Clotheslined in Steffenville: “Two Mules to Triumph” Excerpt
Enjoy this outtake from my upcoming book “Two Mules to Triumph” about traveling from North Carolina to Idaho with my mules Brick and Cracker. The Steffenville I’m referring to is in Missouri.
There would be no rushing the mules through the flyover states, the great middle section of America I was walking into. Since Meredosia, with all the rainy weather, days off and the pink spots showing up on Brick and Cracker’s backs, I was down to averaging seven miles per day.
I could do that in two hours of walking, which gave me plenty of time to soak up every foot of America that many rushed through.I understood why people raced or flew over this part of the country. It lacked stunning mountains, glistening oceans and big-city entertainment. It was field after field of corn with an occasional hayfield and mulberry thicket thrown in among the grain bins and farmhouses. Most Americans like what the Heart Land produces – steaks, corn syrup and Electoral College votes. They just don’t want to live or visit there.
Late that afternoon, we made Steffenville. Steffenville was named after pioneer settler Henry Steffens. It got a post office in 1872, and then a hardware store and then a bunch of little white farmhouses. Now it was dying. The post office closed in 1988 followed by the hardware store. The paint was peeling on the little white farmhouses and many of them were abandoned.
I led the mules behind an abandoned brick house and flagged down an old man bush hogging an overgrown pasture. He was covered in grass seeds. The man turned off his tractor, and I asked him if I could camp behind the old house.
“That’d be fine,” he said and wiped the grass seeds off his face with his sleeve. “Nobody lives in that old house anymore. Put your mules anywhere you want.””There’s even water for your mules,” the man said and pointed at a chain pump behind the house. A chain pump is a hand-driven pump that pulls water up from a well with a chain and what looks like small rubber buckets. “That old well was dug by hand over a hundred years ago,” he said. “The way they did it back then was one fellow would be at the bottom of the well digging with a shovel. He’d put the dirt in a bucket and another man, up top, would haul up the dirt with a windlass.”
Cracker rubbed his head against me to knock off a fly. “It was dangerous work,” the man said. “The walls could cave in and bury the man digging. Methane gas could seep into the well. The rope used to haul the dirt out of the well could break and the bucket would fall back down into the well. That killed many a well digger.”It was hot and a drink from a hand dug well sounded lovely.”The water’s real good,” the man said. “Just crank the pump a little because that well hasn’t been used in a while.”
I thanked the man for letting me camp behind the house. Brick’s lead rope was tied around Cracker’s neck. I was standing between the mules, and the lead rope hung above my belt. “Enjoy that water,” the man said and fired up his tractor.
The mules bolted away from the noise, and the lead rope caught me above the belt. I fell backwards into the grass, the rope zinged up my shirt, over my head, and away the mules galloped to the far end of the field. They jumped a broken fence in tandem because they were tied together at the neck. Then they jumped it back the other way. They galloped around the field one more time then pulled up and started grazing.
Damn, what a crazy-ass thing for them to do. Thousands of cars, trucks and tractor-trailers had passed them as they walked up the side of the highway. And yet, they still spooked at a tractor.
I caught Brick and Cracker and led them to the old house. I unsaddled them, got out my water bucket and led the mules over to the chain pump to water them. I hung the bucket from the spout and started cranking the pump.
To operate a chain pump, you crank the handle around and around, like you’re cranking an old Model T Ford. I cranked and cranked and the pump rattled and shook but nothing came out of the spout. I cranked some more and the handle got harder to turn. Finally a trickle of water dribbled into the bucket. I kept cranking and the trickle turned into a stream and soon the bucket was full.
The mules took turns drinking and after they drank, I filled my one-quart water bottle. I picketed them out and cooked some ramen noodles with the water I’d pumped up. Only after I’d eaten half the noodles did I notice the bug parts mixed in with the broth – little black legs, a diamond-shaped thorax, and a tapered abdomen. They looked like they belonged to a spider I’d cranked through the pump’s gears. I fished out the biggest parts and finished the noodles.
After being clotheslined by my mules, buggy noodles were a minor hazard.
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