Seeing the cloud of dust being kicked up by the ATV making a beeline toward us across the Arizona desert gave me a sick feeling in my gut. It reminded me of the times as a kid when I'd been caught someplace I wasn't supposed to be.

Admittedly, J. B. and I had strayed a bit. We'd pulled off Interstate 40 at an exit marked "Two Guns" because it looked like it might be the only place to get gas for miles. But after we'd topped off the bikes at a gas station occupying the sole building at the Two Guns exist, we'd taken a short detour.

From the highway, we'd seen an abandoned two-lane bridge a few hundred yards from the exit. It could only be a relic of Route 66. And since we were attempting to follow the old road from California to its ending point in Chicago, we needed to investigate.

Father west, it had been easy to follow the former Main Street of America. It's even called Arizona state Route 66 these days. But as we approached Flagstaff, traces of 66 had grown scarce. Most evidence of the old road was obliterated when the interstate was completed in the '70s. So when we saw the fenced-off highway bridge standing there in the desert, unconnected to any road, we'd ridden our BMWs across a bit of scrub land to the edge of a cliff to get a better look.

It didn't seem like a big deal, but the guy on the ATV seemed hell-bent on reaching us in a hurry. I was sure he was about to inform us that we were in a heap of trouble.

The ATV rider raced up, spun the bike in a half-circle and jumped off in one fluid movement. I quickly noticed a couple of things: First he had a big Buck knife strapped to one hip. And second, he had a pearl-handled .38 strapped to the other. When he told us to leave, I wasn't going to argue.

Instead, though, he wiped his right hand on his well-worn jeans and extended it to me. "Name's Robert. And this here's Gypsy," he said, pointing over his shoulder where, on cue, a dog came galloping up. "I'm kind of the caretaker of this place. You boys want a tour?"

A $5 bill started Robert talking, and he didn't stop for 90 minutes. During that hour-and-a-half, he told us tales of vengeance, murder, corpse abuse and much more -- all part of the legend of Two Guns, Arizona.

They area's checkered history began in 1878, Robert told us, when Apache Indians used nearby Diablo Canyon as an escape route after raiding Navajo encampments.

"The Apaches would raid the camps, steal horses and some of the women, and escape through the canyon," Robert said. "The Navajos would ride out after them, hoping to cut them off when the came out of the canyon. Only the Apaches would - poof -- disappear."

As we talked, Robert led us toward the rock strewn gully that was the Apache escape route. Eventually, he said, Navajo scouts discovered a large cave in the canyon, and they heard voices inside -- Apache voices.

In spite of the fact that a number of their women were held captive inside, the Navajos took drastic action. They gathered a huge pile of sagebrush and wood, built a fire, and then pushed the burning mass into the cave.

According to the legend, the Apaches threw what little water they had on the fire. Eventually, they even killed their horses and tried to quell the flames with their blood. But it wasn't enough. When the fire burned out the next day, the Navajos discovered 42 badly charred bodies inside.

Pointing in the direction of the cavern, located just a stone's throw from the Two Guns gas station, Robert told us the site has been known as the Apache Death Cave ever since. Anyone who disturbs it, he said, runs the risk of being cursed by evil spirits.

The area's violent history didn't end there. In 1905, two outlaws, Bill Evans and John Shaw, had their luck run out in Two Guns.

In September of that year, Evans and Shaw bellied up to the bar at the Wigwam Saloon in nearby Winslow, Arizona, for a drink. But as the bartender poured whiskey into their glasses, the two noticed a nearby dice table sagging under the weight of some 600 silver dollars that were being wagered. Shaw and Evans stared at the money, then reached for their guns instead of the whiskey. They relieved the dice players of their stakes, then made tracks for points west.

The two got as far as Two Guns before a posse ran them down. In the ensuing gunfight Shaw was shot dead and Evans was wounded. Evans recovered, but Shaw was buried where he fell.

When word of the gunfight reached the boys who had remained behind, drinking whiskey at the Wigwam Saloon, a short, drunken moment of silence fell over the place. Then somebody piped up that although it wasn't very neighborly of the two to rob the place, it seemed a shame that poor old John Shaw never got that last shot of whiskey he'd left on the bar.

A plan was quickly hatched. Somebody rounded up a bottle of whiskey (and several others to keep it company) and the saloon keeper provided a shovel. The gang of well-lubricated mourners hopped a freight train and jumped off at Two Guns. There, they exhumed Shaw's bullet-riddled corpse, stood him up and poured a shot of whiskey between his blue lips. One of the men even took pictures.

Robert's version of this particular tale closely agreed with other accounts I've read. In fact, I even ran across a photo of Shaw's final drink. I'm told that the original photo hung in the Wigwam until the place was torn down in the '40s. From the looks of it, Shaw didn't much enjoy having one for the road delivered to his gravesite. It was kind of like giving a stiff one to a stiff one, if you ask me.

Chain-smoking and talking all the way, Robert led us over unstable piles of boulders ("earthquake did that"), crumbled buildings ("watch for nails, busted glass and snakes"), and rotting wooden bridges over deep chasms. He told us these ruins represented another phase in the history of Two Guns.

In the late '20s, he said, when Route 66 was in its infancy, an entrepreneur named Henry Miller (a.k.a. "Two Guns Miller" and "Chief Crazy Thunder") opened a gas station, wild animal zoo and Apache Death Cave exhibition. Miller had a partner, Earl Cundiff, when he started the project. But whether you chalk it up to the Indian curse or some other cause, their association didn't last long.

Robert pointed with his knife to a dilapidated building. "That there," he said, "is where Miller shot and killed Earl Cundiff in '26. Shot him over some woman . . . got off scot-free, too."

Finally, Robert led us down a treacherous pile of rubble left behind by an avalanche and stopped inside the mouth of the Apache Death Cave. Then he lit an old lantern, held it up to his face and croaked, "Follow me."

Up until then, I'd been thinking of Robert as a friendly eccentric, a self-proclaimed mountain man who lived in the middle of nowhere by choice and sometimes liked to "sit in the ruins late at night and watch for stuff."

But a few minutes later, when he walked us deep into the cave, then extinguished the lantern to show us how dark it was, I began to have other thoughts. My mind wandered to things like Robert's knife, my wallet, his gun and my life. When he re-lit the lantern, I noticed J. B. apparently shared my apprehensions. He had inched a good 20 feet back toward the mouth of the cave, banging his head on the low ceiling in the process.

Our experience in the Apache Death Cave was similar to the tours Two Guns Miller offered tourists back in the '30s and '40s, except that Miller, the man who blew out the lantern on them, really had killed a man there!

In spite of the scare he threw into us, Robert was careful to make sure we got back to our bikes safely. And along the way, he explained how Two Guns was going to be rebuilt just like it was by a rich investor "real soon."

As for the curse, Robert Says it still exists. How else can you explain the fact that the motel and gas station at Two Guns survived for decades in this remote location, then burned to the ground on the very day Interstate 40 opened and Route 66 was bypassed? It had to be the curse -- or perhaps that mysterious form of spontaneous combustion that can occur when a deed rubs up against an insurance policy.

The next morning, New Mexico greeted us with an endless blue sky. Sunshine warmed the air and illuminated distant buttes and mesas. It was a perfect day for riding.

We'd spent the night at one of the most interesting surviving attractions of the Route 66 era, the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona. Back in 1950, Chester E. Lewis built the Wigwam from blueprints he'd purchased through a company that had designed other wigwam villages across the country. Lewis was sure that Americans traveling from coast to coast would want to stay in an Indian teepee. Decades later, a few of us still do. In fact, two other teepees were rented that night to a group of Harley-riding AMA members.

As we loaded up the bikes outside our teepee in the morning, J. B. reminded me of one of his goals for the trip: Finding the ultimate example of that rarest of desert animals, the American jackalope.

Skeptics might suggest that the jackalopes sold in tourist traps across the Southwest are nothing more than stuffed rabbits with fake antelope antlers stuck on top, but J. B. knows better. He's made a detailed study of the species and plans to write a short monograph on the subject someday.

In the meantime, he was searching for a perfect specimen of the breed to display back home in Illinois. We compared dozens at various shops until he found a beautiful seven-point buck, stuffed and mounted, in a great two-story teepee-style store near Gallup.

His eyes gleamed as he carried his purchase up to the cashier.

"Will ya' look at the rack on that boy?" he said proudly.

"That there's a nice one," the cashier responded with a straight face. "You don't see many of them that nice runnin' around."

She had us there.

In parts of New Mexico, following old Route 66 is easy. It's clearly marked in some places, but even without the signs you can often identify it was the only major east-west highway off the interstate.

Elsewhere, Route 66 can be as elusive as a wild jackalope. With days of experience behind us, though, we were developing a knack for tracking the old highway.

In a few areas, 66 simply doesn't exist anymore -- the interstate has been built right on top of the old roadbed. But as you travel the limited-access roads that replaced it -- Interstates 10, 15, 40, 44 and 55 -- you'll often find chunks of Route 66 paralleling the newer road. In a cruel twist of fate, some parts of old 66 even serve as access roads for the interstates.

There are several guidebooks that can help you find major remaining sections of the route, but to a great extent you're on your own in piecing together the more isolated chunks. That just adds to the experience, though. Discovering an obscure section of the highway is part of what makes riding the road such a challenging and rewarding adventure.

You can discover old Route 66 on any street motorcycle. But we learned that big dual-purpose bikes like J. B.'s Paris-Dakar Beemer and my loaner R1100GS were ideal for the job. Parts of the road have been abandoned and have fallen into disrepair, but they're still navigable by dual-sport machines. In fact, some of the most incredible sections we rode aren't even mentioned in the guidebooks because they present serious obstacles to ordinary vehicles. But we were able to find and ride them simply by following some common sense guidelines:

First, we learned to watch for old telephone/telegraph lines. If the road we were on went straight while the poles veered left or right along a lesser traveled path, we followed the poles, and usually found evidence of Route 66 along the way.

A second rule for following old 66 is to remember that where the railroad goes, so (usually) goes the road. Highway builders weren't trying to be imaginative when they laid out Route 66. Often, they stuck to the route already laid out for the iron horse.

Armed with those rules and several guidebooks we picked up along the way, J. B. and I still managed to get ourselves seriously lost on several occasions. But we also found places like a beautiful two-lane section of old Route 66 outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico. It wasn't listed in our guidebooks, but it should have been.

The road stretched as far as the eye could see across the open landscape. We raced a roadrunner, watched hawks soar on the updrafts, and traveled for nearly an hour before we saw another human being.

There's still a lot of magic left in the old road.

The Texas panhandle is so flat that you can see two days ahead of you, or so the local saying goes. And when the wind blows, you better have something big to hold on to -- like a BMW R1100GS.

We were blown out of New Mexico and into Glenrio, Texas, by a strong west wind that chased us along an old stretch of 66. In the heyday of Route 66, this border town was a major stopping point for travelers.

Homer Ehresman was among those who saw the opportunities the road presented here. He built the First/Last Motel in Texas (depending on which side of the sign you read) in 1950, and his tall sign joined others beckoning travelers to stop at the town's tourist courts, gas stations and cafes.

The interstate hasn't been kind to places like Glenrio. The town still merits an exit on the interstate, but its lifeblood -- the traffic that once crowded its main street -- is long gone. As we rode down that street, a once-vital link in the nation's transportation system now reduced to a weed-choked path, a couple of mangy black dogs made a half-hearted effort to chase us.

Time and the incessant wind have taken a toll on the town. Today, Ehresman's sign reads: "M O E L: FIR IN TEXAS -- CAFE." I-40 roars by just out of sight, but even the noise of the interstate is reduced to a background hum. And over it, we could hear the "rreeee, rrreeee" of a tin sign swaying in the wind above the door of the boarded-up hotel. The sign read: "Homer Ehresman, proprietor."

It looked like a fine place in its day.

Back in 1934, John Nunn told builder J. M. Tindall that he wanted to create a combination gas station and cafe that would be so beautiful it would stop traffic along Route 66 in Shamrock, Texas. Nunn pulled a nail out of his pocket and traced what he had in mind in the dirt. Tindall looked at the rough design and agreed to build it.

On April 1, 1936, Nunn's outrageous art deco Tower Station and U Drop Inn opened for business. Nearly 50 years later, it's still open, and still capable of stopping travelers in their tracks. At least it worked on us.

The U Drop Inn is one of those places that instantly feels as comfortable and familiar as your easy chair back home. We arrived in time for breakfast, and as we scanned the menu, we listened in on a five-man card game at the table behind us.

"Whatcha' holdin' there, bud?" asked a guy in a plaid shirt.

"That's for me to know and you to find out . . . maybe," laughed an older fellow in bib overalls.

It looked like the game had been going on since the Nixon administration. And it didn't show any signs of ending soon.

The only other patrons in the "U" that sunny morning were a woman named Cathy and a young boy with her. In between kibitzing with the card players, she seemed genuinely interested in finding out about our trip.

"So you're goin' all the way east," she said. "And you started where? L.A.? Now that's travelin'! You know, a lot of people around here have never been farther than Amarillo."

"Where you from?" she asked J. B. "Illinois? I went to visit my in-laws once in Indiana. Me and my husband went to a bar there one night and -- now don't think I'm stupid or nothin' -- but they were playin' country music on the juke box there. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think they had country music there."

When one of the card players snickered she shot back, "Shut up, Lonnie! You've never been nowhere, so you don't know sickem' either."

Breakfast was great, but looking at a sign in the window, I started wishing we'd hit town on Sunday afternoon.. The sign advertised "Sunday Buffet: Chicken, Dressing, Chicken Fried Steak, Roast Beef, Soup and Salad, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Corn, Fried Squash, Peach Cobbler, Homemade Hot Rolls, $4.95."

As we got up to leave, Cathy said, "Y'all stayin' around this evenin'?"

"No," I answered. "We've got a long way to go."

"Well, you should stay," she said.

"Why?" I asked, thinking that perhaps there was something special going on in Shamrock that night.

She thought a minute, then smiled and said, "It took you a long time to get here. It seems like a shame that you're leavin' so soon."

Making time on the interstate means covering a lot of miles without stopping. But that term takes on a whole new meaning when you're riding Route 66, where you want to make time to get to know the people and places along the road.

That's why we traveled a solid 60 seconds from the U Drop Inn before stopping again, this time at Clay Motors, an Edsel dealership.

OK, it's not an Edsel dealership anymore. But you couldn't tell that by looking at the place. In fact, we found J. D. Clay Jr. hard at work under the hood of a rare 1960 Edsel convertible.

There's only about 15 of these convertibles left," Clay told us. "Edsel didn't build too many, since they were already in trouble back then."

Like the Edsel, Route 66 belongs to a different era. Fortunately though, there are people like Clay who remember.

"When I was in high school," he said, "they called it the mother road, and buddy, Route 66 was a busy sumbitch.

"There was motels with flashy neon all around. There was 18 restaurants here alone, and about 23 filling stations. It reminded me of Las Vegas with all those lights all lit up at night.

"There was something like 15,000 cars a day that went through here in the '60s. Man, I can remember when it would take five or six minutes 'fore you could find a break in the traffic to run across the street."

He gestured with the back of his hand toward the street that used to be Route 66. An old red pickup rumbled by, dragging its muffler.

I asked him what living and working on Route 66 is like today.

"You'd be surprised who comes through here," he said. "We had a club the other week from Norway. They shipped their cars to California, and they were headed to Chicago.

"It's nothin' like it was, though."

No, it isn't. But talking to people like J. D. in Texas or Robert in Arizona, and seeing places lie the U Drop Inn or the Wigwam Motel, you get a sense of what it must have been like when Route 66 was the Main Street of America.

We'd been on the road, rediscovering Route 66, for four days. Ahead of us lay Oklahoma, with some great old concrete sections of the mother road; deadman's curve in Missouri; the Route 66 Hall of Fame in Illinois; along with Lucille Hammond, Pig Hip sandwiches and Cozy Dogs.

In other words, part three of this story. Look for it in the May issue.