| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 9 February 1980
Saturday, a busy day. We let the goats into the north pasture. Then we put Jacques in
Bob's station wagon and drove to Harbison Canyon, to the auction. With breeding over for
the season, we figured it time to dispose of a buck. We have enough of his blood in the
herd anyhow. We got thirty-four dollars for him. Goodbye Jacques. Now Luke is
undisputed king of Fugitive Creek Herd. But not, I think, forever.
After the auction we went to National City and picked up Devon. Devon bought Bob's
car. He returned to the mountains with us and spent the night. We stayed up till after one
playing hearts, which Bob and I love to play, but usually we don't have a third.
When we got home from town we discovered that Katy had just had her kids. At
sunset when we called them in, Jodie and Torie stayed out. We found Jody with one of her
kids, and then I heard a faint cry and discovered that the other kid had fallen into a hole.
Saved!
Then Bob found Torie who had birthed a single kid. Back in the pen we counted only
nine kids. One of Dolly's was missing! And she was upset!
So after supper we waited again for moonrise. Then we turned out to look. I had
started down the fence line toward the creek. I was making mama goat sounds, and soon I
heard a tiny reply! There she was. She had fallen asleep and had been left.
Peace again on the mountain. Tonight we have twenty-two goats. I am very tired.
Saturday, a busy day. We let the goats into the north pasture. Then we put Jacques in
Bob's station wagon and drove to Harbison Canyon, to the auction. With breeding over for
the season, we figured it time to dispose of a buck. We have enough of his blood in the
herd anyhow. We got thirty-four dollars for him. Goodbye Jacques. Now Luke is
undisputed king of Fugitive Creek Herd. But not, I think, forever.
After the auction we went to National City and picked up Devon. Devon bought Bob's
car. He returned to the mountains with us and spent the night. We stayed up till after one
playing hearts, which Bob and I love to play, but usually we don't have a third.
When we got home from town we discovered that Katy had just had her kids. At
sunset when we called them in, Jodie and Torie stayed out. We found Jody with one of her
kids, and then I heard a faint cry and discovered that the other kid had fallen into a hole.
Saved!
Then Bob found Torie who had birthed a single kid. Back in the pen we counted only
nine kids. One of Dolly's was missing! And she was upset!
So after supper we waited again for moonrise. Then we turned out to look. I had
started down the fence line toward the creek. I was making mama goat sounds, and soon I
heard a tiny reply! There she was. She had fallen asleep and had been left.
Peace again on the mountain. Tonight we have twenty-two goats. I am very tired.
| Chapter Twenty-five OLD FARGO |
Hank Devlin lit a cigarette. The Devlin truck bounced along, headlights stabbing the blizzard. Tom and Joe
had fallen silent, each lost in his personal dreams of silk and soft skin. The radio played on.
Hank was tired. Painting was hard work. Dinner would be good. It was still a fair stretch to the village. He
drove on. He glanced at the boys. He was proud of them. He thought of his daughter, Andrea Clare, and he drove
on.
had fallen silent, each lost in his personal dreams of silk and soft skin. The radio played on.
Hank was tired. Painting was hard work. Dinner would be good. It was still a fair stretch to the village. He
drove on. He glanced at the boys. He was proud of them. He thought of his daughter, Andrea Clare, and he drove
on.
| * * * |
Tawngness moved from the den in the chamise, after the fire turned the hillside into an eerie, black meadow.
Her next litter, in the following year, came to life in a real cave, set deep in a rocky defile. The space was roomy,
with a floor of sand and a low ceiling. The approach was ideal, a rocky maze which left any marauding coyote
helplessly exposed to the counter attack of Madame Lioness.
She settled down to her career of, if not making the world safe for cougars, at least making it full of them.
Lightning changed and stayed the same. Thousands of orange balls sank into the idle west, and as she aged, she
drifted that way too. The kittens stopped coming. She rambled through the reach of Lightning's territory, and
when she came to the ocean she stopped and said it was enough. Dropping back she scoped out the territory,
vacated years earlier by an unfortunate young female who was shot. Now Tawngness claimed it for herself. It was
nineteen sixty-two.
Her next litter, in the following year, came to life in a real cave, set deep in a rocky defile. The space was roomy,
with a floor of sand and a low ceiling. The approach was ideal, a rocky maze which left any marauding coyote
helplessly exposed to the counter attack of Madame Lioness.
She settled down to her career of, if not making the world safe for cougars, at least making it full of them.
Lightning changed and stayed the same. Thousands of orange balls sank into the idle west, and as she aged, she
drifted that way too. The kittens stopped coming. She rambled through the reach of Lightning's territory, and
when she came to the ocean she stopped and said it was enough. Dropping back she scoped out the territory,
vacated years earlier by an unfortunate young female who was shot. Now Tawngness claimed it for herself. It was
nineteen sixty-two.
| * * * |
Vikor never knew anything about the changes he left behind in the lives of people whose very existence he
could only surmise. Heartbreak, sorrow, sudden wealth, sudden jeopardy… he had to assume there were relatives,
lovers and friends who would find their worlds suddenly drenched in these shades. Words like senseless, wanton
and evil would dapple the local press. A woman would cry into the night. A father would weep. Children would line
up with tortured faces, for photographs, and later by the grave.
But for many, within their private hearts, there would be cheers for serendipity. There would be chuckles of
satisfaction as old scores were settled, as so and so got at last what he or she deserved, as rude, intrusive, nosy,
noisy, crabby relatives or neighbors were suddenly mere fodder for future remembrance.
Cheers for serendipity, for suddenly problems were solved. A gift from the angels, when Pop dropped dead,
may his murderers rot in hell, and I will buy from the money he left me a memorial slab as fine as
procrastination can afford.
Hooray for the wild chance that took away my abusive husband and replaced him with his life insurance, his
half of everything, and freedom. Hooray for the fortune that leveled my brother's and doubled my own. Three
cheers for the fat chance that rid me of the fat wife, that left me with blessed solitude in my memory years. All of
these have become part of the prayers of many. For many there are tears in the prayers.
Perhaps the original dream of heaven originates with the loss of a loved one, and the yearning to see him or
her again. There is a place where they wait, and the waiting is not hard, for they are dazzled with delights while
they pass the years. And they have God, of course.
Surely, if the one waiting loves the one still living, there will be no desire to see death come early. There
almost have to be tears in heaven, or maybe they really do have dogs.
Sometimes the dead have slipped away from worse fates. Sometimes revenge is thwarted by the untimely
death of the one who earned the payback. Maybe that's why they invented hell, so that the aggrieved, the envious
or the jealous could console themselves that the enemy did not escape Scott-free. In due time, after a long and
happy life, when the righteous one has mounted the celestial throne, there will be the opportunity to look down,
over the edge, into the pit, and smirk.
There would be the old trouble-maker, burning now for thirty years. With umpty-ump zillion more years of
burning to go, he or she would look up in the rage of defeat.
Vikor didn't know anything about them. Like a catalyst, he didn't need to. He did his deed and was gone, and
only then would the story begin. He was not the punctuation mark at the end of the story. He was the empty
space just before its beginning. He was the indentation.
could only surmise. Heartbreak, sorrow, sudden wealth, sudden jeopardy… he had to assume there were relatives,
lovers and friends who would find their worlds suddenly drenched in these shades. Words like senseless, wanton
and evil would dapple the local press. A woman would cry into the night. A father would weep. Children would line
up with tortured faces, for photographs, and later by the grave.
But for many, within their private hearts, there would be cheers for serendipity. There would be chuckles of
satisfaction as old scores were settled, as so and so got at last what he or she deserved, as rude, intrusive, nosy,
noisy, crabby relatives or neighbors were suddenly mere fodder for future remembrance.
Cheers for serendipity, for suddenly problems were solved. A gift from the angels, when Pop dropped dead,
may his murderers rot in hell, and I will buy from the money he left me a memorial slab as fine as
procrastination can afford.
Hooray for the wild chance that took away my abusive husband and replaced him with his life insurance, his
half of everything, and freedom. Hooray for the fortune that leveled my brother's and doubled my own. Three
cheers for the fat chance that rid me of the fat wife, that left me with blessed solitude in my memory years. All of
these have become part of the prayers of many. For many there are tears in the prayers.
Perhaps the original dream of heaven originates with the loss of a loved one, and the yearning to see him or
her again. There is a place where they wait, and the waiting is not hard, for they are dazzled with delights while
they pass the years. And they have God, of course.
Surely, if the one waiting loves the one still living, there will be no desire to see death come early. There
almost have to be tears in heaven, or maybe they really do have dogs.
Sometimes the dead have slipped away from worse fates. Sometimes revenge is thwarted by the untimely
death of the one who earned the payback. Maybe that's why they invented hell, so that the aggrieved, the envious
or the jealous could console themselves that the enemy did not escape Scott-free. In due time, after a long and
happy life, when the righteous one has mounted the celestial throne, there will be the opportunity to look down,
over the edge, into the pit, and smirk.
There would be the old trouble-maker, burning now for thirty years. With umpty-ump zillion more years of
burning to go, he or she would look up in the rage of defeat.
Vikor didn't know anything about them. Like a catalyst, he didn't need to. He did his deed and was gone, and
only then would the story begin. He was not the punctuation mark at the end of the story. He was the empty
space just before its beginning. He was the indentation.
| * * * |
"Where do you live?" Chela asked in return.
Vikor was almost stumped for a second. Where did he live? "California," he answered.
"San Diego?"
"No, a little town up north," he said. He almost said yes, thinking of Ma, thinking of how all of that territory
was, in fact, now a part of the city of Saint Didacus.
Leaving San Diego out of it, he also came near to adding 'Dove Springs' to the little that he did say, but a
wave of terror swept across him just then, and he wished he had kept his eyes closed. He wished he had never met
this seductive animal who shared his flight. He had told her already too much.
What was true, anyhow? Sure, he still lived in Dove Springs; he still lived with his mother.
But over the preceding four years he had set up housekeeping on his own in half a dozen localities. For
periods of months he had stayed in succession on a houseboat on a river near Jackson, Mississippi, in a cabin in
the Blue Ridge in North Carolina, in an adobe near Mesa, Arizona, on a farm in Ohio, in an old stone house along
a rocky stretch of the Allegheny, in Pennsylvania, and right in the city of Nashville in a high penthouse.
On this trip, so far, he had pretty much kept moving. Oh, he took a room here and there for a night.
Sometimes he would rent a van and camp in it. He didn't need a motor home, but he had used one in the past. Up
in New England, back in '89, he had traveled all through Connecticut and Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, in
a rented Winnebago.
Nor had he left out little Rhode Island, and then there was Massachusetts itself. The name from the hat that
time had been Boston, but Vikor could afford to take his time zeroing in on it. After Jackson, and Birmingham
before that, he was in pretty could shape, financially. A fat cat, he chose to meander peacefully through the back
roads of New England, for a while.
He felt like a sailor on liberty (a Viking at liberty). The money that made slaves of all the workers, who
strove for it as he tiptoed through their villages, made him free. He had his pay in his pocket, and he had no
orders.
It wasn't fair, but he could drive through the nooks of America and see and relish the charm and the beauty.
Meanwhile, the residents of these towns and villages lived in the wear and drear of work and struggle and poverty
and conflict and monotony and frustration.
It wasn't fair, in the sense of 'even.' But it was beautiful, in spite of itself. The desperation was not always
quiet. The rage arose often, in traffic, in crowds, in public houses and in homes. Vikor would see and hear them
quarrel. He would see and hear them bitch, as they streamed from their factories to their cars.
He would see and feel the insincerity, when the store clerk feigned her fiftieth smile of the morning, and
welcomed him with hollow glee, and served him, and thanked him, and wished him well on the way. It came
despite headaches, cramps, pain or weariness, and all because he had money, and they wanted it.
He had little sympathy for the bunch, because, for one thing, he also saw that not all of the folks suffered
that way.
Vikor found himself in little shops, restaurants, museums and inns, where the workers worked with joy. It
sounds corny, and it was. It was there, though, and he learned to find it without effort, for somehow the food
tasted better when prepared without curses. Somehow the dreams were sweeter when he bedded down in a
campsite or a motel where the proprietors had expressed genuine welcome, had asked eager questions about the
solitary tourist's holiday, and had shared their own happiness with their work.
Somehow fishing reels cast more smoothly when part of a rig assembled by some old guy who wouldn't rather
be doing anything else. Somehow a woolen shirt, purchased when the days were growing shorter as autumn
arrived, was warmer when found in a little shop whose owner had selected it herself, who found pleasure in the
quality of her wares.
A polished walking stick was a better fit to the hand and the trail, when carved by a gentleman who worked
out in front of his home, and had time for a chat with any who chose to stop. Vikor had asked him about scenic
local pathways. He could find them himself without asking, but sometimes the asking itself was a part of the path.
It wasn't fair, but he found the joy in America, and when at last he would turn to the city from the hat, when
at last the lion's tummy would rumble, and he would dip into the herd once more for the sustenance of his own
life, he would do it with greater love and care than before. He would feel like an angel of mercy when he would
alight, and kill, and then fly away. He knew that if his prey was one of the sad orphans of Earth who live in hell,
that this day Vikor would end his, or her, misery.
And if he chose, by happenstance, one of those who had gained the art of living each day in heaven, then he
would gift that one with the ultimate crown of life, and that would be, to die happy.
Vikor had learned that that was how it was among the herds of humans. In the same environments,
sometimes in the same homes, could be found those for whom everything that happens is punishment, and the
more unjustified, the better (worse). The world was painted in greys and blacks. Every cloud had its dirty lining;
every rainbow ended in a pot of piss.
Yet there were many for whom everything worked out for the best, and this in spite of enduring the usual
fare of random catastrophes. Life is hard, and everyone dies, but the trail is lined with flowers and glorious
twilights, birdsong and beautiful people. Who would want a heaven without sunrise and sunset, without full moons
and tiny crescents, without meadows and trees and blue skies and clouds, lightning and rain, creeks, rivers,
oceans and Earth herself? And time. Who would want a heaven without time?
Vikor saw that there were many here who recognized heaven itself entwined with the hell of the damned.
Whether they knew it or not (for being in heaven is not the same as being wise, and fools can bask in the glory of
creation), they gathered eternal bliss as they walked through life.
Eternity has nothing to do with time; eternity is when time stands still. Eternity can be a look or a feeling;
eternity can be a laugh. Eternity can be a sunset from a mountaintop, or an ice cream sundae in a small town
shop.
Hell is eternal too. Vikor supposed it possible that we all encounter our private hells as we wander through
the world. But, in the reign of time, some of us cling to our hells forever, and some of us leave them behind. It's
all here in the same world. Deep as the agony of pain, loss, anger, betrayal, sorrow and envy can be, it is always
just a hop, skip and open your eyes to escape the bubbling inferno and to find oneself back in heaven again.
Comrades have perished, arm in arm, on sinking ships, in prison chains, on the rack and at the stake, and
one might die in the sweats of unrestrained damnation, while the other went out screaming in the glory of
paradise.
Vikor was almost stumped for a second. Where did he live? "California," he answered.
"San Diego?"
"No, a little town up north," he said. He almost said yes, thinking of Ma, thinking of how all of that territory
was, in fact, now a part of the city of Saint Didacus.
Leaving San Diego out of it, he also came near to adding 'Dove Springs' to the little that he did say, but a
wave of terror swept across him just then, and he wished he had kept his eyes closed. He wished he had never met
this seductive animal who shared his flight. He had told her already too much.
What was true, anyhow? Sure, he still lived in Dove Springs; he still lived with his mother.
But over the preceding four years he had set up housekeeping on his own in half a dozen localities. For
periods of months he had stayed in succession on a houseboat on a river near Jackson, Mississippi, in a cabin in
the Blue Ridge in North Carolina, in an adobe near Mesa, Arizona, on a farm in Ohio, in an old stone house along
a rocky stretch of the Allegheny, in Pennsylvania, and right in the city of Nashville in a high penthouse.
On this trip, so far, he had pretty much kept moving. Oh, he took a room here and there for a night.
Sometimes he would rent a van and camp in it. He didn't need a motor home, but he had used one in the past. Up
in New England, back in '89, he had traveled all through Connecticut and Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, in
a rented Winnebago.
Nor had he left out little Rhode Island, and then there was Massachusetts itself. The name from the hat that
time had been Boston, but Vikor could afford to take his time zeroing in on it. After Jackson, and Birmingham
before that, he was in pretty could shape, financially. A fat cat, he chose to meander peacefully through the back
roads of New England, for a while.
He felt like a sailor on liberty (a Viking at liberty). The money that made slaves of all the workers, who
strove for it as he tiptoed through their villages, made him free. He had his pay in his pocket, and he had no
orders.
It wasn't fair, but he could drive through the nooks of America and see and relish the charm and the beauty.
Meanwhile, the residents of these towns and villages lived in the wear and drear of work and struggle and poverty
and conflict and monotony and frustration.
It wasn't fair, in the sense of 'even.' But it was beautiful, in spite of itself. The desperation was not always
quiet. The rage arose often, in traffic, in crowds, in public houses and in homes. Vikor would see and hear them
quarrel. He would see and hear them bitch, as they streamed from their factories to their cars.
He would see and feel the insincerity, when the store clerk feigned her fiftieth smile of the morning, and
welcomed him with hollow glee, and served him, and thanked him, and wished him well on the way. It came
despite headaches, cramps, pain or weariness, and all because he had money, and they wanted it.
He had little sympathy for the bunch, because, for one thing, he also saw that not all of the folks suffered
that way.
Vikor found himself in little shops, restaurants, museums and inns, where the workers worked with joy. It
sounds corny, and it was. It was there, though, and he learned to find it without effort, for somehow the food
tasted better when prepared without curses. Somehow the dreams were sweeter when he bedded down in a
campsite or a motel where the proprietors had expressed genuine welcome, had asked eager questions about the
solitary tourist's holiday, and had shared their own happiness with their work.
Somehow fishing reels cast more smoothly when part of a rig assembled by some old guy who wouldn't rather
be doing anything else. Somehow a woolen shirt, purchased when the days were growing shorter as autumn
arrived, was warmer when found in a little shop whose owner had selected it herself, who found pleasure in the
quality of her wares.
A polished walking stick was a better fit to the hand and the trail, when carved by a gentleman who worked
out in front of his home, and had time for a chat with any who chose to stop. Vikor had asked him about scenic
local pathways. He could find them himself without asking, but sometimes the asking itself was a part of the path.
It wasn't fair, but he found the joy in America, and when at last he would turn to the city from the hat, when
at last the lion's tummy would rumble, and he would dip into the herd once more for the sustenance of his own
life, he would do it with greater love and care than before. He would feel like an angel of mercy when he would
alight, and kill, and then fly away. He knew that if his prey was one of the sad orphans of Earth who live in hell,
that this day Vikor would end his, or her, misery.
And if he chose, by happenstance, one of those who had gained the art of living each day in heaven, then he
would gift that one with the ultimate crown of life, and that would be, to die happy.
Vikor had learned that that was how it was among the herds of humans. In the same environments,
sometimes in the same homes, could be found those for whom everything that happens is punishment, and the
more unjustified, the better (worse). The world was painted in greys and blacks. Every cloud had its dirty lining;
every rainbow ended in a pot of piss.
Yet there were many for whom everything worked out for the best, and this in spite of enduring the usual
fare of random catastrophes. Life is hard, and everyone dies, but the trail is lined with flowers and glorious
twilights, birdsong and beautiful people. Who would want a heaven without sunrise and sunset, without full moons
and tiny crescents, without meadows and trees and blue skies and clouds, lightning and rain, creeks, rivers,
oceans and Earth herself? And time. Who would want a heaven without time?
Vikor saw that there were many here who recognized heaven itself entwined with the hell of the damned.
Whether they knew it or not (for being in heaven is not the same as being wise, and fools can bask in the glory of
creation), they gathered eternal bliss as they walked through life.
Eternity has nothing to do with time; eternity is when time stands still. Eternity can be a look or a feeling;
eternity can be a laugh. Eternity can be a sunset from a mountaintop, or an ice cream sundae in a small town
shop.
Hell is eternal too. Vikor supposed it possible that we all encounter our private hells as we wander through
the world. But, in the reign of time, some of us cling to our hells forever, and some of us leave them behind. It's
all here in the same world. Deep as the agony of pain, loss, anger, betrayal, sorrow and envy can be, it is always
just a hop, skip and open your eyes to escape the bubbling inferno and to find oneself back in heaven again.
Comrades have perished, arm in arm, on sinking ships, in prison chains, on the rack and at the stake, and
one might die in the sweats of unrestrained damnation, while the other went out screaming in the glory of
paradise.
| * * * |
Cat One let herself out the door of Uncle William's cabin. "Goodbye," she called over her shoulder.
After she was gone, Uncle William stirred up the fire and settled his old bones in front of it. Lord, how did he get
to be so fat and old? He thought of Old Fargo with a smile. Poor Fargo, dead so long already.
Outside Cat One walked through the trees frowning. Words kept running through her head. "Do you want to
be a dead little girl?"
It was getting late, but she walked onward and upward. She was on the path that led to the ruins of Agnes
Tawny's cottage.
After she was gone, Uncle William stirred up the fire and settled his old bones in front of it. Lord, how did he get
to be so fat and old? He thought of Old Fargo with a smile. Poor Fargo, dead so long already.
Outside Cat One walked through the trees frowning. Words kept running through her head. "Do you want to
be a dead little girl?"
It was getting late, but she walked onward and upward. She was on the path that led to the ruins of Agnes
Tawny's cottage.
| * * * |
The crystal throbbed in Andrea Devlin's fist. Her head cleared, and she realized that her jeans had been
pulled to her knees, and a rough hand was penetrating her private part. She felt sick. She should fight, she
thought. The crystal throbbed, and she struggled weakly.
Pain shot through her head as her hair was yanked backward until her jaw gaped. Wide-eyed, she saw a
leering, stubbled face and a hairy hand descending. In the hand was a big pistol. The barrel of the gun thrust
rudely into her mouth to nearly the gag point, and a drunken voice asked, "Do you want to be a dead little girl?"
The hand in her crotch thrust cruelly again and began a rhythmic mockery of a caress. The gun stayed in her
mouth. The crystal burned the palm of her hand.
Carl mumbled thickly about magic fingers. Andrea wanted to vomit. Magic! Please, magic! Clyde laughed.
pulled to her knees, and a rough hand was penetrating her private part. She felt sick. She should fight, she
thought. The crystal throbbed, and she struggled weakly.
Pain shot through her head as her hair was yanked backward until her jaw gaped. Wide-eyed, she saw a
leering, stubbled face and a hairy hand descending. In the hand was a big pistol. The barrel of the gun thrust
rudely into her mouth to nearly the gag point, and a drunken voice asked, "Do you want to be a dead little girl?"
The hand in her crotch thrust cruelly again and began a rhythmic mockery of a caress. The gun stayed in her
mouth. The crystal burned the palm of her hand.
Carl mumbled thickly about magic fingers. Andrea wanted to vomit. Magic! Please, magic! Clyde laughed.
| * * * |
The quarrel was never resolved. Uncle William died before ever baby Vikor's howls could pierce his peace.
No one ever asked Cat One if she wanted an abortion. Uncle William was the same to her as always, the times
she showed up for tea, still red-cheeked, still climbing the rocks, pregnant as a wild rose hip.
Cat One saw what was happening to Uncle William, and she understood. When he died, she wept, and while
she wept she pondered how folks weep for joy and sorrow both. Later when she saw Agnes and walked with her
through the spruce woods that lined one of the ridges of Clark's Hill, she wept no more, but laughed.
There was no meanness in her laughter, and no corrosion of her love for her great-uncle. Agnes spoke with
her of things no more profound than what should be easy fare for any child. Any magical witchery was no less
common than the hugs and reassurances and fairy-soft explanations that are native to the species, native to
mammals and warm blood and maybe to life itself.
Agnes herself, on that sad and cheery day, bore more than Cat One, and more than Cat knew or imagined.
Though her relationship with Bill Casey had been one of enmity and conflict, it had also been deep, and when it
tore, at his death, the wound was as much of a wrench, for Agnes, as a loss can be. She had only her spirits, and
the hand of the land to hold, to assure and to soothe her.
For one thing, Agnes Tawny took the responsibility for the existence of her game with Bill. Agnes had
taken many walks in the spruce, and climbs on the rocks, with Andrea Clare Devlin. Whatever was the net sum
of the pushes and pulls, the wants and fears, the attitude and balance that led Andrea to join the Dolan clan,
Agnes was willing to claim her share.
Not the least of the share, certainly, was the birth of the encounter in the first place. How odd, that even
given that she, Agnes, had been traveling, bound for who knew where, her meeting with Andrea Clare at the
crossroads would not have occurred without all that had gone before.
It was serendipitous as well, for though unplanned, the meeting afforded Agnes the opportunity to drop the
crystal into the maiden's hand. It was as much as if to say, see your own fortunes, kiddo, while hopping an
outbound freight. Andrea was left, as the snow began to fall, as an orphaned witchling, possessor of a crystal,
and experience, and sudden freedom. But power?
Agnes had held a tussle of feelings and conflict in careful balance back then as she watched and listened
from outside the pale of headlights, out in the dark snow. She hadn't known till then, but by then she had
always known it. The two strangers in the car, the stop and the threat and for Andrea Clare Devlin, the terror.
Agnes had poised as though it was she herself compressed within the crystal in Andrea's fist. Yes! She relaxed,
and her dark hood fell away, and snowflakes danced on her forehead, and her temples trembled and sighed and
released the tension of everything.
Then the trucks had arrived, sliding one after another into the craziness. Bill Casey and his nephew Johnny
Dolan, arriving in separate trucks from the same direction, did nothing.
Hank Devlin, Andrea's father showed up, and did nothing.
Gloria Dolan, Johnny’s sister, showed up all right, and rushed with rampant thoughtlessness into the fray.
Glow died. Shot in the face with a .45 caliber revolver, Glow Dolan had crumpled in useless tragedy.
Useless, but not without effect, like the useless flood that bears away futures and lives. Tom and Joe Devlin,
spurred by love and pride and the bitter present, leapt into the low-beams like a pair of snarling dogs, and were
shot down like the same. Agnes watched and her heart reeled. She hung in space twirling on the spindle of the
future. She held them all cupped in her fingers of forgiveness and sorrow.
Old Fargo had driven Bill to this bloody convocation. It was a snowy winter, 1937. Every family needs
someone like Arthur Randall Fargo. Vikor never really knew what relationship Fargo had been to anyone. But
it seemed as though he had been there always.
He wasn't to be there much longer. Agnes found a similarity in how, his final role in life complete, Old
Fargo had not lived to see the birth of Catherine Dolan little more than a year later. Now, with Cat's own child's
birth just over the horizon, Uncle William was likewise doomed to miss it.
And Arthur Fargo… who knew what all he may have done in his life, but he never did better than on that
night. The cheeks of Agnes Tawny sparkled with frost as her mind delighted in the thrill of the story. Old Fargo
was a no-nonsense guy, which made him useless for some conversations of wisdom. Much of life romped in
disguise, invisible to him by virtue of its hiding behind his own recognition of nonsense.
He was intolerant. There was no scrap of thought given to examine or to criticize his actions, as he threw
the truck into a locked skid, as he lumbered smoothly from behind the swung door of the pickup, as he slid the
shotgun from behind the seat, as he blew the enemies of his family to bloody hell.
Vikor hoped that he was a blood relative to Old Fargo, and he hoped that some, just some, of Fargo's
genetic gifts, were his as well.
And they were. Never mind the routes and characters. Fargo and Vikor had a common ancestor who had
herself inherited a mutation that, perhaps crudely and jury-rigged at first, as the workmen might remark,
effectively shorted out, dead-ended, back-looped or whatever the response in humans that equaled a natural
shying away from, in simple language, murder.
No one ever asked Cat One if she wanted an abortion. Uncle William was the same to her as always, the times
she showed up for tea, still red-cheeked, still climbing the rocks, pregnant as a wild rose hip.
Cat One saw what was happening to Uncle William, and she understood. When he died, she wept, and while
she wept she pondered how folks weep for joy and sorrow both. Later when she saw Agnes and walked with her
through the spruce woods that lined one of the ridges of Clark's Hill, she wept no more, but laughed.
There was no meanness in her laughter, and no corrosion of her love for her great-uncle. Agnes spoke with
her of things no more profound than what should be easy fare for any child. Any magical witchery was no less
common than the hugs and reassurances and fairy-soft explanations that are native to the species, native to
mammals and warm blood and maybe to life itself.
Agnes herself, on that sad and cheery day, bore more than Cat One, and more than Cat knew or imagined.
Though her relationship with Bill Casey had been one of enmity and conflict, it had also been deep, and when it
tore, at his death, the wound was as much of a wrench, for Agnes, as a loss can be. She had only her spirits, and
the hand of the land to hold, to assure and to soothe her.
For one thing, Agnes Tawny took the responsibility for the existence of her game with Bill. Agnes had
taken many walks in the spruce, and climbs on the rocks, with Andrea Clare Devlin. Whatever was the net sum
of the pushes and pulls, the wants and fears, the attitude and balance that led Andrea to join the Dolan clan,
Agnes was willing to claim her share.
Not the least of the share, certainly, was the birth of the encounter in the first place. How odd, that even
given that she, Agnes, had been traveling, bound for who knew where, her meeting with Andrea Clare at the
crossroads would not have occurred without all that had gone before.
It was serendipitous as well, for though unplanned, the meeting afforded Agnes the opportunity to drop the
crystal into the maiden's hand. It was as much as if to say, see your own fortunes, kiddo, while hopping an
outbound freight. Andrea was left, as the snow began to fall, as an orphaned witchling, possessor of a crystal,
and experience, and sudden freedom. But power?
Agnes had held a tussle of feelings and conflict in careful balance back then as she watched and listened
from outside the pale of headlights, out in the dark snow. She hadn't known till then, but by then she had
always known it. The two strangers in the car, the stop and the threat and for Andrea Clare Devlin, the terror.
Agnes had poised as though it was she herself compressed within the crystal in Andrea's fist. Yes! She relaxed,
and her dark hood fell away, and snowflakes danced on her forehead, and her temples trembled and sighed and
released the tension of everything.
Then the trucks had arrived, sliding one after another into the craziness. Bill Casey and his nephew Johnny
Dolan, arriving in separate trucks from the same direction, did nothing.
Hank Devlin, Andrea's father showed up, and did nothing.
Gloria Dolan, Johnny’s sister, showed up all right, and rushed with rampant thoughtlessness into the fray.
Glow died. Shot in the face with a .45 caliber revolver, Glow Dolan had crumpled in useless tragedy.
Useless, but not without effect, like the useless flood that bears away futures and lives. Tom and Joe Devlin,
spurred by love and pride and the bitter present, leapt into the low-beams like a pair of snarling dogs, and were
shot down like the same. Agnes watched and her heart reeled. She hung in space twirling on the spindle of the
future. She held them all cupped in her fingers of forgiveness and sorrow.
Old Fargo had driven Bill to this bloody convocation. It was a snowy winter, 1937. Every family needs
someone like Arthur Randall Fargo. Vikor never really knew what relationship Fargo had been to anyone. But
it seemed as though he had been there always.
He wasn't to be there much longer. Agnes found a similarity in how, his final role in life complete, Old
Fargo had not lived to see the birth of Catherine Dolan little more than a year later. Now, with Cat's own child's
birth just over the horizon, Uncle William was likewise doomed to miss it.
And Arthur Fargo… who knew what all he may have done in his life, but he never did better than on that
night. The cheeks of Agnes Tawny sparkled with frost as her mind delighted in the thrill of the story. Old Fargo
was a no-nonsense guy, which made him useless for some conversations of wisdom. Much of life romped in
disguise, invisible to him by virtue of its hiding behind his own recognition of nonsense.
He was intolerant. There was no scrap of thought given to examine or to criticize his actions, as he threw
the truck into a locked skid, as he lumbered smoothly from behind the swung door of the pickup, as he slid the
shotgun from behind the seat, as he blew the enemies of his family to bloody hell.
Vikor hoped that he was a blood relative to Old Fargo, and he hoped that some, just some, of Fargo's
genetic gifts, were his as well.
And they were. Never mind the routes and characters. Fargo and Vikor had a common ancestor who had
herself inherited a mutation that, perhaps crudely and jury-rigged at first, as the workmen might remark,
effectively shorted out, dead-ended, back-looped or whatever the response in humans that equaled a natural
shying away from, in simple language, murder.
One day, in a certain town, a man arose. When he looked outside, it was Southern California.
He drank coffee. Seated at a table spread with newspapers, he drank coffee and idly read an item in the
local news about a train that stopped so the engineer and passengers could watch a group of jazz dancers
practicing on a platform behind their studio. Good old Amtrak.
More coffee. Under the newspaper he discovered a book, a collection of erotic poetry by Walt Whitman. He
drank coffee and read some of it. After a while he got up and put a record on the stereo. He sat down again at
the table in the dining room. For a while he drank coffee and read poetry. He began to read out loud.
Eventually he stood up.
The music was a guitar solo. Moving slowly, sensitive to the flexing of his joints, stretching of muscles,
warming gently, it became a rhythm. It accelerated into fluidity, high kicks and twirls, spins, pirouettes and
fouettes.
The dance went on. Outside was Southern California. It was September, warm late summer. The man's
body was darkened with memory of the beach and the sun. Carpet took to the dance. On the wall over the
fireplace hung a skull fragment with the symmetrical twin full curves of a desert sheep's big horns. A ram's
head. Across the room a piano, a baby grand.
The phonograph record ended. At the keyboard the man's limbs silenced into stillness, and he sat down
with only the waves of air spilling away from his skin.
Then he dappled the air with a few hesitant notes, a chord, a chord, and the concerto. It splashed like rain
on the body of an imaginary dancer who now let go altogether and dropped helplessly, falling with perfect
balance, and arch, and rhythm, beautiful as an arrow cast, right into a hazy, blue sky.
This went on, in four successive keys, simple as bird notes off a post wrapped with rusty barbed wire,
stretched waiting for the winds of the school bus to make it sing, a lark of ivory.
The music faded by itself, a body left raped by the muse. Silently he shared his solitude with the world. He
went outside then. Small Chinese dogs greeted him, temple dogs with the careless silly attitude of young
priests or princes. They are known to kill opossums.
The man greeted the dogs. It was not hurried, but deep, the way of a man who knew dogs, who more than
possibly had lived with them, had fled with them down their trails of escape from reality, a dog's world,
following the nose, learning that creation itself… creation itself is a fall, a bold retreat, reality, dog's eyes and
wiggles.
He walked over to where water lay, level and pure as a mirror, framed in blue tile, cool liquid waiting for
the dancer's baptism.
He raised his arms. Sunlight flashed. Tight flesh, coppery shadows, he arched backward, gazing at the sky,
a tension of balance, crisp as a rose petal.
Then he folded, bowed into the shadows while sunlight raced across his back. Calves and hamstrings
stretched as his closed eyes pressed to his knees. He relaxed in a bow, then sank to a knee and arched, one toe
pointed back, then both, and so passed warm moments in the sun. Alternately bending and flexing, an ancient
pattern, and part of the daily ritual. Four times through the cycle, he breathed and relaxed. Earth, water, air
and fire. Inside old wounds sighed. The battering of life, tugged gently, whimpered.
The water. He raised his arms, and birds sang, sunlight flashed, the water's light image danced on the
walls. White droplets of wet air and sunshine showered the late morning, splashing with his body as it took to
the water.
The water closed and was calm.
He drank coffee. Seated at a table spread with newspapers, he drank coffee and idly read an item in the
local news about a train that stopped so the engineer and passengers could watch a group of jazz dancers
practicing on a platform behind their studio. Good old Amtrak.
More coffee. Under the newspaper he discovered a book, a collection of erotic poetry by Walt Whitman. He
drank coffee and read some of it. After a while he got up and put a record on the stereo. He sat down again at
the table in the dining room. For a while he drank coffee and read poetry. He began to read out loud.
Eventually he stood up.
The music was a guitar solo. Moving slowly, sensitive to the flexing of his joints, stretching of muscles,
warming gently, it became a rhythm. It accelerated into fluidity, high kicks and twirls, spins, pirouettes and
fouettes.
The dance went on. Outside was Southern California. It was September, warm late summer. The man's
body was darkened with memory of the beach and the sun. Carpet took to the dance. On the wall over the
fireplace hung a skull fragment with the symmetrical twin full curves of a desert sheep's big horns. A ram's
head. Across the room a piano, a baby grand.
The phonograph record ended. At the keyboard the man's limbs silenced into stillness, and he sat down
with only the waves of air spilling away from his skin.
Then he dappled the air with a few hesitant notes, a chord, a chord, and the concerto. It splashed like rain
on the body of an imaginary dancer who now let go altogether and dropped helplessly, falling with perfect
balance, and arch, and rhythm, beautiful as an arrow cast, right into a hazy, blue sky.
This went on, in four successive keys, simple as bird notes off a post wrapped with rusty barbed wire,
stretched waiting for the winds of the school bus to make it sing, a lark of ivory.
The music faded by itself, a body left raped by the muse. Silently he shared his solitude with the world. He
went outside then. Small Chinese dogs greeted him, temple dogs with the careless silly attitude of young
priests or princes. They are known to kill opossums.
The man greeted the dogs. It was not hurried, but deep, the way of a man who knew dogs, who more than
possibly had lived with them, had fled with them down their trails of escape from reality, a dog's world,
following the nose, learning that creation itself… creation itself is a fall, a bold retreat, reality, dog's eyes and
wiggles.
He walked over to where water lay, level and pure as a mirror, framed in blue tile, cool liquid waiting for
the dancer's baptism.
He raised his arms. Sunlight flashed. Tight flesh, coppery shadows, he arched backward, gazing at the sky,
a tension of balance, crisp as a rose petal.
Then he folded, bowed into the shadows while sunlight raced across his back. Calves and hamstrings
stretched as his closed eyes pressed to his knees. He relaxed in a bow, then sank to a knee and arched, one toe
pointed back, then both, and so passed warm moments in the sun. Alternately bending and flexing, an ancient
pattern, and part of the daily ritual. Four times through the cycle, he breathed and relaxed. Earth, water, air
and fire. Inside old wounds sighed. The battering of life, tugged gently, whimpered.
The water. He raised his arms, and birds sang, sunlight flashed, the water's light image danced on the
walls. White droplets of wet air and sunshine showered the late morning, splashing with his body as it took to
the water.
The water closed and was calm.
| * * * |
Sarah Devlin sat and waited in the bay window. Hank and the boys would be home soon. She had a roast in
the oven. Andrea would be in, in a moment, surely.
Below her on the road she saw the lights of a speeding pickup truck as it careened through the village,
bounced over the railroad tracks and disappeared down the road toward Collin's Cove.
Sarah shook her head. She hoped Hank was driving carefully. A candle glowed in the bay window.
the oven. Andrea would be in, in a moment, surely.
Below her on the road she saw the lights of a speeding pickup truck as it careened through the village,
bounced over the railroad tracks and disappeared down the road toward Collin's Cove.
Sarah shook her head. She hoped Hank was driving carefully. A candle glowed in the bay window.
| * * * |
For the two monkeys that Diana called "Daddy", the tree split when Donna and Wendy deduced the truth
about who their cowboy lovers really were. At the time, Bob had reached the ripe old age of twenty-five.
Johnny was thirty-three, the same age as Jesus, as he liked to say, but there were few ways in which he had
matured beyond his younger partner.
Bob had been only seventeen back at the time of the so-called battle. By then he had already grown to the
size of a man. When Johnny returned from overseas and reestablished his friendship with the wild youngster,
he was amazed to hear that Bob had enjoyed a number of sexual experiences during the war years.
Bob attributed his fortunate scores to the shortage of good men that had prevailed while the troops were
away. He was partly right. Left unsaid was the fact that his mother, Veronica Brown, was a virtual whore. Her
association with an unsavory society that reckoned nothing ill in a thirteen-year-old's introduction to sex at
the hands (lips? pussy?) of one of his mother's shameless girlfriends was the real grease that slid Bob into
such early triumphs.
Johnny Stream, in marked contrast, had saved his own virginity for the prostitutes in Honolulu. Even that
added up to only to a couple of incidents.
It was not for lack of desire that Johnny retained his chastity for so long, nor was it due to any true moral
commitment. It was his shyness, his reticence, his lifelong feeling of alienation that led him to spend his
energy on the trails of solitude. As a so-called half-breed, he failed to identify with the races or the cultures of
either of his parents. An early orphan, he was shifted about as a burden, unprized by the relatives of his
father on the reservation in the mountains, and equally scorned by the family of his mother down in the city.
There was no future among the Caucasian crowd for the mooncalf whose mother had screwed around with
an Indian. Johnny found his sojourns at Viejas Reservation growing to occupy the bulk of his childhood years,
until he was finally abandoned altogether to the people of his father.
Here again, the largely matriarchal world of the res' would have proven a warm haven for the boy, had it
been his mother who was Johnny's link with the tribe. Her mother, her aunts or her sisters would have taken
him in as one of their own.
But Henry Stream had been a troublesome renegade all of his life, and he brought trouble to his people as
well. There had been continual brushes with the law, short terms in the downtown jail, fights in the tavern at
Alpine and at the bar named Stallion Oaks up on Boulder Creek Road, fights in which he would involve his
dark-haired cousins and friends and so bring peril and disgrace to the tribe. There had been stolen cars,
marijuana, booze and carousing.
Fire-water.
"We are well-rid of him," said the elders after Henry and his "white bitch" wife had plummeted to their
flaming deaths at the conclusion of a drunken car-ride in nineteen twenty-one.
In the public life of the tribe, there was indeed the requisite general mourning. Tears were shed, hair was
cut and sage was burned, but many shared the opinion of the elders. Even for his own mother, it was a strange
relief for him to be gone at last. If it hadn't been for the baby…
about who their cowboy lovers really were. At the time, Bob had reached the ripe old age of twenty-five.
Johnny was thirty-three, the same age as Jesus, as he liked to say, but there were few ways in which he had
matured beyond his younger partner.
Bob had been only seventeen back at the time of the so-called battle. By then he had already grown to the
size of a man. When Johnny returned from overseas and reestablished his friendship with the wild youngster,
he was amazed to hear that Bob had enjoyed a number of sexual experiences during the war years.
Bob attributed his fortunate scores to the shortage of good men that had prevailed while the troops were
away. He was partly right. Left unsaid was the fact that his mother, Veronica Brown, was a virtual whore. Her
association with an unsavory society that reckoned nothing ill in a thirteen-year-old's introduction to sex at
the hands (lips? pussy?) of one of his mother's shameless girlfriends was the real grease that slid Bob into
such early triumphs.
Johnny Stream, in marked contrast, had saved his own virginity for the prostitutes in Honolulu. Even that
added up to only to a couple of incidents.
It was not for lack of desire that Johnny retained his chastity for so long, nor was it due to any true moral
commitment. It was his shyness, his reticence, his lifelong feeling of alienation that led him to spend his
energy on the trails of solitude. As a so-called half-breed, he failed to identify with the races or the cultures of
either of his parents. An early orphan, he was shifted about as a burden, unprized by the relatives of his
father on the reservation in the mountains, and equally scorned by the family of his mother down in the city.
There was no future among the Caucasian crowd for the mooncalf whose mother had screwed around with
an Indian. Johnny found his sojourns at Viejas Reservation growing to occupy the bulk of his childhood years,
until he was finally abandoned altogether to the people of his father.
Here again, the largely matriarchal world of the res' would have proven a warm haven for the boy, had it
been his mother who was Johnny's link with the tribe. Her mother, her aunts or her sisters would have taken
him in as one of their own.
But Henry Stream had been a troublesome renegade all of his life, and he brought trouble to his people as
well. There had been continual brushes with the law, short terms in the downtown jail, fights in the tavern at
Alpine and at the bar named Stallion Oaks up on Boulder Creek Road, fights in which he would involve his
dark-haired cousins and friends and so bring peril and disgrace to the tribe. There had been stolen cars,
marijuana, booze and carousing.
Fire-water.
"We are well-rid of him," said the elders after Henry and his "white bitch" wife had plummeted to their
flaming deaths at the conclusion of a drunken car-ride in nineteen twenty-one.
In the public life of the tribe, there was indeed the requisite general mourning. Tears were shed, hair was
cut and sage was burned, but many shared the opinion of the elders. Even for his own mother, it was a strange
relief for him to be gone at last. If it hadn't been for the baby…
| * * * |