The Samaritan

The Samaritan


Here’s what happened.
I had no cases on a Tuesday. The weather prediction was “sunny”, though a dense fog came around at night and was still hovering in the morning. Usually, the valley fog here in Oregon burns off to give sun.
So, I decide to take a ride, a bike ride, down the Upper Clackamas. It’s a ride I usually do in the summer, since there are no facilities for the 25 miles to the Ripplebrook Ranger Station, except in summer the marina’s open and I can get Gatorade and burritos. Once, I ran out of water and had to drink from a waterfall. But, I have a fanny pack that holds two water bottles, plus the one on the bike and I think I’ll be OK.
When I take my bike off the hooks in the garage, the rear tire is flat. I change the tube and it holds air. Hmmm. I drive to Estacada and the tire is still tight.
The three-mile hill out of Estacada goes fine, though the tire seems a little splayed. Then, the downhill where it drops into the river gorge of the Clackamas. It’s a picture postcard right after the crest with the river winding blue through the big forest canyon and a Montana sky above.
The marina is closed. Fine. I have the three water bottles and a tasty steelhead pita sandwich in the fanny pack. Also, have my Ipod. Me, myself and Ipod.
At mile 36.5 (Estacada is mile 25) there are road crews and a woman flagger where the big slide happened last week. But, it’s open. I stop to take the plastic bags off my socks since it’s getting warm. The cattle dog in the woman’s truck barks fiercely, but when I talk to it, it sits down behind the door. She tells me it’s a “red” and her husband is at the truck on the other side with their other heeler, a “blue”. I tell her about the two cattle dogs that always chase me on the climb up to Sandy. They run right out on the highway. The last time I went there, they were gone. She says they don’t recommend bikes going through since there are big rocks on the road. I say, “It doesn’t bother me.” There are always big rocks cracking off the basalt cliffs in the canyon.
So, the tire seems to be holding and I cruise into the flats by the river. Soon I’ll see kayakers. They road trends upward since it’s upriver, but you don’t really notice it until you come back and realize you’re riding faster.
I’m at twenty miles and looking for the hill before the ranger station. It warms so I pulled over to shed the Lycra.
The back tire is spongy. Shite. I take out the tube and inflate it and find the leak. I had checked the inner tire in my garage, but now I know where to look and sure enough there is a razor thin rock sliver, about 3 millimeters, in the tire. I get it out with my knife and put the spare tube in. It seems OK. Soon as I saddle I know it’s bad. Total flat. OK, patch kit.
I find the leak in the first tube and sand the rubber. I pull off the glue cap with my teeth. All the glue is dried. Old kit. Defeat.
The first car that passes is a shiny Subaru and it doesn’t even slow. Maybe my cycling glasses make me look sinister. The next car, an old dust-brown Fairlane pulls over.
He looks Mexican, but says “ju”, so I think, maybe Cuban, but, no, he is from Mexico City. The speed limit is 40, but he drives between 10 and 15 mph. Sometimes a car passes and sometimes he pulls over. He is driving down the river to enjoy nature. “I like seeing the nature.”
There are bible quotes stuck all over the car. I relax.
I remember the drive from Vera Cruz to Mexico in Rube’s old truck. “This area looks a lot like the mountains between Vera Cruz and Mexico City,” I say.
“You know Vera Cruz?”
“Well, we stayed in a little place called Tuxpan.”
His voice rises. “You know Tuxpan? My mother lived very near there. The river runs into the ocean.”
“Yes, I remember that. There was a white sand beach that went for miles with no one, except a few horses.”
He smiles.
I tell him how we all got sick in a restaurant. He tells me how he always gets sick when he comes back from Mexico to the U.S.
I tell him the story of my flats. He tells me how he got a flat once taking a short cut from Highway 26 to the Clackamas through Timothy Lake. “You don’t have to go through Sandy.”
I’m curious. It would be quicker to stay on the highway. That’s a very long short cut, I think, over a lot of rough dirt road, but then I remember he likes to drive through nature and I get it.
He tells me someone stopped to help him fix his flat. It seems life is balancing.
After a while, he asks me if I read the Bible.
“Sure.”
“How did God make the Red Sea open? How could he do that?"
I say, “Maybe an earthquake.”
He looks puzzled.
“You know, the land comes up.”
Still puzzled.
“Well, what I’d like to know is how they walked across that. It must have been thick mud, you know, a total swamp.”
Still puzzled. Brow wrinkles.
“You know, there’s no roads on the bottom of the ocean.”
Finally, he laughs a little.
I ask him if he knows Luis, my neighbor, who owns three Mexican restaurants, all named Cha Cha Cha.
“Cha cha cha,” he says very rapidly. Then, he pauses. “I don’t know him.” He pauses. “The Mexican restaurants are becoming very popular.”
We climb up the hill at 12 mph. He says, “You ride up this hill? It’s a big hill.”
“Yes, but then I get to cruise down the other side all the way to Estacada.”
It turns out his name is also Luis and we marvel at the coincidence. I buy him a Gatorade and chips at the market and invite him to share lunch on my tailgate. Suddenly he says, “Amigo, I have to get going,” and launches into an explanation.
“No problem. You were very nice to pick me up.”
We shake hands. “Con Dios,” I say.
His grin is wide now. “Vaya con Dios, amigo.”