| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 1 February 1980
We fasted today as is our custom on Wednesday. It rained off and on all day. We played cards for a
while and then spent the rest of the day building a dam on the creek to make a deeper pool for bathing.
We fasted today as is our custom on Wednesday. It rained off and on all day. We played cards for a
while and then spent the rest of the day building a dam on the creek to make a deeper pool for bathing.
| Chapter Twenty-one CHELA |
"You've had enough?" asked the witch. "Do you want to be a dead little girl?"
Cat One forced herself to concentrate. The rest of Uncle William's story was flashing in her mind. A vision of
her mother tossing a crystal blindly into a snow-stirred darkness. And violence.
Cat One forced herself to concentrate. The rest of Uncle William's story was flashing in her mind. A vision of
her mother tossing a crystal blindly into a snow-stirred darkness. And violence.
| * * * |
They were walking up in the burn, Chela and Vikor. She reminded him of the lost basket full of rocks that
she always hoped to find when she walked that particular patch of scorched earth and rocks and naked,
twisted skeletons of juniper, sage and pine.
"What color is it?" he asked. He had just sat down on a rock.
"White," she replied. "It… there it is!" she cried, and indeed, it was, on the ground not thirty feet from
either of them, and right in plain view. They both were facing it, and a moment earlier, he could have sworn,
it wasn't there.
It was white, and purple and pink, and it lay on its side with the rocks tumbled.
"There was a pack of cigarettes," she said; it had been last September, three months at least, for this was just
prior to New Year's Eve of 1992. But they only found one cigarette, lying a ways off behind a boulder by itself.
Later, they were watching Chela's daughters, Lillia and Bonita, as they played in a wilderness waterfall. The
canyon was only a short walk from the secluded valley of big oaks where Chela lived with Lillia and Bonita,
and others. It was the kind of place where Carol Gallagher and the Murphy girl would have played, barefoot
among the rocks and sand and gurgling currents of water.
"Necesitamos el agua," said Bonita.
Looking about with a swipe at her dark bangs, Lillia said, "Un poco minuto."
she always hoped to find when she walked that particular patch of scorched earth and rocks and naked,
twisted skeletons of juniper, sage and pine.
"What color is it?" he asked. He had just sat down on a rock.
"White," she replied. "It… there it is!" she cried, and indeed, it was, on the ground not thirty feet from
either of them, and right in plain view. They both were facing it, and a moment earlier, he could have sworn,
it wasn't there.
It was white, and purple and pink, and it lay on its side with the rocks tumbled.
"There was a pack of cigarettes," she said; it had been last September, three months at least, for this was just
prior to New Year's Eve of 1992. But they only found one cigarette, lying a ways off behind a boulder by itself.
Later, they were watching Chela's daughters, Lillia and Bonita, as they played in a wilderness waterfall. The
canyon was only a short walk from the secluded valley of big oaks where Chela lived with Lillia and Bonita,
and others. It was the kind of place where Carol Gallagher and the Murphy girl would have played, barefoot
among the rocks and sand and gurgling currents of water.
"Necesitamos el agua," said Bonita.
Looking about with a swipe at her dark bangs, Lillia said, "Un poco minuto."
For Carol and the Murphy girl, it was Peňasquitos Creek that held the bewitching tumble of giant
stones that formed the pools and cataracts that so fascinated those who were young enough to climb
and swim and wade and jump and dodge both cows and cowboys alike that haunted the pastures that
had to be crossed to reach the falls.
What a mouthful. It was a walk to get there, and the girls didn't do it everyday. More times they might
be content to strip and slide into one of the aforementioned ponds anywhere from Carmel Valley to
Black Mountain. As often as not, in the warmth of the summer, they were sliding into water that was a
delicate mass of streaming, textured algae which caressed their bodies like a million feathers as they
carefully stroked their way across the sparkling surface.
In ponds like that, it would have been a mistake to be too free about submerging, twisting or cavorting.
It was easy to imagine becoming thoroughly snagged by the slender filaments. When breasted with
smooth grace, however, the green shafts responded with nothing more than parallel fingers of safe
sensation.
Out closer to Black Mountain, there were a couple of concrete dams. The ponds behind these were
deeper, and free of the jungle of long algae. Diving into them, plunging down into the sunlit water and a
universe of green spheroids in suspension, was like swimming into an emerald, and paths that crossed
in myriad other chance spots in the locality crossed there as well.
They crossed with never a meeting. Johnny Stream's lean, half-native body curved like an eel through
the same shamrock-lit molecules that Carol's grace had shaped into ripples just earlier in the day, and
that a dozen times over a couple of years.
He was twenty-one when first he came into the area, when first he came down from the mountains to
work for the Heinz ranch. Always a tracker, he noticed almost immediately the footprints, sometimes
barefoot prints, which spoke of the existence and passage of the girl who walked down a long dirt road
through the quicksand dip in the sycamores to catch the school bus on El Camino Real.
With the discretion born both of the hunter and the vanquished, Johnny kept to his role, never more
than the grey shadow in the distance that trailed a gaggle of Herefords, never more than an unobtrusive
silhouette on a further ridge.
He was Heinz' hand. Carol knew that much about him, and no more.
She was petite toe prints in the sand. She was a ribbon lost, a door slammed at twilight, splashes drying
on a concrete dam.
She was half of a pair of giggles by then. The other half was, of course, Maggie Murphy. Johnny
Stream knew who Maggie was. That she was the wolf-killer's daughter was only more reason to remain
a part of the background when the girls were near, a rustle in the woods at best.
His buddy, Bob, was normally not nearly so discrete. He had something of a reputation as a teenage
hell raiser. He was in a sense, much more a part of the same society that included the Murphys, even if
it was a trashier part. The same could be said about Carol Gallagher. He was blonde, like Carol. He
was a full Caucasian; he was half-related to the Heinz family. That last placed him socially between
Carol, who was not related to any landowners, whose father was a day-laborer, and Maggie, who was a
ranch princess.
By contrast, Johnny was not even on the scale. But when Bob Cabler rode with Johnny Stream, he
played Indian too, and he cooperated especially with the need to keep a low profile.
When the war came Bob was still only thirteen. Had it lasted longer he would have joined. Johnny
enlisted in the Navy when America got into it, and he saw his share. When he returned with a mending
hip, the war was still not quite over, and he was, in fact, still in the Navy. Reporting at dawn on the deck
of a repair vessel in San Diego was all that was expected of him during the week. Weekends he was on
liberty.
There was no convenient way to get out to the mountains and back with any regularity or reliability. He
had little money. But there was a dairy run every day from Carmel Valley to the piers at 32nd street.
He rode along. The timing left Johnny at the gate of the Sisters of Mercy, which was the dairy, by nine-
thirty each weekday. He would round up his horse from the cemetery across the road from the convent
where he had turned her out at four that morning, saddle her, and be back at the stable by the time
Cabler had finished his morning chores.
Usually Johnny's route would be to continue up Carmel Valley, then turn north and follow Bell Valley
up past the beehives and the line of trees to the ridge. From there he dipped down through Gonzalez on
an old wagon track that passed just east of the Gallagher's. Then over the next ridge he dropped into
the San Dieguito river valley. Hooking around the west end of the ridge that formed the northern side
of La Zania Canyon, (passing between that and the big eucalyptus in so doing) he would arrive at Bob's
aunt's stable at an easy lope, and with a "Yee-haw!" of exuberance.
stones that formed the pools and cataracts that so fascinated those who were young enough to climb
and swim and wade and jump and dodge both cows and cowboys alike that haunted the pastures that
had to be crossed to reach the falls.
What a mouthful. It was a walk to get there, and the girls didn't do it everyday. More times they might
be content to strip and slide into one of the aforementioned ponds anywhere from Carmel Valley to
Black Mountain. As often as not, in the warmth of the summer, they were sliding into water that was a
delicate mass of streaming, textured algae which caressed their bodies like a million feathers as they
carefully stroked their way across the sparkling surface.
In ponds like that, it would have been a mistake to be too free about submerging, twisting or cavorting.
It was easy to imagine becoming thoroughly snagged by the slender filaments. When breasted with
smooth grace, however, the green shafts responded with nothing more than parallel fingers of safe
sensation.
Out closer to Black Mountain, there were a couple of concrete dams. The ponds behind these were
deeper, and free of the jungle of long algae. Diving into them, plunging down into the sunlit water and a
universe of green spheroids in suspension, was like swimming into an emerald, and paths that crossed
in myriad other chance spots in the locality crossed there as well.
They crossed with never a meeting. Johnny Stream's lean, half-native body curved like an eel through
the same shamrock-lit molecules that Carol's grace had shaped into ripples just earlier in the day, and
that a dozen times over a couple of years.
He was twenty-one when first he came into the area, when first he came down from the mountains to
work for the Heinz ranch. Always a tracker, he noticed almost immediately the footprints, sometimes
barefoot prints, which spoke of the existence and passage of the girl who walked down a long dirt road
through the quicksand dip in the sycamores to catch the school bus on El Camino Real.
With the discretion born both of the hunter and the vanquished, Johnny kept to his role, never more
than the grey shadow in the distance that trailed a gaggle of Herefords, never more than an unobtrusive
silhouette on a further ridge.
He was Heinz' hand. Carol knew that much about him, and no more.
She was petite toe prints in the sand. She was a ribbon lost, a door slammed at twilight, splashes drying
on a concrete dam.
She was half of a pair of giggles by then. The other half was, of course, Maggie Murphy. Johnny
Stream knew who Maggie was. That she was the wolf-killer's daughter was only more reason to remain
a part of the background when the girls were near, a rustle in the woods at best.
His buddy, Bob, was normally not nearly so discrete. He had something of a reputation as a teenage
hell raiser. He was in a sense, much more a part of the same society that included the Murphys, even if
it was a trashier part. The same could be said about Carol Gallagher. He was blonde, like Carol. He
was a full Caucasian; he was half-related to the Heinz family. That last placed him socially between
Carol, who was not related to any landowners, whose father was a day-laborer, and Maggie, who was a
ranch princess.
By contrast, Johnny was not even on the scale. But when Bob Cabler rode with Johnny Stream, he
played Indian too, and he cooperated especially with the need to keep a low profile.
When the war came Bob was still only thirteen. Had it lasted longer he would have joined. Johnny
enlisted in the Navy when America got into it, and he saw his share. When he returned with a mending
hip, the war was still not quite over, and he was, in fact, still in the Navy. Reporting at dawn on the deck
of a repair vessel in San Diego was all that was expected of him during the week. Weekends he was on
liberty.
There was no convenient way to get out to the mountains and back with any regularity or reliability. He
had little money. But there was a dairy run every day from Carmel Valley to the piers at 32nd street.
He rode along. The timing left Johnny at the gate of the Sisters of Mercy, which was the dairy, by nine-
thirty each weekday. He would round up his horse from the cemetery across the road from the convent
where he had turned her out at four that morning, saddle her, and be back at the stable by the time
Cabler had finished his morning chores.
Usually Johnny's route would be to continue up Carmel Valley, then turn north and follow Bell Valley
up past the beehives and the line of trees to the ridge. From there he dipped down through Gonzalez on
an old wagon track that passed just east of the Gallagher's. Then over the next ridge he dropped into
the San Dieguito river valley. Hooking around the west end of the ridge that formed the northern side
of La Zania Canyon, (passing between that and the big eucalyptus in so doing) he would arrive at Bob's
aunt's stable at an easy lope, and with a "Yee-haw!" of exuberance.
| * * * |
"I'm gonna take off," said Diana to Joe Kelly. "I don't think you're really listening."
Her mild chiding startled Joe from the semi-trance into which he had fallen. He realized that she was right.
Although he had been listening, listening with respect and with a certain measure of belief, he had been left
behind in the flow of craziness. He noticed that his cigarette had burned away on the edge of the counter.
Nothing was left but a long, fragile cylinder of ash, anchored by a scorched filter.
He brushed it away, depositing the filter in the old grease can at the end of the counter, and noticing that he
had added yet another brand to the wooden counter top. There were numerous others, left by the burning
cigarettes of the daytime shift when they were called to the pumps in the middle of a smoke by the ringing of
the bell. Joe had always hated that practice, leaving a cigarette burning rather than snuffing it out; now he was
himself guilty of the same insensitive carelessness, but for a different reason.
"I was listening," he protested, but he remembered nothing.
"Thanks for the sandwich," said Diana, slipping quietly to the floor and moving toward the door. She had been
sitting cross-legged, like an Indian. Now her bare feet left faint tracks of sweat on the smooth cement.
"You should be wearing shoes," Joe cautioned, "if you're going back into the hills. You should always wear
shoes out there."
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "Maybe I should wear a blindfold and earplugs too," she
teased. Then she was gone, and Joe had no time to ponder the enigma, for just then a transport loomed from
the fog, describing a wide arc towards a position at the diesel pump, yellow fog lights adding to its eerie
appearance, motor rumbling like the distant surf. He had work to do. Diana was gone before the driver ever
caught a glimpse of her, slipping around the corner of the Flying "A" like a bobcat.
Her mild chiding startled Joe from the semi-trance into which he had fallen. He realized that she was right.
Although he had been listening, listening with respect and with a certain measure of belief, he had been left
behind in the flow of craziness. He noticed that his cigarette had burned away on the edge of the counter.
Nothing was left but a long, fragile cylinder of ash, anchored by a scorched filter.
He brushed it away, depositing the filter in the old grease can at the end of the counter, and noticing that he
had added yet another brand to the wooden counter top. There were numerous others, left by the burning
cigarettes of the daytime shift when they were called to the pumps in the middle of a smoke by the ringing of
the bell. Joe had always hated that practice, leaving a cigarette burning rather than snuffing it out; now he was
himself guilty of the same insensitive carelessness, but for a different reason.
"I was listening," he protested, but he remembered nothing.
"Thanks for the sandwich," said Diana, slipping quietly to the floor and moving toward the door. She had been
sitting cross-legged, like an Indian. Now her bare feet left faint tracks of sweat on the smooth cement.
"You should be wearing shoes," Joe cautioned, "if you're going back into the hills. You should always wear
shoes out there."
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "Maybe I should wear a blindfold and earplugs too," she
teased. Then she was gone, and Joe had no time to ponder the enigma, for just then a transport loomed from
the fog, describing a wide arc towards a position at the diesel pump, yellow fog lights adding to its eerie
appearance, motor rumbling like the distant surf. He had work to do. Diana was gone before the driver ever
caught a glimpse of her, slipping around the corner of the Flying "A" like a bobcat.
| * * * |
| Dusty days and summer flies, The dog-man drifts around And lives a dream, And sees the heaven, Hiding in the ruins And the dusty hillsides; Little girls, The dog-man sees your Bare foot prints, And sniffs the wind, And pauses in The silent road. |
| * * * |
One of the most vital of the things that made Fugitive Creek Ranch a bearable place, even a choice place, in
the summer, was having good pools for cooling dips. But it was a wild creek. In the floods of winter and spring
it remade itself dramatically in terms of rocks and logs and sand, stillness and flow and shallows and depth. The
favorite hole of the summer before could be gone in a variety of directions.
It could be silted up, an impoundment of composty mud, with watercress, or reeds if it lasted long enough. By
contrast, it could have come through the high-water times scoured clean, a clear pool on bare rock, or perhaps
with a smooth floor of immaculate sand.
On the other hand, the relentless surge of the creek in the rainy months may have eliminated a particular hole
altogether by destroying whatever was the dam of rocks and branches and mud that had created the
impoundment.
The little brook was named "Fugitive Creek" because it was always running and always hiding. In summer it
hid by going underground for long stretches, disappearing into its bed of coarse sand and gravel, only to
re-emerge at the next shelf of rock, fresh as a baby spring.
At different times, in different years, Johnny and various buddies had alternately built or rebuilt dams with
logs and rocks, and mucked out pools with buckets. Fugitive Creek was very small to begin with, and none of
the several bathing spots was very big. They ranged from a shallow basin in a sheet of rock just below the patch
of ancient woods that contained the blackberry patch, a formation just large enough to allow a human adult to
lay back and submerge in the chilly water, to a pool at the bottom of a series of falls which, when the dam was
in good shape, provided a good three feet of depth that was ten to twelve feet across at its widest point.
This hole was located in full sunshine, and was surrounded by stretches of flat rock that made it ideal for a
group of sunbathers to relax and cool down when necessary.
Johnny's favorite spot was neither of these, however. It was the spot he thought of as the grotto, and it lay
upstream from the berries in the cool of the woods and ferns. This spot took a little agility to get to, but the
reward was a cool, shadowy pool tucked under a little waterfall, a couple of feet deep, and surrounded with
natural high banks festooned with ferns and vines.
For a time Johnny had positioned a statue of the virgin Mary on a small ledge in the grotto, but he had forgot
to rescue her from the high waters of winter, and she was swept to oblivion.
the summer, was having good pools for cooling dips. But it was a wild creek. In the floods of winter and spring
it remade itself dramatically in terms of rocks and logs and sand, stillness and flow and shallows and depth. The
favorite hole of the summer before could be gone in a variety of directions.
It could be silted up, an impoundment of composty mud, with watercress, or reeds if it lasted long enough. By
contrast, it could have come through the high-water times scoured clean, a clear pool on bare rock, or perhaps
with a smooth floor of immaculate sand.
On the other hand, the relentless surge of the creek in the rainy months may have eliminated a particular hole
altogether by destroying whatever was the dam of rocks and branches and mud that had created the
impoundment.
The little brook was named "Fugitive Creek" because it was always running and always hiding. In summer it
hid by going underground for long stretches, disappearing into its bed of coarse sand and gravel, only to
re-emerge at the next shelf of rock, fresh as a baby spring.
At different times, in different years, Johnny and various buddies had alternately built or rebuilt dams with
logs and rocks, and mucked out pools with buckets. Fugitive Creek was very small to begin with, and none of
the several bathing spots was very big. They ranged from a shallow basin in a sheet of rock just below the patch
of ancient woods that contained the blackberry patch, a formation just large enough to allow a human adult to
lay back and submerge in the chilly water, to a pool at the bottom of a series of falls which, when the dam was
in good shape, provided a good three feet of depth that was ten to twelve feet across at its widest point.
This hole was located in full sunshine, and was surrounded by stretches of flat rock that made it ideal for a
group of sunbathers to relax and cool down when necessary.
Johnny's favorite spot was neither of these, however. It was the spot he thought of as the grotto, and it lay
upstream from the berries in the cool of the woods and ferns. This spot took a little agility to get to, but the
reward was a cool, shadowy pool tucked under a little waterfall, a couple of feet deep, and surrounded with
natural high banks festooned with ferns and vines.
For a time Johnny had positioned a statue of the virgin Mary on a small ledge in the grotto, but he had forgot
to rescue her from the high waters of winter, and she was swept to oblivion.
| * * * |
"Yee-haw!"
As often as not, this late morning exuberance was the end of the day for Johnny and Bob. The afternoons would
find each young cowboy dozing in his own private spot. Bob had a regular quarters carved out of a box stall.
Johnny was content with a horse blanket in the back of an old wagon parked in a covered area filled with old
farm implements. He would curl up and sleep, sometimes into the evening, other times only until twilight.
It depended on how prolonged the activities of the night before had been, and that depended on the phase of the
moon, among other factors. Full moon nights, with silver light lasting from dusk to dawn, generally afforded
restless cowboys little time for sleep. On darker evenings, perhaps those with an hour or two of a new crescent
in the low western sky, a game or two of checkers would finish them off, and Johnny and Cabler would hit the
hay early. Johnny would have to get up early enough to saddle up and get over to the dairy in time to catch the
ride back to the city.
Still on active duty, in wartime, as he was, Johnny was supposed to remain in uniform during waking hours. In
reality, the same little pump house up behind the cemetery that housed his saddle, saddle blanket and bridle,
during the hours that he was gone to San Diego, served triple duty as pump house turned tack room turned sea-
locker. There was third class quartermaster Johnny Stream's uniform, neatly folded and sitting on a clean
wooden crate. The crate was turned on end, and inside a pair of shiny black shoes waited for the feet of the
sailor.
But those feet were tucked into a beat up pair of cowboy boots, which were tucked into stirrups. War or no, the
uniform and the shoes sat through the days, and the evenings, and the deep nights until, just before dawn,
hooves would be heard, and leather unsaddling, with snorts and mumbles and crashes and bumps.
Finally there was the fumbling change, jeans and boots heaved with a work shirt into another box, bristling of a
half-sober guy in the cold in his underwear, the hurried donning of the blues. (… dawning of the blues…)
There would be plenty of time later to straighten out the lumps and wrinkles. Johnny was often late. As like as
not the driver was nearly ready to leave without him, but he knew Johnny. Mike Wertz was a party cowboy
himself. He understood how hectic the early morning roundup could be.
Mike was temporarily settled down at Sisters of Mercy. It was frightful how fast a convent of nuns could milk a
herd of Holsteins. It was the only way that Mike Wertz' load could be ready so early. The consequence was that
he hit the day with a jolt, fumbling with his first cup of coffee, grabbed from the nuns' kitchen as he dashed by
on his way from bunk to truck.
He had other duties later in the day, to be sure, as well as a second run to Thirty-second Street towards
evening, but this morning start-up was the first demand on his day, and it was seven days a week. No matter
what hell Mike Wertz had been up to the night before, over in town, or just down in his cabin, that pink sky
milk run started his day.
He enjoyed having Johnny along. Johnny didn't know it, but Mike could see him going through the routine,
with the horse and the change, from up by the barn, where the truck he was to drive each morning sat loaded,
by the nuns, with fresh milk. Mike's part of the job didn't start until he turned the key and started warming up
the big Chevy. All the normal prudence of checking and refilling fuels and fluids and brakes and lights and
whatnot, he had accomplished the afternoon previous. All he had to do was get it running and drive it.
He would watch in the dim dawn till he saw Johnny Stream's shadow leave the pump house and begin making
his way toward the gate. Timing it just so, he would lurch the stake bed full of five-gallon milk cans into gear
and begin to rumble down the incline toward the gate, the road and town. This would cause Johnny to break
into a trot, leaving little puffs of mist and dust as he sprinted the last couple of hundred yards to arrive
breathless on the running board of the truck, just as Mike Wertz was executing the left turn that would have
led to acceleration and a missed ride.
Mike would come with a gruff, "Thought you was maybe sleepin' in this morning."
"Hah!" said Johnny. "I'll do that when I get back, my friend."
"Are we paying you for this?" Mike asked in cheerful accusation.
"You're paying me," Johnny admitted. "But not for this."
For a second, Mike winced, realizing that Johnny might not enjoy being put through that little jog, with his
wounded hip and all. But he put it out of his mind. Dang Indian was willing to ride a horse all night. And there
were other mornings, when Johnny would arrive early and be enjoying a cup of coffee with the nuns in the
kitchen when Mike arrived. He can handle it.
On mornings like this, when he was not early, his first cup had to wait until after the on deck muster on board.
Following dismissal, he was to all practical extents free until the same time next morning. There was time to be
practical enough to get in on the breakfast down on the mess deck, take a shower, put on a fresh uniform and
skivvies, make sure his rack was squared away, and get back over the quarterdeck and up the pier in time to
catch Mike Wertz' clattering rig full of empty cans.
"Thought maybe you was havin' a duty day," was Wertz' remark as Johnny heaved himself into the rumbling
truck.
"Not me!" said Johnny, and as they cleared the chain link gate and headed up the road toward Carmel Valley,
he hollered, "Yee-haw!"
As often as not, this late morning exuberance was the end of the day for Johnny and Bob. The afternoons would
find each young cowboy dozing in his own private spot. Bob had a regular quarters carved out of a box stall.
Johnny was content with a horse blanket in the back of an old wagon parked in a covered area filled with old
farm implements. He would curl up and sleep, sometimes into the evening, other times only until twilight.
It depended on how prolonged the activities of the night before had been, and that depended on the phase of the
moon, among other factors. Full moon nights, with silver light lasting from dusk to dawn, generally afforded
restless cowboys little time for sleep. On darker evenings, perhaps those with an hour or two of a new crescent
in the low western sky, a game or two of checkers would finish them off, and Johnny and Cabler would hit the
hay early. Johnny would have to get up early enough to saddle up and get over to the dairy in time to catch the
ride back to the city.
Still on active duty, in wartime, as he was, Johnny was supposed to remain in uniform during waking hours. In
reality, the same little pump house up behind the cemetery that housed his saddle, saddle blanket and bridle,
during the hours that he was gone to San Diego, served triple duty as pump house turned tack room turned sea-
locker. There was third class quartermaster Johnny Stream's uniform, neatly folded and sitting on a clean
wooden crate. The crate was turned on end, and inside a pair of shiny black shoes waited for the feet of the
sailor.
But those feet were tucked into a beat up pair of cowboy boots, which were tucked into stirrups. War or no, the
uniform and the shoes sat through the days, and the evenings, and the deep nights until, just before dawn,
hooves would be heard, and leather unsaddling, with snorts and mumbles and crashes and bumps.
Finally there was the fumbling change, jeans and boots heaved with a work shirt into another box, bristling of a
half-sober guy in the cold in his underwear, the hurried donning of the blues. (… dawning of the blues…)
There would be plenty of time later to straighten out the lumps and wrinkles. Johnny was often late. As like as
not the driver was nearly ready to leave without him, but he knew Johnny. Mike Wertz was a party cowboy
himself. He understood how hectic the early morning roundup could be.
Mike was temporarily settled down at Sisters of Mercy. It was frightful how fast a convent of nuns could milk a
herd of Holsteins. It was the only way that Mike Wertz' load could be ready so early. The consequence was that
he hit the day with a jolt, fumbling with his first cup of coffee, grabbed from the nuns' kitchen as he dashed by
on his way from bunk to truck.
He had other duties later in the day, to be sure, as well as a second run to Thirty-second Street towards
evening, but this morning start-up was the first demand on his day, and it was seven days a week. No matter
what hell Mike Wertz had been up to the night before, over in town, or just down in his cabin, that pink sky
milk run started his day.
He enjoyed having Johnny along. Johnny didn't know it, but Mike could see him going through the routine,
with the horse and the change, from up by the barn, where the truck he was to drive each morning sat loaded,
by the nuns, with fresh milk. Mike's part of the job didn't start until he turned the key and started warming up
the big Chevy. All the normal prudence of checking and refilling fuels and fluids and brakes and lights and
whatnot, he had accomplished the afternoon previous. All he had to do was get it running and drive it.
He would watch in the dim dawn till he saw Johnny Stream's shadow leave the pump house and begin making
his way toward the gate. Timing it just so, he would lurch the stake bed full of five-gallon milk cans into gear
and begin to rumble down the incline toward the gate, the road and town. This would cause Johnny to break
into a trot, leaving little puffs of mist and dust as he sprinted the last couple of hundred yards to arrive
breathless on the running board of the truck, just as Mike Wertz was executing the left turn that would have
led to acceleration and a missed ride.
Mike would come with a gruff, "Thought you was maybe sleepin' in this morning."
"Hah!" said Johnny. "I'll do that when I get back, my friend."
"Are we paying you for this?" Mike asked in cheerful accusation.
"You're paying me," Johnny admitted. "But not for this."
For a second, Mike winced, realizing that Johnny might not enjoy being put through that little jog, with his
wounded hip and all. But he put it out of his mind. Dang Indian was willing to ride a horse all night. And there
were other mornings, when Johnny would arrive early and be enjoying a cup of coffee with the nuns in the
kitchen when Mike arrived. He can handle it.
On mornings like this, when he was not early, his first cup had to wait until after the on deck muster on board.
Following dismissal, he was to all practical extents free until the same time next morning. There was time to be
practical enough to get in on the breakfast down on the mess deck, take a shower, put on a fresh uniform and
skivvies, make sure his rack was squared away, and get back over the quarterdeck and up the pier in time to
catch Mike Wertz' clattering rig full of empty cans.
"Thought maybe you was havin' a duty day," was Wertz' remark as Johnny heaved himself into the rumbling
truck.
"Not me!" said Johnny, and as they cleared the chain link gate and headed up the road toward Carmel Valley,
he hollered, "Yee-haw!"
| * * * |
It was not all duty for Tawngness. When she got that special feeling, every couple of years, oh boy! For a while,
she was a different cat.
When Lightning would appear, she would be lost in a quasi-memory recall of all that he was. From fuzzy ears,
to muscle-rippled shoulders, from golden eyes to black-tipped tail, he was a bolt of hot blood.
She seldom saw any other cougars, save for her own litters. Now, here was one of her kittens, it may as well
have been, grown into herself. Herself with a difference. It was the same lashing tail, the same paws of aware
contact that could bristle instantly with the same dark spears. The same ripe fangs, the same juicy tongue, the
same golden fur.
She wasn't quite ready yet to breed again, but she was alert to that which made him different from her, the
scent, the attitude, the build, the size, and the meat hung where on herself was a graceful emptiness. She
wasn't quite ready for that part yet, but there was so much more, to Lightning, that she purred with delicious
savor.
They ran together, scrambling at night through trees, across cliffs, even in open meadows. They tumbled and
clawed, seeking to flesh out the vision that each of them had before them, from out of the world, a beautiful
mountain lion! At dawn the mood changed.
They had been playing tag, with herself in the lead, and she had lost him. Tawngness drew up, took a breath,
and proceeded to lick a paw. Needless to say, that felt good. He would be on her in a trice, and she would be
bounding out of reach. He would probably never catch her if…
Tawngness' attention was grabbed by the sight of another mountain lion that had silently appeared on a
boulder. The boulder lay between two much larger boulders. The lion came between these, emerging like a
squirt of light onto the boulder scene in Tawngness' vision. Quickly, she read what she saw, a male cougar, not
the one with whom she had cavorted all night. He carried himself well.
"I am Lightning," he growled.
The resemblance was unendurable. Tawngness could sense the difference, but it was no more than a slightly
different pheromone code, or a slight attitude around the nose and eyes. She purr-growled in response, "I am
Tawngness." The statement rang with majesty. No fight was needed to decide who was the queen of this
lonesome land.
They came close, touched noses and confessed. The newer Lightning had only a moment to reflect on the odor
of another male that lingered in her fur.
Not a kitten, he thought. A challenger who has somehow arrived before me. He looked at Tawngness, and he
smelled her, and he heard her deep, sweet rumble. She was the goddess of the rocks for whom he had searched
so long. She was the tawny gold, like her very name, that writhed in his passion. Tawngness,Tawngness, I have
come over the mountains for you. For you I have forded rivers; for you I have brushed with death.
"I am Lightning!" This time, the message came in an uncompromising snarl from across the meadow. There
he was, her knight of the night just past. Tawngness looked at him with renewed curiosity. He was wind-
brushed to perfection; he fairly glowed with spirit. He had no eyes for her, for both of his drilled into the
upstart.
He was not kidding.
He opened his mouth and showed his fangs and fairly hissed the rest of the proclamation. "Get out of here, or
die!"
The newcomer quailed in his heart. He had had every intention of radiating similar gatismo, but now he
flinched.
In a moment the two males were doing the wary circle, closing in till both of their hearts pounded. They
measured one another, and they saw what it was that the deer they had killed may have seen, some of them,
any one that may have chanced to look over its shoulder or up from the browse at the precise moment to see
its fanged doom.
Lightning number one was no fool. The array of claws and enamel mirroring his snarls and swipes was too
similar to his own to be discounted. While the filthy rat-eater might be the most despicable lump of coyote shit,
it was in control of the same number of cruel points, the same kinds of muscle, and the same murderous heart.
Lightning hated him. He raised his paw and spread his ebony hooks and swore in evil snarl.
And so did the nemesis. Lightning number two had no choice. He had made his choice, and he clung to it now,
snarling and circling and gesturing with claws wide and eyes spitting fury. He saw the same and it filled him
with respect bordering terror. To actually mix with those savage weapons would be hideous. He mustered his
own ferocity, to drive away the threat.
But the threat would not be driven. Tawngness watched with understanding fascination that could not be
matched. Though either outcome would suit her, the ritual itself commanded her total attention.
As for the boys, they had disappeared into a balanced ball of concentration, eerily pacing about one another,
feeling their claws flex and their fangs drip, feeling their own blood race madly in hot courses. For the moment
they knew nothing, of Tawngness, of the world, of the tiny meadow where they did their careful dance.
Then it escalated, and then it was over. Eight legs and eight fangs, forty claws and three hundred pounds of
twisting muscle clashed for a second, though it seemed longer. The yowling snarls rose to screams, and then
number two was bolting for the brush with number one in hot, short pursuit.
He was back in a moment, and he was a hero. Tawngness loved the silly look of triumph on his whiskered face.
He had shown what he could do. He had shown how he could protect. Never mind that the threat had never been
against her. Never mind that Lightning himself was more of a danger, were he, for instance, to stay around
until the litter came. He would be likely to gobble them up.
Not that Tawngness ever showed him the den's location. She was not that romantically lost. But for now it was
perfect, he was perfect, the day was perfect, and she came into the fullness of her season.
Of course, Lightning promptly lost every wit of dignity and composure that he ever had possessed.
Were another male to have intruded during those glorious days, Lightning would have ripped into him without
preamble. But Tawngness? Ah, Tawngness was queen of cat angels. Never had the kaleidoscope of life swirled
into such a focus of beauty. She was so like him that his own ego could soar and still leave her the goddess of
creation and desire.
When she ran him off after a few days, his duty done, his protests were limp and general; he merely snarled
and left and was gone. But he was a happy kitty.
And so was Tawngness. The romance of the short few days would last in her memory. For now, she turned to
more real inner longings, as she grew more pregnant.
The den that she had located was a gift from a real goddess, on a hill so bleak, in a spread of chamise so vast,
out of the way yet smack in the middle of it all. She renewed her acquaintance with the spot. She learned more,
learned all of its approaches (or exits), learned its wind currents morning, afternoon, evening and night.
That done, she abandoned the spot again, the invisible, snug, little cave under a rock ledge and its environs.
She began to do some serious eating.
she was a different cat.
When Lightning would appear, she would be lost in a quasi-memory recall of all that he was. From fuzzy ears,
to muscle-rippled shoulders, from golden eyes to black-tipped tail, he was a bolt of hot blood.
She seldom saw any other cougars, save for her own litters. Now, here was one of her kittens, it may as well
have been, grown into herself. Herself with a difference. It was the same lashing tail, the same paws of aware
contact that could bristle instantly with the same dark spears. The same ripe fangs, the same juicy tongue, the
same golden fur.
She wasn't quite ready yet to breed again, but she was alert to that which made him different from her, the
scent, the attitude, the build, the size, and the meat hung where on herself was a graceful emptiness. She
wasn't quite ready for that part yet, but there was so much more, to Lightning, that she purred with delicious
savor.
They ran together, scrambling at night through trees, across cliffs, even in open meadows. They tumbled and
clawed, seeking to flesh out the vision that each of them had before them, from out of the world, a beautiful
mountain lion! At dawn the mood changed.
They had been playing tag, with herself in the lead, and she had lost him. Tawngness drew up, took a breath,
and proceeded to lick a paw. Needless to say, that felt good. He would be on her in a trice, and she would be
bounding out of reach. He would probably never catch her if…
Tawngness' attention was grabbed by the sight of another mountain lion that had silently appeared on a
boulder. The boulder lay between two much larger boulders. The lion came between these, emerging like a
squirt of light onto the boulder scene in Tawngness' vision. Quickly, she read what she saw, a male cougar, not
the one with whom she had cavorted all night. He carried himself well.
"I am Lightning," he growled.
The resemblance was unendurable. Tawngness could sense the difference, but it was no more than a slightly
different pheromone code, or a slight attitude around the nose and eyes. She purr-growled in response, "I am
Tawngness." The statement rang with majesty. No fight was needed to decide who was the queen of this
lonesome land.
They came close, touched noses and confessed. The newer Lightning had only a moment to reflect on the odor
of another male that lingered in her fur.
Not a kitten, he thought. A challenger who has somehow arrived before me. He looked at Tawngness, and he
smelled her, and he heard her deep, sweet rumble. She was the goddess of the rocks for whom he had searched
so long. She was the tawny gold, like her very name, that writhed in his passion. Tawngness,Tawngness, I have
come over the mountains for you. For you I have forded rivers; for you I have brushed with death.
"I am Lightning!" This time, the message came in an uncompromising snarl from across the meadow. There
he was, her knight of the night just past. Tawngness looked at him with renewed curiosity. He was wind-
brushed to perfection; he fairly glowed with spirit. He had no eyes for her, for both of his drilled into the
upstart.
He was not kidding.
He opened his mouth and showed his fangs and fairly hissed the rest of the proclamation. "Get out of here, or
die!"
The newcomer quailed in his heart. He had had every intention of radiating similar gatismo, but now he
flinched.
In a moment the two males were doing the wary circle, closing in till both of their hearts pounded. They
measured one another, and they saw what it was that the deer they had killed may have seen, some of them,
any one that may have chanced to look over its shoulder or up from the browse at the precise moment to see
its fanged doom.
Lightning number one was no fool. The array of claws and enamel mirroring his snarls and swipes was too
similar to his own to be discounted. While the filthy rat-eater might be the most despicable lump of coyote shit,
it was in control of the same number of cruel points, the same kinds of muscle, and the same murderous heart.
Lightning hated him. He raised his paw and spread his ebony hooks and swore in evil snarl.
And so did the nemesis. Lightning number two had no choice. He had made his choice, and he clung to it now,
snarling and circling and gesturing with claws wide and eyes spitting fury. He saw the same and it filled him
with respect bordering terror. To actually mix with those savage weapons would be hideous. He mustered his
own ferocity, to drive away the threat.
But the threat would not be driven. Tawngness watched with understanding fascination that could not be
matched. Though either outcome would suit her, the ritual itself commanded her total attention.
As for the boys, they had disappeared into a balanced ball of concentration, eerily pacing about one another,
feeling their claws flex and their fangs drip, feeling their own blood race madly in hot courses. For the moment
they knew nothing, of Tawngness, of the world, of the tiny meadow where they did their careful dance.
Then it escalated, and then it was over. Eight legs and eight fangs, forty claws and three hundred pounds of
twisting muscle clashed for a second, though it seemed longer. The yowling snarls rose to screams, and then
number two was bolting for the brush with number one in hot, short pursuit.
He was back in a moment, and he was a hero. Tawngness loved the silly look of triumph on his whiskered face.
He had shown what he could do. He had shown how he could protect. Never mind that the threat had never been
against her. Never mind that Lightning himself was more of a danger, were he, for instance, to stay around
until the litter came. He would be likely to gobble them up.
Not that Tawngness ever showed him the den's location. She was not that romantically lost. But for now it was
perfect, he was perfect, the day was perfect, and she came into the fullness of her season.
Of course, Lightning promptly lost every wit of dignity and composure that he ever had possessed.
Were another male to have intruded during those glorious days, Lightning would have ripped into him without
preamble. But Tawngness? Ah, Tawngness was queen of cat angels. Never had the kaleidoscope of life swirled
into such a focus of beauty. She was so like him that his own ego could soar and still leave her the goddess of
creation and desire.
When she ran him off after a few days, his duty done, his protests were limp and general; he merely snarled
and left and was gone. But he was a happy kitty.
And so was Tawngness. The romance of the short few days would last in her memory. For now, she turned to
more real inner longings, as she grew more pregnant.
The den that she had located was a gift from a real goddess, on a hill so bleak, in a spread of chamise so vast,
out of the way yet smack in the middle of it all. She renewed her acquaintance with the spot. She learned more,
learned all of its approaches (or exits), learned its wind currents morning, afternoon, evening and night.
That done, she abandoned the spot again, the invisible, snug, little cave under a rock ledge and its environs.
She began to do some serious eating.
| * * * |
Marilyn was right. Bob didn't scare Johnny. His shenanigans unnerved many; it was a wonder that Marilyn had
any clients. Johnny just naturally fell in as straight man, so, for instance, when Bob came racing in on his
horse, Spot, one day, "shooting" with his finger at Marilyn and Johnny and a couple of riders, Johnny assumed
a defensive crouch and playfully fired back with his own finger pistol, "Kuugh-eww!"
It was a good one, and Bob artfully reined Spot into a semi-rear from which he clutched his breast and
heedlessly hurled his dead body to the straw-littered ground.
In a curious way, Johnny's presence during and after one of these skits held a calming and reassuring quality
which allowed Marilyn's clients to enjoy the show a little more. Something about his demeanor convinced them
that all was well, or at least that they themselves were safe.
Some of the gags were rehearsed. Some were repeated. A favorite was the sudden loud quarrel, followed by a
punch, which was really a swing by Johnny, close enough to graze the chin, while Bob clapped his hands
unobtrusively low. Until you had seen it several times it was very convincing, for Bob would snap away from the
imaginary point of impact like a jerked rabbit, and would fall in abandon to the ground. People out for a ride in
the country would continue on with their business, eyes straight ahead, and thankful to be allowed to ignore
whatever business other folks cared to conduct.
Later they would come to learn that they had been buffaloed. By then it would always be too late. Their undying
hatred of the pair had to be cushioned by their grudging awareness that here were basically two fine lads, and
that all was peaceful when they were around.
It would have been hard to imagine anyone starting any trouble when those two were present. The fence got
built, but then December came, Pearl Harbor came, and Bob was left to man the home front on his own.
Johnny joined the navy, swept up in the tide of territoriality that swept the nation senseless. To save the land
that was already lost, he joined the fleet of its conqueror, for the land was still here, and when Johnny sailed
with them, that fleet was his fleet.
In '44 shrapnel put him in the hospital, and then brought him home in '45 to serve "lame duty" in San Diego.
By October he had been honorably discharged. Heinz was only too happy to hire him again. He was home,
wounded in the war against Heinz' father's homeland and its allies. So what? He got his ass kicked for it. Let
him come home and shovel shit for the master race. Maybe next time he'll know better.
any clients. Johnny just naturally fell in as straight man, so, for instance, when Bob came racing in on his
horse, Spot, one day, "shooting" with his finger at Marilyn and Johnny and a couple of riders, Johnny assumed
a defensive crouch and playfully fired back with his own finger pistol, "Kuugh-eww!"
It was a good one, and Bob artfully reined Spot into a semi-rear from which he clutched his breast and
heedlessly hurled his dead body to the straw-littered ground.
In a curious way, Johnny's presence during and after one of these skits held a calming and reassuring quality
which allowed Marilyn's clients to enjoy the show a little more. Something about his demeanor convinced them
that all was well, or at least that they themselves were safe.
Some of the gags were rehearsed. Some were repeated. A favorite was the sudden loud quarrel, followed by a
punch, which was really a swing by Johnny, close enough to graze the chin, while Bob clapped his hands
unobtrusively low. Until you had seen it several times it was very convincing, for Bob would snap away from the
imaginary point of impact like a jerked rabbit, and would fall in abandon to the ground. People out for a ride in
the country would continue on with their business, eyes straight ahead, and thankful to be allowed to ignore
whatever business other folks cared to conduct.
Later they would come to learn that they had been buffaloed. By then it would always be too late. Their undying
hatred of the pair had to be cushioned by their grudging awareness that here were basically two fine lads, and
that all was peaceful when they were around.
It would have been hard to imagine anyone starting any trouble when those two were present. The fence got
built, but then December came, Pearl Harbor came, and Bob was left to man the home front on his own.
Johnny joined the navy, swept up in the tide of territoriality that swept the nation senseless. To save the land
that was already lost, he joined the fleet of its conqueror, for the land was still here, and when Johnny sailed
with them, that fleet was his fleet.
In '44 shrapnel put him in the hospital, and then brought him home in '45 to serve "lame duty" in San Diego.
By October he had been honorably discharged. Heinz was only too happy to hire him again. He was home,
wounded in the war against Heinz' father's homeland and its allies. So what? He got his ass kicked for it. Let
him come home and shovel shit for the master race. Maybe next time he'll know better.
| * * * |
"Are you going to Houston?" asked Vikor. He knew the Texas metropolis was a jumping off point for journeys
to many a far-flung destination.
"I just have to change planes there," Chela replied. "I'm going on to New Mexico."
"Kind of a roundabout way to New Mexico isn't it?" he asked.
She smiled and shrugged. Vikor was familiar with the strange routes that air passengers must sometimes
endure. They shared a good-natured chuckle over that and many another trivial trinket, as they rekindled a
relationship that had descended from the mists, a million years in the past. The jet droned on, across the
deserts of California and Arizona.
"So, what's in New Mexico?"
"I live there."
"How nice," he replied with sincerity. Vikor found himself mentally crossing Albuquerque off of his list of
potential hunting grounds. He wasn't perfect. He already regretted having pulled the Gail Henderson job. In the
state where each of his mothers dwelled, he reasoned, it would have been wiser to have stayed clean.
Wiser and forty-some thousand dollars poorer, not to mention the hard currency, the Krugerrands and the
jewels that adorned the depths of his suitcase in the luggage compartment.
Oh, well, he consoled himself. We learn by our mistakes, and it hurts. But every cloud has a silver lining, and
Vikor's was lined with cash for the foreseeable future. The imaginary line drawn through Albuquerque
remained.
to many a far-flung destination.
"I just have to change planes there," Chela replied. "I'm going on to New Mexico."
"Kind of a roundabout way to New Mexico isn't it?" he asked.
She smiled and shrugged. Vikor was familiar with the strange routes that air passengers must sometimes
endure. They shared a good-natured chuckle over that and many another trivial trinket, as they rekindled a
relationship that had descended from the mists, a million years in the past. The jet droned on, across the
deserts of California and Arizona.
"So, what's in New Mexico?"
"I live there."
"How nice," he replied with sincerity. Vikor found himself mentally crossing Albuquerque off of his list of
potential hunting grounds. He wasn't perfect. He already regretted having pulled the Gail Henderson job. In the
state where each of his mothers dwelled, he reasoned, it would have been wiser to have stayed clean.
Wiser and forty-some thousand dollars poorer, not to mention the hard currency, the Krugerrands and the
jewels that adorned the depths of his suitcase in the luggage compartment.
Oh, well, he consoled himself. We learn by our mistakes, and it hurts. But every cloud has a silver lining, and
Vikor's was lined with cash for the foreseeable future. The imaginary line drawn through Albuquerque
remained.
| * * * |
