One of the most unusual stories I covered in my long career as a political journalist was the race for mayor in the small town of Lackluster, Arizona. What first caught my attention was a brief news clip on television profiling one of the candidates, a dog named Harvey. I couldn't help but be curious about the forces in play that placed a candidate of such extreme ethnicity on the ballot.
So, one sun honeyed Friday afternoon in mid-September, being in the area to do legwork on another story, I found myself driving down the narrow twisting highway that leads to Lackluster. This was the first of three visits I made over the course of the campaign.
I had some faint knowledge of this small community that sits in the high desert close to the Nevada border, nestled in the protective embrace of a small range of mountains called the Sierra Lobos. I knew, for instance, that it had come into existence as a silver mining town in the 1860's. Once boasting a population of almost 10,000 it had dwindled to something like 250 adults. I'd heard it was a place of ragtag charm that could touch a visitor with an authentic sense of what the spirit of the wild west must have been like one hundred years ago.
I can now tell you from personal experience that this is true. The habitations, because of a total lack of building ordinances, are a disorderedly hodgepodge of tiny trailers, single wides, manufactured homes, exotic owner built houses, and old miner's shacks. A substantial number of the latter have been abandoned.
The population, due to a variety of factors, is in a constant state of flux but 250 adults isn't a bad estimate; if you include children, dogs, cats, and pot bellied pigs (of which there are two) you arrive at a figure of about 500. If the cattle that roam the streets at night are counted the number swells to something like 800. Add rabbits, the wild Jacks and Cottontails, and rattlesnakes and you have a population rivalling Phoenix.
Materially speaking this is one of the poorest areas in a poor county. About half of the adults are retirees and the rest either work in Rock Gulch 30 miles away or make a meager living catering to the small but steady flow of tourists.
The Sierra Lobos, a yellowish-grey expanse covered with an anemic carpet of greenery and streaked with the yellow scars of mine tailings, fill the sky to the east while to the west is spread the floor of the Joshua valley. Only two streets are paved and even those aren't paved along their entire length. The others are covered with a yellowish gravel that generates thick clouds of dust every time a vehicle passes and, unless faithfully graded, are subject to becoming like a washboard which produces a bone-shaking ride when traversed in older vehicles. At times when the grading has been neglected the condition can be so bad that those attempting to speak are in danger of biting their tongues.
It is, clearly, a town that lives down to its name. But, as the old-timers are fond of saying, "What it lacks in luster it makes up in color."
On that first afternoon, parking on the corner of Main and Arkansas next to an assemblage of weathered household goods and western curios that sprawled beneath a large sign that read, 'Bill's Mart', I crossed Main street and stepped up on the reverberent wooden walkway. To my right an imposing shaggy copper-colored dog lay against the wall, in the shade of the awning of Draybeck's Merchantile. As I reached for the door handle of Lackluster's small Post Office he gave one listless thump of his tail. This, I was informed moments later by Candice Estes, the postmistress, was Harvey, candidate for mayor.
Asked if Harvey was a Democrat or a Republican Candice said, with only a gleam of dry humor, "As far as we can determine he's a member of the Woof party because when questioned all he says is 'woof'. We do know that his party platform is the old boardwalk out front."
Olivia Duren, whom I found behind the counter at Draybeck's Merchantile, gave me a detailed account of the candidate's routine, "From about seven until nine he lies in the sun in front of the Post Office. At nine he edges into the shade under our awning and that's where you'll find him for the rest of the day. Finally, just before sundown, he wanders down Arkansas street to Walter Mason's old travel trailer where he spends the night."
I learned very early in my investigations that this was a town split down the middle. On one side ranged the longtime residents who wanted things to stay as they were and who could be found congregating at The Bended Arm Saloon or at meetings of the Penny Dreadful Revue with which Deadeye Doyle's Dastardly Desperados were affiliated.
On the other side stood the newcomers to town, lean, hungry men and women, full of the fires of reformation, who wanted to build a tourist center, buy a computer for the water board, restructure the volunteer fire department, begin charging for flea market spaces, and create a Chamber of Commerce. These were folks who frequented the Gold Gulch Cafe, performed in Miss Daisy's Variety Show, and filled the ranks of Marshal Maynard's Mean And Ugly Lawmen. These were the men and women who'd decided that Lackluster needed a mayor.
Every Saturday the Penny Dreadful Revue and Miss Daisy's Variety Show would compete for the attention of the tourists with humorous skits and rollicking songs about life in the wild west. And twice on that day Deadeye Doyle's Dastardly Desperados and Marshal Maynard's Mean and Ugly Lawmen would meet on Main street for a spirited display of gunslinging. And it was clear the tourists appreciated, on some visceral level, that there was real animosity between these two groups.
It was G.G. Marquez, The Bended Arm's raconteur in residence, who filled me in on the machinations creating the power vacuum that had sucked Harvey into his current status. G.G. told me that the earnest young men, as the old-timers referred to the newcomers, had first decided that there needed to be a Town Council which they then formed and whose meetings were attended almost exclusively by those of their feather.
For the first six months the long-term residents had observed the proceedings with indulgent amusement. But slowly, as word of the reforms the earnest young men were preparing to install drifted through the small community, there had been a growing sense of alarm. What finally galvanized the elders into action was the notice detailing the election process for selecting Lackluster's new mayor that was posted on the Post Office bulletin board.
Many disgruntled voices had been heard chewing on the news in The Bended Arm Saloon. Especially when it was announced that Don Robert, one of the most earnest of the earnest young men, had been nominated by his compatriots to run for the freshly minted office.
"I'd just as soon have Harvey for mayor," someone had said.
"Why not?" Someone else had asked. And so the idea, like so many that have changed the course of history, was conceived in a chance interplay of words.
"Nominating a dog to be our mayor is an insult to the democratic system. It's just plain wrong." Bill Murphy, 'Bill's Marts' proprietor, had howled at a Town Council meeting. But even the most biased reading of their own by-laws and election rules failed to provide them with the means to oppose the placement of Harvey's name on the ballot.
My initial thought was that the old-time residents would have been better served by a candidate with more get up and go, that they should have fought fire with fire. But that isn't the sort of spirit that reigns here. Nominating a candidate who could be counted on to maintain the status quo was their way of expressing their firm resolve to do things the way they liked doing them.
By the time I'd gathered the foregoing information it was almost nine o'clock in the evening. Someone mentioned that there was a room available at the bed and breakfast establishment above Draybeck's Merchantile so, not wishing to make the long trek back to Phoenix after such a long day, I made the necessary arrangements and was given a small room overlooking Main street.
Before retiring I walked downstairs and out onto the boardwalk to take one last look at the stars which, unlike the view I had at home, filled the sky with an awesome clarity. Then, high in the Sierra Lobos I saw what appeared to be the headlights of three vehicles move slowly across the face of the mountainside and then disappear. "What was that?" I asked Ezekial Crawford, who was sitting in the shadow nearby smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
"Them's those Freedom League fellers," came the reply, dry as the desert wind. Two long-horned steers came around the side of Draybeck's Merchantile and ambled off across the parking lot of The Bended Arm.
The High Desert Freedom League, I knew from various collegues with whom I'd spoken, was a renegade militia unit that was rumored to roam these arid mountains in camoflaged clothing and dust covered four wheel drives. In fact I'd recently read a news release by Armed And Dangerous, the militia watchdog organization which had reportedly infiltrated the group, that called them a 'dangerous bunch of lawless misfits'.
"Have you ever met or seen them?" I asked Ezekial.
"Haven't and don't want to. Heard them suckers is mean as snakes."
I felt a cold shiver slide down my spine. "Well, I'd better be getting to bed," I said to the old man. "Nice talking with you."
"Yep."
I slept fitfully that night, primarily because the mattress was old and lumpy. Finally about five in the morning I sank into a fairly deep sleep. Then, with the abruptness of a stack of dishes being thrown into a sink, all vestiges of peace and quiet were torn from my consciousness by an extended volley of gunfire. With my heart pounding madly I sat up in bed. What could account for such a fusilade of booming shotguns and revolvers? My first thought was that the High Desert Freedom League had decided to knock over the tiny Post Office, located directly beneath me, in order to make off with the rich bounty of social security checks that infused the community with a sizable portion of its financial lifeblood.
Shaking from head to foot, barely able to breath, I cautiously crawled over to the window and slowly poked my head above the sill. I was horrified to see the main street littered with dead and dying cowboys. One incongruity was the fact that, as I stuck my head up further, I saw along the street just below me a group of tourists placidly observing the carnage. Only then did I remember the staged gunfights between Deadeye Doyle's Dastardly Desperados and Marshal Maynard's Mean And Ugly Lawmen. I practically cried with relief to see the mortally wounded ranch hands rise grinning to their feet and wave to the small crowd.
Still shaking I got dressed and found my way to the Gold Gulch Cafe for breakfast. After eating and finishing several cups of strong black coffee to steady my nerves I retreated down the twisting highway leading out of town a little stunned by the strangeness of the world I'd entered.
Three weeks passed before I was able to return for a short visit. The first thing I noticed was that some wag had stapled a small hand-lettered sign above Harvey's favorite resting spot which read, "I will work like a dog for your welfare".
