Jeff Buchanan retired as a Lieutenant General from the Army in 2019. He had four combat deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. He also led the military forces supporting FEMA in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and commanded more than 6,000 troops on the Southwest border in support of CBP. He and his wife live on a small ranch outside of Patagonia, Arizona and he is one of five commissioners for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
An avid hunter all his life, the only thing my father loved more than the outdoors was a good joke.
The year was 1975, and I was a hunt-crazy high school junior. Despite the heavy chill that cut through the December air, I needed no convincing when my dad suggested we drive our old Jeep up into the Huachuca Mountains for one more late-season whitetail hunt. The Jeep was a hand-painted camouflage ‘56 Willys CJ3b with no top and no frills. The gas gauge was the nearest mesquite branch we could stick into the tank. In short, it was the best hunting vehicle I’ve ever seen.
We decided to split up to watch for deer until dark. He sent me north with a jerk of his chin and instructions to meet back at the Jeep half an hour after sunset.
I nodded and set off over the ridge. It wasn’t long before I found the perfect place to glass: no wind, peaceful. I settled in and watched my breath mist in the cold air.
Silence hung over the ridge as thick as the clouds blanketing the sky.
One fat snowflake fell onto my shoulder. Then, another, and another. With no wind, the snow drifted straight down in absolute tranquility. I watched it accumulate. Heavy, wet flakes caught on oak leaves until every surface was covered in white velvet. I was sitting on a rock on the side of a ridge at about 7,000 feet elevation, but inside my snow globe, visibility was cut to about fifty yards. It stopped slowly and then all at once, leaving the woods steeped in muffled silence.
I’d never experienced such perfect stillness.
I didn’t see a single deer that day, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I hiked to the Jeep to meet my dad at the appointed hour. He emerged from the woods just as I did. “See anything?”
I shook my head. “Nope. You?”
“Nope.” He squinted at the dark outline of the trees he’d emerged from, bathed in the otherworldly glow of fresh-fallen snow under the twilight. His eyes met mine with a twinkle of understanding. “Sure is pretty, though.”
My father was a man of few words, but hunting was one language we shared. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the silence of our Huachuca Mountains, where he’d taken my love for the outdoors and solidified it into a living, breathing thing.
I didn’t want to let go of the magic of that snow-crusted ridge, but finally, it was time to go. We drove in silence, reluctant to break the spell. As we crested a saddle, my dad cut the engine and turned off the lights. He turned to me with a gleam in his eye. “Have you ever heard of the Ghost Jeep?”
I shook my head.
“It cruises the mountains at twilight looking for lost hunters.” The old Jeep creaked over the rise and began the steady descent back down the mountain.
The light from the full moon glowed on the fresh snow as it crunched under the Jeep’s tires, painting the world in brilliant contrast. I’ll never forget the feeling of that Jeep coasting down the mountain in near-complete silence. In his infinite wisdom, my dad extended the magic a bit longer.
Or so I thought.
At the bottom of the canyon, we came to a creek crossing. Without enough steam to climb up the other side of the creek, the Ghost Jeep slowed to a stop. I waited for my dad to start the engine.
And waited.
He turned to me in the perfect serenity of that moonlit night, eyebrows raised.
“Well?” “Sir?”
“Are you going to sit there all night or get out and push?” Mischief sparkled in his eyes. “We’ve been out of gas for the last three miles.”
