RETURN TO ASH FORK cont. Page 20

When we arrived back in town G.B. drove me through the stone yard where he

was employed, then up and down every street in Ash Fork, which proved to be two
miles long and five blocks wide. With his left arm out the window as a pointer he

told me, "I own this here trailer house an' I get good rent fer it. I own these three

lots, an' as soon as I do some work on the cesspool an' septic field, if that GOD -

Dammed building inspector will keep away from me, I'll put three mobile homes

on them. Now, I own six houses in this block, four on the north side." The

strange little stone houses I'd seen on my first visit to the town. ". . . an' five an'

six there on the south side."

With every corner he turned, G.B. kept his arms waving and the list growing.

"If I owned it all Charle," he said, referring to the town, "I still wouldn't be a rich

man - but I'm finaglin' another old house anagoglan from here. That fool wants

four thousand dollars fer it! Wayll he can GO STRAIGHT TO HAYLL, before I'll

pay four thousand fer that shack! But I will pay two thousand fer it, an' I'll rent it

fer twenty-five dollars a month. That's fifteen percent interest on my money!" he

said with obvious relish.

G.B. traced the the history of the oldest building in town for me, several of

which he owned. In one historic structure he showed me a bullet hole in the

ceiling, which dated back to territorial times a cowboy, a night on the town, a

woman and whiskey. He took me to the site of the old Escalante Hotel: a Harvey

House built before nineteen ten, to accommodate the Santa Fe Railroad

passengers. Some of the original floor and tiles were still intact, and as G.B.

related historic facts about the building. I envisions the elegance of the Escalante

encircled by the rugged simplicity of the little cow town.

Each building had a story to be told and each person I met greeted me with

warm familiarity. I even met Moon John, the old fellow who lived in the junk

yard, and whose joy-filled voice I'd heard on my first visit to Ash Fork.