Valley of Fire Wine

The label for the bottles of white wine looked like this:

The main page on the outside of the pamphlet reads:

The Campbell Brothers Unfortunately Present

Valley of Fire Wine

Made by two stupid white men.

And for further adventures go to: campbellbrothers.blogspot.com

The inside of the phamphlet started the story:

The Valley of Fire

There are many people who don’t believe in such things as the bogeyman, or even the Campbell Brothers, but there are some who do. These latter wise people use stories of the Campbells as a cautionary tale, to frighten their children into not being, um, well like Campbells really, and to serve as a warning to future generations. This is one of those tales.

The two brothers, Ralph and Colin Campbell, were tried of running from town to town. Their feet where getting sore and the holes in their boots were getting holes too. And, heading west, they were quickly running out of towns. But sounds of pursuit were never far behind them (you could still hear the sounds of throwing up in the distance on a quiet night) and they could only shoulder their remaining sack of wine, the bag of dried squirrel chili, and stumble on, and on.

One day the brothers chanced upon the spur of a new railway. They think that since the track probably knows where it is going maybe they should follow, but which way? They looked on high for a sign. In the distance, to their left, they see the faint outline of a bird circling high in the sky (what they didn’t realize is that it was a buzzard). They decided to go that way.

It was hard trying to get a walking rhythm on the ties. Colin kept falling off. His brother claimed that he never pushed him at all; in fact he never touched him. Neither did the stick he was conveniently carrying.

After some time they came to a small town. Along the main (and only) street, past a miserable looking adobe saloon and close to the tracks was a small shack with delusions of being a train station. Near this was a water tower, a corral (the ‘Not So O.K. Corral’), and on the track, taking on coal and water, a train comprised of a locomotive, its tender and a caboose. In the corral was one old humpbacked mangy horse that watched the brothers with disinterest while munching hay. It too was the only one in town, this being a one horse one.

They came up to the shack and peeked inside, no one there. They looked around and saw a couple of men busy at the train. They cautiously approached the gently streaming behemoth, say ‘howdy’ to the men, and introduce themselves as each other (to possibly confuse identification later). It doesn’t take long for the Campbells to find out that the men are on a short layover to take on fuel and supplies before heading to the railhead and the camp at the end of the line.

While the men finished their chores the brothers decide to see if they can finagle a ride to the end of the line where they might have a chance to unload the rest of the wine and then scamper on, or to look for (that most disgusting four letter word) WORK, if they really, REALLY had to.

They approached the men again and Ralph raises his voice over the sound of building steam, “So, how about playing a friendly game of cards?”

One of the men, the Engineer in charge, replies, “We’ll have a bit of time while she builds up steam, so why not? What’s the stakes?”

Ralph answered back, “Well, we ain’t got any money if that’s what you mean, but we could spare a couple of bottles of this here fine expensive imported deluxe genuine wine beverage to provide us all with a bit of social lubrication.” He holds up a bottle for examination. It appears harmless enough.

Colin chirps up, “And we could also boil you up some chili. It’s world infamous.”

“You mean it’s famous”, asked one of the men?

“Well,” admitted brother Ralph, “you might say that too.”

“It sure got us out of India,” mumbled Colin.

“So it’s like international cuisine, is it?”

“Something like that.”

So the scene was set, cards dealt, bottles opened, chili heated and served.

Before the major stupefaction effect of the wine sets in and while the railroad men were still able to talk (the chili has a much later but more horrendous effect) they find out that the train has taken on not just water and coal but also a load of fruit, vegetables and baking supplies for the rail camp, which is about 20 miles down the line, all the goods packed in the caboose. And some paint as well, caboose colored paint.

The brothers regard the trainmen frozen in their seats around the card table. They step out of the shack and look at the train. Ralph grins and says to his brother, “Well, you want a train?”

“A whole train? You mean you think we should keep it?” And with not even a pause for guilt or remorse he says, “Great! Okay, so what do you want to do with it?”

Ralph said, “Okay, so let’s think about this. What is a train?”

“That is,” Colin said.

“No, besides that. What is it? What does it have?”

Colin scratched his head, “Well, it’s got a boiler and a bunch of pipes, and a place to put in stuff to burn.”

“And what does that sound like to you,” Ralph asked?

“Is this a trick question? Why a still of course.”

“Correctamundo. So that’s what it is, except it also moves, which is really kinda’ cool when you get down to thinking about it. So it’s really a rolling still, and, since we don’t hear any objection to us, ah, liberating it,” he glances at the figures around the table again, “it’s all ours. And,” Ralph added, “instead of just using the water for steam to move the train, we also use it to make the next batch of Campbell Brothers wine.”

“Hey Ralph, you’re a genus, and we end up with more booze only we end up with it not here. Great idea.” Colin, once again amazed at his brothers’ logic, took a long lingering look at the locomotive and said, almost reverently, “Cool, I always wanted to have a train so that I could blow my own whistle.”

His brother wisely kept silent on that one.

So the brothers set about cutting up the fruit and vegetables, and part of a plank thanks to Ralph, and added the ingredients, a bag of yeast, and a bottle of wine as starter to the boiler. Then they turned up the heat. They also took the time to repaint the logo on the boxcar to read Colin’N’Ralph Railway, thinking that would be enough to fool anyone into believing that the thing was theirs.

They also renumbered the locomotive and chose the number 42. Why? Well for some reason they thought that 42 sounded like the answer to something important and so went with it.

By that time they heard sounds of returning life emanating from the shack. “Time for a motivational speech I think,” said Ralph. He cracked his knuckles and then went rushing back into the shack, arms flailing. He shook the engineer and roused him from his stupor, yelling in his ear as he did, “Hey, wake up, you have to get this train moving, now, you’re way behind schedule.”

With Ralph and Colin’s assistance they manage to get the man aboard. The engineer has just enough brain cells working to get the train into forward gear before he passes out again and falls out of the cab.

“Hey,” exclaimed Colin, “he abandoned ship.”

“No problem,” said Ralph, “we got it moving now.” And indeed the train was starting to inch forward on the rails.

“Hey Ralph, I just had a thought. There’s no cow catcher on the front of the train. Is that okay?”

“That’s not a problem either”, he said, “I always wanted to catch a cow.”

Colin says, “Why’s that?”

“Because they’re not squirrels.”

“And why would you want to catch a cow instead of squirrels?”

“Because they’re bigger, easer to see, and they seldom climb trees.”

“Okay then, you’re it.” Ralph climbed out to the front of the engine with a grin on his face and prepared to catch a cow.

Things seem to go well for a while but all this time the train is slowly picking up speed down the long straight railway line. Eventually Ralph is pinned, spread eagled, to the front of the train. His eyes keep getting wider and wider as he sees what is rushing to meet him and he contemplates possible doom. He even has to drop the cow.

It doesn’t help that Colin has been constantly stoking the fire and it is much too hot, adding more and more heat to a mixture that was already too volatile. He looks up from adding some more to the firebox and sees the landscape flash by. ‘Wow,’ he thinks, ‘we’re really moving now’. He sticks his head out the window and looks for his brother Ralph. All he can see are a bunch of fingers frozen white in a death grip on part of the rail bars at the front.

“Ralph, are you okay,” he yells?

“Stop us,” he faintly hears. “Stop this damn thing”.

Colin tries everything he can think of to stop the train but he can’t. There were just too many levers and dials and other things and he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out which one was the brake, although he did find the whistle and blew that a lot. It didn’t help.

He returned to the window and yelled at his brother, “Ralph, it’s not slowing down, what should I do?”

He hears back, “Pull the brake lever.”

He looks around the engine compartment quickly and then yells back, “But which one is the brake lever?”

Faintly he hears, “Pull them all.”

Colin starts pulling on all the levers. The mechanisms screech and protest before breaking off in his hands, all to no avail.

By now they were going so fast that the wheels had started to glow. They had gone through the spectrum from red to yellow to white and then the underside started to melt accompanied by a terrible whooshing noise. The plaintive sound of the whistle took on the tones of a banshee wail.

A small hunting party of Arapaho pause in their trek across the plain in order to stare at the strange smoking, screaming monster as it races across the landscape towards what they know is the rim of a canyon. They give it a name and call it ‘stupid mistake’.

The train, at an almost unbelievable speed, runs out of track. It also misses the curve of the roadbed, hits an upraised shelf of rock, and literally rockets off the side of the cliff and into the sky. The train is running, no flying now, so fast, so hot, that when it hits a mesa it burns a hole right through the centre leaving a hole – what is called today ‘The Smoking Arch’.

The locomotive continues upward in a huge arc before starting its descent. When it hits the ground it blows up and leaves a huge crater.

No sign of the brothers was ever found, but then again no sign of the brothers was ever found.

In later years people wondered how this particular arch and crater had been, well, created; whether it was a bizarre natural geologic formation, or if it was somehow caused by some meteorite collision. Some even suggested that it was a nuclear blast test site.

According to the stories and traditions of the native people of the area the answer to all those suppositions is ‘no, it was caused by two stupid white men’. The native people have even immortalized the scene in petroglyph. There is a drawing in the rock that looks like two figures running. It also looks like a huge orange blob chasing them.

The end – for now.