Titanic Post

Long past time for a ride, and Tuesday was a good day for it. Little wind and plenty of sunshine. Just as I don’t know where this post is going, I didn’t know where the ride was taking me. At nine in the morning, the heat suggested I should ride up into the mountains. All the dirt roads and trails in the forest were closed because of severe fire danger and I was on the V-Strom, which prefers asphalt over dirt. Everything was good. Reaching Cloudcroft, NM at just under 9000 ft. (ca. 2700m)elevation, it was chilly enough to add a liner to my jacket to keep warm.

Winding north on Hwy 244 through Silver Spring Canyon, I could feel the tension and tiredness of the week before begin to drain away and that familiar feeling of me detaching from me and joining the environment poured in. That is until that right hand curve past the La Luz canyon cut-off, that I entered a tad too fast, reminding me of my mortality. Continuing on, I was reminded also that I again forgot my camera. There is a spot there where you can see the winding road along the grassy canyon meadow on which are two spring-fed ponds. On this day three horses were grazing and drinking nearby. Alas, no camera.

Hwy 244 enters the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation about seven miles from its origin. You can see that there has been a major difference in foresting philosophies between the US Forest Service and The Apaches. The Mescaleros have always kept the underbrush cleaned out and have thinned out the trees so that if there is a fire, it won’t be as fast, as hot, or so devastating to forest and wildlife. The Forest Service has recently reached this conclusion also. Old photographs of the area in the late 1890s, before massive logging, show that you could see 75 to a 100 yards into the forest and that there were large clearings. Now it is so dense you can only see a few yards. There is a curve (about 190 degrees) leaving Silver Spring Canyon and entering Elk Canyon. Hardly a year goes by without a cyclist misjudging the curve and crashing. And with that happy thought in mind I’m off to Ruidoso and the beginning of the Billy The Kid Scenic Highway.

All the motorcycle touring magazines have written (to exhaustion) on this highway which makes a circle from Ruidoso north on Hwy 48 to Capitan (home of Smokey Bear, not Smokey The Bear), then on Hwy 380 east to Lincoln of the Lincoln County War fame. It was here that Billy escaped from jail, killing two deputies in the process. The trail continues, never-the-less, on to Hondo in the Hondo Valley and to Hwy 70 back to Ruidoso.

It is not my intention here to describe the scenery, which is beautiful mountain terrain, but to set straight some of the misconceptions about this war and ‘The Kid’ that are repeated in many well-meaning motorcycle touring magazines and the movies. First, the Lincoln County War (1878-79) was an economic war between two factions of businessmen. One led by the Dolan-Murphy interests (Irish) and the McSween-Tunstall bunch (English.) The bone of contention was about who got the government contract to supply the soldiers at nearby Ft. Stanton and the Mescalero Apaches. None of these people wore the ‘white hats’ or the ‘black hats.’ One historian (David Townsend) commented that “none of these folks ate their own beef.” They were all men who were caught up in the turmoil of their time. Also, during the war, both sides were operating under the sanction of different branches of the law.

William Bonney was a young kid who, in trying to survive on his own, got into a bunch of trouble. He sided with the McSween-Tunstall faction. By all accounts Billy was well liked by many Anglos and the Mexicans, as he spoke Spanish fluently. It is said that he very polite and didn’t drink alcohol or smoke and that the Mexican ladies were especially taken by him. He did many bad things, including killing some people, but so did the other participants in this war.

I’m not sure how many casualties there were in this war or if anyone knows for sure. I do know that nobody really won it. Today there are many decedents from both sides of this war still living in the area. They are all, like their ancestors, mostly decent folks and still sensitive to our history. Even after 127 years, they haven’t forgotten this war or the losses of and by their ancestors. I think of them every time this country starts a new war. Good day for a bike ride!