Diesel and Dust

June 28, 1997, 11:00 am

No clouds form in the West Texas Summer sun. I sit huddled next to a large empty cattle water trough, clinging to the last bits of shade the hot metal has to offer. It is 30 dusty miles to the nearest blacktop, and another 40 to the nearest tire shop in Marathon, Texas. It is another 40 miles to a restaurant in Alpine.

The mission I am on is to stop large camoflauged US Army Corps of Engineers bladers and graders from destroying the prehistoric archeaological sites that have rested in this terrain for thousands of years. The engineers flagging tape placed alongside the road wasn't enough to keep the D-9s off of the sites, so we have to watch them while they work.

This particular site contains some broken chipped stone and some fire-cracked rock features. The features may yield some important information about who lived here and when, contained in the charcoal left in their firepits so long ago. But the site has been pilfered of any projectile points by the rancher. He has buckets of them at his ranch house. Additionally, the site has been ruined by the installation of the cattle tank, and the associated cattle that have scattered the rock elements. Still, there might be something useful for us just below the surface. Not that we'll ever know. After this road is improved, and the dozers are gone, the government has no further obligation to protect the site.

Plumes of dust climb to thousands of feet in the air, as the big machines improve the rancher's two-track road. The rancher wants better access to his ranch. The Border Patrol want better access along the roads to catch illegals bringing drugs through this barren wasteland.

No one wants us there, especially the rancher. Some Major told them that they needed to have an "environmental survey" conducted prior to the construction effort. Ranchers hate that term, because if you break the two terms down, it amounts to the rancher being unable to do what he wants to on the land. Visions of spotted owls pop into their heads. This particular rancher carried an AK-47 in the back window of his truck and played with rattlesnakes for fun. They don't particularly like the term "survey" either, because they don't rightly now where exactly their property line ends and the next rancher's begins. A good neighbor is one who isn't so sure either.

We are here with a biological crew, who are making sure the large metal beasts don't destroy an endangered cactus species. In total there are seven of us to monitor 150 pieces for green rolling and treading steel over 70 miles of broken limestone roads. Needless to say, I am without the rented Jeep Cherokee for a few hours.

For some reason, the rental car agency provides the Jeeps with street tires. The rental agreement states that we aren't allowed to take the vehicles off road. Technically we haven't, though the roads they are improving get much worse before they get better. Tire changing is a daily ritual.

The sun climbs even higher now, forcing me into the sun a little further. My wide-brim hat is all that is keeping me from the vultures now. I follow the plume of dust higher and higher into the sky, watching as the grader moves closer to my position by the water tank.