| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 1 February 1980
Rain again all day, and still it goes on. We turned the goats into the large pasture rather than take
them out on the range, partly because the new kids are not ready to travel.
I stayed inside a lot today, reading, and repairing the ceiling in the trailer. Bob went to town, got his
check, and did some shopping.
Rain again all day, and still it goes on. We turned the goats into the large pasture rather than take
them out on the range, partly because the new kids are not ready to travel.
I stayed inside a lot today, reading, and repairing the ceiling in the trailer. Bob went to town, got his
check, and did some shopping.
| Chapter Twenty BUCKO |
Cat One had come again and again to the garden to see Agnes.
When she was eleven her mother had met her when she returned one day. She studied her daughter, and then
out of the blue she asked, "Has Agnes shown you the crystal yet?"
It was soon after that when Catherine announced to her mother and the world that, hence, she was Cat One.
And, "Yes," she answered her mother, without missing a beat. "Many times."
Many times she had looked into the crystal.
Her mother sighed, but she was not unhappy. She offered her daughter coffee then, and they became better
friends.
By the time she was twelve Cat One had seen horrors that would have had made strong adults faint and cry.
It was the nature of the crystal to paint the world in violent color. The temptations were unbearable. She
learned to live like Agnes, dwelling through stormy, frozen nights, until dwelling seemed a word like flying or
imagining.
She went days, like Agnes, eating only herbs and flowers and berries and roots, and her teeth grew sharp and
soon she could balance in the dark and dance on faint beams of starlight over rocks that would have paralyzed
a billy goat.
Cat One was probably the healthiest girl in the valley, but she seldom stayed in the valley. Up on the heights
she was alone, except for Agnes. Only her mother knew about Agnes.
And Uncle William. He was a laugh. "Agnes Tawny," he would tell her, "died a long time ago, before you were
born."
"Was she a witch, Uncle William?" She would ask in mock terror.
"Witch!" Uncle William would snort. "There are no witches."
Uncle William told this story: Thirty years ago a man named Dan Guard had owned cattle in sight of Clark's
Hill. He had believed that Agnes was a witch. One year his cattle were sick. When they began to die, he came
to Agnes' cottage.
Dan Guard gave her money, even though she refused it, but she assured him that things would work out
alright.
He went away contented. That night the rest of his cattle died, and he was ruined.
Two days later his wife hanged herself. Dan Guard left the area and was never heard from again.
So Uncle William said there were no witches. He was a real laugh.
When she was eleven her mother had met her when she returned one day. She studied her daughter, and then
out of the blue she asked, "Has Agnes shown you the crystal yet?"
It was soon after that when Catherine announced to her mother and the world that, hence, she was Cat One.
And, "Yes," she answered her mother, without missing a beat. "Many times."
Many times she had looked into the crystal.
Her mother sighed, but she was not unhappy. She offered her daughter coffee then, and they became better
friends.
By the time she was twelve Cat One had seen horrors that would have had made strong adults faint and cry.
It was the nature of the crystal to paint the world in violent color. The temptations were unbearable. She
learned to live like Agnes, dwelling through stormy, frozen nights, until dwelling seemed a word like flying or
imagining.
She went days, like Agnes, eating only herbs and flowers and berries and roots, and her teeth grew sharp and
soon she could balance in the dark and dance on faint beams of starlight over rocks that would have paralyzed
a billy goat.
Cat One was probably the healthiest girl in the valley, but she seldom stayed in the valley. Up on the heights
she was alone, except for Agnes. Only her mother knew about Agnes.
And Uncle William. He was a laugh. "Agnes Tawny," he would tell her, "died a long time ago, before you were
born."
"Was she a witch, Uncle William?" She would ask in mock terror.
"Witch!" Uncle William would snort. "There are no witches."
Uncle William told this story: Thirty years ago a man named Dan Guard had owned cattle in sight of Clark's
Hill. He had believed that Agnes was a witch. One year his cattle were sick. When they began to die, he came
to Agnes' cottage.
Dan Guard gave her money, even though she refused it, but she assured him that things would work out
alright.
He went away contented. That night the rest of his cattle died, and he was ruined.
Two days later his wife hanged herself. Dan Guard left the area and was never heard from again.
So Uncle William said there were no witches. He was a real laugh.
| * * * |
During the breeding season, the different does came into heat one at a time. Each time that one reached her
season, the two bucks, Luke and Jacques, would remember their differences. Johnny had to keep them apart,
for he feared that the two billy goats would never get any breeding done if they were left to fight.
He let them take turns, and he kept records. Katie was last week, with Luke. Today, Dee Dee is for Jacques.
So, today, Luke would spend his day on the end of a long and heavy chain. The chain was wired to a dead oak
sapling. Luke could walk in one direction for a while, and the chain would wrap up tight, till at last the stupid
goat was snubbed up tight against the tree by his neck. Then he would bleat piteously.
He had a bucket of water. He had learned to tip that over, so as to spend the time the herd was out on the
trail marooned without anything to drink. He had more tricks than that.
When one of the nanny goats came into heat he would twist about and urinate into his own face. Jacques, the
other billy, could do the same. They each could make unearthly noises. Whether any of this had any positive
effect on the doe was a mystery to Johnny. Not much, he reasoned, for the poor thing was generally raped in
the end.
Johnny knew that it really wasn't rape, all that chasing around until the wide-eyed young lovely was finally
pushed to her front knees while the brutal billy mounted her from the rear, snorting and stamping as she
groveled. It was always that way, especially with the virgins. The more seasoned does manifested a certain
tough acceptance of the grim awfulness of a life that says that, in order to have the cutest, most unbearably
lovable kids, a mama-to-be had to endure the rampant obscenity of the buck.
But she allowed it to happen. She asked for it to happen. She even seemed to like it after all. But, by golly,
once the job was done, that miserable old billy buck could piss in his face till he drowned and not raise a wink
from the nanny. The slightest overt gesture on the part of the buck would lead to instant, defensive
impatience from the doe. Neither buck ever got anywhere with a pregnant goat.
The one exception to all of this behavior was Mazie. She was the big old lady boss of the herd. A couple of
years back a difficult pregnancy had left her sterile. The vet had tied her tubes, but he didn't turn off her
breeding responses.
When the younger girls started to come into heat, so did Mazie. And there was no chasing or knees in the dirt
either. Mazie had learned to like it, and she was not about to make a spectacle of herself by running in
feigned terror from one of her two pet morons, either of whom she could have ripped apart or blinded with her
long and wicked horns.
They were a full eighteen inches in length, a pair of gleaming lances. She could have made any horny buck
keep his distance. Luke didn't have any horns at all. Jacques' horns had come in stunted and warped,
probably as an after-effect of the acid paste that had been supposed to keep them from growing at all. The
curling mass of horn made Jacques look like a battering ram.
It was his turn today, with Dee Dee. She was Mazie's daughter. Mazie was taking a break from her
uninhibited carnality. Since she never got pregnant, she stayed in heat for months, a port in the storm for the
boys when none of the fertile girls were up to it. When the whole herd was pregnant, and sex was a thing of
the past, Mazie was still at it. She would draw reproving glares from the prim crowd. They had more important
things now, to occupy their time, than to fiddle around with the bucks, for heaven's sake. It was time to eat,
time to grow, time to get ready.
To see the way they eyed the old trollop, Johnny thought, a person would think they had never let a male near
them. A couple of weeks ago it had been Amy grinding her hips into the loins of her conqueror. Now she
looked like a pregnant nun, solemn, righteous, and shocked by the behavior of Dee Dee's aging mother.
On Dee Dee's day, Luke was chained to the tree. Jacques was out on the trail with Johnny and the girls. They
were down by Fugitive Creek, browsing in the shade of the sycamore trees, when Johnny heard the big goat
coming down the trail.
His bleating and bellowing upset the program. The other females stayed out of it. Jacques had been squirting
himself and then wrinkling his nose and grunting. Dee Dee was a big girl with horns of her own, but she was
acting tremulous and coy. She would make her little bleat, then run forward a few steps, then stop for a bite
of poison oak.
Jacques would toss his head in arrogance. His mane bristled. He was the lordly goat. When he heard the
snorting challenges coming from up the hill toward the ranch, he forgot all about sweet Dee Dee. This was
buck business. He turned to face the attack.
Luke meanwhile had got into a perfect fury of jealousy, confined at the ranch with the others out on the trail,
and a doe in heat! He stormed and thrashed, and his eyes rolled in his head. He could never break the chain.
Wrapped twice about the base of the tree and fastened with a twist of baling wire, it would not come loose no
matter how he stormed. Around his hairy neck was a thick, leather collar with a ring and a snap.
Luke weighed close to two hundred pounds. On a normal day he was fun to play with, good natured and
hornless. He was a jolly soul. But today he was breathing fire. Either the collar, or the snap which linked it to
the chain, would have snapped eventually, had not the whole dead tree suddenly come free of the ground,
uprooted by a powerful jerk, and they were off, tree and chain and billy goat.
With fifteen feet of dead wood dragging behind him, the gate slowed him down. He was over, but the root
stump of the tree caught up against the top rail of the big gate. The chain snapped tight. Luke bleated and
grunted with rage, and hurled himself over and over against the leather collar. The gate leaned and rattled,
and the dead tree bounced free of the hang up, and then was dragged across the top of the gate.
Johnny saw the big goat coming down the trail toward the creek. Until he saw him, the goatherder didn't know
which of the various possibilities had occurred, broken collar, broken snap, or what. He was sure that the
chain had not broken. He didn't know the tree had come out by its rotten roots and was coming along for the
fight.
Luke splashed through the creek. Johnny made a dash and arrived by the side of the frothing buck in time to
release the snap. Luke paid no attention to the scrawny little goatherder. The chain fell with a limp jangle,
and the billy goat charged the foe.
The foe responded in kind. Jacques was about the same weight and build as Luke. He had not the long,
flowing hair, his own being thick and wiry. He had the deformed horns. Johnny could not have borne to watch
the two collide while Luke was handicapped by his towing a log. They came together with a loud crack.
Johnny had seen the goats fight a lot, but this was different. This would have been wheelchairs for life if it
had been humans ramming their skulls together like that.
The goats felt it. They reeled in a daze for a moment, then backed up and charged one another again. Bang!
This time the crumpled curly tip of Jacques' right horn went flying, launched in a flat curve into the
underbrush alongside the creek. It buzzed as it flew.
Both goats were addled from the impact. Jacques was not bleeding… the curl of horn was dead as a
fingernail… but he had a headache. So did Luke. Still, after a few minutes of rest, they did it again. There
was no more broken horns, but the pauses grew longer and longer. Johnny and the herd tired of the spectacle,
and he followed them as their pasture led them away. The last they saw of the two bucks, they were still
delivering a tremendous head whack to one another every few minutes. They were looking pretty sore.
Luke and Jacques stayed out all night. Johnny and the herd gave them a wide berth when they came back
down from the canyon, across the creek, and up to the pen for milking at twilight. The two had drifted a short
ways. The conferences between hostilities were growing more earnest, at least in terms of time.
Johnny found them side by side at the gate the next morning, looking for their grain. Luke and Jacques were
actually leaning on one another, exhausted comrades who had been through it together. The war was over.
Dee Dee got knocked up somewhere along the line, and she was the last. After that, the fellows took turns
again with Mazie for a couple of weeks more. They drew all the scorn due two husbands and a whore, and then
Mazie herself told them to cool it, the bucks, that is. Breeding season was over.
season, the two bucks, Luke and Jacques, would remember their differences. Johnny had to keep them apart,
for he feared that the two billy goats would never get any breeding done if they were left to fight.
He let them take turns, and he kept records. Katie was last week, with Luke. Today, Dee Dee is for Jacques.
So, today, Luke would spend his day on the end of a long and heavy chain. The chain was wired to a dead oak
sapling. Luke could walk in one direction for a while, and the chain would wrap up tight, till at last the stupid
goat was snubbed up tight against the tree by his neck. Then he would bleat piteously.
He had a bucket of water. He had learned to tip that over, so as to spend the time the herd was out on the
trail marooned without anything to drink. He had more tricks than that.
When one of the nanny goats came into heat he would twist about and urinate into his own face. Jacques, the
other billy, could do the same. They each could make unearthly noises. Whether any of this had any positive
effect on the doe was a mystery to Johnny. Not much, he reasoned, for the poor thing was generally raped in
the end.
Johnny knew that it really wasn't rape, all that chasing around until the wide-eyed young lovely was finally
pushed to her front knees while the brutal billy mounted her from the rear, snorting and stamping as she
groveled. It was always that way, especially with the virgins. The more seasoned does manifested a certain
tough acceptance of the grim awfulness of a life that says that, in order to have the cutest, most unbearably
lovable kids, a mama-to-be had to endure the rampant obscenity of the buck.
But she allowed it to happen. She asked for it to happen. She even seemed to like it after all. But, by golly,
once the job was done, that miserable old billy buck could piss in his face till he drowned and not raise a wink
from the nanny. The slightest overt gesture on the part of the buck would lead to instant, defensive
impatience from the doe. Neither buck ever got anywhere with a pregnant goat.
The one exception to all of this behavior was Mazie. She was the big old lady boss of the herd. A couple of
years back a difficult pregnancy had left her sterile. The vet had tied her tubes, but he didn't turn off her
breeding responses.
When the younger girls started to come into heat, so did Mazie. And there was no chasing or knees in the dirt
either. Mazie had learned to like it, and she was not about to make a spectacle of herself by running in
feigned terror from one of her two pet morons, either of whom she could have ripped apart or blinded with her
long and wicked horns.
They were a full eighteen inches in length, a pair of gleaming lances. She could have made any horny buck
keep his distance. Luke didn't have any horns at all. Jacques' horns had come in stunted and warped,
probably as an after-effect of the acid paste that had been supposed to keep them from growing at all. The
curling mass of horn made Jacques look like a battering ram.
It was his turn today, with Dee Dee. She was Mazie's daughter. Mazie was taking a break from her
uninhibited carnality. Since she never got pregnant, she stayed in heat for months, a port in the storm for the
boys when none of the fertile girls were up to it. When the whole herd was pregnant, and sex was a thing of
the past, Mazie was still at it. She would draw reproving glares from the prim crowd. They had more important
things now, to occupy their time, than to fiddle around with the bucks, for heaven's sake. It was time to eat,
time to grow, time to get ready.
To see the way they eyed the old trollop, Johnny thought, a person would think they had never let a male near
them. A couple of weeks ago it had been Amy grinding her hips into the loins of her conqueror. Now she
looked like a pregnant nun, solemn, righteous, and shocked by the behavior of Dee Dee's aging mother.
On Dee Dee's day, Luke was chained to the tree. Jacques was out on the trail with Johnny and the girls. They
were down by Fugitive Creek, browsing in the shade of the sycamore trees, when Johnny heard the big goat
coming down the trail.
His bleating and bellowing upset the program. The other females stayed out of it. Jacques had been squirting
himself and then wrinkling his nose and grunting. Dee Dee was a big girl with horns of her own, but she was
acting tremulous and coy. She would make her little bleat, then run forward a few steps, then stop for a bite
of poison oak.
Jacques would toss his head in arrogance. His mane bristled. He was the lordly goat. When he heard the
snorting challenges coming from up the hill toward the ranch, he forgot all about sweet Dee Dee. This was
buck business. He turned to face the attack.
Luke meanwhile had got into a perfect fury of jealousy, confined at the ranch with the others out on the trail,
and a doe in heat! He stormed and thrashed, and his eyes rolled in his head. He could never break the chain.
Wrapped twice about the base of the tree and fastened with a twist of baling wire, it would not come loose no
matter how he stormed. Around his hairy neck was a thick, leather collar with a ring and a snap.
Luke weighed close to two hundred pounds. On a normal day he was fun to play with, good natured and
hornless. He was a jolly soul. But today he was breathing fire. Either the collar, or the snap which linked it to
the chain, would have snapped eventually, had not the whole dead tree suddenly come free of the ground,
uprooted by a powerful jerk, and they were off, tree and chain and billy goat.
With fifteen feet of dead wood dragging behind him, the gate slowed him down. He was over, but the root
stump of the tree caught up against the top rail of the big gate. The chain snapped tight. Luke bleated and
grunted with rage, and hurled himself over and over against the leather collar. The gate leaned and rattled,
and the dead tree bounced free of the hang up, and then was dragged across the top of the gate.
Johnny saw the big goat coming down the trail toward the creek. Until he saw him, the goatherder didn't know
which of the various possibilities had occurred, broken collar, broken snap, or what. He was sure that the
chain had not broken. He didn't know the tree had come out by its rotten roots and was coming along for the
fight.
Luke splashed through the creek. Johnny made a dash and arrived by the side of the frothing buck in time to
release the snap. Luke paid no attention to the scrawny little goatherder. The chain fell with a limp jangle,
and the billy goat charged the foe.
The foe responded in kind. Jacques was about the same weight and build as Luke. He had not the long,
flowing hair, his own being thick and wiry. He had the deformed horns. Johnny could not have borne to watch
the two collide while Luke was handicapped by his towing a log. They came together with a loud crack.
Johnny had seen the goats fight a lot, but this was different. This would have been wheelchairs for life if it
had been humans ramming their skulls together like that.
The goats felt it. They reeled in a daze for a moment, then backed up and charged one another again. Bang!
This time the crumpled curly tip of Jacques' right horn went flying, launched in a flat curve into the
underbrush alongside the creek. It buzzed as it flew.
Both goats were addled from the impact. Jacques was not bleeding… the curl of horn was dead as a
fingernail… but he had a headache. So did Luke. Still, after a few minutes of rest, they did it again. There
was no more broken horns, but the pauses grew longer and longer. Johnny and the herd tired of the spectacle,
and he followed them as their pasture led them away. The last they saw of the two bucks, they were still
delivering a tremendous head whack to one another every few minutes. They were looking pretty sore.
Luke and Jacques stayed out all night. Johnny and the herd gave them a wide berth when they came back
down from the canyon, across the creek, and up to the pen for milking at twilight. The two had drifted a short
ways. The conferences between hostilities were growing more earnest, at least in terms of time.
Johnny found them side by side at the gate the next morning, looking for their grain. Luke and Jacques were
actually leaning on one another, exhausted comrades who had been through it together. The war was over.
Dee Dee got knocked up somewhere along the line, and she was the last. After that, the fellows took turns
again with Mazie for a couple of weeks more. They drew all the scorn due two husbands and a whore, and then
Mazie herself told them to cool it, the bucks, that is. Breeding season was over.
| * * * |
Now, the busy little correspondent in Johnny's unconscious imagination that dug up that last divot of
information (Maggie Murphy was a red head.) was not content to let it languish in the shadowy
lavender of tales not told, and novels never written. No, sir, he sent it right up where it joined other bits
that he really knew about Maggie.
He had killed her. She had been Carol's best, or only, friend. She had red hair. He knew all that.
Together the two gals had been a notorious crew for the nine years since the day they met at the big
tree. Johnny could remember Carol talking about how that had been. He remembered that, because he
knew the big eucalyptus tree himself; he too had walked in its branches, his cowboy boots stashed on
the lowest limb.
He could understand how Maggie and Carol had really met not at, but in, the big tree. Promptly upon
reaching the base of the spreading giant, and after saying, "Hi!" Maggie had swung herself up onto the
huge lower limb. With practiced grace she made her way up toward Carol, who nimbly descended to
meet her half way.
"I'm Maggie," said the newcomer. "What's your name?"
"Carol." They were within six or seven feet of one another now, each propped on a separate fork of
sturdy boughs a good twenty feet above the ground.
"Do you come here a lot?"
"Yeah," replied Carol with a shy smile. Inside she was in a nervous wonder, to be sitting here in this
floating grove of leaves and levels, here where she was so familiar with solitude. Maggie was forward
and direct, but her being in the tree at all had Carol in an odd mix of alarm and intrigue. "Do you come
here a lot?" she echoed the question.
"Sure." She tossed her head back toward the Murphy home which showed through a screen of
aromatic leaves. "Have to go somewhere to get away," she grinned. "Know what I mean?"
"Sure," said Carol, echoing this time the answer. Carol's family had only been a year in the area,
having come down in a flatbed truck from Bakersfield and from Arkansas before that. Ma, Pa, two
older brothers, and Carol, they had moved into the dilapidated old grey-weathered house that sat by a
grove of eucalyptus in Gonzalez Canyon. There was a redwood water tank, a well, and a windmill to fill
the tank. Farther down the valley was a small orchard of walnuts, apricots and persimmons. Beyond
that were the sycamores. On up the valley was another stand of Australian firewood, and then the
ridges narrowed to form a canyon, with at the bottom of the canyon a sandstone gorge.
This gorge was a marvel, though not all that unusual. Somewhat due to erosion caused by years of
grazing and farming, starting with the Spanish, the walls were sheer. Fifteen feet high, they bordered an
invisible passageway that twisted for miles and emerged on higher ground just south of the Heinz ranch
buildings. There was an earthen dam, itself lined with a double row of eucalyptus. In the spring, the
grassy-topped mound was a pristine hallway of emerald light and shade, and behind it was a brimful
pond of blue.
This was one of the swimming holes that the girls resorted to on their daylong hikes. But it, like the
pond over in La Zania Canyon, was a little too exposed to suit their typical moods. There were other
ponds, compact little pools in secluded side valleys and canyons that were much more inviting for naked
darling plunges.
information (Maggie Murphy was a red head.) was not content to let it languish in the shadowy
lavender of tales not told, and novels never written. No, sir, he sent it right up where it joined other bits
that he really knew about Maggie.
He had killed her. She had been Carol's best, or only, friend. She had red hair. He knew all that.
Together the two gals had been a notorious crew for the nine years since the day they met at the big
tree. Johnny could remember Carol talking about how that had been. He remembered that, because he
knew the big eucalyptus tree himself; he too had walked in its branches, his cowboy boots stashed on
the lowest limb.
He could understand how Maggie and Carol had really met not at, but in, the big tree. Promptly upon
reaching the base of the spreading giant, and after saying, "Hi!" Maggie had swung herself up onto the
huge lower limb. With practiced grace she made her way up toward Carol, who nimbly descended to
meet her half way.
"I'm Maggie," said the newcomer. "What's your name?"
"Carol." They were within six or seven feet of one another now, each propped on a separate fork of
sturdy boughs a good twenty feet above the ground.
"Do you come here a lot?"
"Yeah," replied Carol with a shy smile. Inside she was in a nervous wonder, to be sitting here in this
floating grove of leaves and levels, here where she was so familiar with solitude. Maggie was forward
and direct, but her being in the tree at all had Carol in an odd mix of alarm and intrigue. "Do you come
here a lot?" she echoed the question.
"Sure." She tossed her head back toward the Murphy home which showed through a screen of
aromatic leaves. "Have to go somewhere to get away," she grinned. "Know what I mean?"
"Sure," said Carol, echoing this time the answer. Carol's family had only been a year in the area,
having come down in a flatbed truck from Bakersfield and from Arkansas before that. Ma, Pa, two
older brothers, and Carol, they had moved into the dilapidated old grey-weathered house that sat by a
grove of eucalyptus in Gonzalez Canyon. There was a redwood water tank, a well, and a windmill to fill
the tank. Farther down the valley was a small orchard of walnuts, apricots and persimmons. Beyond
that were the sycamores. On up the valley was another stand of Australian firewood, and then the
ridges narrowed to form a canyon, with at the bottom of the canyon a sandstone gorge.
This gorge was a marvel, though not all that unusual. Somewhat due to erosion caused by years of
grazing and farming, starting with the Spanish, the walls were sheer. Fifteen feet high, they bordered an
invisible passageway that twisted for miles and emerged on higher ground just south of the Heinz ranch
buildings. There was an earthen dam, itself lined with a double row of eucalyptus. In the spring, the
grassy-topped mound was a pristine hallway of emerald light and shade, and behind it was a brimful
pond of blue.
This was one of the swimming holes that the girls resorted to on their daylong hikes. But it, like the
pond over in La Zania Canyon, was a little too exposed to suit their typical moods. There were other
ponds, compact little pools in secluded side valleys and canyons that were much more inviting for naked
darling plunges.
| * * * |
In the progression of sidekicks up at the ranch, Ming was the bridge from Michael to Bob. If there was a
progression of traits, it was this, a tendency toward wilder and freer. Certainly Michael Wertz was nobody's
clone, but he was imprisoned by his image of himself as rough and strong, brusque and serious.
Whereas Ming had not escaped the "serious" shackle, he was remarkably free of habitual expressions of
strength and roughness. He was willing to accept whatever non-macho impression of himself that his speech
and behavior might create. It didn't matter to him if this impression was not that of the masculine hero.
He stayed serious, however. And, sadder than that, the impressions that one finally put together about Ming
were right anyhow. He was only a disoriented, middle-aged faggot, and his lack of concern for being so
stereotyped by any observer didn't make it less true.
Ming spotted Johnny anyhow, despite the clothing, and asked if he was indeed the person for whom he was
waiting.
Johnny was just walking up to him, having observed that no one else appeared to be waiting for an
unidentified stranger.
He told him who he was, and asked if he was B. Crownover. And he was, but he advised Johnny that his
friends called him Ming, a name he had chosen himself, although he was not Chinese.
He was about forty, tall and slender. He was dressed out of a thrift shop in baggy pants with drawstrings and
blue canvas shoes that slipped on with no laces. He had a hat of the sort that immigrants and bicyclists used
to wear, flat, with a short brim in front. He had fairly short dark hair and a dark beard. He wore glasses.
Although the time that Ming spent at the ranch caring for the goats while Johnny recuperated from the
gunshot wound may have composed for him the more subjectively profound portion of his adventure on
Fugitive Creek, it matters little. Its profundity relied not at all on his apprehension of it, and, here as well, it
may be that he never knew anyhow.
He never got his tofu operation started. Johnny and he existed as mirror images of one another, Cain and
Abel, or rather, Abel and Cain. Except that in this case it was Cain who was the gentle, harmless, nonviolent,
peacekeeper, Ming the saint.
He was not, however, unprincipled. By contrast he was downright quarrelsome when it came to beliefs, but he
would, he claimed, never resort to violence in support of them, neither to quell disbelief nor even to protect
himself from assault from those whom his assertions had angered.
Johnny was gentle as a mother lion, moving always with a light touch, never abusing his power, but aware
that his power went all the way. While deft and diplomatic in avoiding any attack long before it would ever
hatch, he was calmly prepared to kill the one in whom it ever did.
As for the mere exercise of this option that he had, to use the ancient power of pirates and predators, to kill
and to consume as necessary to survive, Johnny only knew that it was a dangerous activity, and that it
should be something of a last resort.
Cleaving to this resolution was strongly reinforced by an ability or willingness to put up with what appeared
to be a tough life, to be willing to have the tough feet so as to be free to go barefoot. Last resorts did not
mean tactics designed to make the world think you are successful.
Ming and Johnny came to know one another well enough to where Ming could understand to his own painless
horror the limits, or lack of limits, that Johnny allowed in his definition of options. He could also understand
both the urge to draw the line and say that reality had passed it, and the anticipation of pleasure should ever
the restraint be dropped. Eventually, Ming had decided to leave the ranch.
So, when Johnny found him that day, sitting at the front of Perkins Store, Ming was looking again for a
place to stay, and he found it back up at the ranch. It was all even happening in the same place. Johnny
drove up in Chevelle. No one could tell that he had a blood soaked bandage about his hip. He spotted Ming
and drove over, keeping to a low key.
"Come here," he said in a calm, friendly voice. Ming came over, and examined the scarlet evidence with an
equally serene attitude.
"Johnny," said Ming, "You have to go to the hospital." Johnny always wondered about that, later. He had, at
the moment of the emergency at the ranch, considered that he might just go and lie down on the bed in the
trailer, and wait until he was okay.
It turned out that, barring infection, he would have been alright. But he would not have been able to do well
by the goats. At that time he was still milking, and still making cheese. He needed Ming to take over.
progression of traits, it was this, a tendency toward wilder and freer. Certainly Michael Wertz was nobody's
clone, but he was imprisoned by his image of himself as rough and strong, brusque and serious.
Whereas Ming had not escaped the "serious" shackle, he was remarkably free of habitual expressions of
strength and roughness. He was willing to accept whatever non-macho impression of himself that his speech
and behavior might create. It didn't matter to him if this impression was not that of the masculine hero.
He stayed serious, however. And, sadder than that, the impressions that one finally put together about Ming
were right anyhow. He was only a disoriented, middle-aged faggot, and his lack of concern for being so
stereotyped by any observer didn't make it less true.
Ming spotted Johnny anyhow, despite the clothing, and asked if he was indeed the person for whom he was
waiting.
Johnny was just walking up to him, having observed that no one else appeared to be waiting for an
unidentified stranger.
He told him who he was, and asked if he was B. Crownover. And he was, but he advised Johnny that his
friends called him Ming, a name he had chosen himself, although he was not Chinese.
He was about forty, tall and slender. He was dressed out of a thrift shop in baggy pants with drawstrings and
blue canvas shoes that slipped on with no laces. He had a hat of the sort that immigrants and bicyclists used
to wear, flat, with a short brim in front. He had fairly short dark hair and a dark beard. He wore glasses.
Although the time that Ming spent at the ranch caring for the goats while Johnny recuperated from the
gunshot wound may have composed for him the more subjectively profound portion of his adventure on
Fugitive Creek, it matters little. Its profundity relied not at all on his apprehension of it, and, here as well, it
may be that he never knew anyhow.
He never got his tofu operation started. Johnny and he existed as mirror images of one another, Cain and
Abel, or rather, Abel and Cain. Except that in this case it was Cain who was the gentle, harmless, nonviolent,
peacekeeper, Ming the saint.
He was not, however, unprincipled. By contrast he was downright quarrelsome when it came to beliefs, but he
would, he claimed, never resort to violence in support of them, neither to quell disbelief nor even to protect
himself from assault from those whom his assertions had angered.
Johnny was gentle as a mother lion, moving always with a light touch, never abusing his power, but aware
that his power went all the way. While deft and diplomatic in avoiding any attack long before it would ever
hatch, he was calmly prepared to kill the one in whom it ever did.
As for the mere exercise of this option that he had, to use the ancient power of pirates and predators, to kill
and to consume as necessary to survive, Johnny only knew that it was a dangerous activity, and that it
should be something of a last resort.
Cleaving to this resolution was strongly reinforced by an ability or willingness to put up with what appeared
to be a tough life, to be willing to have the tough feet so as to be free to go barefoot. Last resorts did not
mean tactics designed to make the world think you are successful.
Ming and Johnny came to know one another well enough to where Ming could understand to his own painless
horror the limits, or lack of limits, that Johnny allowed in his definition of options. He could also understand
both the urge to draw the line and say that reality had passed it, and the anticipation of pleasure should ever
the restraint be dropped. Eventually, Ming had decided to leave the ranch.
So, when Johnny found him that day, sitting at the front of Perkins Store, Ming was looking again for a
place to stay, and he found it back up at the ranch. It was all even happening in the same place. Johnny
drove up in Chevelle. No one could tell that he had a blood soaked bandage about his hip. He spotted Ming
and drove over, keeping to a low key.
"Come here," he said in a calm, friendly voice. Ming came over, and examined the scarlet evidence with an
equally serene attitude.
"Johnny," said Ming, "You have to go to the hospital." Johnny always wondered about that, later. He had, at
the moment of the emergency at the ranch, considered that he might just go and lie down on the bed in the
trailer, and wait until he was okay.
It turned out that, barring infection, he would have been alright. But he would not have been able to do well
by the goats. At that time he was still milking, and still making cheese. He needed Ming to take over.
| * * * |
After Johnny Stream went off to the Navy, early in nineteen forty-two, his horse died.
"No problem," Marilyn Wells had said. "Bucko can stay here till you come home." Home meant America, or
the county, or maybe even Carmel Valley, but the simple remark came with a surprising load of emotion.
Marilyn's voice cracked, and she coughed and shook away a tear. The whip-tough woman had no reason to
cry, just because her pa's half-breed hand was going off to war. But her throat felt like she was trying to
swallow a gourd, and she looked away quickly, and blinked.
"Right, Bob?" she asked in a half-desperate hand-off to her nephew.
"You got that right," said Bob. He himself was swelling with pride to see Johnny packed for his adventure.
The three were at Fifteenth Street in Del Mar, waiting for the bus that would whisk him away, to San Diego,
to boot camp, to war.
"I'll feed old Bucko myself," declared the teenager, as if he didn't feed all of the horses at Marilyn's barn
everyday anyhow. It was little enough, to care for his hero's mount. Bob wished he could go. He longed to sail
off with a brave crew of hearty souls and do battle with the Japs and the krauts and any other nation that got
in the way of the good old U.S.A. He could imagine himself standing back-to-back with his partner on a
burning deck, with pistol and cutlass in hand, ringed by swarms of Mongoloids yet fighting bravely, killing
enemies right and left, heaving the yellow bastards over the gunwales and finally triumphing, standing
covered with gore, bloody from splashes and wounds, heads high and swords raised, sharing a glance that
only said to one another, I couldn't ha'done it without ye, mate!
Johnny had worked a summer running fence for a rancher east of the reservation in exchange for Bucko. It
had been his task to capture the horse that was now his. With rope and saddle and bridle he had let old
Charlie McCrea leave him off at the gate to the huge pasture.
"They're out there somewhere," said Charlie, wiping his brow with his neckerchief. It was hot September,
and the mouth of the canyon behind the gate was quiet and empty.
"Good luck," he called as he drove away. Johnny watched the old pickup truck disappear in the summer
dust. Then he turned to the challenge at hand.
He had with him, aside from the tack, a gallon of water in two canteens, a little pack of jerky and biscuits, a
blanket and a pound of carrots. The carrots were for Bucko.
Stashing the saddle and taking only the rope, a couple of carrots, and one of the canteens slung over his
shoulder, he walked into the dry mountain grass.
There were no horses in sight. The fence, much of which Johnny had strung himself, served only to keep the
handful of livestock behind it away from the roads, and to keep the cars off the grass. The back side of the
pasture disappeared into the mountains of the Forest Service. Bucko and his buddies could have gone clear
through, up and over the maze of canyons, grassland, trees and chaparral, and down into the desert itself.
But the water and grain were back in the troughs near the gate. It was enough to make the rangy beasts
remember where was home.
Johnny had scouted the terrain often enough before. He had watched the movements of the handful of stock
that lived out in that dry wilderness. He crossed the open flatland now, and began to climb.
The trail of the horses was easy to see. Bucko was not wild. In fact, he was old, and well-broke. He had been
a working cowpony for a few years, but with the advance of trucks and barbed wire, there was less and less
demand for the skills of a horse. Bucko was one that had been turned out onto the range for a year or two,
unridden, and probably a little rough around the edges by now.
The old gelding was buckskin. The hair of his hide was a yellowish brown, and his mane and his tail were
black. His mane had been cropped, but had grown during the wild years since the last clipping, so that it no
longer stood erect like a crew cut. Instead, it rose and fell undisciplined to either side of the horse's neck so
that Bucko looked like some kind of wild horse from Mongolia.
Johnny had first seen him months earlier. He had ridden in a truck with Charlie McCrea so the ranch
foreman could show him the work to be done, and the horses, if they were lucky. They were. The handful of
neglected jades was grazing in a bunch on the late spring grass still green. Johnny had the opportunity to
decide on which was to be his bonus when the miles of fencing were complete.
He settled on Bucko by midsummer. It was mostly a gang of worn-out plugs from which he had to choose.
Bucko was a lean jug head. Once Johnny got a rope around his neck and had a chance to inspect the nag, he
felt good about his choice. The lean meat was all muscle. Bucko's teeth told his new owner that he was a
healthy sixteen. Better than that, he moved with fire and grace. He had good training, and he knew what to
do. Johnny followed him about for a day and a half, patiently plodding in the dusty wake, sleeping in a
shivering ball that night, and continuing the relentless pursuit at the sliver of dawn.
He wore old Bucko to standstill, about noon that second day, slipped a carrot into his mouth and a rope
around his neck, and he had a horse of his own at last!
He led the suddenly domestic animal the mile or so back to where he had left his equipment the morning
before. It wasn't Johnny's first time on a horse. He groomed the coat and combed out the tail. The mane had
lost its manners forever, so Johnny cut it again like a flattop. He picked the hoofs, examining them at the
same time, and resolved to get by one of the ranches, sometime when the farrier was on hand, to see if he
could work a deal to get the buckskin shod. For now the hooves and all the rest were in good enough shape,
and rarin' to go.
Johnny saddled him and bridled him. He left the rest of his stuff in a neat pile behind a manzanita, and he
climbed onto the gelding's back and started to get acquainted.
By sunset, when horse and rider came in from the wide plain to collect the canteens and the bedroll, they
were old friends. Johnny had fastened the gear to the saddle, and then, on foot, he led the horse he had only
just named, through the gate and onto the county dirt. He refastened the gate, and then mounted in the rosy
twilight. With a click-click, the touch of a spur, and a "Yee-haw!" he rode away, into the happiness of late
summer.
"No problem," Marilyn Wells had said. "Bucko can stay here till you come home." Home meant America, or
the county, or maybe even Carmel Valley, but the simple remark came with a surprising load of emotion.
Marilyn's voice cracked, and she coughed and shook away a tear. The whip-tough woman had no reason to
cry, just because her pa's half-breed hand was going off to war. But her throat felt like she was trying to
swallow a gourd, and she looked away quickly, and blinked.
"Right, Bob?" she asked in a half-desperate hand-off to her nephew.
"You got that right," said Bob. He himself was swelling with pride to see Johnny packed for his adventure.
The three were at Fifteenth Street in Del Mar, waiting for the bus that would whisk him away, to San Diego,
to boot camp, to war.
"I'll feed old Bucko myself," declared the teenager, as if he didn't feed all of the horses at Marilyn's barn
everyday anyhow. It was little enough, to care for his hero's mount. Bob wished he could go. He longed to sail
off with a brave crew of hearty souls and do battle with the Japs and the krauts and any other nation that got
in the way of the good old U.S.A. He could imagine himself standing back-to-back with his partner on a
burning deck, with pistol and cutlass in hand, ringed by swarms of Mongoloids yet fighting bravely, killing
enemies right and left, heaving the yellow bastards over the gunwales and finally triumphing, standing
covered with gore, bloody from splashes and wounds, heads high and swords raised, sharing a glance that
only said to one another, I couldn't ha'done it without ye, mate!
Johnny had worked a summer running fence for a rancher east of the reservation in exchange for Bucko. It
had been his task to capture the horse that was now his. With rope and saddle and bridle he had let old
Charlie McCrea leave him off at the gate to the huge pasture.
"They're out there somewhere," said Charlie, wiping his brow with his neckerchief. It was hot September,
and the mouth of the canyon behind the gate was quiet and empty.
"Good luck," he called as he drove away. Johnny watched the old pickup truck disappear in the summer
dust. Then he turned to the challenge at hand.
He had with him, aside from the tack, a gallon of water in two canteens, a little pack of jerky and biscuits, a
blanket and a pound of carrots. The carrots were for Bucko.
Stashing the saddle and taking only the rope, a couple of carrots, and one of the canteens slung over his
shoulder, he walked into the dry mountain grass.
There were no horses in sight. The fence, much of which Johnny had strung himself, served only to keep the
handful of livestock behind it away from the roads, and to keep the cars off the grass. The back side of the
pasture disappeared into the mountains of the Forest Service. Bucko and his buddies could have gone clear
through, up and over the maze of canyons, grassland, trees and chaparral, and down into the desert itself.
But the water and grain were back in the troughs near the gate. It was enough to make the rangy beasts
remember where was home.
Johnny had scouted the terrain often enough before. He had watched the movements of the handful of stock
that lived out in that dry wilderness. He crossed the open flatland now, and began to climb.
The trail of the horses was easy to see. Bucko was not wild. In fact, he was old, and well-broke. He had been
a working cowpony for a few years, but with the advance of trucks and barbed wire, there was less and less
demand for the skills of a horse. Bucko was one that had been turned out onto the range for a year or two,
unridden, and probably a little rough around the edges by now.
The old gelding was buckskin. The hair of his hide was a yellowish brown, and his mane and his tail were
black. His mane had been cropped, but had grown during the wild years since the last clipping, so that it no
longer stood erect like a crew cut. Instead, it rose and fell undisciplined to either side of the horse's neck so
that Bucko looked like some kind of wild horse from Mongolia.
Johnny had first seen him months earlier. He had ridden in a truck with Charlie McCrea so the ranch
foreman could show him the work to be done, and the horses, if they were lucky. They were. The handful of
neglected jades was grazing in a bunch on the late spring grass still green. Johnny had the opportunity to
decide on which was to be his bonus when the miles of fencing were complete.
He settled on Bucko by midsummer. It was mostly a gang of worn-out plugs from which he had to choose.
Bucko was a lean jug head. Once Johnny got a rope around his neck and had a chance to inspect the nag, he
felt good about his choice. The lean meat was all muscle. Bucko's teeth told his new owner that he was a
healthy sixteen. Better than that, he moved with fire and grace. He had good training, and he knew what to
do. Johnny followed him about for a day and a half, patiently plodding in the dusty wake, sleeping in a
shivering ball that night, and continuing the relentless pursuit at the sliver of dawn.
He wore old Bucko to standstill, about noon that second day, slipped a carrot into his mouth and a rope
around his neck, and he had a horse of his own at last!
He led the suddenly domestic animal the mile or so back to where he had left his equipment the morning
before. It wasn't Johnny's first time on a horse. He groomed the coat and combed out the tail. The mane had
lost its manners forever, so Johnny cut it again like a flattop. He picked the hoofs, examining them at the
same time, and resolved to get by one of the ranches, sometime when the farrier was on hand, to see if he
could work a deal to get the buckskin shod. For now the hooves and all the rest were in good enough shape,
and rarin' to go.
Johnny saddled him and bridled him. He left the rest of his stuff in a neat pile behind a manzanita, and he
climbed onto the gelding's back and started to get acquainted.
By sunset, when horse and rider came in from the wide plain to collect the canteens and the bedroll, they
were old friends. Johnny had fastened the gear to the saddle, and then, on foot, he led the horse he had only
just named, through the gate and onto the county dirt. He refastened the gate, and then mounted in the rosy
twilight. With a click-click, the touch of a spur, and a "Yee-haw!" he rode away, into the happiness of late
summer.
| * * * |
When gas or oil was spilled out on the islands or in the service lanes at the Flying A, it was part of Joe's
responsibility, on his shift, to mop it up as quickly as possible. He didn't want anybody slipping and suing his
boss. And he didn't want a fire.
He called it mopping dinosaur blood, when he had this chore to perform. Diana had stopped to chat with him
one night, but then the station had a flurry of business, and she sat neglected. He was aware of her, inside
what served for an office. Feet tucked up on the counter where she sat, arms locked about her knees, ten
tan toes dangling, she was a picture of winsome perfection. Joe liked to think of her as his little surfer girl,
but she wasn't a little girl, she wasn't his, and she didn't surf.
She was his to remember, though, and she did surf some. Joe remembered a time or two, down by the big
bridge at North Torrey Pines, when he had let the wild young lady borrow his board and try it out in the soup.
He laughed, and she did okay, managing to stand up and ride the foam in to shore.
Later he saw her body surfing. When she disappeared, he missed her, but he was the only one. He missed
seeing her lean body flash in the waves. He would miss seeing those bare feet curling across the lip of the
counter.
The last car pulled away from the pumps. Joe walked back into the station and over to the bucket in the
corner. He seized the mop handle that projected from the bucket of soapy water and propelled the whole
affair out toward the far lane.
"Got some dinosaur blood to mop up, Joe?" she asked as he went by.
"Yup," said Joe. "Gotta mop up some dinosaur blood."
And it's sad to say it, and sad to think it, but she was a little girl after all. Certainly, Joe Kelly would have
given her his heart, had he believed she was a woman.
In spite of Charlene.
responsibility, on his shift, to mop it up as quickly as possible. He didn't want anybody slipping and suing his
boss. And he didn't want a fire.
He called it mopping dinosaur blood, when he had this chore to perform. Diana had stopped to chat with him
one night, but then the station had a flurry of business, and she sat neglected. He was aware of her, inside
what served for an office. Feet tucked up on the counter where she sat, arms locked about her knees, ten
tan toes dangling, she was a picture of winsome perfection. Joe liked to think of her as his little surfer girl,
but she wasn't a little girl, she wasn't his, and she didn't surf.
She was his to remember, though, and she did surf some. Joe remembered a time or two, down by the big
bridge at North Torrey Pines, when he had let the wild young lady borrow his board and try it out in the soup.
He laughed, and she did okay, managing to stand up and ride the foam in to shore.
Later he saw her body surfing. When she disappeared, he missed her, but he was the only one. He missed
seeing her lean body flash in the waves. He would miss seeing those bare feet curling across the lip of the
counter.
The last car pulled away from the pumps. Joe walked back into the station and over to the bucket in the
corner. He seized the mop handle that projected from the bucket of soapy water and propelled the whole
affair out toward the far lane.
"Got some dinosaur blood to mop up, Joe?" she asked as he went by.
"Yup," said Joe. "Gotta mop up some dinosaur blood."
And it's sad to say it, and sad to think it, but she was a little girl after all. Certainly, Joe Kelly would have
given her his heart, had he believed she was a woman.
In spite of Charlene.
| * * * |
Unless Tawngness thought about it more, she would be unsure whether it had ever happened, that a usurper
had driven away her reigning king. She didn't think of it at all, but, in truth, it had never happened.
Newcomer triumphs had occurred only over other newcomers. Sometimes the first cougar might arrive some
days ahead of his rival. What they were to be quarrelling about was which had the license to breed with the
female mountain lion of that particular denship. This fellow would invariably act as though he were
Lightning, the master of the territory, the maker of kittens. But it would all be for show. When newcomer
number two arrived, then would be decided which of these two lions would take precedence, and which would
be driven out.
Sometimes a spunky enough loser would be not driven out, but killed. This rarely happened. Killing went
with hunger. Prey was not to be driven from the territory, nor fought with, nor scared. It was to be eaten.
Another lion, however, was a different story. The genes that affect this behavior long ago figured out that if
the species is to prosper, it must not slay its own in the process of dividing the territory.
For a mass-product species like a fish, the same might not be true. If you have millions of siblings, it won't
hurt to polish off a few, now and then, whether territory is divided or not.
But for something like a mountain lion, where are the new pioneers? Where are the defeated yet still
vigorous males, and females, who roam, who wander, who leave the trails, who become feline vagabonds and
adventurers, who endure the dangers of mankind, and who perish from them, and who find the unclaimed
territories, who reclaim their pride, and who fill the world with kittens?
The ferocity generated was equal to the ferocity that could be endured and reflected.
had driven away her reigning king. She didn't think of it at all, but, in truth, it had never happened.
Newcomer triumphs had occurred only over other newcomers. Sometimes the first cougar might arrive some
days ahead of his rival. What they were to be quarrelling about was which had the license to breed with the
female mountain lion of that particular denship. This fellow would invariably act as though he were
Lightning, the master of the territory, the maker of kittens. But it would all be for show. When newcomer
number two arrived, then would be decided which of these two lions would take precedence, and which would
be driven out.
Sometimes a spunky enough loser would be not driven out, but killed. This rarely happened. Killing went
with hunger. Prey was not to be driven from the territory, nor fought with, nor scared. It was to be eaten.
Another lion, however, was a different story. The genes that affect this behavior long ago figured out that if
the species is to prosper, it must not slay its own in the process of dividing the territory.
For a mass-product species like a fish, the same might not be true. If you have millions of siblings, it won't
hurt to polish off a few, now and then, whether territory is divided or not.
But for something like a mountain lion, where are the new pioneers? Where are the defeated yet still
vigorous males, and females, who roam, who wander, who leave the trails, who become feline vagabonds and
adventurers, who endure the dangers of mankind, and who perish from them, and who find the unclaimed
territories, who reclaim their pride, and who fill the world with kittens?
The ferocity generated was equal to the ferocity that could be endured and reflected.
