But not seeing is not the same as not knowing. Back in the 70s, I lived on a remote ranch in central Wyoming, where golden eagles and coyotes were routinely considered vermin and often shot, "long haired lads" from the East were not to be trusted, and the only Democrat in the area, Billy McIntosh, whose sprawling ranch abutted the Rattlesnake Range, used to throw his metal tractor seat in the back of his pickup and head for some remote ridge where, often shod in floppy home slippers, he would paint the gorgeous scenery of sagebrush lining the ravines like silver smoke and rocks resembling reddish elephants. He did not care what other folks would say: he just did it.
So after reading the Hessler's story and encouraged by a particularly dramatic evening sky over the Uncompahgre Plateau, we thought we would nip to Nucla, Colorado. We will try to see the only Democrat in this overwhelmingly Republican community, someone who over his many years as a druggist became the town's man to-go-to with an array of his community's needs. A quick assessment of an inflamed appendix? Festive fireworks? A school's sports team needing a coach? An ear to listen to a multitude of pains and sorrows? And it did not seem to matter how anybody voted, and why: the community's well being was the most important goal, regardless of all the rest.
Hessler's first paragraph painted the backdrop of Nucla in strokes both bold and flowing:
In the southwestern corner of Colorado, where the Uncompahgre Plateau descends through spruce forest and scrubland toward the Utah border, there is a region of more than four thousand square miles which has no hospitals, no department stores, and only one pharmacy. The pharmacist is Don Colcord, who lives in the town of Nucla. More than a century ago, Nucla was founded by idealists who hoped their community would become the “center of Socialistic government for the world.” But these days it feels like the edge of the earth. Highway 97 dead-ends at the top of Main Street; the population is around seven hundred and falling. The nearest traffic light is an hour and a half away. When old ranching couples drive their pickups into Nucla, the wives leave the passenger’s side empty and sit in the middle of the front seat, close enough to touch their husbands. It’s as if something about the landscape—those endless hills, that vacant sky—makes a person appreciate the intimacy of a Ford F-150 cab.
Hessler painted, and we went to check out his picture. Or, rather, I went: when strangers are concerned, John prefers to see his crazy wife beat the path to someone's door and only when the passage is properly scouted and colored safe, he may join me. As usual, I had no idea what to say and what I really wanted once I said whatever may have served as an introduction. But winging it has always been my surest way to arrive to where I was going.
Hessler continued:
Don Colcord has owned Nucla’s Apothecary Shoppe for more than thirty years. In the past, such stores played a key role in American rural health care, and this region had three more pharmacies, but all of them have closed. Some people drive eighty miles just to visit the Apothecary Shoppe. It consists of a few rows of grocery shelves, a gift-card rack, a Pepsi fountain, and a diabetes section, which is decorated with the mounted heads of two mule deer and an antelope. Next to the game heads is the pharmacist’s counter. Customers don’t line up at a discreet distance, the way city folk do; in Nucla they crowd the counter and talk loudly about health problems.
I decided to bring my own health problem into the play as well, and when my turn came and the attention of all present focused on the stranger, I told Don I recently fell head first down a dry creek bed after its sandy bank collapsed under my feet. And as I fell, I hurt my shoulder which hit a rock. Could he recommend some ointment to lessen my pain?
If he saw through my sore arm ploy (I did fall and I did get hurt, but had not much faith in ointments) Don Colcord did not bat his eyelid. Instead, he left his elevated counter, marched me down the aisle, as as he bent down to select a tube of an arnica ointment, I asked: "What did you think about Peter Hessler's story?" The penny did drop but Don recovered quickly. I soon realized he was happy but also embarrassed by the elevated status Hessler's story awarded him. We slid into other topics, including an approaching rain storm. Later that evening, already parked in the forest of skin-smooth Colorado aspens miles away from Nucla, we heard our incoming email ping: it was Don, warning us about flash floods predicted that night and expressing his concern for us.
A couple of years later we came and saw him again. And then our lives followed their own switchbacks, and John broke his leg on Haida Gwaii in British Columbia a few weeks ago. Accompanied by his leg in a huge orthopedic boot and a pair of crutches, we descended on Nucla and Don Colcord again on Election Day, November 8. A sunny, transparent morning. People out, walking, shopping, even voting.
And a new sign in Don's shop window... to cheer the ailing?
There is no scouting for danger this time, as John boldly hobbles into Don's apothecary
He sees me first, asks me if I am good for a hug (I am, always) and comes over for a warm embrace. June, his customer, watches us and smiles, so I give her a hug, too, and ask what brought her here. Oh, she says, I tripped over my husband's camera case at night, and I fell. Wanna see it? Of course: for reasons better not examined I like to inspect wounds, scars, swellings and other abrasions of once sound bodies, and June obliges and shows me her truly impressive multi-hued hurt.
A photographer's camera case! I feel almost co-guilty of her injuries but she is cheerful and makes fun of it so freely I think I need to borrow her breezy matter-of-fact acceptance next time I trash my body. And she is not the only one wounded: here comes another victim, this time of a Halloween night a few days ago. Just hang around the apothecary and Don's customers, and you will witness a full array of pain possibilities.
The small gathering is getting quite boisterous, with John on his crutches and his Haida Gwaii leg fractures' story adding a variety to injuries already reported. But I am on a secret political mission here. Did Don, who according to the Hessler's story is a sole Democrat in Nucla, already vote? Is he going to, and how? There is no way to ask him privately -- he is working and quite busy -- so I tell him we expected him to do his community duty today at the local polling place. He laughs and spreads his arms. "Me? Not this year. I already voted by mail some days ago, and am not going near that place. Because what candidates we have is just awful. “He,” and Don raises his arms to heaven and rolls his eyes. "And she? She just cannot tell the truth." I wait, but there is no more to say. He -- like so many Americans we meet -- does not like either candidate, and I sense the small group of customers by his counter may -- just may -- share his assessment. No one asks whom John and I may have voted for but I suspect they know: it is Hillary. We just look the part and so does our truck's license plate from the blue New York.
June, whose arm I photographed, tells me she and her husband have a wounded magpie named Maggie, whom she rescued from her cat's claws three years ago. The bird cannot fly and is missing one eye, but they love it. I ask to see it, and we emerge from the dim store into the sun-drenched Main Street to meet John, who already climbed back into our camper. June invites him, too, and they chat nose to nose.
We follow June's car for a few blocks -- Nucla is small and modest, gaily festooned with fall colors and dying flowers hugging white and cream-colored clapboard walls -- and park by her house. She comes in, warns her husband, Estel: "We have company!" and then looks for John who enters from the back porch full of work clothes, tools and other objects she and Estel accumulated during their long and busy lives together.
How long? Fifty nine years, she says, and beams. They both grew on remote ranches in the area and went to town -- if lucky -- only once or twice a week. She married him at 17. They ranched, then moved to town and Estel did a degree in engineering. Now retired. And here is Maggie the magpie. First, on June's hand.
Then on her head, seemingly comfortable in the thick shock of June's hair.
Then with her and Estel.
And, eventually, on John's hand.
We talk. It is a good talk, and Estel makes me some coffee and tells us about dinosaur tracks he and his buddies discovered while working in a nearby coal mine. And there is a searing pain, too: their son, a commercial pilot, died recently while flying his new plane too close to a tree near his friend's house, a prank turned deadly. We feel the pause, the tightening of throat muscles, the awful weight of it all, and let it last for as long as they want. But they want Maggie again: she is the life they can embrace, she and the shy dog they took in recently. Estel holds the crippled bird now, tenderly.
Their votes? Estel answers: this is his business to explain, and June listens, suddenly quiet and serious, too. They agree: they voted for a successful businessman who may, just may, turn this country around. "The country is in a bad way and really hurting," Estel says, and he does not see any other chance because only the man he and June just voted for may do it and change things. May. "He" -- the man they voted for -- "is not disciplined, and says stupid things many times over, and if he would only stop saying them many more people would vote for him."
As for the U.S. media, it could not be less responsible: this is how bad it is. "I trust Chinese news and Russian news far more than I trust CNN and Fox," Estel concludes, and we let the subject drop.
Not missing one beat Estel also tells us about his life's dream of visiting New Zealand, and we talk about John's native country and its national health system and other social and political markers which make the Land of the Long White Cloud sound like a different planet. There is no doubt that our enthusiasm for some of these markers reveal our voting preferences this year, but there is no war in this room, no screaming, shaming, reproaching. Just four people gathered in a small space illuminated by the autumn light seeping though the curtains.
Then we must go, but before we leave June embraces us and so does Estel. They are happy we could come. They want us to return.
"I will cook you a good supper," June says to me. "Hope your leg will heal well," Estel says to John. And we hug again. And then back to Don's apothecary but he is busy and we have to wait: another customer, this time on the phone, in need.
Then the last picture, at least for another year -- or two -- or three. We may be back, and Don will be here, attending. Attending.
