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| The above photo was clipped from Page 24 of a 1965 program for the Flagstaff Pow Wow. However, this is precisely how Mormon Lake Lodge looked during my summer there in 1967. Look to the left above the VW and you can see the famous payphone "Mormon Lake #99". I never thought I'd find a photo like this! (Found 12/22/2019) Source: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/flgpow/id/10/ |
This is a story about That Cut Throat Apache. It has two endings. The first one is Happy. The second one is Sad. We will tell the first part here.
In the summers of 1966, 1967, and 1968, I worked for the US Bureau of Public Roads (BPR). Each early June, the government would pay for my flight from Indiana to San Francisco and put me up in a downtown hotel. I would report to 450 Golden Gate Avenue to work with the engineers for about a week. Then I would get sent to the Treasure Island supply depot for a few days. Finally, BPR would fly me off to some remote road project somewhere in the Far West.
When I showed up at BPR HQ in early June 1967, it wasn't long before the bosses let me know I was heading for The Happy Jack Project down in some God-forsaken remote corner of The Arizona Wilds. Practically within the first hour after I heard I was going to Happy Jack, the whispers began.
First an old engineer leaned across his drafting table into my wide eyes and said with a hushed voice, "You better watch out for that Cut Throat Apache down there. Don't ever turn your back on him or he will slit your throat."
And that's how it started. And that's how it continued. It didn't take long for everyone I worked with at 450 Golden Gate to tell me the same refrain. Even the old secretary chimed in the same frightening proclamation.
The litany kept up at Treasure Island were all the old rednecks worked. Boy, they really embellished the throat cutting part, often zipping a finger or steel rod across their throat while rolling their eyes and sticking out their tongue in a uniquely gruesome way.
By the time I boarded the airplane to Phoenix, I was truly spooked. And it didn't help matters when the tall guy with the flattop hair cut picked me up at Terminal 1 in Sky Harbor Airport. "You know about That Cut Throat Apache, right?" he barked as he helped with my luggage. My throat was already parched from the dry heat and I stammered "Yes, everyone has been warning me." To which he said, "Well, it's true. None of us know why or how he got hired but we all know never to turn our back on him. It's instinct with those savages--the second they see your back, their killer instinct comes out and they slit your throat. If you have to turn your back on him, make sure to get one of the crew to watch your back so he can't slit your throat."
They gave me a late 1950's Studebaker pickup truck to drive up Highway 87 to Clint's Well. From there, I turned left and slowly traversed the muddy, rutted, rotten excuse for a road to the Project Office at Happy Jack. BPR was transforming the basalt-studded two-track into a first class road now know to untold thousands of people as Forest Highway 3.
It was going to be my job that summer to join the BPR crew and do whatever they told me to do. Naturally, I was on edge and very apprehensive as I pulled into a cinder covered parking spot in front of the Project Office. I was even more alarmed to see a dark-faced, black-haired, swarthy, short Indian standing outside the project trailer eyeing me as he leaned up against the project trailer.
My heart pounded as I got out of that truck and I didn't take my eyes off that Indian for a second. I locked the truck and quickly entered the project trailer with my transfer and assignment papers. I had absolutely no clue what was next. I had no idea where I could be quartered...nothing. Luckily, the Project Engineer (PE) was great guy...very welcoming and very laid back compared to some of them I knew. He told me they had arranged for a log cabin for me up at Mormon Lake Lodge. It would be $30 a month and they had already advanced me the first $30. All I had to do was drive up there and check in with Gail Wingfield at the Lodge and he would show me the ropes. The PE then told me all about the work schedule and when to report the next day and so forth. And then he narrowed his eyes and said, "And you're going to be working with Sid Tortice--that Apache standing outside. You've heard about him, right?"
My eyes widened and I practically gulped and simply said, "Yes." To which the PE looked away and replied, "Well, good, don't forget what you've been told."
I went back out and almost leaped into the Studebaker and started bumping my slow speed way the many miles up the wrecked road to Mormon Lake. Gail Wingfield was the personification of The True Western Gentleman. He could have been John Wayne's brother. Even to this day, I've never met anyone as True West as Gail. He was The Best of The Best in every way. Gail took me right under his welcoming wing and gave me The Grand Tour of Mormon Lake Lodge and its various amenities, such as they were in the Summer of 1967. He was especially proud of the one payphone booth outside--Mormon Lake #99, he said with great pride.
As he showed me my small log cabin, Gail said, "You see this other bunk?" I nodded. Gail added, "Well, you're free to find a room mate and the rent will stay the same. It could save your $15 a month. The choice is yours."
I Thanked Gail with the fresh enthusiasm of a teenage Hoosier. Gail simply tipped his hat and strode from the cabin to resume his Major Domo Duties as King of Mormon Lake.
The next day dawned way, way too early but, luckily, I was up and full of energy and made it back to Happy Jack well before the 7:30 AM reporting time. The PE assigned each of us our daily duties and then said, "Sid, show John the ropes." Oh, my Gosh, my heart almost stopped. Somehow my Midwestern Mind thought I was about to get lynched.
But, no, it didn't happen that way. Sid Tortice walked up to me, took off his hat, looked squarely into my eyes and said, "Hello, John, my name is Sid Tortice." He put out his hand and, of course, there was no way I could decline shaking his hand. He had an uncommonly vice tight grip for a Native American. As he shook my hand, he continued looking into my eyes in an eerily unsettling way. He did not smile.
Sid and I climbed into that Studebaker and started bouncing our way over basalts to whatever sector we had been assigned to work that day. Sid said nothing. Of course, I said nothing either. We just drove and looked out the windshield. But I do have to admit I kept my peripheral vision locked on Sid as we drove that morning.
It was not uncommon in that project to drive 30-60 minutes before arriving at your work site for the day. As chance wold have it, the PE has given me the toughtest duty of the project for my first day. They routinely gave Sid the toughest duty EVERY day so they thought they'd have some fun throwing the Midwest kid's feet into the fire with That Cut Throat Apache.
We were to work together as "Guinea Hoppers" that day. Guinea's were very small wooden stakes pounded into the road grade by project survey crews. Each Guinea had a blue top colored blue with a kind of crayon. The stakes themselves were known as "Blue Tops" by the Contractor's grading crew.
However, in the ebb and flow of construction, the Blue Tops would get covered with cinders and become invisible. That's when and where The Guinea Hoppers came into play. Your job was to literally run in front of the road grader with a short-handled axes to find and uncover the Blue Tops before getting run over by the grader. It was hot, highly-stressful, intense work that required constant focus. And it was impossible for one man to do it all day. That's why Guinea Hoppers worked in pairs. We played tag team with each other.
When one of us would practically fall down and puke from the stress, the other one would pick up the axe and run with it. It was easily the most grueling physical job I ever did in this lifetime. Sid went to the grader operator and told him that I was new to the game and asked him to cut us some slack that day. The grader operator nodded and was a very gentle man.
I couldn't believe how hard Sid was working. Once we got to working together, the thought of worrying about turning my back on Sid never entered my mind. Sid HAD MY BACK! When the grader would get to close to me, he would motion for the operator to slow down. Sid saved my bacon that day, as he would come to do on so many other days that summer.
I don't remember how many hundreds or thousands of feet of Blue Tops we covered that day but it was a helluva lot. At the end of the day, Sid and I were totally covered in sweat and cinder dust and just completely winded. We both climbed back into the Studebaker for the long drive back to Happy Jack, watching the ponderosa forest pass before our eyes. Neither one of us said a word on that drive back. When we pulled in front of the Project Trailer, Sid turned to me and looekd me in the eyes and said, "John, You did good today. I am happy to work with you." And Sid got out and went his own way.
I checked in and out and drove back to Mormon Lake shaking my head and trying to digest what had happened to me that day. But the next day dawned the same and it was a lot like the movie Ground Hog Day. But with each passing day, the divide between me and Sid dwindled It didn't take long to realize I was working with a True Human, a Man I could respect. And it didn't take long for me to ask Sid if he'd like to be my room mate. He smiled so wide when I asked him that and moved right in that night.
We became Best Friends Forever. Our summer together is one of my Best Memories. Sid was one of the Kindest, Most Wonderful Human Beings I have ever met. And he was a wise teacher as well. He took me under his wing and pointed out so many unknown ways of the world to me, With each passing week, my respect and affection for Sid grew by leaps and bounds. We became brothers that summer and we each enjoyed each other's company so much. Sid never tired of hearing my boyhood stories from Indiana. And, of course, I never tired of hearing him tell about hunting for Acorns near Carrizo or the rituals of becoming a man in The White Mountain Apache Tribe.
One of the crew has a brand new yellow 1967 Mustang convertible. We would buy cheap beer in Flagstaff and drive all weekend long around The Coconino Plateau. Sid would sit in the back seat, running his fingers through his long waving black hair. With a beer in one hand and his hair in the other, he would yell out into space, "My Land! My Trees! My Cattle! My Water!" And we would drive on, listening to The Beatles on Bill's 8-track tape player in the Mustang.
As my 1967 Season drew to a close there in Mormon Lake, I finally decided on my last night to tell Sid about the The Cut Throat Apache Story. At first, Sid laughed his great and awesome Apache Laugh. But then he became very serious and told me stories of all the prejudice he had grown up with in his life. He said he suspected I had been told to dislike and distrust him. And then he told me that he recognized I was a "True Human Being" when I drove up to the Project Office and that we could become Friends.
We hugged together that night and high-fived and had such a great last night amid the tall pine trees.
It was a wonderful Happy Ending to my Summer with That Cut Throat Apache!
