Nasty, Brutish, and Loud (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine April 2002

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Nasty, Brutish, and Loud (Cont.)

A FEW HOURS LATER, at the Poker Run, I met Jamey Thompson. Jamey is, was, and shall be many things—a former Marine Corps urban sniper, a 180-pound karate black belt, a corrections officer at the Logan County jail, and a veritable sage on the way ATVs should be driven through the hills of his homeland. But he is best known for an egregious youthful blunder. In 1992, after a man beat up a friend of his, Jamey bit a chunk off the man's nose. He was charged with felonious assault and avoided imprisonment only by promising the judge that he'd enlist in the Marines.

Jamey, who is 32, was sitting on the tailgate of a friend's pickup, sipping a can of Bud Light and professing how nighttime was the right time to go four-wheeling. "There's just something about having a machine and a female in the dark that puts you in the mood," he said. After a few more beers, he became so thrilled with the prospect of a night ride that he pulled out his cell phone and called his 20-year-old girlfriend, Beth. "I love you," he cooed. Then he clicked off and stepped toward me, eyes gleaming. "Yeah, I'm gonna get some poontang tonight."

Jamey invited me along. But when he picked me up at my motel at 10 p.m., I was a little apprehensive. Beth was with him, along with his cousin Kevin, a case of beer, and several sticks of Ted Nugent Biltong Beef Jerky. ("Gonzo meat," read the label, "Flamethrower" flavor.) Jamey advised Beth to refrain from wearing a helmet, arguing, "If you wear a helmet, how you gonna drink beer?"

We rode. To get to the Hatfield-McCoy trails, we first had to ascend an ancient three-mile path up Peach Creek Hollow. Known only to locals, Peach Creek is quite possibly the nastiest trail in Logan County. Not only is it steep and full of sharp turns, but it abuts a 150-foot drop- off and its surface tilts laterally toward the edge. Jamey was double-heading with Beth, and when we arrived at the base of the trail, he stopped and spoke to me in a strangely serious tone. "Remember to downshift," he said.

Then he gunned forward, mad for momentum, rattling over the rocks, skirting the edge of the cliff, heaving his chest at the handlebars. I followed, standing up, shivering. Jamey's headlamps flickered as he and Beth climbed impossibly high. The woods screamed with noise. I rounded a turn, and in the murky light, way up the hill, I saw Beth pitch off the back of the quad. That was enough for me. I got off and began walking, still wearing my helmet.

Twenty minutes later, after Jamey, snickering, delivered my four-wheeler to the summit, I was still shaking. There came a faint noise in the distance—more ATVs, it sounded like. "Fucking pot growers," Jamey hissed. "A couple weeks ago, they killed three people up on these trails—hung 'em in the trees. There's shallow graves all over this place." The noise grew louder. "Fucking inbreeders!" he blurted. "Beth, get my pistol."

It was all B.S., of course, except that Jamey really did have a gun in his backpack, as well as a high-power light capable, he claimed, of spotting a deer a mile away. He demonstrated its strength by flicking it toward my face.

We pressed on—down a short hill, up a ridge. The night air was crisp, the woods silvery beneath an almost-full moon. Jamey wore a purple bandanna knotted pirate-style over his hair. He let out war whoops. He tossed empties into the woods. He threatened to shoot a hole in a power transformer we rode by.

And then, a little after midnight, just before we descended a long hill into Logan, he stopped to take a leak and celebrate the essence of night riding. "Freedom!" he shouted. "It's just you, your machine, and your friends!" He grabbed a fresh beer and looked over at me. "If you wasn't here, we'd be flying," he said. "I'll tell you straight out, Bill, you're a shitty rider. You suck."

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