Utah coffees had washed down the eggs and fried potatoes that now distended their
stomachs, and they were on the road in Ernest that Sunny bright June morning.
Out of Elko they stumbled upon a 5 star, AAA back road that would lead them across
Nevada through Elvis's back yard and on into Woodie Guthrie's California.
The birding was great, and the sun was warm.
Conversation ran to "turth", and an informative philosophical speculation about the value and purpose of Cowbirds led Billy Bob to look over at Cletis and pronounce "I rode through the desert with a man with no shame."
Cowbirds, semipalmated plovers and godwits scattered from the side of the road and temporarily abandoned their feast among the cow feces as the truck stopped to allow the boys to check the bikes, empty their bladders, and total up the number of species observed.
The tape deck was stuck and they were unable to change tapes for the next hour (something of an inconvenience for Billy Bob as he always liked to changed tapes just as Cletis was catching the rhythm of a song).
They listened on to John Prine's most recent offering, some collection of duets with REAL COUNTRY prima donnas and a folksy Irish woman that Cletis had barely heard of.
The boys speculated - figured Prine was behaving himself on the album, wanting to stay in the good books of his female partners. The album had been slow to catch Cletis but Billy Bob had liked it instantly. As it was stuck in the tape deck it started to grow on Cletis too, but in a different way than "God Save the Queen" which, when played often enough reportedly generates a sub-cortical template which deludes the mind into "enjoyment" with repeated listening.
Flat and superficial at first, the textures and fun became apparent over time and Cletis began to appreciate it as an 'excellent album'.
Fortunately, a high-speed cruise over a cattle guard jostled the tape deck into working again and the boys escaped becoming total captives to the sirens that Prine had corralled into his musical world. The next tape allowed for a return to the Turth, and Cletis offered up a regurgitation of his 2nd year philosophy understanding of Turth as a tomatoe seed.
After three connecting dirt roads, countless cattle guards and a stop at what
Billy Bob thought might have been the Cletis Stanley family homestead,
the boys rolled into
Eureka Nevada.
Following a quick stop at the local
house of horrors
to pick up some near beer and other supplies they headed out on the wrong road
again.
Sometime around noon, while venturing down a dirt track that showed on the map but not on the ground, Cletis pulled the truck into the near abandoned ranch at Copenhagen Creek. Here, for the forth time since August 16, 1977 Cletis saw Elvis. Previous encounters with the King had been fleeting though twice Cletis had been able to capture Elvis on film - once in Missoula Montana while the King crossed the street near an Exxon station in 1989, and once two years later, at a bus stop off East Hastings in Vancouver. Both times Elvis had been in heavy disguise, as he was this time, but neither time had Cletis actually spoken with the King.
Elvis was very talkative and glad for the company though he never offered any acknowledgment of his pre 1977 life in the spotlight. He'd been alone on the ranch with a generator, no hot water and no cable for two years since the owner had moved into Eureka. The owner had left Elvis alone in charge of things when, at 87, his deteriorating health had forced him into town and the comforts of a retirement home.
In the 45-minute visit that all appeared to enjoy, Elvis regaled the anxious travelers with his post 77 history. He had traveled by box car across country from South Carolina to California and back again before being pulled onto the wagon and back to Copenhagen Creek by his now absent benefactor. Elvis also provided a quick history of the ranch including the turth about the pioneer woman who had worked the ranch alone for 23 years. The woman's name was Copenhagen and though she chewed snuff and packed a .45 it is doubtful that her brand of choice was Copenhagen. (This is not a commercial endorsment.)
She was carted off the Ranch in 1917 when, at age 78, she accidentally shot
herself in the leg for the second time. She complained bitterly the whole way
to town that the wound was "nothin'" compared to the first bullet she'd put
in her leg - and she got that one out "without any goddamned doctors".
Nonetheless - she gave up the ghost, heart broken and in town above the saloon
where she had won the ranch in a poker game in 1894.
Before leaving Elvis, the pilgrims had tried to leave a gift of a pack of Camel Lights but it turned into an exchange of cigarettes for a number of arrowheads, a high tension wire insulator and two sodas (AKA pop).
Cletis backed out of the drive way over the spot where Elvis had shot a rattlesnake the day before. Cletis offered a pull on the Jim Beam Snake bite that had replaced the Wild Turkey at the last filling station, but Elvis politely declined saying "no - can't do that - gotta stay alert - shoot more rattle snakes".
They retraced their steps back to the unmarked turn that Elvis had described for them and carried on down the track less traveled.