The Monkey Wrench Gang

Back in Albuquerque, Bonnie and Doc Sarvis load up on dynamite—namely, Du Pont Straight and Du Pont Red Cross Extra—at G.B. Hartung & Sons, Mine & Engineering Supplies. One of the Hartung boys asks Doc what he's going to do with all of it. Doc says they're doing "monkey business" (139) out on his ranch. Bonnie, upset by the boy's question, scowls and says they have "a mining claim" (139). Doc tells the boy they're going to develop the claims then hands him a cash tip.

After the boy walks away, Bonnie calls him a "nosy little punk" (140). Doc says he's only a kid but Bonnie says she bets he "already has VD" (140). This comment spurs another facetious speech from Doc, this time about the origin of syphilis. Bonnie keeps interrupting Doc to demand a raise and a transfer. Their verbal spar ends with Bonnie telling Doc that he needs a drink. Doc agrees that "a drink a day keeps the shrink away" (141) then asks Bonnie what's next on the list.

Doc pulls the list from his shirt pocket and begins reading off its items. Bonnie confirms they've secured everything but the chemicals. They decide to go to Skagg's drugstore for those, and also pick up some camouflage netting and gifts: a beer koozie for Hayduke and a chromatic harmonica for Smith. After their shopping, Bonnie and Doc head to a "Naugahyde-padded bar" (142) frequented by "lawyers, architects, city-hall politicos" (142). Bonnie comments that the place is depressing and reminds Doc that he has a surgery at five o'clock.

A cocktail waitress passes by, "weary of it all" (142), and Doc checks out her legs. He turns to Bonnie and though his mind is "a thousand miles elsewhere" (142) tells Bonnie that he loves her. Bonnie senses his "phony declaration of love" (142) and rejects it. Doc insists that he loves her and Bonnie counters that he loves the things she does for him. Doc asks her again to marry him. Bonnie tells Doc she's tired of being his "flunky" (143) and doesn't want to "make it official" (143). Doc asks Bonnie what she does want. Bonnie replies that she doesn't know.

Doc accuses Bonnie of being in love first with Hayduke, then with Smith. Bonnie says it's more likely she'd be in love with Smith, though she isn't. She says she'd rather have "four husbands" (144) and visit each once a month than be someone's fourth wife. Doc says Bonnie already has enough lovers, between himself and the "high school dropouts and hippie degenerates" (144) that hang out at her "plastic igloo" (144). Bonnie defends them as her friends, but Doc continues to disparage them.

As they finish their drinks, Doc again tells Bonnie he loves her. Bonnie drives Doc to the medical center while he "fondles her from gate to ear" (145). Bonnie tells him to stop and Doc looks hurt. He asks if they're still lovers and Bonnie pauses before confirming. Doc lights up another cigar and fills the car with smoke. Bonnie feels excited to have some time away from Doc.

Bonnie returns to her geodesic dome after dropping off Doc. She feels tense but then puts on "an evening raga" (146) by Ravi Shankar and goes into a meditative state. In that state, she concentrates on her "inner reality" (147) until "the city be[comes] unreal" (147). Concentrating on her "personal (cost $50) meditation word" (147), Bonnie tries to empty her mind. However, first Smith, then Hayduke's faces bombard her peaceful thoughts.

Coming out of her attempt at meditation, Bonnie realizes she's bored. Quietly, she says she wants "some action" (148). Then, loudly, she says, "It's time to get fucking back to work!" (148).

Making their way back to Glen Canyon Dam after their Henry Mountain Trip, Smith and Hayduke make a few stops. First, in the evening, they find a Highway Department bulldozer on the side of the road on Burr Pass. It's unmanned, so they perform the "smooth routine" (149) of sabotage. This time, Hayduke siphons gas from the fuel tank, pours it over the engine block, and sets the bulldozer on fire. Smith says he doesn't "entirely approve" (148) of this last eye-catching step.

Smith takes them on a shortcut to Glen Canyon City, over the middle of the Kaiparowits Plateau. On their way, they pass multiple drill-rigs in the distance. Hayduke says they should go get them but Smith says there are men "out there a-workin'" (150) on them. Just before the jeep trail they take over the plateau, Hayduke tells Smith to stop the truck. Hayduke hops out and pulls a geophone, a device oil companies use to "search for mineral deposits by means of analysis of vibration patterns" (151). A cable connects the string of geophones and Hayduke ties it to Smith's truck's rear bumper. As Smith drives, he pulls up a trial of geophones.

At dawn, Hayduke tells Smith to stop the truck again. Half a mile from the jeep trail, Hayduke spots an unmanned drilling rig. He tells Hayduke he's going to hop out and take care of it. Smith protests but agrees to drop off Hayduke then continue up to the forest on the plateau. Hayduke will meet him there. Jogging over to the oil rig, "tired, hungry, overloaded with beer" (152), Hayduke lets his adrenaline take over his body and mind. He throws every loose object he can find into the drill hole, drains the oil from the rig's engine, then lets it run. He signs the word “Nemo” in the sand beside the rig, then walks up the canyon to meet Smith.

Just after dawn, Hayduke arrives to find Smith preparing bacon and coffee. Gathering the geophones and cable, the men hide it under a boulder, where they'll be washed away in the next flash flood. They then drive off the jeep trail, covering their tracks "with broom and bough" (154), and sleep on beds of pine needles. At noon, they continue driving through the forest on the plateau. They come across a herd of "baldface cows" (155) and decide to use pliers to cut the barbed-wire fence corralling the herd. Smith tells Hayduke "you can't never go wrong cuttin' fence" (155).

Coming into barely-populated Glen Canyon City, Smith stops at a gas station. Smith engages the old man at the pump in conversation, asking him when they're going to "get that foty-million-dollar power plant built [sic]" (156). The old man says he doesn't know because "them goldamn [sic] envirn-meddlers [sic] is a-holdin' things up" (156). Smith asks if it's because the meddlers won't let them "degrade the quality of the fucking air" (156) and the old man says it is. He also says that they have enough air for everyone. Smith asks why the old man hasn't tried to sell their clean air to "them city dudes by the jugful" (157). The old man says there's no money in it and asks if Smith wants the oil checked.

Driving into Wahweap Marina, Arizona, Hayduke finally picks up his jeep, which he'd left there weeks ago. He and Smith go to Glen Canyon Bridge where, once again, Smith gets on his knees and prays for God to strike the bridge with a "little pre-cision earthquake" (158). Smith then shares his plan for destroying the dam with Hayduke. It involves getting "three-four jumbo size houseboats, the kind millionaires use" (159), loading them with fertilizer and diesel fuel, and getting them across the barrier. They'd use Bonnie in a "black string bikini" (159) to make the boats look "natural" (159). Once across the boom, they'd get the boats up against the dam, let them sink to its base, then row away in canoes and "set off the charge" (159). Hayduke says that it's a beautiful plan but it will never work.

Back in town, Hayduke and Smith stop by the grocery store to restock supplies, then go to the only bar in town. During a lapse in music on the jukebox, Hayduke starts yelling to the men in the bar, an assortment of "cowboys, truck drivers and construction workers" (160). Hayduke yells that he's a "hippie" (160) and a "queer" (160) who depends on men like them to support his lifestyle reading dirty books, pushing dope, and screwing "little girls" (160). None of the men respond, so Hayduke yells that he was a Green Beret who can "bust the ass of any cocksucker in this room" (160). The jukebox comes back on and Smith takes Hayduke by the arm, escorting him outside. Hayduke stops to use the bathroom and sees a vending machine advertising condoms. Hayduke complains about this to Smith then says maybe what he needs is to get laid.

That night, twenty miles outside of Page, the men make camp. They're due to meet Doc and Bonnie in Betatakin tomorrow, then they’re off to have "a little chat with the Peabody Coal Company, the Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad" (162). In the middle of the night, in their respective sleeping bags, Smith hears Hayduke yelling. He realizes Hayduke's having a nightmare and tries to wake him by yelling. When that doesn't work, Smith throws his boot at Hayduke. This stops Hayduke's yelling but when Smith looks over at him, he realizes Hayduke has his .357 magnum pointed straight at Smith’s face. Smith tells Hayduke it's him and that he had to wake him from his nightmare. Hayduke tells Smith not to ever wake him like that again. Smith asks Hayduke what a safe way to wake him would be. Hayduke says there "ain't any safe fucking way" (164) to wake him up. Smith says next time he'll bash Hayduke's head with a rock. Hayduke says that is "the only safe way" (164). 

Bonnie, Doc Sarvis, Hayduke, and Smith reunite and drive out to Betatakin, just southeast of Page, Arizona. Bonnie drives them in Doc's "extravagant new" (165) Buick station wagon. Stopping at a café, Bonnie and Hayduke steal license plates from a few out-of-state tourists' cars to use on the Buick. After coffee, Bonnie drives the crew to the rim of Black Mesa, where they use binoculars to check out the Peabody Coal Company's coal transmission system. The coal comes from some "four thousand acres" (166) of strip mines, gets processed, sent onto a conveyor belt to storage towers, and finally loaded onto trains that haul the coal to the "Navajo Power Plant" (167) in Page, AZ.

Hayduke immediately shares his plan: use the conveyor belt to "blow up the loading towers" (167). Doc, however, expresses concern that someone may be working up in the towers. Hayduke says it's a chance they'll "fucking well have to take" (168) but Doc says he doesn't want to be included in anything that causes harm to humans. Hayduke says the Natives have tried everything else, including "lawsuits, big fucking propaganda campaigns, politics" (169). He remains insistent on his plan.

Smith offers a different plan that involves derailing the coal trains with steel wedges; cutting fences, so grazing animals will get onto the tracks; and using Doc's saw to cut the power lines. Hayduke says they should take a vote, but Doc says they need "unanimity" (169), not a "majority" (169). Bonnie says that they've done enough already to get "locked up for life" (170) if they got caught. She says they should "use whatever we need—and whatever we have" (170). Smith agrees with her.

The gang drives east, towards the strip-mining operation. They pull over just before being run off the road by a "Euclid earthmover" (171). They each look down at the mine in horror. Ten-story high power shovels "gouged at the earth" (172), and a machine "like a factory walking" (172) trails a power line "thick as a man's thigh" (172). On their way back to the railway, Doc asks himself what all this is for. The answers—"the lamps of Phoenix suburbs not yet built […] the air conditioners of San Diego and Los Angeles"—disturb him (173).

After inspecting the railway line, the gang goes back to camp at Navajo National Monument. Bonnie smokes a joint and Hayduke chastises her, saying they don't want to get caught with illegal substances. After some resistance, Bonnie stubs out the joint. Finally, the gang gets to work on their plan. They decide to use Hayduke's plan, taking out the railway, the train, the power shovels, storage towers, and conveyor line at once. Hayduke successfully argues that they will "never again" (175) have a chance like this. After the operation, they'll return to camp and stay a few days, doing tourist things, in order to quell suspicion.

The rest of the gang asks Hayduke some questions about his plan. Hayduke says because the "incidents" (177) will happen at three separate locations, it will be easy for "the Feds" (177) to think it's a Native-American-led sabotage. Doc thinks that "half a dozen Indian organizations will rush to claim the credit" (177). Hayduke assures the gang that the trains are automated, meaning they don't have live crews running them. Bonnie asks the final question: "What in the fucking name of sweet motherfucking Christ is the use of blowing up a railroad bridge and a coal train if we're not going to be there to watch it happen?" (178). Doc agrees.