There was no cool to shake off on the 5th morning as Cletis drove the truck
back up into
Joshua Tree National Park.
At 8:00 AM the heat had retaken the hill and the short hike that Billy Bob
and Cletis took around the Hidden Valley loop netted three new birds and
appropriate salutations.
The money wasted on the previous night's air conditioning could not be recovered and Cletis was anxious and apprehensive about the peyote and Quaaludes purchased from the bar tender in 29 Palms.
Coming out of the park, the road and truck heated up as they rolled down the 15 miles of hill to I10 on their next leg of the vacation.
Something in the Wild Turkey had cleared their minds and for the first time on the trip, Cletis and Billy Bob did the smart thing. They looked repeatedly at the maps, and three times reversed their decision to go/not go to Mexico. By the time they reached Arizona they were clear - no Mexico - the Peyote would be enough and there was no need to seek out another international jail experience.
To celebrate their wisdom when they crossed into Arizona, they each chewed a button as directed and chased it with a lude to subdue the expected nausea.
They cleared the trailer trash roadside attractions between Blythe and Arizona Highway 60 without exchanging three sentences and headed further away from the Saguaro Cactus of the extreme south.
They drove and waited
Out of Yarnell, at a time when Cletis had given up hope for any effect from either the ludes or the peyote, Billy Bob slowed the truck up and around a bend along side a white Arizona Highway Patrol Car. Two patrolmen were standing over a large white tarp laid out on the other side of the guardrail as a third man wearing civilian clothing and an excited smile waved the truck on.
Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Billy Bob obliged and drove
past without a second thought.
The second thoughts and questions came 200 yards further up the road when, looking back down the switch-back through his binocular, Cletis saw the police lift the tarp to reveal the shape of a shirtless three hundred pound man stretched out on his back.
The sight was unsettling enough that the tour cameras stayed on the dash. There was no Wild Turkey salute. No sign of an accident. No extra vehicles. No blood visible. Just a dead guy by the side of the road.
Unclear of the role, purpose or origin of the junior traffic cop in civilian clothing Cletis puzzled for a moment. 'Hmmm' he surmised to himself, 'that guy must be the off duty local sheriff who has been called out to the scene of the circumstance to take the lead in the investigation into the turth.'
The afternoon road to Prescott was otherwise uneventful. Just stopping and starting with the road repair flag people grimacing in the heat.
The day came to a slow halt north of Sedona rush hour traffic. At a riverside campsite in close olfactory proximity to the vented biffy, Billy Bob wrote a nasty Blue Grass song about the death and dismemberment of "Big Charlie by the side of the road".
Cletis wrote a letter to the bar tender and Better Business Bureau in 29 Palms, demanding a refund for the Quaaludes and cactus buttons.