| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder January 28, 1980
Bob went to town this morning to do his laundry. I rinsed out a couple of things in the creek.
This morning a helicopter flew over, very low, circled the pasture and departed. About ten-thirty it was back
again. After it left, I drove into Stallion Oaks and called the F.A.A. to complain. The man was pleasant, said he
would make some calls, but couldn't offer much hope without the numbers.
The pasture is just about ready. We tested the hot wire, and it's good.
Today I went way up Alder Creek with the herd. There were wild sweet peas blooming, the first of the year. The
goats love them. There was also a little lilac in bloom. It sure smells sweet. Wild chives were plentiful, and I ate
several handfuls.
Bob went to town this morning to do his laundry. I rinsed out a couple of things in the creek.
This morning a helicopter flew over, very low, circled the pasture and departed. About ten-thirty it was back
again. After it left, I drove into Stallion Oaks and called the F.A.A. to complain. The man was pleasant, said he
would make some calls, but couldn't offer much hope without the numbers.
The pasture is just about ready. We tested the hot wire, and it's good.
Today I went way up Alder Creek with the herd. There were wild sweet peas blooming, the first of the year. The
goats love them. There was also a little lilac in bloom. It sure smells sweet. Wild chives were plentiful, and I ate
several handfuls.
| Chapter Sixteen GREATER GLORY |
That morning, Andrea Clare Devlin had sat in the kitchen, quietly listening while her father and her
brothers ate the cornbread, her cornbread.
Hank Devlin ladled lima beans over the steaming fresh cake. "We're driving up to Collin's Cove today," he
said to no one in particular. Tom and Joe dribbled honey onto their hot cornbread.
It was a fifty mile drive. But they hoped to be back by dark. The job was nearly done. It was all brushwork.
"I'll be finishing the soffits first," said Tom.
Hank said, "Good. Joe and I will knock out the garage, and then we'll get the trim. Easy money."
"Will the carpenters be there today?" Joe wanted to know. Joe was fifteen. Tom was eighteen.
"Probably not," replied his father. "They're done, I think."
Joe sighed.
Tom said, "I heard Old Fargo telling Johnny that he probably would have him go ahead and make that porch
rail today."
"Well, maybe they'll be there," said Hank. Meanwhile, he ate his beans and cornbread. Andrea listened
quietly to their talk.
When they were getting into the truck she stood by the faded letters. Her father was driving. He slammed
the door shut with a metallic crash.
Andrea smiled and rested her fingers on the window edge. Hank started the old truck and let it warm. Tom
and Joe chattered about carpenters and the sisters of carpenters.
His hand went to the gearshift. He looked at his daughter then, to say so long. She simply gazed at him. She
was seventeen and so lovely. "See ya soon, kid," he said.
"Bye, Daddy," she grinned merrily.
He threw it in reverse and backed around. The truck headed down the dirt road then. He saw her wave and
then she disappeared in the rearview mirror.
brothers ate the cornbread, her cornbread.
Hank Devlin ladled lima beans over the steaming fresh cake. "We're driving up to Collin's Cove today," he
said to no one in particular. Tom and Joe dribbled honey onto their hot cornbread.
It was a fifty mile drive. But they hoped to be back by dark. The job was nearly done. It was all brushwork.
"I'll be finishing the soffits first," said Tom.
Hank said, "Good. Joe and I will knock out the garage, and then we'll get the trim. Easy money."
"Will the carpenters be there today?" Joe wanted to know. Joe was fifteen. Tom was eighteen.
"Probably not," replied his father. "They're done, I think."
Joe sighed.
Tom said, "I heard Old Fargo telling Johnny that he probably would have him go ahead and make that porch
rail today."
"Well, maybe they'll be there," said Hank. Meanwhile, he ate his beans and cornbread. Andrea listened
quietly to their talk.
When they were getting into the truck she stood by the faded letters. Her father was driving. He slammed
the door shut with a metallic crash.
Andrea smiled and rested her fingers on the window edge. Hank started the old truck and let it warm. Tom
and Joe chattered about carpenters and the sisters of carpenters.
His hand went to the gearshift. He looked at his daughter then, to say so long. She simply gazed at him. She
was seventeen and so lovely. "See ya soon, kid," he said.
"Bye, Daddy," she grinned merrily.
He threw it in reverse and backed around. The truck headed down the dirt road then. He saw her wave and
then she disappeared in the rearview mirror.
| * * * |
While the cowboys were absent, alright, from the pond at the base of Black Mountain, they were not far
behind. On a normal day, the first peal of feminine laughter would have sent Johnny and Bob in another
direction. They knew better than to intrude on the pastimes of Murphy's daughter and her pal. Johnny knew
their routes as well as he knew the daily patterns of the deer that drifted up and down the draws with the
change of the thermal breeze. For all the girls should know, he was just another part of the brush. In actual
fact, they knew him and Bob better than he realized. It was a game of mutual keep away. Bob was a little
better qualified to join their society than was Johnny, but even Bob knew better than to initiate any
heightened gregariousness at the waterhole.
He was Marilyn Wells' nephew, alright, because his own mother had been Marilyn's half-sister. But, ol' Bill
Heinz was not his grandfather. Mrs. Heinz already had Veronica, Bob's ma-to-be, when she married into the
Heinz family. Veronica had been trouble when she was born, and she brought more with the birth of Bob
Cabler. He was in trouble before he was born, and he had learned to cut a low profile around the Heinz
ranch. Working for Marilyn as he did made this fairly easy, since he reported to her, she paid him, and her
stables, where he slept and worked, were a long way from the Heinz' home on the hill.
But he was still officially part of the family, and so he was a part of the society that was the Heinz, Knebels,
Murphys and others, the families that owned the farms and ranches around Black Mountain and Carmel
Valley. He had, at some point in the past, been introduced to Maggie Murphy, but her five years' seniority
was a wide gulf during childhood. They were probably more alike than either would have guessed. They both
had a flare for life, and a zest for adventure and excitement. Maggie and Bob both liked to laugh and be
merry at all times, if possible. They both, for instance, had uplifting effects on their respective sidekicks,
Carol and Johnny. Left to their own moods, each of the future lovers tended to be morose and somber,
happy, but in a serious way.
When Carol was with Maggie Murphy, however, Carol was Miss Vivacity. They were a pair then, a whole
greater than a sum, and what Maggie and Carol said, and what Carol and Maggie did, were said and done
nowhere else and never before.
It was the same with Johnny and Bob. Johnny, who could go for days on trails, speaking with no one, seeking
no one, content with solitude and silence, became Johnny and Bob, a hell-raising combination in the presence
of other human beings. Teenaged, cowboy, hoodlum, punks were all words that some might resort to in
describing the pair.
They had met when Bob was thirteen. Johnny was already twenty-one, but no one would have known that. He
was barely regarded as a teenager. The temptation was to think of him like one of the kids.
In reality he was an extremely tough, experienced outdoorsman. His handiness was not overlooked by old
man Heinz, and his job was secure, such as it was. There were times that Heinz didn't need Johnny's help,
and didn't need to pay him during those times either, but there would always be times when he would need
him again.
Thirteen year old Bob Cabler had gone to him like a magnet. His own father a shroud of mystery, his aunt's
father an aloof hostility, his craving for a male mentor was answered dramatically by this silent rider from
somewhere else who had come to work at the ranch. Bob couldn't have pictured him better if he had made
him up.
behind. On a normal day, the first peal of feminine laughter would have sent Johnny and Bob in another
direction. They knew better than to intrude on the pastimes of Murphy's daughter and her pal. Johnny knew
their routes as well as he knew the daily patterns of the deer that drifted up and down the draws with the
change of the thermal breeze. For all the girls should know, he was just another part of the brush. In actual
fact, they knew him and Bob better than he realized. It was a game of mutual keep away. Bob was a little
better qualified to join their society than was Johnny, but even Bob knew better than to initiate any
heightened gregariousness at the waterhole.
He was Marilyn Wells' nephew, alright, because his own mother had been Marilyn's half-sister. But, ol' Bill
Heinz was not his grandfather. Mrs. Heinz already had Veronica, Bob's ma-to-be, when she married into the
Heinz family. Veronica had been trouble when she was born, and she brought more with the birth of Bob
Cabler. He was in trouble before he was born, and he had learned to cut a low profile around the Heinz
ranch. Working for Marilyn as he did made this fairly easy, since he reported to her, she paid him, and her
stables, where he slept and worked, were a long way from the Heinz' home on the hill.
But he was still officially part of the family, and so he was a part of the society that was the Heinz, Knebels,
Murphys and others, the families that owned the farms and ranches around Black Mountain and Carmel
Valley. He had, at some point in the past, been introduced to Maggie Murphy, but her five years' seniority
was a wide gulf during childhood. They were probably more alike than either would have guessed. They both
had a flare for life, and a zest for adventure and excitement. Maggie and Bob both liked to laugh and be
merry at all times, if possible. They both, for instance, had uplifting effects on their respective sidekicks,
Carol and Johnny. Left to their own moods, each of the future lovers tended to be morose and somber,
happy, but in a serious way.
When Carol was with Maggie Murphy, however, Carol was Miss Vivacity. They were a pair then, a whole
greater than a sum, and what Maggie and Carol said, and what Carol and Maggie did, were said and done
nowhere else and never before.
It was the same with Johnny and Bob. Johnny, who could go for days on trails, speaking with no one, seeking
no one, content with solitude and silence, became Johnny and Bob, a hell-raising combination in the presence
of other human beings. Teenaged, cowboy, hoodlum, punks were all words that some might resort to in
describing the pair.
They had met when Bob was thirteen. Johnny was already twenty-one, but no one would have known that. He
was barely regarded as a teenager. The temptation was to think of him like one of the kids.
In reality he was an extremely tough, experienced outdoorsman. His handiness was not overlooked by old
man Heinz, and his job was secure, such as it was. There were times that Heinz didn't need Johnny's help,
and didn't need to pay him during those times either, but there would always be times when he would need
him again.
Thirteen year old Bob Cabler had gone to him like a magnet. His own father a shroud of mystery, his aunt's
father an aloof hostility, his craving for a male mentor was answered dramatically by this silent rider from
somewhere else who had come to work at the ranch. Bob couldn't have pictured him better if he had made
him up.
| * * * |
Earth, Earth, Earth. Sometimes I wonder what you would do without me. I speak to all of you, rocks and
sand, water and salt, air and dust, and fire; I speak to you all.
And I speak to woman, and I speak in English, and I speak at last to you. You tremble, and in your soul you
look back over your shoulder; you turn with a perplexed look. You gesture at yourself, as though I have
mistaken you for someone else.
But no, it's you to whom I send my words, coated with cold light, my thoughts, if you will, and my wishes,
awash in the same glow that lights the trail for the deer, and that draws the mournful prayer from the
coyote, and the wolf.
I am the moon. I am your sister. I am born of the same whirl, for we were together once; we were many and
the same.
Earth woman Diana, I speak to you. I speak to you, for, by the power of the imagination in your soul, you
can hear me. So you must listen, for your world, for your kind, for your race, for your family, for your
sisters and brothers, for your children, for yourself and for me.
Because you are aware, I have selected you. Because I have selected you, you shall become even more aware.
Like brother Sun, who coaxes the buds of flowers from the somber leaves, so shall I coax you, who already
have left behind the leaves of conformity. I shall coax you to bud and then to blossom, a moon-flower in a
secret garden.
Knowledge is free. Wisdom must have sacrifice, and that you have performed. Already you have the wisdom
to know how little has been your cost, and how great has been your reward. Now I will give you more wisdom;
you can take it freely, and in the future, you will sacrifice more than you dreamed, and still it will be your
way.
Take no offense, Diana, that I speak to you as all of Earth. I allow you into my confidence, to let you know
that the message that spins in your mind is a message for all women, for all humanity, for life, for the world,
for us all. You will pass it along, not to everyone, not even to a few, but to one.
That one will be your son. But listen.
Enough has woman listened to the invitations of Venus. There is never too much, but enough means time for
change. When the world was full, and woman was young, Venus plied her with seductive greeting. "Hello,
pretty Earth," she would coo to the ones who received her cute radiance. "The moon is away," I'm sure she
said to the nighttime crowd, while I hung invisible in sunny skies. "Come," she said. "Dance and make your
vows; reach for a man and seize his heart. Bear his child, and make up songs about that aging maiden of
silver dust and meteorites."
And so you did. And so the world filled, with humanity, with woman and her wild-willed mate.
And so the world filled. Humanity chased itself to the far reach of every land, and then range became
territory, and territory became subjection. Rather than to keep the masses out, the game became to keep
them down.
Life itself becomes an idol when pandered to in this way. To love too much to kill, is not to love at all. To
raise one's sisters and brothers as hens to rob, sheep to shear, cows to milk, oxen to work and horses to
drive and to ride, is to turn yourselves into parasites.
Though leeches and ticks have their place in the life of my sister-world, women and their sons have the
choice and the power to capture a greater glory.
Greater glory than the hum of the hive is there for the woman who chooses to take it. The social extreme
has already been done, by the bees, and look at them. But for the handful of drones they are all females, and
but for the queen they are all infertile. They have perfected a technique that your species is only now
beginning to understand well enough to employ reliably.
I'm not spinning some parable about women at work either. As we glance away from that subject, however,
let me remind you that I don't just see your nighttime; I'm up here in the day as well. You can't see me, but
often enough I am gazing at a full earth, for I circle you as you rotate beneath me. So I see more than
merely the flights of bats.
I see your bees. I see your workers. Maybe it is working women of which I speak, but I had believed it to be
population control among your own species that I referred to, when I said you were learning to do it, and to
do it so it works.
Population control. Taking for yourselves the power to make your numbers fit the range. Taking away from
the monsters the task of molding the shape of your crowd. The bees do it all for themselves, and they do it
with a heavy hand. Here's an idea, says the arm of creation, sweeping the table clean with a back-hand
stroke, clean of fathers, mothers and families in the world of the honeybees.
Imagine if you will, Diana, how matters could develop for your species over the next couple of generations,
and then a couple of more after that. Imagine this mass of children, that I have seen born since your big
war, coming of age. They come of age at the same time as the offer of reliable methods of birth control
becomes a part of reality.
I mean, of course, methods that are both reliable and pleasant. Imagine a pill or a simple operation. Imagine
a nation aswarm with technology.
The typical job becomes more appealing as well. In contrast with traditional trades such as mining,
ditch-digging, and farming, all dirty, tiresome and dangerous, there are now millions of positions for which
the only real travail is the car trip to and from the office.
You women like to think of yourselves as oppressed into the labor of the centuries, and it is true, but it is
your mothers who have committed the oppression.
It wasn't men who invented farming and mining, Diana. It wasn't men who invented cooking and clothing. It
wasn't men who invented houses, and it wasn't men who discovered the use of fire.
It was women. Why if it had been left to the men to design your progress you would all still be running about
naked, sleeping in caves or huddling in the rain and cold, eating the raw kills of the hairy apes that you
followed with your babies clinging to your breasts.
They are great workers, men are, once you get them set and going. Men have resolutely accepted each new
civilizing concept that has been handed to them by women. Where women searched for stones that fit the
shapes of their tasks, learned to chip them and mount them with handles, discovered metal and learned to
mold it, and turned to men and said, here, do this, men have bored holes for miles into my sister, turning
her inside out for the sinews of civilization, darkening her skies with the smoke of forges and foundries,
factories and refineries.
Where women learned to weave the brush into wickiups that sheltered the families, then turned to the men
with a nod, men have raised castles, have stripped the forests so as to coat the hills with pens for the
animals, shacks for the workers and mansions for the mighty.
Women learned to stitch and to weave. Men reveled in pomp and finery, and created the industries that
savaged the beaver and a thousand other families of fur and skin, that destroyed the buffalo and enslaved
the sheep and cattle, that set to rolling the wheels of countless, repetitive tasks, that designed the sweat
shops and plantations, and the endless rows and monotonous hours.
Maybe it was because of its masculine qualities that women discovered fire.
Maybe it was because of its feminine qualities, that men discovered the wheel.
sand, water and salt, air and dust, and fire; I speak to you all.
And I speak to woman, and I speak in English, and I speak at last to you. You tremble, and in your soul you
look back over your shoulder; you turn with a perplexed look. You gesture at yourself, as though I have
mistaken you for someone else.
But no, it's you to whom I send my words, coated with cold light, my thoughts, if you will, and my wishes,
awash in the same glow that lights the trail for the deer, and that draws the mournful prayer from the
coyote, and the wolf.
I am the moon. I am your sister. I am born of the same whirl, for we were together once; we were many and
the same.
Earth woman Diana, I speak to you. I speak to you, for, by the power of the imagination in your soul, you
can hear me. So you must listen, for your world, for your kind, for your race, for your family, for your
sisters and brothers, for your children, for yourself and for me.
Because you are aware, I have selected you. Because I have selected you, you shall become even more aware.
Like brother Sun, who coaxes the buds of flowers from the somber leaves, so shall I coax you, who already
have left behind the leaves of conformity. I shall coax you to bud and then to blossom, a moon-flower in a
secret garden.
Knowledge is free. Wisdom must have sacrifice, and that you have performed. Already you have the wisdom
to know how little has been your cost, and how great has been your reward. Now I will give you more wisdom;
you can take it freely, and in the future, you will sacrifice more than you dreamed, and still it will be your
way.
Take no offense, Diana, that I speak to you as all of Earth. I allow you into my confidence, to let you know
that the message that spins in your mind is a message for all women, for all humanity, for life, for the world,
for us all. You will pass it along, not to everyone, not even to a few, but to one.
That one will be your son. But listen.
Enough has woman listened to the invitations of Venus. There is never too much, but enough means time for
change. When the world was full, and woman was young, Venus plied her with seductive greeting. "Hello,
pretty Earth," she would coo to the ones who received her cute radiance. "The moon is away," I'm sure she
said to the nighttime crowd, while I hung invisible in sunny skies. "Come," she said. "Dance and make your
vows; reach for a man and seize his heart. Bear his child, and make up songs about that aging maiden of
silver dust and meteorites."
And so you did. And so the world filled, with humanity, with woman and her wild-willed mate.
And so the world filled. Humanity chased itself to the far reach of every land, and then range became
territory, and territory became subjection. Rather than to keep the masses out, the game became to keep
them down.
Life itself becomes an idol when pandered to in this way. To love too much to kill, is not to love at all. To
raise one's sisters and brothers as hens to rob, sheep to shear, cows to milk, oxen to work and horses to
drive and to ride, is to turn yourselves into parasites.
Though leeches and ticks have their place in the life of my sister-world, women and their sons have the
choice and the power to capture a greater glory.
Greater glory than the hum of the hive is there for the woman who chooses to take it. The social extreme
has already been done, by the bees, and look at them. But for the handful of drones they are all females, and
but for the queen they are all infertile. They have perfected a technique that your species is only now
beginning to understand well enough to employ reliably.
I'm not spinning some parable about women at work either. As we glance away from that subject, however,
let me remind you that I don't just see your nighttime; I'm up here in the day as well. You can't see me, but
often enough I am gazing at a full earth, for I circle you as you rotate beneath me. So I see more than
merely the flights of bats.
I see your bees. I see your workers. Maybe it is working women of which I speak, but I had believed it to be
population control among your own species that I referred to, when I said you were learning to do it, and to
do it so it works.
Population control. Taking for yourselves the power to make your numbers fit the range. Taking away from
the monsters the task of molding the shape of your crowd. The bees do it all for themselves, and they do it
with a heavy hand. Here's an idea, says the arm of creation, sweeping the table clean with a back-hand
stroke, clean of fathers, mothers and families in the world of the honeybees.
Imagine if you will, Diana, how matters could develop for your species over the next couple of generations,
and then a couple of more after that. Imagine this mass of children, that I have seen born since your big
war, coming of age. They come of age at the same time as the offer of reliable methods of birth control
becomes a part of reality.
I mean, of course, methods that are both reliable and pleasant. Imagine a pill or a simple operation. Imagine
a nation aswarm with technology.
The typical job becomes more appealing as well. In contrast with traditional trades such as mining,
ditch-digging, and farming, all dirty, tiresome and dangerous, there are now millions of positions for which
the only real travail is the car trip to and from the office.
You women like to think of yourselves as oppressed into the labor of the centuries, and it is true, but it is
your mothers who have committed the oppression.
It wasn't men who invented farming and mining, Diana. It wasn't men who invented cooking and clothing. It
wasn't men who invented houses, and it wasn't men who discovered the use of fire.
It was women. Why if it had been left to the men to design your progress you would all still be running about
naked, sleeping in caves or huddling in the rain and cold, eating the raw kills of the hairy apes that you
followed with your babies clinging to your breasts.
They are great workers, men are, once you get them set and going. Men have resolutely accepted each new
civilizing concept that has been handed to them by women. Where women searched for stones that fit the
shapes of their tasks, learned to chip them and mount them with handles, discovered metal and learned to
mold it, and turned to men and said, here, do this, men have bored holes for miles into my sister, turning
her inside out for the sinews of civilization, darkening her skies with the smoke of forges and foundries,
factories and refineries.
Where women learned to weave the brush into wickiups that sheltered the families, then turned to the men
with a nod, men have raised castles, have stripped the forests so as to coat the hills with pens for the
animals, shacks for the workers and mansions for the mighty.
Women learned to stitch and to weave. Men reveled in pomp and finery, and created the industries that
savaged the beaver and a thousand other families of fur and skin, that destroyed the buffalo and enslaved
the sheep and cattle, that set to rolling the wheels of countless, repetitive tasks, that designed the sweat
shops and plantations, and the endless rows and monotonous hours.
Maybe it was because of its masculine qualities that women discovered fire.
Maybe it was because of its feminine qualities, that men discovered the wheel.
