Burying Edward Abbey: The last act of defiance

It was late in the day when the trucks reached their destination and the four men stepped out into the backcountry of western Arizona.

In the back of the trucks, they had enough gear for a few nights of camping — cases of beer, baling wire and tools for repairs, shovels for digging. And they had a body bag, full of dry ice and the corpse of Edward Abbey.

The day was sunny, but it had been a rough week.

The men spotted a mesa with a nice view, gathered some tools and walked to the top. When they got there, two of the men, Jack Loeffler and Doug Peacock, started to argue about where to dig the grave.

MONTINI: An interview with Abbey's ghost.

It was fitting that even in death, Abbey was somehow involved in something just outside the law. Abbey was a writer and anarchist who distrusted big government, big development, big money and the military. He abhorred violence, but was not above mischief. He hiked federal land in the Cabeza Prieta wilderness area without proper permits. He also was said to have done his share of "field research" for one of his more famous books: a novel about a group of environmentalists who cut down billboards and vandalized construction sites to slow development in the desert he loved.

By late in his life, the author of "Desert Solitaire," "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and other works had a reputation as a passionate writer and defender of the wilderness.

But his legacy, really, was only partly written in his lifetime. It would be sealed by his death — how he pulled needles out of his body in his hospital room. How he went home to his house in Tucson to die peacefully.

How his friends, before anyone could stop them, loaded his body into the back of a pickup truck and headed west.

Word of Abbey's death had started to spread that day in March 1989 as his friends wheeled out of town. Soon, reporters would be knocking on the door at Abbey's house. The men were already gone.

Loeffler and Peacock had promised Abbey they would carry out his wish to be buried in the desert. Two others rode along to help: Tom Cartwright, Abbey's father-in-law; and Steve Prescott, his brother-in-law.

They drove a long way, spotted a mesa and walked to the top, where Loeffler and Peacock started to argue.

Loeffler started digging.

Loeffler and Abbey met in the late 1960s, at a campfire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. A mutual friend, John Depuy, and the six-packs of beer in Loeffler's pickup helped break the ice. Loeffler kept in touch, and the two men went on many camping trips over the years.

Loeffler remembers when he made the promise.

Abbey was on assignment, doing research for an article on the Piceance Basin in Colorado, and had asked Loeffler to come along.

"By then Ed and I had done enough camping together that we were buddies," Loeffler said recently in an interview at his home near Sante Fe, about 26 years after Abbey's death. They drove back roads, hiked, camped out, ate pork chops and potatoes cooked over a campfire, drank beer. They talked about life, and death.

There was a rising moon, Loeffler would later write, and coyotes howling in the night.

Although many know Abbey as a nature writer and environmental activist, much of his background was in philosophy, and he had thought a lot about death and dying over the years. He had seen loved ones die long, drawn-out deaths in hospitals, stuck full of needles, tubes and catheters.

The two friends started talking, and before the night was over, they had made a pact. Loeffler would help Abbey die with dignity if he fell into poor health. Abbey promised to do the same for Loeffler.

"It was a powerful thing, that vow," Loeffler said.

"I figured the odds favored him going first. ... But the point was, it's like trusting someone at your back. ... It was that level of, you cover the guy's back, no matter what it takes. You give it your best."

Doug Peacock had made a similar promise to Abbey. Peacock, a Vietnam veteran, was the model for Abbey's character George Washington Hayduke, the central figure of "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and its sequel.

In the mid-'80s, with his health in decline, Abbey started to bleed internally.

One day, Loeffler got a call.

"Ed called me and said, 'I just finished "Hayduke Lives." Let's go camping.' So I said, 'I'll be down at your house tomorrow evening.'" He drove to Tucson, where Abbey lived with his wife, Clarke, and three of his children, arriving late in the afternoon.

"I looked him in the eye and thought there's something different that I couldn't quite identify. ... Ed knew his time was really limited," Loeffler said. They decided against leaving and setting up camp in the dark. That night, Abbey started to bleed again. The camping trip never took place.

"I was sleeping in his writing cabin ... and in the middle of the night, Clarke came running in and said, 'You've got to get him to the hospital.'"

A handful of close friends and family members rushed to Abbey's side in the final days. Loeffler and Peacock. Clarke's sister, Susan Prescott, and her husband, Steve. Her parents, Tom and Carolyn Cartwright, came as well, and other friends.

Abbey agreed to have an operation, which the doctors proclaimed a success. But he was still bleeding. He could feel it, and tests confirmed it.

An artery was hemorrhaging. It was different, this bleeding, but the result would be the same.

"And so Ed said, 'It's time,'" Loeffler said. "And so I started pulling tubes out of him. The doctor was trying to stop me and I told him to cool it in my own way."

They took him out to the desert, then back home, to his writing cabin. He held on for another day and a half, two days.

"I never saw anyone die a braver death than Ed Abbey," Peacock said. They tried to keep him comfortable and everyone said their goodbyes.

"The last time Ed Abbey smiled was when I told him where he was going to be buried," Peacock said. "I whispered the name of a place, of a range of hills that he knew. And that was the last time he ever smiled. He died a couple of hours later.

"Steve got a hold of a body bag, and we packed it full of dry ice, and put Ed in the sleeping bag."

They took two trucks. Peacock, the Vietnam vet, had shovels, tools, duct tape, baling wire — "the fundamentals of emergency repair anywhere" — in the back of his pickup. They stopped at a liquor store and bought jerky, nuts, candy bars, some whiskey and five cases of beer.

"We just took enough food and booze and extra shovels," Peacock said. "We didn't worry about it being much of a job, although we had pickaxes."

They drove into the desert, and it was late in the day when they reached their destination.

The precise location of Abbey's highly irregular burial site has been the matter of some secrecy. Of the four men who helped, three are alive today. Some of Abbey's immediate family have been there.

It is widely believed to be in Cabeza Prieta, the wild open desert west of Tucson, where volcanic hills and granite peaks shoot out of sun-baked flats, and dry washes stretch on without end. This is big, unsettled country, between the Barry M. Goldwater Range and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Both Abbey and Peacock considered the entire region a place without borders or lines, and of course, Abbey had been known to fib about the names of places in his writing, even his birthplace.

Peacock and others have written about the burial site in books, but there is no guide book on how to find it.

Wherever the four men were when they clambered out of their trucks, they were in Arizona. Probably in its big western deserts. Certainly remote.

They spotted a mesa with a nice view, but it didn't go well at first.

"Jack and I were having this ominous fight about where to place Ed," Peacock said. "Ed asked Jack to make sure he got buried in a good place."

Loeffler, the longtime friend, thought a mesa top would be perfect. Peacock, the model for the novel character, who had studied geology in college, said he thought the caprock surface would be a problem. The top of the mesa was higher than the surrounding terrain for a reason — it was harder than the surrounding rock, which erodes.

"And so Jack is out there pickaxing this caprock," Peacock said.

Sparks flew. The sound of a metallic clunk.

"And the pickax is bouncing back. There's no way you're going to get a hole in that," Peacock said. "Well anyway, they spent a whole day. I said, you know, this won't work."

Night came. They went back to the trucks and made camp.

"It was a beautiful night, as I recall," Loeffler said. "There was a moon, not a full moon, but a moon, and a clear sky."

Abbey spent his last night above ground in the bed of Loeffler's truck. The four men spread out, far apart, to sleep under the stars. A group of coyotes moved in close and started to howl. Loeffler would later talk to Tom Cartwright about it.

"Tom's recollection is that the coyotes came in the midst of us, and started to sing. It was like a song of farewell to Ed."

The next day, they got in the trucks and drove back to the mesa.

"There was never ever a time when Ed and I went off in our trucks when one or both of us didn't get stuck in something," Loeffler said. "It just came with the turf. And so sure enough, I was trying to cross this arroyo and got stuck in the sand. And so Steve and Tom were pushing on the hood, and Peacock was pushing on the grill, and he broke the grill. And I never replaced it. It was sort of a tribute to that moment."

They carried the body bag up the mesa. It was hot. Each man took a corner, with shovels underneath for leverage.

"Couple hundred yards, put him down," Peacock said. "Another couple hundred yards. Really slow going, you know, and finally laying him in the thin shade of a saguaro."

Peacock found a different spot, not quite on the top of the mesa, but high enough that it offered a nice view. They started digging.

"I really wasn't sure Ed was dead, or would stay dead," Peacock said. "So when no one was looking I'd go over to the body bag and squeeze his nose. Cause I could tell by the eaglelike Abbey beak that he was still in there, and he wasn't moving and he wasn't trying to get out."

A few wildflowers bloomed and there was a slight breeze.

As the hole got deeper, Loeffler and Peacock took turns lying down to check out the view.

"And I laid down in that grave and I looked up and there's seven buzzards circling around, you know," Peacock said. "And if you move your head you can see distant volcanic ranges, or parts of them anyway. And then the seven buzzards were joined by three others, all 10 circling above, and I knew that was the spot because Ed Abbey wanted to be reincarnated as a vulture, you know, he wanted to come back as a turkey buzzard. So it had to be a good resting place."

They covered the grave, said a few words. The job was done. Loeffler and Cartwright left.

Peacock, the character, stayed behind with Abbey's brother-in-law.

"Steve and I spent an extra day there," Peacock said. "We spruced up the grave and swept out all the tracks and whatnot. … We had a bottle of Wild Turkey which we split three ways with Ed."

Abbey's books sold well after his death, James M. Cahalan writes in "Edward Abbey: A Life." One reason was that news of his death generated publicity, which led people to his books. Another is because five new books were released after his death.

But the story of his last defiant act, carried out with the help of his friends, helped secure his legend.

After a while, Peacock and Cartwright left the area, too. There would be two public wakes, one in Tucson and one in Moab, Utah, with speeches, music, food, drink. This was also in line with Abbey's wishes.

From time to time, those who know the location of the grave return.

"I just go out there for the company," Peacock said. "I just write, edit, talk to old Ed a little bit."

Abbey's wife and children have been to the site, but its location remains a secret. Cahalan's book shows a photo of a small, single marker, which bears the words:

Edward Paul Abbey

1927-1989

No comment.

Coming Wednesday

How the first Earth Day became a turning point in the life and legend of Edward Abbey.