By Moon Or No Moon
For about two years I lived less than a mile east of the base of Table Top Mountain, located in the Table Top National Wilderness. The actual location is as the crow flies, 94 miles north of the southern border and specifically, just 700 ft. north of the corner of Connelly Rd and Smith Rd. Both roads are dirt with many soft areas, so four wheel drive are essential. Connelly runs west from Stanfield Road and ends at Smith. From that point there is a two track which follows the power line, heading south west for the most part, circling around the southern base of Table Top. From there another two track veers off, up the mountain side, eventually coming upon wildlife drinkers built by Game & Fish. Sadly, I later discovered that the human waste and trash left at and near the drinkers by smugglers and other illegals kept the wildlife from getting water they badly needed.
During Monsoon season, the bridge at Connelly and Stanfield would be blown out by the flooding, the concrete culverts flung high onto the west bank of the ditch. If I was lucky, there would be a strip of packed dirt left, just wide enough for my Suzuki Samurai to cross over. If not, it was back to town to sleep on the floor of my bookstore, and hope for the best for the horses. There was, and still is, plenty of wildlife to appreciate; deer, mountain goat, Gila Monsters, coyote and mountain lion. Though most of the Saguaro cactus not on the designated wilderness area had been grazed down by free range cattle many years prior to the establishment of the wilderness area (the land was then owned by John Wayne and he and Louis Johnson grazed cattle out there. There actually was grass on that range back in those days), there were Saguaro aplenty just across the dirt road. “Just across the road” was the BLM land and the designated wilderness.
One morning during the first few days of living out there, I was headed into town very early, before daylight, to do some laundry before going to work. There were two gates to pass through whether coming or going. The gate rule anywhere in the world is; if you find a gate closed, close it behind you - if you find it open, leave it open. That morning I opened and closed both gates. Even though it is very rural, way out there, in fact, I slowed to check for traffic as I approached Stanfield Road and stopped when I observed a vehicle coming south. As it passed I could plainly see it was Border Patrol, and when I pulled on to Stanfield Road, the unit turned and lit me up. I pulled over to the right, rolled down my window, placed both hands on top of the steering wheel in plain sight and waited. When agent stopped behind me, it was well behind me. Watching in the side view, I saw him get out of his vehicle and walk toward the far left side of the road and then toward my car. I turned and looked at him as he came into view. He aimed his flashlight toward my car but not in my eyes and asked me, “Do you have any illegals in there?”
I laughed out loud, “Yes, there’s twelve of them underneath the laundry.”
He walked up a little closer then said, “That has to be the smallest car I have ever seen.”
I laughed again and he approached the car. “Are you armed?”
“Yes, I have, on my right hip.”
“Do you live out there?” He pointed over his shoulder, down Connelly Road.
“Yes, just moved there a few days ago.”
“You’re going to need something bigger than a pistol. Do you have a long rifle?”
“Yes.”
“Well, keep it with you. That’s what you need to carry out here. Other wise, you’ll be out gunned on any given day of the week.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Have a nice day,” he called over his shoulder as he went back to his truck.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I had worked as a dispatcher for Arizona Department of Public Safety for a few years and was quite familiar with illegal and smuggling traffic. In fact, dispatchers received regular briefings on cartels and smugglers and their current whereabouts and activity. We worked with multi agency task forces on the southern border and state wide. Bailouts and wrecks involving illegals and smugglers were part of the norm. Stopping a refrigerated truck hauling produce and drugs, or finding a box truck filled with illegals standing shoulder to shoulder was no surprise.
There is a particularly curvy stretch of I-17 north of Phoenix and between Sunset Point and Black Canyon City. The Northbound side is fondly called, “U-Haul Hill,” although many other types of vehicles overheat or break down on that steep climb. Pulling over any where for any reason on that stretch of road, North or South bound is treacherous. But, it happens.
And it just so happened that one afternoon I was working the district radio for that particular road way and got a 9-1-1 call from a concerned motorist who was pulled over behind one of my officers who was pulled over with a large box truck on the South bound side above the Bumble Bee exit. The outside edge of that curve offers some of the most beautiful and expansive views of the Bradshaw Mountains, Crown King, all the way over to Lake Pleasant, and across a broad swath of the Phoenix West Valley to the White Tanks Mountains. However, it is a dangerous drop off and not a pace to stop, ever, at all, nope.
I cleared the officer whom I suspicioned was out with the truck, and when he answered let him know I was on the phone with a “good guy” in a blue Caddy stopped behind an officer who was holding about fifty people at gun point in the back of a box truck. “Is that you, Sir”
“10-4, Ma’am. Please start another unit and notify Border Patrol for transport. Also, we need to co-ordinate with Fire to get these folks watered up and fed.”
“10-4, another unit is on the way and there’s one behind you slowing traffic. Border Patrol is on the way, Daisy Mountain Fire will meet you off the Bumble Bee exit.”
One morning I answered a phone call from an attorney in Chicago who advised me she was with a distraught, older Hispanic couple. This couple had received a phone call in the night informing them their daughter had died while riding in the back of a box truck, and was left on the Eastbound side of Interstate 10 west of Phoenix, no exact location. Still on the phone with the Chicago attorney, I immediately sent officers and Air Rescue to check the area given to the attorney. I also notified the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, Border Patrol, Buckeye and Avondale Police and other agencies who were “out west” along I-10. About an hour later, our shared great hope that she was not really dead was crushed when the deceased daughter was located just far enough from the road she could not be seen by passing cars and trucks. Someone had taken the time to go through her purse and find a phone number. How civilized.
DPS often backed up Border Patrol and visa-versa on vehicle and foot pursuits, bail outs. The Fire Department was sometimes called to a scene for medical care, but also because they had a concession truck with enough food and water to get large number of illegals watered up and a little food in them before they were transported or, turned loose if there was no transport available.
I could go on about the crashes resulting in multiples of illegal adults, children and babies in critical condition because no one was buckled in and the coyote rolled the truck. Or, about the stash houses where illegals, who have already paid their coyote an exorbitant transport fee, are held en masse while their families try to scrape up even more money for ransom. Large numbers, fifty to seventy five plus men, women, children and infants are kept locked up and tied up, in nasty houses with no electricity, no water, no food.
That morning at the intersection of Stanfield and Connelly roads, the Border Patrol drove home the fact I was no longer coordinating ground and air rescue assets and resources for officers, I was living in the cross-fire between opposing drug cartels, human smugglers, and Law Enforcement, ninety four miles North of the border.
As time went by, the truth became apparent in other ways, too. I would be horseback and run across a group of people waiting on the arrival of associates for the transfer of a load of guns, drugs or people to be carried farther into Arizona. How did I know this is what they were doing? It was the cammo canvas tarp over the truck bed and long rifles carried by folks whose faces let me know they did not want me around. I gave a nod and rode away.
One afternoon, while exploring horseback around the base of the mountain, I came upon some old wood corrals. Near the corrals was a depression, or wallow, in the ground which appeared to be a grave, about the size of a smaller adult or a child. “Naw,” I told my self, and went on for a while. But, I was curious and rode back that way to have another look. “Maybe,” I thought, and reached for my cell phone. No service. So, I rode toward home until I had service and called Pinal County Sheriff. When a deputy arrived at my house in a patrol car - not a truck - I asked if he would like to ride with me in my Samurai. He said no, but thanks and gestured toward the lava rock strewn foothills and washes of Table Top, “You’d be surprised where this Crown Vic will go.”
He followed me back to within a few hundred yards of the corrals and wallow then, after he took a shovel from the trunk of his patrol car, we walked in. At the corrals he stood over the little depression for a few moments, then looked up at me and shook his head.
“It could be.” He stood there, just looking around the area some then said, “Okay.” and started his forensic digging, taking only small scoops of dirt and placing them individually along one side. It was obvious by his body language he was worried about what he might find, and when his shovel struck something other than dirt, he exclaimed, “Well shit!” immediately looking up at me and apologizing. He said, “I just did this yesterday on the other side (of the mountain). It’s a regular thing out here, finding the bodies. I just never get used to it.”
The Deputy gathered himself and went back to digging until he was satisfied it was only a wallow, not a grave. We walked out, and he told me not to hesitate to call. Sometimes, he said, we get lucky and find them out here still alive.
I've never minded being way out there. Whether it's living, working, writing or singing. Where this photo was taken, is less than a quarter mile from my home at the time. Beautiful, striking country. I loved riding and hiking through those mountains. The postal service would not deliver here. Not "could not," but would not because of the cartels and smugglers. Things could get a little western on the Vekol now and then. Shots fired by lookouts in those mountains, over my house and into the valley were not an unusual sound to startle one awake in the middle of the night. Just opposing cartels at it again.
One of the Vekol cowboys was car jacked by smugglers right on the ranch. He let them have the truck knowing it was very low on fuel. Sure enough, he found it abandoned not far down the road. When he got it back to the ranch, he ran a log chain through the windows, around the B pillar and then around a big mesquite, "to keep it handy."
Mornings - I rarely went out before daylight - I used to step out on the deck and throw a wave up there, just to let them know I was headed out to feed and work. Once in a while I watched while Pinal County or Homeland Security - somebody in a big, black helicopter anyway - flew over that saddle and wrecked the lookout camp. There was a repackaging station about 100 yards from the door to my house, 200 from the highway.
My daughters had given me a nice pair of binoculars for my birthday so I could glass the area from the upper deck before walking out to the barn. One morning, the horses were all focused on something beyond my sight, and figuring it was smugglers or mules, I called it in. Before S.O. arrived I counted five men and called back to let them know. One deputy came, and he looked up at me on the deck and patted his sidearm, asking if I was armed. He got a thumbs up. I relayed to his dispatcher the various locations of the men, she relayed that information to the deputy, and they were all rounded up before Border Patrol and Forest Service arrived.
Got a few good songs from the years of living there. "By Moon or No Moon, the Smuggler's Trail" is one. Inspired by my neighbor, Mary, an 80 year old retired school teacher who was living in a mostly falling down house across the highway and west a little. I could hear her yelling at her dogs, or yelling at the smugglers, and learned to discern which was which. One morning I had to feed before daylight in order to get on the road in time for an appointment, and as I was filling the water barrels, I heard Mary start yelling. When my phone did not ring with her calling to warn me of smugglers passing through, I relaxed bit. But, the first lines came as I was driving away to town. I called my friend, Les Buffham, and said, “Hey Les! Write this down for me?” After a few lines, Les asked, “Can I have a piece of this?” You bet. He's got a few lines in there. And, Don Armstrong wrote the music for it almost ten years later.
“I am an old woman, I live alone along the smuggler’s trail
These boys think they’re men and they try to scare me
They think I’m decrepit and frail.
But, my shotgun is loaded with double ought buck
and that always makes ‘em turn tail.
They’re only so much spit in the wind, along the smuggler’s trail
Moon or no moon, by day or by nigh
We struggle the smuggler’s trail
Dodging the Sheriff, and Border Patrol
There’s drugs and guns and people for sale”
From “By Moon or No Moon” by Nancy Elliott with Les Buffham, Music by Don Armstrong
Sonoran Desert Sage Publishing & Nancy Elliott Music ASCAP
It's on the Bluebirds album. True story of living 94 miles north of the border.
To Be Continued. Please Check Back as I continue writing this story.