black chevrolet

Dust rose from the trail.  Five specks in a staggered formation crawled along the sinuous wash track along the foot of the mountain.  The first speck was a white horse bearing a well dressed man, saddlebags and tack black and newly polished.  The second horse, black and bearing a woman equally well dressed in new jeans and a white stetson.  Third horse, whinnying and coughing in the dust, an older woman in well worn shirt, sleeves torn at the shoulders, leather chaps.  The town of Fillmore lay ahead far ahead, a tiny cluster in the distance, a sawn-board cluster of storefronts. Steam rose from the cluster, billowing above the railroad tracks.  The horses pranced from side to side in their walk, impatient to be home to their oats and silent stables.  The sun beat down, dust coating the noses and throats of the riders.  It was hot.

The foremost rider motioned high to the right, and a gigantic crane became visible behind a shoulder of mountain.  It read Fillmore Pipeline.  The man was the manager of this pipeline company, the horsewoman pulling up next to him was his daughter.  The light turned green and the horses plodded on, one step after the next, their impatience subsided into lethargy.  The lead horse whinnied, rattling the adjacent rock wall.  The California Highway Patrol flew by, quietly, like a hawk on the pavement, a vigilant hawk checking speeds and tags and pickup loads I glanced back then ahead, the wisp of dust covering the riders had been swept into the patrol car's wake.  Fringe rattled in the 55mph breeze alongside Daughter's white Dynaglide,  pottering along its wheeltrack, her thin torso erect and proud as she grasped its handlebars.  The lead horse had become a low swept assembly of black fleetside bags and glistening chrome, the rider clad in leather vest, half helmet and goggles; my own reins were a twist grip, my knees clamping some very shiny blue metal.  We were a fleet rolling along the hot melted asphalt, headed toward a shimmering mirage.  The cowboys.  The last cowboys.  They say there is gold up in these hills.... an eager young man looks about for a response from the weatherbeaten faces around him.  They get a faraway glint in their eyes before breaking into conversation about veins found i the cuts made for the 5 freeway...about some ancient closed gold mines, still producing when their corporations and owners passed away....National Landmarks, fenced from the public with tommy guns and razor wire....

The last cowboys.  Maybe not chasing bounties or herding cattle, but alone against the elements: hot dust and hot sun, dehydration and slippery pavement.  Alone against the enemy, the hypnotic truck driver, the laser beams of the CHP.  Alone against the world that cannot know their freedom, with only each other for recourse against mishap.  Chrome glitters in the sun, open pipes rumble the ground, leather fringe flutters by.  The weary riders shift in their seats and breathe the dust, peering ahead through the flow of traffic....