Black Mountain
Lady
Lady
| Jay Dyck |
Diary of a Goatherder January 25, 1980
Today the wind knocked over the outhouse. Henrietta, the goldfish, was spilled out, and I
never did find her. I think Timothy ate her.
Today the wind knocked over the outhouse. Henrietta, the goldfish, was spilled out, and I
never did find her. I think Timothy ate her.
| Chapter Fourteen THE GOATHERDER'S DIARY |
Johnny had come to write more than poetry since the publication of "Sweet Angel Drifter.”
In fact, he didn't even write poetry anymore. Perhaps the resounding slap of that flood of
rejections over the space of a few weeks had outweighed the exception. But now he kept a
diary, and it can tell us more than I can about how much Johnny was willing to tell about
himself on paper.
But does it tell us anything about Vikor? What do we see?
In fact, he didn't even write poetry anymore. Perhaps the resounding slap of that flood of
rejections over the space of a few weeks had outweighed the exception. But now he kept a
diary, and it can tell us more than I can about how much Johnny was willing to tell about
himself on paper.
But does it tell us anything about Vikor? What do we see?
* * *
Chela saw a mild-mannered, well-groomed business man. A little deeper, and she saw that
the suit was a trifle frayed, that beneath it lurked a coil of muscle and cunning. She had
studied his face for a moment, before her own memories had captured her and left her
weeping. She sensed that he was nobody's clone.
What an understatement! What an understatement, and yet, in a world of billions, there were
thousands of Vikors. They were scattered thin, like dandelions in a field of rye, but there
they were, and over and over and over again, the pattern was the same. They were men and
women in camouflage, most of them hidden even from themselves. They moved on the trails
of mankind, hunting for they knew not what, leaving messages behind that said they knew
not what nor to whom, reading signs whose only clue was that the message was for them.
They didn't fit, and life was often cruel to them. The rest of humanity seemed to sweep
along a path of acceptance that they could only fake. Not everyone, groping in their private
mystery, was fortunate enough to find their Fugitive Creek, or their Outlaw Valley.
Just to know was a refuge that most were (are) denied. Just to have that secret island within
oneself that lets one in on the news that he is not an ugly duckling, that she is not a goat
without hooves or horns, that they are not the children of man, but the children of the child
of man. Armed with this wisdom, a person can at least move with the grace necessary to
avoid being trampled by the herd. A person can console themselves that they are not to be
judged by the standards of the masses. A person can wear humility like a mask, and so save
himself from the self-sacrifice of attempting the impossible.
Their eyes met. Tears dabbed dry, Chela looked at Vikor once more. He had seen it too, that
spark. He was waiting, curious. He was curious if this was the same spark that said, hey,
cowboy, let's hit the hay, huh? He had been adventurous enough to learn a few years earlier,
to let those sparks just fall. But this was, as he had suspected, just a little bit more than that.
That second look fairly crackled.
the suit was a trifle frayed, that beneath it lurked a coil of muscle and cunning. She had
studied his face for a moment, before her own memories had captured her and left her
weeping. She sensed that he was nobody's clone.
What an understatement! What an understatement, and yet, in a world of billions, there were
thousands of Vikors. They were scattered thin, like dandelions in a field of rye, but there
they were, and over and over and over again, the pattern was the same. They were men and
women in camouflage, most of them hidden even from themselves. They moved on the trails
of mankind, hunting for they knew not what, leaving messages behind that said they knew
not what nor to whom, reading signs whose only clue was that the message was for them.
They didn't fit, and life was often cruel to them. The rest of humanity seemed to sweep
along a path of acceptance that they could only fake. Not everyone, groping in their private
mystery, was fortunate enough to find their Fugitive Creek, or their Outlaw Valley.
Just to know was a refuge that most were (are) denied. Just to have that secret island within
oneself that lets one in on the news that he is not an ugly duckling, that she is not a goat
without hooves or horns, that they are not the children of man, but the children of the child
of man. Armed with this wisdom, a person can at least move with the grace necessary to
avoid being trampled by the herd. A person can console themselves that they are not to be
judged by the standards of the masses. A person can wear humility like a mask, and so save
himself from the self-sacrifice of attempting the impossible.
Their eyes met. Tears dabbed dry, Chela looked at Vikor once more. He had seen it too, that
spark. He was waiting, curious. He was curious if this was the same spark that said, hey,
cowboy, let's hit the hay, huh? He had been adventurous enough to learn a few years earlier,
to let those sparks just fall. But this was, as he had suspected, just a little bit more than that.
That second look fairly crackled.
* * *
He had been reliving his first kill. Vikor never forgot that day. He really had been eating
jackrabbits. He had been eating cottontails as well, and quail, and doves. But he had lately
drifted away from the coastal scrub, into more of a desert setting. The tough hares of the
dusty sage were becoming a monotonous regularity. His cooking was not as inspired,
perhaps, as that of his imaginary mother. Diana Stream could turn some eucalyptus branches
and a dead bunny into a delectable luncheon. Even though he had never bitten into one of
her back canyon barbecues, he remembered the flavor, the just right wisdom of herbs and
spicy condiments that he could never achieve with his own picnics.
Nor was his real mother, Cat One Dolan, any help in the culinary arts department. Cat's
mind had gone with the arrival of Selabjun Kirkhaz' child, young Victor, baby Vikor. In her
addled babble she gifted her son with the child-like mispronunciation of the name on which
she had agreed during a relatively lucid pregnancy. "Vikor! Vikor!" she would coo with
delight at the sight of her child, a mother-at-last at twenty-five, and oblivious to the
exaggerated tragedy that motherhood was for her.
Growing up with her was like sharing childhood with another child. Oh, she could work up
the caricature of authority necessary to command freedom and a car from the patient
maternity of the Devlin-Dolan clan. Beyond that, the two were on their own in terms of
breaking ice in human lifestyle. There was no practicality to it; they were lucky to be loved.
Andrea Clare replayed her role of mother-island and port in a storm, refuge both for
daughter and grandson, who scampered over the years hungry to meals and heedless of her
worries in between. This time the kids had a car as well, and some money, and also a
baffled, if not brain-damaged, look into the culture of their alien land.
Andrea Clare always felt that she had cheated them both, that somehow she had not spun
herself dry enough in support of her fragile offspring. She felt guilty that she had abandoned
them hopelessly, that organic, home-grown cooking and a ready embrace were not enough.
She felt self-conscious; she felt that Cat was handicapped by the same daze that she, herself,
Andrea Clare, had been in since the perils of the night that she had met the girl's father.
Was Cat handicapped by the same wounds her mother had received while wandering in
response to the whims of a witch? Andrea would sometimes allow the bitter resent to fester.
But no, she chided herself, it was not that easy.
And in truth, she did worry for nothing. This not merely because of the general inefficacy of
worries, but also because, whether through luck or serendipity or the watchful care of a
divine goddess, Vikor's childhood was happy and secure.
But he didn't learn to cook like his grandmother. He learned from his mother the magic of
rocks and stars, for Cat had never lost touch with Agnes the way Andrea had. It was almost
as though the work of the old hill witch was too urgent to be slowed with the bother of
civilization past the barest survival.
Andrea would have been warmly pleased to know that Cat brought many a piece of her
mom's apple pie to her old mentor, who lived without oven or flour bin. Pleased to a stab in
the heart, and just as much mystified should ever she marvel how Agnes could draw more
content from one slice of pie on the run than most people could wring from a lifetime of
unrestrained pie-eating, or anything else.
Cat and Vikor were both like that. He learned it from her, how to get the most from the
events of life, how not to be surprised by good fortune with a bad mood shielding him from
the rays of wonder.
Mother and son: two spoiled brats was rather how the neighboring community saw the pair.
There were no rays of wonder in the pathetic waste that Agnes allowed to be seen. It really
was 'their alien land. ‘That they were allowed to pursue their romps without disturbance was
for the best. And Cat One, the mother, still watched with spell-bound creativity, events in the
dangled gem.
jackrabbits. He had been eating cottontails as well, and quail, and doves. But he had lately
drifted away from the coastal scrub, into more of a desert setting. The tough hares of the
dusty sage were becoming a monotonous regularity. His cooking was not as inspired,
perhaps, as that of his imaginary mother. Diana Stream could turn some eucalyptus branches
and a dead bunny into a delectable luncheon. Even though he had never bitten into one of
her back canyon barbecues, he remembered the flavor, the just right wisdom of herbs and
spicy condiments that he could never achieve with his own picnics.
Nor was his real mother, Cat One Dolan, any help in the culinary arts department. Cat's
mind had gone with the arrival of Selabjun Kirkhaz' child, young Victor, baby Vikor. In her
addled babble she gifted her son with the child-like mispronunciation of the name on which
she had agreed during a relatively lucid pregnancy. "Vikor! Vikor!" she would coo with
delight at the sight of her child, a mother-at-last at twenty-five, and oblivious to the
exaggerated tragedy that motherhood was for her.
Growing up with her was like sharing childhood with another child. Oh, she could work up
the caricature of authority necessary to command freedom and a car from the patient
maternity of the Devlin-Dolan clan. Beyond that, the two were on their own in terms of
breaking ice in human lifestyle. There was no practicality to it; they were lucky to be loved.
Andrea Clare replayed her role of mother-island and port in a storm, refuge both for
daughter and grandson, who scampered over the years hungry to meals and heedless of her
worries in between. This time the kids had a car as well, and some money, and also a
baffled, if not brain-damaged, look into the culture of their alien land.
Andrea Clare always felt that she had cheated them both, that somehow she had not spun
herself dry enough in support of her fragile offspring. She felt guilty that she had abandoned
them hopelessly, that organic, home-grown cooking and a ready embrace were not enough.
She felt self-conscious; she felt that Cat was handicapped by the same daze that she, herself,
Andrea Clare, had been in since the perils of the night that she had met the girl's father.
Was Cat handicapped by the same wounds her mother had received while wandering in
response to the whims of a witch? Andrea would sometimes allow the bitter resent to fester.
But no, she chided herself, it was not that easy.
And in truth, she did worry for nothing. This not merely because of the general inefficacy of
worries, but also because, whether through luck or serendipity or the watchful care of a
divine goddess, Vikor's childhood was happy and secure.
But he didn't learn to cook like his grandmother. He learned from his mother the magic of
rocks and stars, for Cat had never lost touch with Agnes the way Andrea had. It was almost
as though the work of the old hill witch was too urgent to be slowed with the bother of
civilization past the barest survival.
Andrea would have been warmly pleased to know that Cat brought many a piece of her
mom's apple pie to her old mentor, who lived without oven or flour bin. Pleased to a stab in
the heart, and just as much mystified should ever she marvel how Agnes could draw more
content from one slice of pie on the run than most people could wring from a lifetime of
unrestrained pie-eating, or anything else.
Cat and Vikor were both like that. He learned it from her, how to get the most from the
events of life, how not to be surprised by good fortune with a bad mood shielding him from
the rays of wonder.
Mother and son: two spoiled brats was rather how the neighboring community saw the pair.
There were no rays of wonder in the pathetic waste that Agnes allowed to be seen. It really
was 'their alien land. ‘That they were allowed to pursue their romps without disturbance was
for the best. And Cat One, the mother, still watched with spell-bound creativity, events in the
dangled gem.
* * *
Cat One watched, in fact, with new vim, for the succession of visionary characters now
included Vikor. Helplessly she had given in to the flashing, shimmering fiction that insisted
that her baby's face be found and belong on the dream-child of hopeless Diana.
To be sure, she found she could resist at first, but to what end? Her heart whined. For
resistance it remained, and she had but to lower her guard for a moment and in the urchin
would slip, to people her crystal fantasy with his adorable, cuddly form. Cat found that she
lacked the cold persistence necessary to deny the imaginary Diana what her world demanded
for her, a son, Vikor.
Though she swung in the balance of a mind that was capricious, and beautiful, and old,
Diana had learned to overcome her imaginary essence, to confront Cat One with almost the
urgency of prayer to a cosmically buttonholed goddess, and to insist on the incarnation of her
only begotten son. Her own mother's words snapped with metaphysical daring at her father.
"Remember, Johnny," she spat, her lips white with fury. "Diana may be only imaginary
to you, but she's real to me!"
Her mother was real to Diana, as well. Carol was her name. She was the unfortunate refugee
of that bloody afternoon so long ago. Diana would not have known what to make of Cat
One's crystal vision, would have watched along in puzzlement at her father as a young man,
drunk in a rambling midnight stable, finding the rough and ready office, the typewriter, a
sheet of paper and the light switch. Jaw-dropping, she would watch the words tumble across
the paper, sketching out the outline of events that would lead to her eventual conception.
And yet her dad was as real to her as was her mom, for she was imagined that way.
In fact, the realities of her world grated sharply against the spoiled bubble of Cat One's. It
was a mercy that she knew nothing of Dove Springs. Her life was hard enough; Carmel
Valley and Black Mountain were real enough.
included Vikor. Helplessly she had given in to the flashing, shimmering fiction that insisted
that her baby's face be found and belong on the dream-child of hopeless Diana.
To be sure, she found she could resist at first, but to what end? Her heart whined. For
resistance it remained, and she had but to lower her guard for a moment and in the urchin
would slip, to people her crystal fantasy with his adorable, cuddly form. Cat found that she
lacked the cold persistence necessary to deny the imaginary Diana what her world demanded
for her, a son, Vikor.
Though she swung in the balance of a mind that was capricious, and beautiful, and old,
Diana had learned to overcome her imaginary essence, to confront Cat One with almost the
urgency of prayer to a cosmically buttonholed goddess, and to insist on the incarnation of her
only begotten son. Her own mother's words snapped with metaphysical daring at her father.
"Remember, Johnny," she spat, her lips white with fury. "Diana may be only imaginary
to you, but she's real to me!"
Her mother was real to Diana, as well. Carol was her name. She was the unfortunate refugee
of that bloody afternoon so long ago. Diana would not have known what to make of Cat
One's crystal vision, would have watched along in puzzlement at her father as a young man,
drunk in a rambling midnight stable, finding the rough and ready office, the typewriter, a
sheet of paper and the light switch. Jaw-dropping, she would watch the words tumble across
the paper, sketching out the outline of events that would lead to her eventual conception.
And yet her dad was as real to her as was her mom, for she was imagined that way.
In fact, the realities of her world grated sharply against the spoiled bubble of Cat One's. It
was a mercy that she knew nothing of Dove Springs. Her life was hard enough; Carmel
Valley and Black Mountain were real enough.
* * *
The characteristic that differentiated the neck of the woods where Tawngness eventually
found her den was the absence of a female resident. It was a vacant territory. The sad truth
of it was that the last old girl, Salmontigra, had been hauled out finally in the bed of a pickup
truck, shot dead.
Whatever it takes, Tawngness would have purred, had she thought of it, had she even
known. All that she knew was that this little bit of lion heaven was hers. The mountain was a
salient feature. How could the others have missed this? She would have wondered. She
walked through the paradise with the awe that only a cat can feel.
She was now a fair way south of the lusher climate surrounding places like Dove Springs.
Here it was drier, hotter, and the vegetation was smaller and sparser. Perhaps a deer might
find enough to forage for a year on one hundred sixty acres. That would be four deer per
square mile.
For Tawngness to harvest fifty deer in a year, at the approximate one-a-week rate, meant a
range population with an annual surplus of at least fifty. Doubling that to allow for other
predators, including man, leads to the requirement for one hundred does to produce the
surplus, assuming no twins or barren spinsters. Adding in twenty-four bucks to make this
happen brings the breeding population to one hundred twenty four. Divided by four, this
suggests an area of thirty-one square miles as a minimum range to support a mama puma.
Fifty might be more like it, a chunk of land seven miles broad.
Tawngness knew it not in terms of miles, but of springs and woods and boulders and game
trails and creeks and wind currents and leaps and bounds and gravity and deer.
She knew also that the territory was a part of the larger ranges of two different males of the
species Felis concolor. Whatever quarrels these two screamers might have with one another,
especially along towards breeding season, would be between them. When in the long run it
would prove that she was in the harem of Lightning, she accepted him as warmly as if he
had been her champion all along.
She circled the widest boundaries of her area, hunting idly as she traversed and growing
more pregnant as weeks went by. She knew where her den was to be, nestled deep in a
gorge, near water, and almost impossible to reach. But she avoided it now, marching in a
long descending spiral, exploring any and all distractions, investigating any and all features of
the territory. She passed up more prey than she seized, pouncing only when hunger and
energy and opportunity conspired to make it an easy natural. For a fine tuned hunting nose
set sunrise to sunrise in the same hills and canyons with the prey, these opportunities were
constant, if somewhat random.
When the time had passed and she was due, Tawngness altered her course. A quick, devious
and largely unused trail brought her through the center of her territory to the den. Most of
the resident beasts of the surrounding few square miles remained unaware of the presence of
the big cat in their midst, for a while. These were deer, as well as rabbits, and the foxes and
bobcats who hunted them, squirrels and mice, coyotes and quail. Of them all, only the
rodents and the smaller birds within the nearest ten feet or so actually knew that the lions
were there.
From there the news slowly filtered out through the mixed population. Tawngness began to
hunt outward from the center of her world, which had now become a nest of three kittens.
Ten feet was only a snap away for Tawngness, a cougar-snap away. But she tolerated the
couple of pairs of birds and mice that did dare to pick at the entrance rubbish and to sneak
into the den itself. The birds were content to stay just outside of the dark shadow. The mice
were more bold. They would glide in while Tawngness was out beyond the ten foot pale.
There was little for them to eat, but like little tourists they took their peeks at the cuddle of
fur that was the litter.
found her den was the absence of a female resident. It was a vacant territory. The sad truth
of it was that the last old girl, Salmontigra, had been hauled out finally in the bed of a pickup
truck, shot dead.
Whatever it takes, Tawngness would have purred, had she thought of it, had she even
known. All that she knew was that this little bit of lion heaven was hers. The mountain was a
salient feature. How could the others have missed this? She would have wondered. She
walked through the paradise with the awe that only a cat can feel.
She was now a fair way south of the lusher climate surrounding places like Dove Springs.
Here it was drier, hotter, and the vegetation was smaller and sparser. Perhaps a deer might
find enough to forage for a year on one hundred sixty acres. That would be four deer per
square mile.
For Tawngness to harvest fifty deer in a year, at the approximate one-a-week rate, meant a
range population with an annual surplus of at least fifty. Doubling that to allow for other
predators, including man, leads to the requirement for one hundred does to produce the
surplus, assuming no twins or barren spinsters. Adding in twenty-four bucks to make this
happen brings the breeding population to one hundred twenty four. Divided by four, this
suggests an area of thirty-one square miles as a minimum range to support a mama puma.
Fifty might be more like it, a chunk of land seven miles broad.
Tawngness knew it not in terms of miles, but of springs and woods and boulders and game
trails and creeks and wind currents and leaps and bounds and gravity and deer.
She knew also that the territory was a part of the larger ranges of two different males of the
species Felis concolor. Whatever quarrels these two screamers might have with one another,
especially along towards breeding season, would be between them. When in the long run it
would prove that she was in the harem of Lightning, she accepted him as warmly as if he
had been her champion all along.
She circled the widest boundaries of her area, hunting idly as she traversed and growing
more pregnant as weeks went by. She knew where her den was to be, nestled deep in a
gorge, near water, and almost impossible to reach. But she avoided it now, marching in a
long descending spiral, exploring any and all distractions, investigating any and all features of
the territory. She passed up more prey than she seized, pouncing only when hunger and
energy and opportunity conspired to make it an easy natural. For a fine tuned hunting nose
set sunrise to sunrise in the same hills and canyons with the prey, these opportunities were
constant, if somewhat random.
When the time had passed and she was due, Tawngness altered her course. A quick, devious
and largely unused trail brought her through the center of her territory to the den. Most of
the resident beasts of the surrounding few square miles remained unaware of the presence of
the big cat in their midst, for a while. These were deer, as well as rabbits, and the foxes and
bobcats who hunted them, squirrels and mice, coyotes and quail. Of them all, only the
rodents and the smaller birds within the nearest ten feet or so actually knew that the lions
were there.
From there the news slowly filtered out through the mixed population. Tawngness began to
hunt outward from the center of her world, which had now become a nest of three kittens.
Ten feet was only a snap away for Tawngness, a cougar-snap away. But she tolerated the
couple of pairs of birds and mice that did dare to pick at the entrance rubbish and to sneak
into the den itself. The birds were content to stay just outside of the dark shadow. The mice
were more bold. They would glide in while Tawngness was out beyond the ten foot pale.
There was little for them to eat, but like little tourists they took their peeks at the cuddle of
fur that was the litter.
* * *
The floor of the little trailer was covered with paper. Rejection slips and the daily news. Johnny
stepped inside. Reaching down he picked up a newspaper from the floor. Lying there, hidden
under the paper, just waiting for him to step on it and crush it, was his dulcimer that Charlene
had given him years before when they were still married. It struck him curious, as Johnny tallied
up the loss, tools, kerosene lamps, a Coleman cooler and so on, that this valuable musical
instrument had been left behind.
Nevertheless, Johnny was enraged. All of his carpentry tools were gone, along with the big
wooden tool box that he had made to hold them. Johnny swore that, when the day came that he
saw that tool box riding around in some stranger's pickup truck, he would do a dance on his
windshield, and then on his head.
Anymore, he didn't know. It had happened over and over.
The viciousness of it was what had perplexed Johnny. It was almost as though someone had set
him up to step on and to crush his beloved instrument, the one he never played and finally sold
for fifty dollars with the help of the classified ads and his sister, Betty.
Guitar was what Johnny liked to play. He only knew a half-dozen chords, but he could invent
endless finger picks on his classical guitar, beguiling the strings in what sometimes was ample
substitution for the absent radio. On lonesome evenings at the ranch he would play, and his soul
would roam, and he would find himself looking in once more on the memories of other lives,
other lands, and deeds that were not his own.
stepped inside. Reaching down he picked up a newspaper from the floor. Lying there, hidden
under the paper, just waiting for him to step on it and crush it, was his dulcimer that Charlene
had given him years before when they were still married. It struck him curious, as Johnny tallied
up the loss, tools, kerosene lamps, a Coleman cooler and so on, that this valuable musical
instrument had been left behind.
Nevertheless, Johnny was enraged. All of his carpentry tools were gone, along with the big
wooden tool box that he had made to hold them. Johnny swore that, when the day came that he
saw that tool box riding around in some stranger's pickup truck, he would do a dance on his
windshield, and then on his head.
Anymore, he didn't know. It had happened over and over.
The viciousness of it was what had perplexed Johnny. It was almost as though someone had set
him up to step on and to crush his beloved instrument, the one he never played and finally sold
for fifty dollars with the help of the classified ads and his sister, Betty.
Guitar was what Johnny liked to play. He only knew a half-dozen chords, but he could invent
endless finger picks on his classical guitar, beguiling the strings in what sometimes was ample
substitution for the absent radio. On lonesome evenings at the ranch he would play, and his soul
would roam, and he would find himself looking in once more on the memories of other lives,
other lands, and deeds that were not his own.
* * *
The northern reach of Diana's range stretched a good distance into the pasturelands of a ranch
family named Murphy. It was typical of her relationships with the proprietors of the lands she
roamed that she never met any of the Murphy family. She never even saw them.
Save one.
She knew of them, knew where the home itself was located, north of the big pasture, on Border
Road. Diana and her mother, following the miserable conclusion to Johnny and Bob's lives, had
been made to feel more at home a little further south and east from the Murphy spread. Marilyn
Wells and her husband Al had their home just east of Murphy's big eucalyptus tree at the
south-east corner of the big valley. Before she married her welder, Marilyn had been Marilyn
Heinz, and the house she shared with Al Wells was on the large Heinz ranch, which stretched
from Murphy's almost to Black Mountain itself.
When Carol Stream had stepped out of the chaparral clutching her child to her in valiant defeat,
surrender, whatever, Marilyn Heinz had recognized the courage that necessarily accompanied
the mother's submission. Her heart went out to Carol, and Carol's to her. When Marilyn
arranged for the old place on Del Mar Mesa, which her family still owned and which was
vacant, to be Carol and Diana's new home, the two young cowgirls became like sisters, and
there were good times again for Carol Stream after all. It was nineteen fifty-four.
This fellow Murphy, the rancher, (There were three, distant figures each to Diana, leathery,
wrinkled lumps on purring tractors, spied on across frosty November plowed fields from the
screen of brush, Murphy, Heinz and Knebel. ) captured a wolf once upon a time. In fact, his
dogs performed the serendipity that left the panting lupine stretched in helpless exhaustion at the
feet of the young Murphy. It was probably the last of the wolves in Southern California. That
was in nineteen twenty-two, and Murphy was twenty-eight years old.
Murphy was busy surviving the growth of toughness that he felt must accompany the
experience he had recently been through and was still going through. That was the vicarious
agony of finding the remains of the colt that he had bred and raised, and which he loved and
prized, torn apart.
By wolves, he believed, and in this he was wrong, for it was dogs from Rancho Santa Fe, just
to the northeast, packing up and playing at wild predator to punctuate their boring, well-fed
lives. By wolves, he believed, for he had heard their free, defiant howling, and when it was
gone, and in its place for all the long years to follow was only the yippery-yowdel of the slippery
coyote, he knew the difference, and he missed it.
By then he knew the glory of wolf was in no way diminished by one wolf's endurance of the
culmination that all wolves risk. Nor was it tainted by one wolf's ultimate failure to endure.
All he could think at the time, as he saw the submissive captive, was revenge for Blaze.
Carefully he slipped his rope about the wolf's neck, and, axe handle at the ready in his right
fist, he jerked tight the noose and raised to a half-sit the suddenly wretched son of a bitch.
family named Murphy. It was typical of her relationships with the proprietors of the lands she
roamed that she never met any of the Murphy family. She never even saw them.
Save one.
She knew of them, knew where the home itself was located, north of the big pasture, on Border
Road. Diana and her mother, following the miserable conclusion to Johnny and Bob's lives, had
been made to feel more at home a little further south and east from the Murphy spread. Marilyn
Wells and her husband Al had their home just east of Murphy's big eucalyptus tree at the
south-east corner of the big valley. Before she married her welder, Marilyn had been Marilyn
Heinz, and the house she shared with Al Wells was on the large Heinz ranch, which stretched
from Murphy's almost to Black Mountain itself.
When Carol Stream had stepped out of the chaparral clutching her child to her in valiant defeat,
surrender, whatever, Marilyn Heinz had recognized the courage that necessarily accompanied
the mother's submission. Her heart went out to Carol, and Carol's to her. When Marilyn
arranged for the old place on Del Mar Mesa, which her family still owned and which was
vacant, to be Carol and Diana's new home, the two young cowgirls became like sisters, and
there were good times again for Carol Stream after all. It was nineteen fifty-four.
This fellow Murphy, the rancher, (There were three, distant figures each to Diana, leathery,
wrinkled lumps on purring tractors, spied on across frosty November plowed fields from the
screen of brush, Murphy, Heinz and Knebel. ) captured a wolf once upon a time. In fact, his
dogs performed the serendipity that left the panting lupine stretched in helpless exhaustion at the
feet of the young Murphy. It was probably the last of the wolves in Southern California. That
was in nineteen twenty-two, and Murphy was twenty-eight years old.
Murphy was busy surviving the growth of toughness that he felt must accompany the
experience he had recently been through and was still going through. That was the vicarious
agony of finding the remains of the colt that he had bred and raised, and which he loved and
prized, torn apart.
By wolves, he believed, and in this he was wrong, for it was dogs from Rancho Santa Fe, just
to the northeast, packing up and playing at wild predator to punctuate their boring, well-fed
lives. By wolves, he believed, for he had heard their free, defiant howling, and when it was
gone, and in its place for all the long years to follow was only the yippery-yowdel of the slippery
coyote, he knew the difference, and he missed it.
By then he knew the glory of wolf was in no way diminished by one wolf's endurance of the
culmination that all wolves risk. Nor was it tainted by one wolf's ultimate failure to endure.
All he could think at the time, as he saw the submissive captive, was revenge for Blaze.
Carefully he slipped his rope about the wolf's neck, and, axe handle at the ready in his right
fist, he jerked tight the noose and raised to a half-sit the suddenly wretched son of a bitch.
* * *
Maggie Murphy had never heard the story of her father and the wolf, but she knew her way
around. On this day, however, she and her friend went to a place that Carol Gallagher had first
discovered. Away from the big, flat valley, and up into the hills and canyons was where the
better swimming holes were found, and this one was a beauty. The serenity of cattails and
eucalyptus shade contrasted with the blazing mud holes to be found in some pastures. They all
were cow ponds, although this one seldom entertained any cattle at all. The girls would come
and spy on it from the surrounding highlands. It lay like a dimple in the earth.
Range cattle were best avoided. If the girls were in the Chevy pickup, they could drive to a
certain point on the road that fringed the western base of Black Mountain, park it, and hike a
short distance west, to the cow pond. More likely, they would have hiked the entire distance
from their homes, three miles or more. Their journey would take them from a jumping off point
at the Heinz ranch, on up Gonzalez Canyon, then across the ridge into the upper reach of
Carmel Valley called McGonigle Canyon, and up out of there on the eucalyptus lined dirt road
that angled its way up to Gus Stelling's place. Skirting that, and crossing yet another canyon,
they arrived on the broad highland that sweeps down from the mountain herself, and ends in
Carmel Valley with the name Del Mar Mesa.
They could have ridden. Murphy had plenty of horses, and sometimes they did ride. But often
the girls wanted to be more free than that, more free than horses allowed. They wanted to drop
on impulse into fields of grass, to scamper up into a tree on a whim, and to follow trails that
were just not horse trails. Sometimes. Sometimes it was a quick ride out to a pond for a dip;
usually it was a closer pond if time was a constraint. Heck, the pond with the double row of
trees just south of Heinz' was fine, if a little mucky on the edges. The dam side was never
mucky, just steep.
If there was lots of time, bringing the horses along would mean going too far, too fast. It was
easier to walk. On this day, there was plenty of time, and Maggie and Carol were walking. It
was mid-October. By the time they reached the pond it was hot, and they were ready for a
swim.
They spied on the site as usual. No cows, no people. Perhaps they should have looked a little
harder.
The bad guys were already there. They had driven their dark green Studebaker panel truck in
along the ancient wagon tracks from the main dirt road. Now it was hidden in the shade of the
eucalyptus trees, parked in a spot where the weeping branches screened it with a curtain of
bluish green leaves.
Carol and Maggie had taken a pass on the pond a time or two. Cows were easy to spot. The
girls could usually smell them, if they were there. Visual clues in the form of cropped grass,
hoof prints and cow pies were abundant, if one of the herds was in the area.
Once it had been people. Then it was noise that tipped them off. The boisterous sounds of Bob
Cabler and that half-breed guy who works for Heinz having their daily dip was enough to
encourage the young ladies to seek out a more private pond.
Many times Carol, or Carol and Maggie together, had found the oasis deserted but haunted by
recent departees. These included Johnny and Bob, as well as deer, coyotes, bobcats, foxes and
mountain lions. A boot print in the soft earth, the butt of a hand rolled cigarette, an apple core or
a wet rock might tell of the cowboys’ passing.
Tracks in the mud told the whole story of the rest, the wildlife coming to slake their thirst.
Approaching the cow pond carefully from downwind had often earned the girls a sighting of
deer, and occasionally coyotes. Foxes and bobcats were much more elusive and nocturnal, but
once in a while they saw one, and on one skin-tingling occasion they had arrived in time to see a
mighty mountain lion take a long, cool drink at mid-morning and then prowl gracefully and
vanish.
The four members of the Studebaker crew were not boisterous on this particular morning.
Boisterous smacks too much of fun, and they were not in a fun mood. They were still drinking
from the night before, the two who were awake. The other pair slept inside the panel truck,
slack-jawed in piles of dirty clothes and blankets.
Eddy and Freddy, the two who were still awake, sat leaning each against a wheel on the right
side of the truck, each with his bottle of tequila in his hand. They were beyond conversation and
sat in stewed silence as the shadows moved. The shatter of women in conversation brought
each of them to levels of alertness that they hadn't seen since midnight. Still quiet, they coddled
their bottles and leaned on the wheels and watched as Maggie Murphy and Carol Gallagher
came into view.
Having judged cows and cowboys to be absent, the young ladies had proceeded to claim the
grove as their own, and the pond as their private swimming pool. They were used to this, and
they chattered merrily as they walked into the shadow of the trees.
around. On this day, however, she and her friend went to a place that Carol Gallagher had first
discovered. Away from the big, flat valley, and up into the hills and canyons was where the
better swimming holes were found, and this one was a beauty. The serenity of cattails and
eucalyptus shade contrasted with the blazing mud holes to be found in some pastures. They all
were cow ponds, although this one seldom entertained any cattle at all. The girls would come
and spy on it from the surrounding highlands. It lay like a dimple in the earth.
Range cattle were best avoided. If the girls were in the Chevy pickup, they could drive to a
certain point on the road that fringed the western base of Black Mountain, park it, and hike a
short distance west, to the cow pond. More likely, they would have hiked the entire distance
from their homes, three miles or more. Their journey would take them from a jumping off point
at the Heinz ranch, on up Gonzalez Canyon, then across the ridge into the upper reach of
Carmel Valley called McGonigle Canyon, and up out of there on the eucalyptus lined dirt road
that angled its way up to Gus Stelling's place. Skirting that, and crossing yet another canyon,
they arrived on the broad highland that sweeps down from the mountain herself, and ends in
Carmel Valley with the name Del Mar Mesa.
They could have ridden. Murphy had plenty of horses, and sometimes they did ride. But often
the girls wanted to be more free than that, more free than horses allowed. They wanted to drop
on impulse into fields of grass, to scamper up into a tree on a whim, and to follow trails that
were just not horse trails. Sometimes. Sometimes it was a quick ride out to a pond for a dip;
usually it was a closer pond if time was a constraint. Heck, the pond with the double row of
trees just south of Heinz' was fine, if a little mucky on the edges. The dam side was never
mucky, just steep.
If there was lots of time, bringing the horses along would mean going too far, too fast. It was
easier to walk. On this day, there was plenty of time, and Maggie and Carol were walking. It
was mid-October. By the time they reached the pond it was hot, and they were ready for a
swim.
They spied on the site as usual. No cows, no people. Perhaps they should have looked a little
harder.
The bad guys were already there. They had driven their dark green Studebaker panel truck in
along the ancient wagon tracks from the main dirt road. Now it was hidden in the shade of the
eucalyptus trees, parked in a spot where the weeping branches screened it with a curtain of
bluish green leaves.
Carol and Maggie had taken a pass on the pond a time or two. Cows were easy to spot. The
girls could usually smell them, if they were there. Visual clues in the form of cropped grass,
hoof prints and cow pies were abundant, if one of the herds was in the area.
Once it had been people. Then it was noise that tipped them off. The boisterous sounds of Bob
Cabler and that half-breed guy who works for Heinz having their daily dip was enough to
encourage the young ladies to seek out a more private pond.
Many times Carol, or Carol and Maggie together, had found the oasis deserted but haunted by
recent departees. These included Johnny and Bob, as well as deer, coyotes, bobcats, foxes and
mountain lions. A boot print in the soft earth, the butt of a hand rolled cigarette, an apple core or
a wet rock might tell of the cowboys’ passing.
Tracks in the mud told the whole story of the rest, the wildlife coming to slake their thirst.
Approaching the cow pond carefully from downwind had often earned the girls a sighting of
deer, and occasionally coyotes. Foxes and bobcats were much more elusive and nocturnal, but
once in a while they saw one, and on one skin-tingling occasion they had arrived in time to see a
mighty mountain lion take a long, cool drink at mid-morning and then prowl gracefully and
vanish.
The four members of the Studebaker crew were not boisterous on this particular morning.
Boisterous smacks too much of fun, and they were not in a fun mood. They were still drinking
from the night before, the two who were awake. The other pair slept inside the panel truck,
slack-jawed in piles of dirty clothes and blankets.
Eddy and Freddy, the two who were still awake, sat leaning each against a wheel on the right
side of the truck, each with his bottle of tequila in his hand. They were beyond conversation and
sat in stewed silence as the shadows moved. The shatter of women in conversation brought
each of them to levels of alertness that they hadn't seen since midnight. Still quiet, they coddled
their bottles and leaned on the wheels and watched as Maggie Murphy and Carol Gallagher
came into view.
Having judged cows and cowboys to be absent, the young ladies had proceeded to claim the
grove as their own, and the pond as their private swimming pool. They were used to this, and
they chattered merrily as they walked into the shadow of the trees.
* * *
Tawngness found it easy, in the first few days following the birth of her litter, to hop out and
catch something within yards of the den. She would return with her meat having never really
left. A quick check on the kits would send Billy and Tilly scampering, but Tawngness was
uninterested in den mice. The security of her kittens assured with a sniff, she might then come
back out to eat her kill. Sometimes it was a fat, bloody rabbit, but those grew scarce.
She was lucky near the end of the first week of rodents and lagomorphs to surprise a young
deer. She had gone to only about a hundred feet from the cave. From there, the den was
already invisible, screened by modest chaparral.
As for the deer, it had not yet felt the wave of unease that was beginning to radiate from the
dark spot below the basalt ledge in the chamise thicket half-way up the side of a draw on the
fingers of the mountain. Each kill sent a shiver through the population. An appointment missed
with a mate, a pair-half's failure to return, a missing nurse, an absent provider, a step up on the
scale of available browse and territory, a step down on the same for game, for prey.
The young doe kept her fat with idle nursing for a week. She played mother to the hilt, still
keenly sore from the wound of having lost her first litter. The kittens grew, opened their eyes,
learned to respect and to love. Tawngness thought they were adorable. Surprise, surprise.
By the third week, she was ranging a quarter mile from the den. Among the small mammals and
the quail, a regular exodus was being enacted. Furry families were moving in with their relatives.
Moonlit trails reverberated with the soft scamper noises of rabbits, wood rats, kangaroo rats,
ground squirrels and mice moving singly and in twos, opossum families riding on mama's back,
hanging from her tail, trails of quail chicks in twilights and dawns, following mama to a new
home, away from the memories, the tawny flash, the snatches of death, the mates and parents
and siblings and offspring and friends, gone in a heart beat and a mad scramble, gone when it
was every brushie to himself or herself, gone without ever being seen or heard or sniffed again,
with no more explanation beyond the piteous last squeaks and screams of the prey.
The foxes and the bobcats, no strangers to these kinds of moments, lived with a constant prickle
under their own fine fur. As the circle of Tawngness' appetite expanded, they found a mixed
blessing. The increased prey density at the perimeter of the evacuation zone made life instantly
easier. The brush was full of small mammals squeezing into already occupied territories,
travelers without homes, without good, good hiding places, standing out in the dark hunts like
warm blips on the senses of the hunter. At the same time, they themselves, foxes and bobcats,
had become more regular targets than they wanted to be.
They were all tasty to Tawngness. They had already lived with the marauding coyotes. But, to
the foxes and wild cats, coyotes were a known entity. How they lived, where they went, was no
mystery. That occasionally one of the smaller predators, like themselves, might get caught in the
jaws of one of these wilder canines, was just another part of what they knew.
But this newcomer, Tawngness, killed every time she moved! There was with her no being
about in the way the settled creatures had become. There was no time to study her ways. She
went out when she was hungry, and she killed the first mammal she saw, and often the next,
and the next, and the next. Most of the birds fluttered just out of reach, but still she snagged a
quail now and then.
Only survivors told any tails, companions of the lost, chirping in whatever mournful signals
there were. There were legends of such a monster, even among the foxes, even among the
raccoons, the skunks, the weasels and the badger. As a matter of fact, the old badger on the
ridge could recall the last lady lion who had haunted that side of the mountain. So could the
older deer, and the coons.
It was mostly for the rodents and bunnies that such a being was only a figment of animal stories.
Their short life spans and small territories conspired to make them ignorant of the past and
present, unable to remember the last time a hungry panther had invaded the locale, unable to
detect the passage of the odd stray male in the meantime. Even were he to pass just a few yards
downwind, they would never even catch his scent; a few up, and it would be all they would
catch, a nerve-provoking aroma at best, mysterious and scary, almost for sure.
But up close, who knew? Who had time to wonder how big were the fangs, how long the claws,
how fast, or silent or huge a mountain lion might really be. They were occupied already enough
with the modest claws of the bobcat, and the average fangs of the weasel and the fox.
catch something within yards of the den. She would return with her meat having never really
left. A quick check on the kits would send Billy and Tilly scampering, but Tawngness was
uninterested in den mice. The security of her kittens assured with a sniff, she might then come
back out to eat her kill. Sometimes it was a fat, bloody rabbit, but those grew scarce.
She was lucky near the end of the first week of rodents and lagomorphs to surprise a young
deer. She had gone to only about a hundred feet from the cave. From there, the den was
already invisible, screened by modest chaparral.
As for the deer, it had not yet felt the wave of unease that was beginning to radiate from the
dark spot below the basalt ledge in the chamise thicket half-way up the side of a draw on the
fingers of the mountain. Each kill sent a shiver through the population. An appointment missed
with a mate, a pair-half's failure to return, a missing nurse, an absent provider, a step up on the
scale of available browse and territory, a step down on the same for game, for prey.
The young doe kept her fat with idle nursing for a week. She played mother to the hilt, still
keenly sore from the wound of having lost her first litter. The kittens grew, opened their eyes,
learned to respect and to love. Tawngness thought they were adorable. Surprise, surprise.
By the third week, she was ranging a quarter mile from the den. Among the small mammals and
the quail, a regular exodus was being enacted. Furry families were moving in with their relatives.
Moonlit trails reverberated with the soft scamper noises of rabbits, wood rats, kangaroo rats,
ground squirrels and mice moving singly and in twos, opossum families riding on mama's back,
hanging from her tail, trails of quail chicks in twilights and dawns, following mama to a new
home, away from the memories, the tawny flash, the snatches of death, the mates and parents
and siblings and offspring and friends, gone in a heart beat and a mad scramble, gone when it
was every brushie to himself or herself, gone without ever being seen or heard or sniffed again,
with no more explanation beyond the piteous last squeaks and screams of the prey.
The foxes and the bobcats, no strangers to these kinds of moments, lived with a constant prickle
under their own fine fur. As the circle of Tawngness' appetite expanded, they found a mixed
blessing. The increased prey density at the perimeter of the evacuation zone made life instantly
easier. The brush was full of small mammals squeezing into already occupied territories,
travelers without homes, without good, good hiding places, standing out in the dark hunts like
warm blips on the senses of the hunter. At the same time, they themselves, foxes and bobcats,
had become more regular targets than they wanted to be.
They were all tasty to Tawngness. They had already lived with the marauding coyotes. But, to
the foxes and wild cats, coyotes were a known entity. How they lived, where they went, was no
mystery. That occasionally one of the smaller predators, like themselves, might get caught in the
jaws of one of these wilder canines, was just another part of what they knew.
But this newcomer, Tawngness, killed every time she moved! There was with her no being
about in the way the settled creatures had become. There was no time to study her ways. She
went out when she was hungry, and she killed the first mammal she saw, and often the next,
and the next, and the next. Most of the birds fluttered just out of reach, but still she snagged a
quail now and then.
Only survivors told any tails, companions of the lost, chirping in whatever mournful signals
there were. There were legends of such a monster, even among the foxes, even among the
raccoons, the skunks, the weasels and the badger. As a matter of fact, the old badger on the
ridge could recall the last lady lion who had haunted that side of the mountain. So could the
older deer, and the coons.
It was mostly for the rodents and bunnies that such a being was only a figment of animal stories.
Their short life spans and small territories conspired to make them ignorant of the past and
present, unable to remember the last time a hungry panther had invaded the locale, unable to
detect the passage of the odd stray male in the meantime. Even were he to pass just a few yards
downwind, they would never even catch his scent; a few up, and it would be all they would
catch, a nerve-provoking aroma at best, mysterious and scary, almost for sure.
But up close, who knew? Who had time to wonder how big were the fangs, how long the claws,
how fast, or silent or huge a mountain lion might really be. They were occupied already enough
with the modest claws of the bobcat, and the average fangs of the weasel and the fox.
* * *
For his five years of age, Tracer had been long enough familiar with the son of the rancher,
home now three years from the foreign war, and still the dead shot with the rifle that had made
the local wolves keen-eyed, fast, and increasingly scarce. As lead dog on the Murphy ranch, it
was Tracer's business to know something about wolves. Well, he did know something about
wolves. He knew something about wolves, and something about cattle kills, and half-wild dogs,
and ground squirrels. He knew something about ground squirrels.
He knew about wolf shit and dog shit, and bones and hair. He knew the wolves themselves.
There is no real hiding in the winds of the nose, only evasion and interpretation. He knew the
game he played with the packs was one of mutual consent. The wolves did not want to be dogs;
they freely accepted the dues of that choice.
Tracer had received his own beatings, as each dog shall as he grows to discover his master's
will. One, maybe two, to get the mutt's attention, and perhaps a reminder some time when the
current excitement becomes a bit of a challenge. "Needs more than that, needs a bullet," was the
platitude that most of the country boys would subscribe to, not wanting to be more than usually
cruel.
Tracer could, however, only cock his head and lift first this ear, then that, in puzzlement and
vague sorrow over the rending yowls that issued from the shed to which the young rancher,
spitting with fury, had dragged the choking, head-drooped, stiff-legged wolf.
Efficient dog that he was, Tracer even knew this wolf, even knew that, could it have been
translated to the human tongue, this wolf's name would have been, in the tender, life-nuzzling
appreciation-growl of the mother wolf, "Bird's Egg. "
Bird's Egg.
Tracer had pursued Bird's Egg over hill and canyon, and across the level, open, velvet black,
night-time depths of the big pasture. They had rejoiced together in the meaningless thrill of the
chase. They had scuffled on occasion, merely to feel for a second the meaty reality of one
another whose primary interrelationship was compounded of wind chemistry and the occasional
haunting, aural spell.
On this afternoon, Tracer and three other ranch dogs had accompanied Murphy while he rode
his horse up one of the side canyons that contained an orchard of walnuts, persimmons and
apricots. There was a well there, a windmill, and a tank, and right there was where, in a sudden
scramble, Bird's Egg had let himself be scared up out of a eucalyptus draw and then run to
ground by the thundering dogs.
Okay! Square up! We win! You lose! Start over! Play again! Bow wow! All in fun, was what
Tracer would have said, had he been in charge, had Murphy not been there, had it been merely
midnight, dogs and wolves, dallying in dangerous delinquency.
But on this day, his authority ended at the pull-up of Murphy's horse's hooves, at the thump of
his boots, at the grip on a bat of a leather fist, and at the slam of an old wood door. The other
dogs looked away from his quizzical reach as if embarrassed to be in the same story. Tracer
looked back at the unpainted grey fester of splinters that filtered the rending peals of remarkably
canine sounding shrieks. Bird's Egg was being beaten to death, unforgiven as a wolf, convicted
of torturing, maiming and murdering the colt that young cowboy Murphy had loved like his own
son.
Filthy, mother-fucking, murdering scum! Unrepentant devil. Murphy recalled the works of the
devil that the nuns had so firmly planted descriptions of to monopolize the circuits of his
developing young brain. It was how he wanted to make the craven wolf pay, to grind whatever
unconditional apologies quivered forth into satanic rejection and murderous, unforgiving hell.
Not being an especially creative individual, Murphy's only method to achieve all of this fury was
to flail the wolf with the axe handle. Yet achieve it he did, sparing the poor son of a bitch with
the exact cruelty needed to preserve consciousness and prolong dying, to the point where
Murphy's normally kind heart would have overflowed with pity, were it not so goaded with hate.
Later he repented, in a sense, if repentance is what it can be called when one accepts the
tragedy of one's choices. Oh, he got what he wanted. He plowed clear through to the total
wrack of his intended sufferer. The animal did not defy him. It did not grin and bear it. It did
not live up to any annals of courage or strength or toughness. It was not even faithful to its
innocence, raveling in abandoned confession to any and all crimes and guilty trespass. It did not
inspire any folk songs.
But when it was over, when that rancher, Murphy, stood in a quiet shed and gloated till he
wept, the original song of the wolf remained the inspiration it had always been, to some, and the
purple images of graceful silhouettes, noses raised against the moon, remained as beautiful.
home now three years from the foreign war, and still the dead shot with the rifle that had made
the local wolves keen-eyed, fast, and increasingly scarce. As lead dog on the Murphy ranch, it
was Tracer's business to know something about wolves. Well, he did know something about
wolves. He knew something about wolves, and something about cattle kills, and half-wild dogs,
and ground squirrels. He knew something about ground squirrels.
He knew about wolf shit and dog shit, and bones and hair. He knew the wolves themselves.
There is no real hiding in the winds of the nose, only evasion and interpretation. He knew the
game he played with the packs was one of mutual consent. The wolves did not want to be dogs;
they freely accepted the dues of that choice.
Tracer had received his own beatings, as each dog shall as he grows to discover his master's
will. One, maybe two, to get the mutt's attention, and perhaps a reminder some time when the
current excitement becomes a bit of a challenge. "Needs more than that, needs a bullet," was the
platitude that most of the country boys would subscribe to, not wanting to be more than usually
cruel.
Tracer could, however, only cock his head and lift first this ear, then that, in puzzlement and
vague sorrow over the rending yowls that issued from the shed to which the young rancher,
spitting with fury, had dragged the choking, head-drooped, stiff-legged wolf.
Efficient dog that he was, Tracer even knew this wolf, even knew that, could it have been
translated to the human tongue, this wolf's name would have been, in the tender, life-nuzzling
appreciation-growl of the mother wolf, "Bird's Egg. "
Bird's Egg.
Tracer had pursued Bird's Egg over hill and canyon, and across the level, open, velvet black,
night-time depths of the big pasture. They had rejoiced together in the meaningless thrill of the
chase. They had scuffled on occasion, merely to feel for a second the meaty reality of one
another whose primary interrelationship was compounded of wind chemistry and the occasional
haunting, aural spell.
On this afternoon, Tracer and three other ranch dogs had accompanied Murphy while he rode
his horse up one of the side canyons that contained an orchard of walnuts, persimmons and
apricots. There was a well there, a windmill, and a tank, and right there was where, in a sudden
scramble, Bird's Egg had let himself be scared up out of a eucalyptus draw and then run to
ground by the thundering dogs.
Okay! Square up! We win! You lose! Start over! Play again! Bow wow! All in fun, was what
Tracer would have said, had he been in charge, had Murphy not been there, had it been merely
midnight, dogs and wolves, dallying in dangerous delinquency.
But on this day, his authority ended at the pull-up of Murphy's horse's hooves, at the thump of
his boots, at the grip on a bat of a leather fist, and at the slam of an old wood door. The other
dogs looked away from his quizzical reach as if embarrassed to be in the same story. Tracer
looked back at the unpainted grey fester of splinters that filtered the rending peals of remarkably
canine sounding shrieks. Bird's Egg was being beaten to death, unforgiven as a wolf, convicted
of torturing, maiming and murdering the colt that young cowboy Murphy had loved like his own
son.
Filthy, mother-fucking, murdering scum! Unrepentant devil. Murphy recalled the works of the
devil that the nuns had so firmly planted descriptions of to monopolize the circuits of his
developing young brain. It was how he wanted to make the craven wolf pay, to grind whatever
unconditional apologies quivered forth into satanic rejection and murderous, unforgiving hell.
Not being an especially creative individual, Murphy's only method to achieve all of this fury was
to flail the wolf with the axe handle. Yet achieve it he did, sparing the poor son of a bitch with
the exact cruelty needed to preserve consciousness and prolong dying, to the point where
Murphy's normally kind heart would have overflowed with pity, were it not so goaded with hate.
Later he repented, in a sense, if repentance is what it can be called when one accepts the
tragedy of one's choices. Oh, he got what he wanted. He plowed clear through to the total
wrack of his intended sufferer. The animal did not defy him. It did not grin and bear it. It did
not live up to any annals of courage or strength or toughness. It was not even faithful to its
innocence, raveling in abandoned confession to any and all crimes and guilty trespass. It did not
inspire any folk songs.
But when it was over, when that rancher, Murphy, stood in a quiet shed and gloated till he
wept, the original song of the wolf remained the inspiration it had always been, to some, and the
purple images of graceful silhouettes, noses raised against the moon, remained as beautiful.
* * *
"I felt almost as though she were speaking to me," Diana went on in a little girl voice.
"Who?" asked Joe, momentarily distracted.
"The moon?" she hesitated in her reply, inflecting it like a question, already wondering before
she spoke if it were silly or wise to mention it at all. Silly, she feared.
"Oh, the moon spoke to you," Joe rephrased it, and, yes, it was okay then, for he said it like a
declaration, with an understanding that this was what she had said, and an invitation to go on.
"Yes," said Diana, and she smiled. "It was sort of like I was making it up, you know, in my
mind?
"But at the same time, it was like it was real, like… like she was getting into my brain and
making me think the words that were right. I mean, like, maybe she made me imagine the words
that she wanted me to hear her say. You know?"
Joe knew. "You keep saying 'she,'" he observed, and he also noticed a chilly ripple dance
through his own nerves, for he recalled his own thought a moment before, that had portrayed
the moon as a female.
"Yeah," said Diana. "Yeah, woman's voice and all. She was like an angel or something… "
"All the angels in the bible were guys," said Joe, trying to be helpful, and not.
"Well, fuck! Then I don't know. "
"A goddess?"
"Yeah! She was like a goddess, like if I had closed my eyes I could have pictured her like this
really beautiful woman in a white dress, a white gown. Maybe she could have a wand, with a
star at the end, like some kind of magic fairy or something. You know? That's it! Maybe she's
like a fairy or something. "
"Did you know," Joe asked, recalling a fragment of his education, “that the Romans called their
moon goddess Diana?"
Now Diana felt a shiver. "Wow," she said softly. "Really?"
"Yeah, really. She was also the goddess of hunting. "
This time the tingle that rattled young Diana Stream Gallagher was like a jolt from a storm
cloud. Joe didn't notice that, but went on for a moment to tell her more, all he could remember
really, and it wasn't much.
"The Greeks called her Artemis," he said. "They compared the moon when it's in its crescent
phases, like tonight, to the bow of the huntress.
"She was also the goddess of chastity," he said to the young virgin wrapping her knees in her
arms and hunching her shoulders to rest her chin. "Whatever that is.”
She trembled.
"Are you cold?” he asked.
"No," said Diana. "I've just got the shivers thinking about all she said.
"She told me she was a huntress, and she said… "
Joe waited. Presently, he lit a cigarette, and then, little by little, the virgin told her tale.
"Who?" asked Joe, momentarily distracted.
"The moon?" she hesitated in her reply, inflecting it like a question, already wondering before
she spoke if it were silly or wise to mention it at all. Silly, she feared.
"Oh, the moon spoke to you," Joe rephrased it, and, yes, it was okay then, for he said it like a
declaration, with an understanding that this was what she had said, and an invitation to go on.
"Yes," said Diana, and she smiled. "It was sort of like I was making it up, you know, in my
mind?
"But at the same time, it was like it was real, like… like she was getting into my brain and
making me think the words that were right. I mean, like, maybe she made me imagine the words
that she wanted me to hear her say. You know?"
Joe knew. "You keep saying 'she,'" he observed, and he also noticed a chilly ripple dance
through his own nerves, for he recalled his own thought a moment before, that had portrayed
the moon as a female.
"Yeah," said Diana. "Yeah, woman's voice and all. She was like an angel or something… "
"All the angels in the bible were guys," said Joe, trying to be helpful, and not.
"Well, fuck! Then I don't know. "
"A goddess?"
"Yeah! She was like a goddess, like if I had closed my eyes I could have pictured her like this
really beautiful woman in a white dress, a white gown. Maybe she could have a wand, with a
star at the end, like some kind of magic fairy or something. You know? That's it! Maybe she's
like a fairy or something. "
"Did you know," Joe asked, recalling a fragment of his education, “that the Romans called their
moon goddess Diana?"
Now Diana felt a shiver. "Wow," she said softly. "Really?"
"Yeah, really. She was also the goddess of hunting. "
This time the tingle that rattled young Diana Stream Gallagher was like a jolt from a storm
cloud. Joe didn't notice that, but went on for a moment to tell her more, all he could remember
really, and it wasn't much.
"The Greeks called her Artemis," he said. "They compared the moon when it's in its crescent
phases, like tonight, to the bow of the huntress.
"She was also the goddess of chastity," he said to the young virgin wrapping her knees in her
arms and hunching her shoulders to rest her chin. "Whatever that is.”
She trembled.
"Are you cold?” he asked.
"No," said Diana. "I've just got the shivers thinking about all she said.
"She told me she was a huntress, and she said… "
Joe waited. Presently, he lit a cigarette, and then, little by little, the virgin told her tale.
