What a llama looks like: April and Maynard’s critters were nowhere to be seen.
Blame the llamas. They escaped their pen and went roaming. Who can fault them? Nice fresh grass sprouting after all the winter rains. Big pond of water nearby to drink from: You’d break free too!
March here in the California Outback is punctuated by rains and mud. People don’t bet on basketball, they wager when their neighbor’s tractor will finally get yanked from the pasture. Drive around the country lanes and here and there you can see trucks, SUVs, farm equipment sunk to their hubs. Especially vulnerable are optimistic lowlanders—the newly relocated—who believe with assurance of saints that their Subarus are really Willy’s Jeeps unawares. Well, even the jeeps get stuck.
The llamas belong to April and Maynard (their names have been changed for obvious reasons). A few days ago, the animals bolted. And in Modoc County—“Where The West Still Lives”—that naturally calls for a roundup. April and Maynard are Bay Area transplants—been here, for years, though. Their property is sturdily fenced. Actually, in a typical news story the preceding sentence would read: “Their 40-acre ranch is sturdily fenced.” But it’s not polite in Modoc to ask how many acres someone owns, or how many chickens they have, or how many cattle. “Gosh, it’s like asking how much money you have in the bank,” says one Modocer. So you don’t.
Let’s just say that April and Maynard own a nice-sized property—that’s sturdily fenced.
Nevertheless, the llamas needed up-gathering. Now, you can’t criticize a neighbor for driving off the pavement when there’s work to be done. But as Maynard said surveying the scene of crippled cars on the morning of the big yank-out: “It was stupid, stupid.”
Here’s what the couple did: They went chasing the llamas, first with a well-used Oldsmobile SUV. At the edge of the pond, it went down. If it were a horse and you were in a western, you’d shoot it—at least John Wayne might: “Well, pardner, you’ve served me well. Don’t want you to suffer any.” Bam! It’s actually harder to kill a car and tougher yet to explain that to the insurance adjuster. So, you call for help. Next came the tow truck from town.
It’s always bad news when you see a tow truck come down the road in the springtime. Unless the vehicle is stuck right there near the road, the stuckee is toast: The truck goes back empty-hooked.
Tow trucks get stuck too.
The Olds SUV was about 500 feet overland. So Maynard—must have been a bit of that Bay Area optimism still clinging to him and self-reliant gentleman farmer that he is—takes the new shiny red SUV out boony-crashing and gallops in for the rescue. It’s bigger and heavier than the Olds and really bogs down—sinking all the way to the frame.
So here’s what’s great about living in the country: You can always shout up a neighbor for help. In this case, adjoining property owner Neighbor C gets the call. Then Neighbor B across the road gets involved. And when Neighbor A sees a hay truck, a flatbed truck, a quad, a little pickup and a tractor going by at nine o’clock on a rainy Friday morning, he gets excited and dashes to investigate: Things never get this interesting in the high desert.
Modoc’s tenacious mud needs a tractor for rescue work.
So, now on scene are: a quad, a tractor, a flatbed truck, a hay truck, a small pickup and a large pickup, Neighbor A, Neighbor B with visiting Friend 1, Neighbor C and Ranch Hands 1 and 2—in all, six support vehicles, six Good Samaritans, about a dozen lengths of chain and some yellow rope. Neighbor A, in fact, immediately recognizes this rope. It’s Neighbor B’s rope. The very same rope that pulled Neighbor A out of the mud a dozen years ago—when Neighbor A was himself that optimistic lowlander who thought his Subaru was a Willy’s Jeep and Neighbor B and Neighbor D took pity on him.
As Neighbor A is fond of saying, “If Neighbor B hadn’t pulled me out, I’d still be there.”
This is no exaggeration. For proof, one merely has to look northward. In fact, there just barely visible on the other side of a little knoll from the two stuck SUVs, the six Good Samaritans, the six support vehicles and the 300-feet of chain and rope is Neighbor J’s tractor that has been decorating the sage steppe since January—a farmland fixture fixed in mud. From the road, it’s actually rather pretty.
The llamas stay out of sight.
Next, comes the laying on hands—on the multitude of chains. Neighbor B on his quad delivers the lengths and they are strung out, hooked together, snaked through the mud, the grasses and the sagebrush. Then comes the yellow rope to bridge the gap between the end of the chains and the tractor.
Operating the tractor is Neighbor C, who’s smart—a rancher, a cattleman, a hay man. A lowlander from the Bay Area who’s lived here for 50 years. No fool when it comes to mud, he says, “I don’t want to get off into that dirt there. I use the tractor every day for haying.” Neighbor A then points out to Neighbor C sitting in his tractor that Neighbor J’s tractor over the hill below the knoll has been stuck since January: “Yep!”
So the big question is: How long does it take to learn the hard lesson about soft Modoc Mud? Ten years? Twenty-five years? Maybe 50 years.
The answer actually came from the tow truck driver a year before—when he pulled sheepish Neighbor A’s truck out of the mud—stuck by the side of the road in March. “Everyone here gets stuck,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
So, the answer is: Never.
Back to the unstucking: Neighbor B volunteers to drive the shiny red SUV. Neighbor C is on the tractor and begins to pull: The rope takes up slack, the chains take up slack, the engine of the SUV is gunned, the wheels spin, the mud flies and pop! The faithful yellow rope breaks.
Ranch Hand 1 unties the rope; Neighbor C calls for more rope, which Ranch Hand 2 delivers—a big spool of orange-and-black rope, many inches thick: Yes, orange and black are the new yellow.
Then comes the second attempt. The tractor backs, the rope takes up slack, the chains tighten, Neighbor B guns the red SUV engine, more mud flies, the new rope holds and slowly the car is pulled backward out of its half-grave. Neighbor B drives it lickety-split through the field. And the old Olds is next rescued the same way.
Nothing breaks. No cars are shot.
Then comes the gathering of the chains, the sorting of the chains: This is mine, this is yours, this is his. These go in the hay truck, these go on the flatbed, these go in the tractor, these go in the little pickup. In the country, you can never have too many sets of chains: Chains are not for bondage; chains, ironically, will set you free.
When the rescue is over in about an hour, the rain starts again—promising more needed water, more work (maybe) for tow trucks and Good Samaritans—and, best of all, more excitement for Neighbor A.
The llamas are nowhere to be seen.
© 2017 H.A. SILLIMAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
