Calling Me Home (Day 4) unedited

Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning.  The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway.  It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once.  I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line.  I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive.  The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation.  The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described.  Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours.  The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began.  It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek.  This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.  

A Metaphor To The Life I Lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear.  You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.  

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else.  To live on this road created a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park.  Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana.  Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold.  Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond.  The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours.  I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels.  It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road.  The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.
  
I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning.  It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash.  I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,” as she saw the elk before I did.  

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was  beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end.  There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away.  An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so.  Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled!  A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed.  I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity.  My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise.  My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer.  Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare  

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust.  He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.  

 Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment.  He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates.  The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?”  I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.”  She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know.  I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacks for a beer.  It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door.  Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye.  He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

 In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Range showing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end.  Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns.  When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight.  I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not kill.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning.  As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through.  She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear  “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”
 
Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth.  Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed.  I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full.  It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night.  The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”  

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing.  I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went.  There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast.  He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.  

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month.  He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.”  He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

         The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front.  It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night.  Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit.  I started these rides in my early twenties.  And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.”  The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred.  I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce.  The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift?  It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences Never Mattered When The Images Were The Same