Trego's Mountain Ear

This story goes back about 40 years – Renata has encouraged me to get it down on paper, and as I think about it, the story still seems unreal, like it couldn’t have happened. But it did. At the time, I was teaching at Trinidad State Junior College, and driving a 78 Dodge Colt. Renata and I had finished shopping and were headed South from Pueblo, Colorado, on I-25. By today’s standards, the road was isolated, and cell phones hadn’t taken off yet – by our standards, accustomed to Montana, it was a four lane highway, and downright populated compared to the stretch from Wolf Point to Glendive. We had heard of travelers along this stretch of highway being pulled over, robbed and assaulted – but it was one of those things that couldn’t happen to us.

The back held our groceries and K-Mart purchases, and we hadn’t reached Walsenburg when six cycles pulled alongside and behind us on the left. The guy alongside pointed his hand to tell me to pull over. It didn’t look like a great location, and the crew on motorcycles didn’t look like Walsenburg’s Welcome Wagon, so I just shook my head and started wondering how many Harleys I could knock down with the little Colt if it was time to start playing bumper cars. He again pointed at the side of the road, so I looked for the easiest way (at 55mph) to explain that I had no intention of pulling over. I reached between the seats, still looking at the cyclist and driving with peripheral vision. I smiled my sweetest smile, and lifted a cocked and locked 1911 Colt with my right hand.

He returned my smile, waved a ‘follow me’ to his companions, and six motorcycles courteously passed the little Dodge Colt and quickly drove out of our lives. When I got back to campus, I shared the story with Walker, the cop instructor. He shared it with Ernie, second-in-charge of the town’s police force. Ernie showed up, asking why I hadn’t got the license plate numbers – “Because I didn’t think of it.” and telling me that this crew had a record of assaults on people who had pulled over – even introducing me to one student who had been robbed and beaten. He wanted them.

As I write it up, it still seems unreal. I still wonder how many Harleys I could have knocked down with the little Dodge Colt – that little car was my primary weapon. The 45 Colt only had 7 rounds in the magazine – and while I was shooting Bullseye competition at the time, six moving targets and eight rounds didn’t look like a good situation. (Renata remembers more cyclists – but my recollection is that I had only two spare cartridges.)

The little Dodge Colt (made by Mitsubishi, and the motivator to owning an Eagle Talon) looked like this:

I think it had about 85 horsepower in the overhead cam 4 cylinder.