. The movie was a hit, finishing fourth at the box office behind Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and ahead of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Not a bad lineup.

As word spread about the film location, thousands of fans flocked to get a glimpse of movie stars Power, Fonda, and Scott as they relaxed at Shadow Lake Resort in Noel.

Yep, Noel.

Even though the local motels and the post office get a spike in visitation every December 24th, the town isn’t named for Christmas. It was named for a man whose last name was Noel. Willis Bridges Noel. Went by the name of Bridge. Must’ve been an interesting character.

The town of Noel sits at a sweeping bend in the Elk River, with a reputation as a resort getaway on the cutting edge of wild and wooly.

The Elk River is seductive, coursing along a deep crack in the Ozarks, offering a scenic float through the very southwest corner of Missouri. And on steamy weekends, it can get wild. Drunkenness. Nakedness. Debauchery.

I used a delightful day to kayak Indian Creek into the Elk River from Anderson to Noel. Floaters were having a great time. I had a great time myself, but saw no orgiastic activity. Maybe things were calm because it was a Wednesday. But on any given sunbaked weekend, thousands of sun worshipers gravitate to this charming watershed. And somewhere along the float, a percentage of them lose all their inhibitions, and clothing, and they start freely distributing bodily fluids. Alcohol may be involved.

Not long ago, one Kansas couple brought their two young children for a weekend float. Before they committed to the trip, they pointedly asked the canoe outfitter if the river would be family friendly. “Oh, yes,” the outfitter reassured them. “We’re a Christian outfitter.” I don’t doubt that the outfitter shows up in church most Sundays, but to knowingly invite a family with small children to float on a weekend among depraved raving party animals is kinda like encouraging small children to play with a meth lab in the street.

* * *

But the Great Equalizer has a way of evening things out. Drunken idiocy has its paybacks.

It was a hot summer day. A lady took her children to play on their backyard beach beside the Elk River. Along came some chemically impaired canoeists, who floated within earshot. Loud and lascivious, they spewed particularly vile passages from their favorite classic literature, Bodily Functions of Angles and Saxons.

Their unclothed cavorting alarmed the mother. She shouted out to them. “Please watch your language! There are children on the beach.”

Her request met a chorus of carnal cuss, a semaphore circus of anatomical demonstrations. She pulled her cell phone out of her beach bag. Seeing this, one besotted actor sprung from his canoe, bolted ashore and grabbed the phone from her hand. He heaved it into the river.

Justice bore down swift and sure. In a coincidence that may prove that there is order in the universe, a party of off-duty St. Louis police officers happened to be floating behind the attacker, and they witnessed the crime. Moving with all deliberate shock and awe, the cops nailed the poop-faced perp, pushing his face down in watery gravel. Local authorities arrived within minutes, and the lady’s husband, the sheriff, assessed a sobering charge of robbery.

As a result of this and other crime reports, McDonald County enacted stricter rules governing social behavior along the Elk River. The officials are doing their best to modify eye pollution and ear pollution and bloodstream pollution.

The jury’s still out regarding the efforts to reduce water pollution. But as of now, according to government tests, some streams in the region, and elsewhere in the state, are impaired. Some folks warn that pollution may be coming from tons of chicken shit, totally unrelated to the impaired chickenshit who landed in jail. The end is near.

Speaking of water pollution, just southwest of Southwest City, along Highway 43, a marker indicates the junction of three states, and I found myself standing in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri simultaneously. I stood with each foot planted in a different state, and whizzed in the third.

Well, I thought about it, anyway.

* * *

Dipping into Arkansas, I took a detour to Eureka Springs to see the giant statue of Christ of the Ozarks.

Besides his regular gig keeping watch over the flock of Pentecostal churches in the general vicinity, Christ makes quite a presence here, towering seven stories atop a formidable mountain. When the statue was first erected, he towered even higher. The Federal Aviation Administration cracked down on the builders of this glorious monument to our savior, saying that Jesus’ head was sticking into airspace, and as such, the Lord posed a hazard to airplanes in the area. Obviously, this was an awkward situation.

What would Jesus do?

The FAA’s solution was simple: Put a flashing red light on top of the blessed savior’s head.

“Blasphemy!” said the faithful, who instead cut Jesus off at the knees to get his head below radar and back to safety. For Christ’s sake, the faithful saved the statue from the indignity of a red light. For the statue’s knees, the end came with a terrible swift sword.

We turned toward Bull Shoals Lake and rode the old Toad Suck Ferry back into Missouri. This isn’t the original route of the old Toad Suck Ferry, which was on a stream way down near Little Rock. I guess somebody bought this old barge, with the Toad Suck name still emblazoned on its hull, and brought it up here. Riding the Toad Suck Ferry on the Peel Ferry route isn’t as romantic as climbing on the back of the ferry in the actual town of Toad Suck. But that’s no concern of mine.

And Erifnus enjoyed the float. Deep in the lake, beneath her wheels, giant trophies eyed the bottom of the Toad Suck barge as we crossed the water. Well, they’re not trophies yet. They’re the great-great-granddaughters of the trophies, the Missouri state record walleye, brown trout, yellow perch, striped bass, and largemouth bass. The latter record has stood since JFK’s first hundred days.

The ferry dumped Erifnus onto Route 125, and we began probably the most beautiful drive in the Ozarks. I don’t know. It was dark. So we headed up to Springfield, and I checked in to the Clarion Hotel.

At sunrise, we’d tackle the heart of hillbilly holler.

* * *

Next day, I stuffed Erifnus with her favorite brand of corn liquor and plunged south from Route 66, where the road less traveled becomes Route 125, winding past Sparta and Chadwick. Like the perfect anthem, the scenery reached a crescendo along the twisting trail through the Mark Twain National Forest in Taney County, south of Camp Ridge, and Cobb Ridge.

Route DD watches Brushy Creek sweep past, on its way to fortify Beaver Creek, and for miles the vista south overlooks the ridges and ravines around Hercules Glade, some of the best ridge-running mountain scenery in Missouri’s Ozarks. Wonderful motorcycle roads. Great backpacking too. So I left Erifnus as the lone vehicle in a parking lot at a trail head, and marched downhill into the unknown. The path quickly became man’s only footprint in this vast wilderness, at once an intrusion into nature, and a lifeline back to civilization. The trail unfolded over miles, and the absence of manmade sounds refreshed my ear’s ability to pick out the warbler and the chickadee, to discern the crow from the red-tailed hawk, and listen for the rustle and the rattle. Good shape and good shoes helped this foot soldier. Without water, I limited my march to a few ridges and ravines, enough to remind me that rugged terrain is harder on the knees going downhill than up.

The moments just before arriving back to the parking lot are always tense. Will Erifnus still be there, undisturbed? She was. And like lunch meat, she was ready. We drove on together, as God intended, man and car, pioneer and petrol.

* * *

Adventure takes on new intensity when you and your car are both granddaddies, and the end of the world is nigh. Along the side of the road, we spied a beautiful little sports car for sale, a Fiat Spyder, vintage 1976, Car and Driver car of the year. My Pontiac scoffed, and why not? Her odometer showed six digits and no breakdowns. This little Fiat by the roadside—like its twin sister sitting broke down in my garage at home—might’ve been in the shop dozens of times over that timespan.

We kept driving, and wound up dead-ended in a holler fat with water, where Beaver Creek feeds Lake Taneycomo. Retreating north, following the whitewater froth of Beaver Creek beside us, we veered off Highway 76 onto Route AA. The road unfolded through thick woods and nothing else, until the blacktop ended. At this point, as with so many other crossroads on my journey, the proverbial fork in the road was gravel . . . and uncharted, at least for me.

According to my map, the next blacktop sat only a few miles from this spot. But which gravel road would lead me there? My state highway map offered no clue, other than the tantalizing image of two blacktops just millimeters from connecting. In a nod to ancient mariners who relied on a fallible technique called dead reckoning, I took the fork to the right, which forked again, and again. Erifnus descended deeper into the forest, along rocky roads, through ruts and ravines and low-water fords and mud and panthers and black bears and homesteads that might be friendly or might not, if I broke down and had to walk up a path to knock on a door.

Deeper into the woods we drove. Erifnus’ motor groaned, and her tires ached, as signs of civilization dwindled to a single power line fastened to poles older than Dick Clark, more crooked than Bernie Madoff. Using the sun for direction, I angled eastward, looking for pavement. But ahead, gravel, gravel everywhere, surrounded by heavy forest. Finally my blood pressure and my car’s radiator relaxed as the gravel path crested a hill and T-boned onto asphalt pavement.

Seeing no roadsign to tell me our position, we turned south, assuming we might make it back to Highway 125. Four miles down the road, a sign told me we were traveling on Route H, far west of our intended destination. It didn’t matter. On a hard surface, Erifnus and I breathed a sigh of relief, after spending too much petrol and daylight spreading gravel around the Ozarks backwoods.