-- Dirk Richardson

At the counter in the car rental office, he bought a map, found the road he wanted, received directions to get him out of Albuquerque and onto the highway that would link to Route 337, which would pitch him up over the mountains and onto the high desert ridge he was looking for. He drove away.

Mixing business with pleasure on this assignment was a good idea. He had been sent from Boston to do an interview and story on a high school basketball coach who, for the last fifty-one years, had accumulated almost eight hundred wins with his squads from a small town in the southeast corner of the state. The most wins by a coach on any level in world hoops history.

His roommate in college had come from southern New Mexico, from the Mescalero Apache Reservation and had told him much about the history of the Apache, as well as of the state in general. Jack impressed him with his seriousness and dedication to study. Jack's goal was to become a lawyer and return home to represent his people.

So he had decided to do a bit of touring on the way to his story. Time wouldn't allow him to visit Jack, but at least he could get a taste of the area.

He climbed up into the high desert mountains and, in a couple of hours, dipped slightly onto the ridge. This was about eighty miles of the lower spine of the Rocky Mountains, where it tails off into the flatness of northern Mexico. His goal was to visit the ruins of the Pueblo Missions on the ridge, a string of three or four that the Spanish established beginning in the late 1700's.

In the town of Manzano, he stopped to stretch and bought a book about the missions, and then drove west a few miles to the Quarai at Salinas Pueblo Mission. There wasn't much to see. The book helped to describe how it must have been. Most of the adobe had wasted away, but it was easy to imagine the layout: the church, the housing and the fields of crops that were worked by the Indians being converted to Catholicism. The mission was constructed by the Indians under the supervision of the Spanish, and every so often garish paintings, sculpture and furnishings would arrive from Spain via the Mexican trade routes.

The mission functioned fairly smoothly for about fifty years. Then, the Apaches, who had been driven north out of Mexico and were living at the southern tip of the ridge, got wind of this nonsense, sallied up to the missions and massacred everyone in sight, Spaniards and Indians alike. Then they burned the missions so that all that was left was the adobe.

As he drove south to the next set of ruins, he thought about Jack and the history of the Mescalero Apaches. They had been the ones that occasionally would swoop down and raid the ranches of Lincoln County. The ranchers had then hired the likes of Billy the Kid and others for protection. When the United States Government instituted the reservations, rather than relocate the Mescaleros, it decided to leave them up high in the Sacramento Mountains to survive on their own wits.

Today, the Mescaleros log the forest, run a ski resort and make and sell trinkets. It's still tough going. On their land, a river originates from the melting snow and meanders down into a valley, inhabited mostly by Mexicans and a few wealthy horse breeders. The western side of the reservation's main slope is as dry as a bone and looks out on the White Sands Testing Grounds. The Mescaleros decided that, since the river began on their property, they would bore a tunnel through the mountain and grow apples on the arid side.

This plan did not sit too well with the people further down the valley, and Jack and his legal team knew they had their hands full pulling this one off.

He stopped briefly at the Abo Mission and then inquired about the nearest town to the east that had motel accomodations. As he drove off the ridge in the setting sun, the views were stunning. About an hour after dark he pulled into Vaughn. It was like entering a neon cripples' ward, this strip of incomplete signs announcing a place to eat or sleep. Between all of them put together, one might be able to spell cafe or motel, however restaurant was out of the question. He pulled into one that said TEL because there was a BA across the road and checked in for the night.

Entering the bar, he was thankful he didn't have to comply with the sign that required the checking of all spurs and firearms. He ordered a hamburger and a beer and had a friendly conversation with the bartender, who knew well of the winningest coach in the history of the Universe.

In the morning, he drove south to Roswell, where he found a cafe and breakfast. The waitress was a looker, and they talked easily while he downed his eggs. As he headed out east, it occurred to him that he hadn't seen an American Indian anywhere in the last two hundred miles.

He crossed the Pecos River and saw a sign for Bottomless Lakes, so he pulled off for a swim. It was refreshing, and he wondered, as he lay on the bank, if Billy the Kid might have taken a dip here during his flight from Lincoln County and the Law.

An older fellow in a pick-up pulled up to fish, and he asked him why these were called Bottomless Lakes. He said about a hundred years ago all the ranchers and cowboys tied their ropes together, and tied a rock to it, and the rock never hit bottom. The old guy asked where he was headed. "Oh, Hobbs. Well, you'll know when you're half way 'cause you'll see a tree. The trip's about a hundred-fifty mile."

The guy was right on as around an hour later, he saw the tree. He pulled over, got out of the car and looked at this big lone Oak. He leaned against the car, smoked a joint and wondered, Jesus, how is it there is only one tree in this huge expanse of land.

The thoughts of the last day and half's experiences occupied him. He could see the Mescaleros hitting the mission before dawn, before the workers could leave for the fields and maybe scatter. He could see the priest on his knees. He could see the tapestries blaze in flames that climbed the walls and the great piles of furniture and gilded frames in a huge bonfire.

He could see the hole in the mountain and the water flowing into and out of it, and he could see the trees, and he could see the Apples.

What he could not see was what he could ask this coach and what the coach did or did not know. He would be told of the couple of big gangly ones who made it into the NBA and the championship seasons. He would want to ask if an Indian had ever played for him, but he already knew the answer. He would want to know if his teams also suffered more defeats than anyone else, and was he a sore loser? But most of all, he wanted to know the coach's lifetime win-loss record versus Mescalero High School.

He got back in the car, made a big circle around the tree and pulled onto the road, heading back west toward the Sacramento Mountains. He wanted to see where they intended to drill that hole through the mountain.

LUCK be a Lady...