| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 6 March 1980
Dee Dee had her kids on Wednesday, two bucks. We've been letting them out with the
herd each day, but they tend to fall asleep and we have to go find them at dusk.
Dee Dee had her kids on Wednesday, two bucks. We've been letting them out with the
herd each day, but they tend to fall asleep and we have to go find them at dusk.
| Chapter Thirty-eight THE SUBSTANCE OF A REPORT |
Vikor recalled the first time he had recognized another of his breed.
There was irony. He was fifteen; she was thirty-three. She had returned to the university at which she had
begun her education, to work as head nurse at the little hospital. She was not the shy, fluttering bird that she
had been when she interrupted her second year in college to fly home to Wisconsin, but Heidi Westbocker was
still no friend to man. She was fair and sweet and kind and civil to everyone, but she lived alone. She was an
experienced and excellent nurse.
It had been ten years before she returned to the funny little mountain town. Even as mature and poised as
she had grown, she considered rejecting the offer. It was very attractive; in virtually all respects, it was exactly
what she had been looking for. Why, she had chosen the school originally with no small influence from the
beauty of the landscapes that she saw in the university's brochures.
She probably ended up getting a better education at the University of Wisconsin. But the beauty of Dove
Springs finally lured her back. Once she recognized the hesitation in her soul as being merely the slight
aftermath of trauma that had been dealt with years ago, she swiftly and efficiently cleaned her mind. And,
aside from the beauty, she returned to spite the slight nag that had now been rinsed away.
She stayed off the mountain, however. I am not the girl I was, she reasoned, and she had never been a
mountain climber in the first place, coming from dairy world as she did. It was only the company she had been
keeping back in her sophomore days that had put her there in the first place. She most decidedly ran her own
life now.
She was not without heart. Her concern for her patients was genuine. The clinic at the U. was open to the
general public in the Dove Springs environs, and many of the locals found the service in Heidi Westbocker's
little territory to be easier to bear than going to either of the two old doctors in town, respectively, Ferguson
and Tore, Doctors of Medicine.
Dr. Tore had his office on the north end of town; Dr. Ferguson was closer to the south end. The university
was the east end of town, for where the town stopped the school began. Across town the western limits nestled
up to the farms that ringed Clark's Hill. The road to the jumping off point (bad choice of words… jumping off?
Selabjun will be spinning in his grave.) was just west of town, on the south side of the mountain, and ran half a
mile straight north along the border between the Devlin-Dolan ranch and the Springbottom spread.
The family name of Cat's neighbors really was Springbottom. God knew how they had got it. It could probably
have been changed, but that never occurred to any of them, Olaf, Bubba, Hilda, none of them.
Be reminded that this research could be ignored without material damage to the substance of a report. Suffice
it to say, for the record, that the road passed smack along the line, with Hank and Olaf each ceding to the
county forever the 52,800 square feet that was half of the forty foot easement.
The purpose of the county’s commandeering this roadway was never really clear to anyone. Certainly it made
for easier access to the homes of the two farm families. Instead of two dirt roads meandering through pasture
mud and lilac lanes, there was now a paved road right up to the base of the mountain. From there, short dirt
roads led away to Springbottom's on the left, and to the home of our heroes on the right.
The trouble was, that was all it led to. The sheer cliff that rose on the south side of Clark's Hill presented a
blank wall of granite at the boundary between the two farms. Technical climbers, the guys with ropes and
pitons, could have started right there; others would have been stumped, hemmed in by two walls of stout
barbed wire fence and one of three hundred foot high granite.
The rock that was the cliff was private property, however, and no climbing of any sort was allowed. Nobody
wanted to see the beautiful face marred by hammer and piton. Nor did they want to see the occasional,
inevitable, bloody splash on the tarmac.
This situation led to Hank Devlin's ceding an additional easement, for parking and foot traffic, along the trail
that ran along the base of the mountain and that led the hiker to a more accessible approach two hundred
yards to the north. Here the trail went up the more gradual slope of a wide draw, and angled up the ridge until
it reached the part of Clark's Hill that was nothing but a huge pile of boulders. That was where the fun began.
Heidi Westbocker and her friends had been on the way down on that unfortunate day back in nineteen fifty-
two. They were walking again (no longer climbing down with all fours), traveling on one of the maze of trails
that radiate from and encircle the base of the mountain. The route they had chosen to climb in descent had
delivered them to that trail, and the trail led them past the body of Heidi's geology professor.
She remembered Professor Kirkhaz' lecture on the subject of Clark's Hill itself. "The Lonely Mountain" he
had dubbed it, which seemed extremely corny to the yet unbroken freshman girl. Professor Kirkhaz was
referring to the way the mountain stood all by itself in a region that otherwise was relatively flat. Theories
were that the lack of companion mountains had accelerated the rate of erosion due to wind and runoff, and
thereby accounted for the peak's startling nudity above a certain elevation. There was no protection, according
to the theory; winds from any direction hit full force; there was no shielding. What was spared in one storm,
grains of earth huddled in the lee of rocks, was lost in the next, hunted from their hiding places by a new,
restless wind, and rain drops driven furiously to rout the caves and crevices till tunnels whistled cleanly
through the jumble of scoured stone.
The access to this climber's heaven, the trail upon which all the homeward trails converged, was screened by
trees, brush and distance from the Devlin's own dirt road, that led in to where the house and barn and
workshop and sheds and corrals were. This was where one of the party came, after the discovery, cutting across
the fields from the trail to the homestead, to use the phone.
An hour or so after that, the whole group arrived, with the four lads each taking a handle of the improvised
stretcher.
Heidi Westbocker remembered Andrea Clare Dolan from that visit. Most notably, she remembered the
concern Andrea shared, not for the tragic remains of the climber, but for the discoverers. She was an oasis for
the fellows, who were exhausted from carrying the stretcher. She was a comfort to the girls, who were
exhausted from carrying the boys' daypacks, and stung by the horror.
Without consciously knowing how deeply the horror had wormed into the little blonde, Andrea sensed that
Heidi was on the edge of collapse. She had her sit. She had all of them sit.
The body lay on a wooden plank table in the breezeway. She had them sitting inside, at the big kitchen table,
where none of them could see it. She fed them, milk and cookies, and coffee for the ones who wanted it.
Johnny and Hank had assumed custody of the corpse, by virtue of their age and the fact that it was their place.
Another call to Minnie's still yielded no John Barlow. To call the fellows at the university emergency and
have them bring out the ambulance, tying it up in the event of a real problem, just to ferry in a fellow who was
already beyond help, seemed senseless. Johnny elected to drive him in, laid out in the back of his pickup truck.
Cat's father was back before the gang had left Andrea Clare's kitchen. She had popped a couple of apple pies
into the oven and persuaded them to stay, to settle down, to talk it out and to relax. She was detached about
the casualty, vaguely sad for the punishment he obviously must have taken in the several good smashes on the
way down, but happy that he was out of that misery, and all others, as well.
Would she have been so detached had she know that her daughter, Catherine Marie, was lying upstairs
sorting out the universe of mental exaggeration into which she had plunged with the act of killing this same
man who lay dead on her mother's table, and who had raped her?
Heidi Westbocker eventually learned, through letters from a room-mate, the salient facts of what had
actually transpired, and her heart went out to Mrs. Dolan. She had been the island in the storm of groping
anxiety that Heidi went back into when they were reminded by Johnny that Jim and Doc wanted them all to
stop by the emergency clinic to sign statements. Jim had called while the pies were baking, to see if the kids
were still there, and could they take the trouble.
Ten years later, when Heidi returned to Dove Springs, she called Andrea Clare Dolan on the telephone, one
day. Andrea remembered her.
"Of course. How are you?" she inquired, with the heartfelt profundity that told Heidi Westbocker that Mrs.
Devlin knew that her trauma had been bitter, and why. And, of course, she knew. She knew because Heidi
herself had made a deposition under oath back in Wisconsin, following a certain amount of personal therapy.
The attempt to bring a murder charge against Cat One turned to a general scandal for the university. Heidi
Westbocker's deposition inspired corroborating testimony before the grand jury from several other sophomore,
junior and senior girls who confirmed that Selabjun Kirkhaz had been a child-molesting son of a bitch.
Justifiable self-defense was the decision at the hearing. It was easy to imagine that Cat… that Catherine
Dolan was in danger of her life after having just been raped by a stranger.
Sheriff Deputy John Barlow sniffed right past what he considered a warping of justice. In danger of her life,
he snorted to himself. Why the very existence of the defense's living and breathing witnesses suggested the
contrary.
Kirkhaz had had continuing relationships with seven female students during the preceding four years. There
were probably more before that, reasoned Dan Gear, the attorney that the Dolans had retained for the hearing
that would decide whether and how their daughter was to be charged.
There were probably more before that, but four years worth would be enough, and all of the witnesses were
still on hand, with the exception of Miss Westbocker.
John Barlow considered himself the local representative of the district attorney. He was also buddies with
Dan Gear, the attorney for the defense, which meant that the case could be played out to endless abstraction
time after time, over beer and barbecue and the like.
He was even friends with the Dolans and the Devlins, but his instinct to ferret out the links of truth was too
strong to be overruled by mere acquaintance, friendship or relation. Barlow suspected that lawbreaking lurked
everywhere, and, of course, it did. He knew the difference (or so he reasoned) between self-defense and
punitive murder. Revenge. Taking the law into her own hands, or feet. Taking the role of judge, jury and
executioner away from the people and squandering it on her own hurt feelings, that's how he saw it.
Dan Gear was equally devoted to the deepest spirit of the law. The origin of our jurisprudential traditions in
the power of the citizens themselves required, to Dan Gear, that at some hazily defined level of law and order
breakdown the entire authority did revert back to the individual citizen. It wasn't just the temporary option to
assume police-like powers in stopping or detaining criminals. It was a seat of the pants, gut level assumption of
responsibility to see, not only that justice was done, but that risk of failure was eliminated, that future
transgressions were avoided, and even that cost and uncertainty both be minimized.
"She could hardly be a good citizen and not kick him off the ‘ledge’ if she had the chance,” Dan Gear said to
John Barlow over his third beer. They sat in Minnie’s.
“I know what you mean, Dan,” he replied. Barlow took a pull on his own beer. He wasn’t supposed to drink
on duty, but he was always on duty, in a sense. It’s a problem every time you’re the only cop in a small town,
he reasoned. You got to sleep and eat and shit sometime, and drink a beer. So, he was just off duty whenever
he was having a beer.
To his credit, it was usually coffee at Minnie’s, but Dan Gear could drive anyone to drink.
John knew what Dan meant, even knew what he felt because he felt it too. But the law was the law. It was as
if the system was expected to set itself in response to the two opposing forces. On the one hand, a peace officer,
a crime fighter, an upholder of the laws of the land… on the other hand, a lawyer, a defender of individuals, a
defender also of the same system, lest it make a mistake and embarrass and shame us all, a defender of the
idea of innocent until proven guilty… the determined conflict between these men, John, doggedly hounding
crime to its hideouts, and Dan, using any argument or technicality to free the accused, would yield justice.
At least it would spare further injustice. The way the grand jury resolved it, Catherine Dolan was already a
victim; the laws that protect us from murder would not be more secure were she to be tried and convicted.
There was irony. He was fifteen; she was thirty-three. She had returned to the university at which she had
begun her education, to work as head nurse at the little hospital. She was not the shy, fluttering bird that she
had been when she interrupted her second year in college to fly home to Wisconsin, but Heidi Westbocker was
still no friend to man. She was fair and sweet and kind and civil to everyone, but she lived alone. She was an
experienced and excellent nurse.
It had been ten years before she returned to the funny little mountain town. Even as mature and poised as
she had grown, she considered rejecting the offer. It was very attractive; in virtually all respects, it was exactly
what she had been looking for. Why, she had chosen the school originally with no small influence from the
beauty of the landscapes that she saw in the university's brochures.
She probably ended up getting a better education at the University of Wisconsin. But the beauty of Dove
Springs finally lured her back. Once she recognized the hesitation in her soul as being merely the slight
aftermath of trauma that had been dealt with years ago, she swiftly and efficiently cleaned her mind. And,
aside from the beauty, she returned to spite the slight nag that had now been rinsed away.
She stayed off the mountain, however. I am not the girl I was, she reasoned, and she had never been a
mountain climber in the first place, coming from dairy world as she did. It was only the company she had been
keeping back in her sophomore days that had put her there in the first place. She most decidedly ran her own
life now.
She was not without heart. Her concern for her patients was genuine. The clinic at the U. was open to the
general public in the Dove Springs environs, and many of the locals found the service in Heidi Westbocker's
little territory to be easier to bear than going to either of the two old doctors in town, respectively, Ferguson
and Tore, Doctors of Medicine.
Dr. Tore had his office on the north end of town; Dr. Ferguson was closer to the south end. The university
was the east end of town, for where the town stopped the school began. Across town the western limits nestled
up to the farms that ringed Clark's Hill. The road to the jumping off point (bad choice of words… jumping off?
Selabjun will be spinning in his grave.) was just west of town, on the south side of the mountain, and ran half a
mile straight north along the border between the Devlin-Dolan ranch and the Springbottom spread.
The family name of Cat's neighbors really was Springbottom. God knew how they had got it. It could probably
have been changed, but that never occurred to any of them, Olaf, Bubba, Hilda, none of them.
Be reminded that this research could be ignored without material damage to the substance of a report. Suffice
it to say, for the record, that the road passed smack along the line, with Hank and Olaf each ceding to the
county forever the 52,800 square feet that was half of the forty foot easement.
The purpose of the county’s commandeering this roadway was never really clear to anyone. Certainly it made
for easier access to the homes of the two farm families. Instead of two dirt roads meandering through pasture
mud and lilac lanes, there was now a paved road right up to the base of the mountain. From there, short dirt
roads led away to Springbottom's on the left, and to the home of our heroes on the right.
The trouble was, that was all it led to. The sheer cliff that rose on the south side of Clark's Hill presented a
blank wall of granite at the boundary between the two farms. Technical climbers, the guys with ropes and
pitons, could have started right there; others would have been stumped, hemmed in by two walls of stout
barbed wire fence and one of three hundred foot high granite.
The rock that was the cliff was private property, however, and no climbing of any sort was allowed. Nobody
wanted to see the beautiful face marred by hammer and piton. Nor did they want to see the occasional,
inevitable, bloody splash on the tarmac.
This situation led to Hank Devlin's ceding an additional easement, for parking and foot traffic, along the trail
that ran along the base of the mountain and that led the hiker to a more accessible approach two hundred
yards to the north. Here the trail went up the more gradual slope of a wide draw, and angled up the ridge until
it reached the part of Clark's Hill that was nothing but a huge pile of boulders. That was where the fun began.
Heidi Westbocker and her friends had been on the way down on that unfortunate day back in nineteen fifty-
two. They were walking again (no longer climbing down with all fours), traveling on one of the maze of trails
that radiate from and encircle the base of the mountain. The route they had chosen to climb in descent had
delivered them to that trail, and the trail led them past the body of Heidi's geology professor.
She remembered Professor Kirkhaz' lecture on the subject of Clark's Hill itself. "The Lonely Mountain" he
had dubbed it, which seemed extremely corny to the yet unbroken freshman girl. Professor Kirkhaz was
referring to the way the mountain stood all by itself in a region that otherwise was relatively flat. Theories
were that the lack of companion mountains had accelerated the rate of erosion due to wind and runoff, and
thereby accounted for the peak's startling nudity above a certain elevation. There was no protection, according
to the theory; winds from any direction hit full force; there was no shielding. What was spared in one storm,
grains of earth huddled in the lee of rocks, was lost in the next, hunted from their hiding places by a new,
restless wind, and rain drops driven furiously to rout the caves and crevices till tunnels whistled cleanly
through the jumble of scoured stone.
The access to this climber's heaven, the trail upon which all the homeward trails converged, was screened by
trees, brush and distance from the Devlin's own dirt road, that led in to where the house and barn and
workshop and sheds and corrals were. This was where one of the party came, after the discovery, cutting across
the fields from the trail to the homestead, to use the phone.
An hour or so after that, the whole group arrived, with the four lads each taking a handle of the improvised
stretcher.
Heidi Westbocker remembered Andrea Clare Dolan from that visit. Most notably, she remembered the
concern Andrea shared, not for the tragic remains of the climber, but for the discoverers. She was an oasis for
the fellows, who were exhausted from carrying the stretcher. She was a comfort to the girls, who were
exhausted from carrying the boys' daypacks, and stung by the horror.
Without consciously knowing how deeply the horror had wormed into the little blonde, Andrea sensed that
Heidi was on the edge of collapse. She had her sit. She had all of them sit.
The body lay on a wooden plank table in the breezeway. She had them sitting inside, at the big kitchen table,
where none of them could see it. She fed them, milk and cookies, and coffee for the ones who wanted it.
Johnny and Hank had assumed custody of the corpse, by virtue of their age and the fact that it was their place.
Another call to Minnie's still yielded no John Barlow. To call the fellows at the university emergency and
have them bring out the ambulance, tying it up in the event of a real problem, just to ferry in a fellow who was
already beyond help, seemed senseless. Johnny elected to drive him in, laid out in the back of his pickup truck.
Cat's father was back before the gang had left Andrea Clare's kitchen. She had popped a couple of apple pies
into the oven and persuaded them to stay, to settle down, to talk it out and to relax. She was detached about
the casualty, vaguely sad for the punishment he obviously must have taken in the several good smashes on the
way down, but happy that he was out of that misery, and all others, as well.
Would she have been so detached had she know that her daughter, Catherine Marie, was lying upstairs
sorting out the universe of mental exaggeration into which she had plunged with the act of killing this same
man who lay dead on her mother's table, and who had raped her?
Heidi Westbocker eventually learned, through letters from a room-mate, the salient facts of what had
actually transpired, and her heart went out to Mrs. Dolan. She had been the island in the storm of groping
anxiety that Heidi went back into when they were reminded by Johnny that Jim and Doc wanted them all to
stop by the emergency clinic to sign statements. Jim had called while the pies were baking, to see if the kids
were still there, and could they take the trouble.
Ten years later, when Heidi returned to Dove Springs, she called Andrea Clare Dolan on the telephone, one
day. Andrea remembered her.
"Of course. How are you?" she inquired, with the heartfelt profundity that told Heidi Westbocker that Mrs.
Devlin knew that her trauma had been bitter, and why. And, of course, she knew. She knew because Heidi
herself had made a deposition under oath back in Wisconsin, following a certain amount of personal therapy.
The attempt to bring a murder charge against Cat One turned to a general scandal for the university. Heidi
Westbocker's deposition inspired corroborating testimony before the grand jury from several other sophomore,
junior and senior girls who confirmed that Selabjun Kirkhaz had been a child-molesting son of a bitch.
Justifiable self-defense was the decision at the hearing. It was easy to imagine that Cat… that Catherine
Dolan was in danger of her life after having just been raped by a stranger.
Sheriff Deputy John Barlow sniffed right past what he considered a warping of justice. In danger of her life,
he snorted to himself. Why the very existence of the defense's living and breathing witnesses suggested the
contrary.
Kirkhaz had had continuing relationships with seven female students during the preceding four years. There
were probably more before that, reasoned Dan Gear, the attorney that the Dolans had retained for the hearing
that would decide whether and how their daughter was to be charged.
There were probably more before that, but four years worth would be enough, and all of the witnesses were
still on hand, with the exception of Miss Westbocker.
John Barlow considered himself the local representative of the district attorney. He was also buddies with
Dan Gear, the attorney for the defense, which meant that the case could be played out to endless abstraction
time after time, over beer and barbecue and the like.
He was even friends with the Dolans and the Devlins, but his instinct to ferret out the links of truth was too
strong to be overruled by mere acquaintance, friendship or relation. Barlow suspected that lawbreaking lurked
everywhere, and, of course, it did. He knew the difference (or so he reasoned) between self-defense and
punitive murder. Revenge. Taking the law into her own hands, or feet. Taking the role of judge, jury and
executioner away from the people and squandering it on her own hurt feelings, that's how he saw it.
Dan Gear was equally devoted to the deepest spirit of the law. The origin of our jurisprudential traditions in
the power of the citizens themselves required, to Dan Gear, that at some hazily defined level of law and order
breakdown the entire authority did revert back to the individual citizen. It wasn't just the temporary option to
assume police-like powers in stopping or detaining criminals. It was a seat of the pants, gut level assumption of
responsibility to see, not only that justice was done, but that risk of failure was eliminated, that future
transgressions were avoided, and even that cost and uncertainty both be minimized.
"She could hardly be a good citizen and not kick him off the ‘ledge’ if she had the chance,” Dan Gear said to
John Barlow over his third beer. They sat in Minnie’s.
“I know what you mean, Dan,” he replied. Barlow took a pull on his own beer. He wasn’t supposed to drink
on duty, but he was always on duty, in a sense. It’s a problem every time you’re the only cop in a small town,
he reasoned. You got to sleep and eat and shit sometime, and drink a beer. So, he was just off duty whenever
he was having a beer.
To his credit, it was usually coffee at Minnie’s, but Dan Gear could drive anyone to drink.
John knew what Dan meant, even knew what he felt because he felt it too. But the law was the law. It was as
if the system was expected to set itself in response to the two opposing forces. On the one hand, a peace officer,
a crime fighter, an upholder of the laws of the land… on the other hand, a lawyer, a defender of individuals, a
defender also of the same system, lest it make a mistake and embarrass and shame us all, a defender of the
idea of innocent until proven guilty… the determined conflict between these men, John, doggedly hounding
crime to its hideouts, and Dan, using any argument or technicality to free the accused, would yield justice.
At least it would spare further injustice. The way the grand jury resolved it, Catherine Dolan was already a
victim; the laws that protect us from murder would not be more secure were she to be tried and convicted.
| * * * |
Chela and Vi were in high spirits as they hit the highway to home. Mr. Shamsky had arranged for the truck
to be parked outside of the bank when they emerged. He had generously seen to it that the back was loaded
with a neat cargo of food, and several new, 5-gallon propane bottles, already filled with propane.
The lawyer had an inkling of how life was and had just been for the young widow. Violeta offered to
reimburse him for the gas and the groceries, but he demurred. It was the least he could do, he insisted, and he
offered on top of that, his profound hope that the relationship with Ivan's parents would improve, after the
parties had come to grips with their grief.
Fat chance, thought Vi, and she said as much to her sister as they sailed down the two lane blacktop. She had
five hundred dollars in cash in her purse, as well as a checkbook with the remainder of the ten thousand
dollars of life insurance inked boldly in the space that said 'starting balance.' Nine thousand, five hundred
dollars.
The ladies were still in mourning. By evening, after they had collected Vi's little Tommy from Millie Vega,
they would find themselves weeping in one another's arms again. But for now, the joy of the unexpected was
enough to override any feelings of misery.
Violeta's big fear had been that she would have to return to Point Loma, that she would be forced to throw
herself on the mercy of her parents, the proud chick who had flown the nest, only to return now with wings
clipped.
Screw that! She down-shifted and made the turn off the asphalt and onto the beginning of the ten miles of
torturous dirt road that led into Japatul. Now she could stay in the New Mexico that she had come to love.
Somehow, it would all work out.
As for Ivan's parents, Mr. Bertman's one comment as they drove the big Buick home in surly silence was
this, "Those damned greasers will go through that money in a couple of months, mark my words."
To which his wife replied, "Then they'll be at our door looking for handouts."
There was some truth to each of these predictions. Vi was broke in six months. By then she had a three
month old baby, Billy, little William Charles Bertman, who was the pride and delight, not only of his mama and
big brother Tommy, three, but also of his Aunt Chela and his Uncle Rico.
A lot had happened in three months.
On that day in the truck, however, none of that had come to pass, and none of it mattered. Violeta Ferrerra
was rich. Her dark hair streamed in the breeze from the open windows. She laughed with her sister, and when
she looked ahead, into the future, into the pine-dotted hills and cloud-dappled sky that flowed in the windshield
of the Chevy, she saw Ivan everywhere, happy as always. It was like he really was everywhere, his mighty
heart bursting in a springtime of love and concern. It was like he held his little family of survivors in his
calloused palms. His free and gentle laughter was the wind that fingered her hair and stroked the teardrops
from the corners of her eyes.
Yes, there would be plenty of time for sorrow, and tears. Now was time for happiness. She shifted again and
started down one of the many long grades, as the truck wound its way into the wilderness.
to be parked outside of the bank when they emerged. He had generously seen to it that the back was loaded
with a neat cargo of food, and several new, 5-gallon propane bottles, already filled with propane.
The lawyer had an inkling of how life was and had just been for the young widow. Violeta offered to
reimburse him for the gas and the groceries, but he demurred. It was the least he could do, he insisted, and he
offered on top of that, his profound hope that the relationship with Ivan's parents would improve, after the
parties had come to grips with their grief.
Fat chance, thought Vi, and she said as much to her sister as they sailed down the two lane blacktop. She had
five hundred dollars in cash in her purse, as well as a checkbook with the remainder of the ten thousand
dollars of life insurance inked boldly in the space that said 'starting balance.' Nine thousand, five hundred
dollars.
The ladies were still in mourning. By evening, after they had collected Vi's little Tommy from Millie Vega,
they would find themselves weeping in one another's arms again. But for now, the joy of the unexpected was
enough to override any feelings of misery.
Violeta's big fear had been that she would have to return to Point Loma, that she would be forced to throw
herself on the mercy of her parents, the proud chick who had flown the nest, only to return now with wings
clipped.
Screw that! She down-shifted and made the turn off the asphalt and onto the beginning of the ten miles of
torturous dirt road that led into Japatul. Now she could stay in the New Mexico that she had come to love.
Somehow, it would all work out.
As for Ivan's parents, Mr. Bertman's one comment as they drove the big Buick home in surly silence was
this, "Those damned greasers will go through that money in a couple of months, mark my words."
To which his wife replied, "Then they'll be at our door looking for handouts."
There was some truth to each of these predictions. Vi was broke in six months. By then she had a three
month old baby, Billy, little William Charles Bertman, who was the pride and delight, not only of his mama and
big brother Tommy, three, but also of his Aunt Chela and his Uncle Rico.
A lot had happened in three months.
On that day in the truck, however, none of that had come to pass, and none of it mattered. Violeta Ferrerra
was rich. Her dark hair streamed in the breeze from the open windows. She laughed with her sister, and when
she looked ahead, into the future, into the pine-dotted hills and cloud-dappled sky that flowed in the windshield
of the Chevy, she saw Ivan everywhere, happy as always. It was like he really was everywhere, his mighty
heart bursting in a springtime of love and concern. It was like he held his little family of survivors in his
calloused palms. His free and gentle laughter was the wind that fingered her hair and stroked the teardrops
from the corners of her eyes.
Yes, there would be plenty of time for sorrow, and tears. Now was time for happiness. She shifted again and
started down one of the many long grades, as the truck wound its way into the wilderness.
| * * * |
It was a day of a blue moon. Tagging slightly after the sun, Luna had basked in the beams of a full Earth,
invisible in the sunny blue sky. She saw the day go by, and she saw the preparations. She saw the nearest
homes surreptitiously emptied of humanity, ferried away to refuge in St. Andrew's church in Del Mar.
Luna saw emplacements carefully prepared with sand bags and camouflage. She saw old man Murphy striding
among the deputies passing out suggestions and good wishes in exchange for snappy affirmations.
By the time appointed for the dreadful confrontation, the meeting spot appeared pristine. The leaves of
autumn played over grass yet ungrazed. Cool afternoon breezes shook more golden leaves from the spreading
arms of the giant sycamore that stood at the base of Del Mar Mesa, just a hop skip from the entrance to Shaw
Valley. They floated with tiny rustling sounds to light on the earthen road. Straight north, one hundred and
fifty yards, was the school bus stop, where Johnny and Bob would expect Donna Schultz and Wendy Ward to
disembark at four-fifteen.
They would expect to see them loom larger as they walked toward the sycamore, on a dirt road lined with an
autumn cornfield on the west and an empty pasture across from it.
Just past the sycamore, the road forked. The right fork angled across to the edge of the field and then
hugged the deep shadow of a ridge, while heading south, toward the Cortez place.
The left branch ran parallel to it, across the field of limas. A couple of hundred yards further south this road
forked as well. One way led straight on into Shaw Valley. Out there was where Johnny Stream and Bob Cabler
had been dressing an illegal doe when Donna and Wendy had first met them, (more illegal does, these eager to
be un-dressed!)
The other way switched back to the left and worked its way to the top of Del Mar Mesa. By the time that road
reached the top of the wide ridge, after following the contours of gully and hill, it had come back to a point
straight up the steep hill from the fork by the sycamore. There was an old road going straight up this slope,
which the vehicles of the day could only use to go down on. The children of Del Mar Mesa trudged both down
and back up at that spot on their way to and from the school bus, however, for it was a shorter route than the
long and twisty path the cars had to follow. They called it 'the steep hill.'
Down at the bottom of the steep hill, in the shade of the big sycamore, was where Donna Schultz and her
friend Wendy had arranged to meet with Johnny Stream and Bob Cabler. They had done it this way before.
Donna and Wendy did not usually get off at that particular bus stop. Wendy would normally have gotten off
already up at the wye, where Carmel Valley Road and Black Mountain Road converged. From there on out to
the mountain itself, and beyond, it was just Black Mountain Road, plain dirt besides, and the school bus didn't
go any farther east from there.
Donna usually didn't get off until the stop near her home, another half mile down the road toward the ocean.
But Geoff did not question the gettings on and off of the teens on his route. Anything was possible, and he was
not the social director for the south end of the San Dieguito Union High School district's bus route.
On this day the chill of autumn was in the air. Johnny and Bob had gone to the big walnut orchard up the
valley. They gleaned a couple of saddle bags full of the succulent nuts, each thinking how Diana and her mom
would have enjoyed picking through the grass for the ones the pickers had missed or dropped.
It didn't matter. Carol and the little girl had been to each of the walnut groves earlier in the season, just
before the harvest, and they had done a little picking of their own from each. Walnuts were one of the foods
that the little group had stashed in some quantity, not only out near the mine, but closer down toward the coast
as well.
Diana loved building the mound of branches and twigs that hid the big, covered tins which her ma and herself
had filled with food to be stored. Her ma taught her, as Johnny had taught her ma. She learned to do it all
herself so that, when she was done, it looked like a wood-rat's nest back in the chaparral, and that was all.
"'Bout time we drift on over," suggested Bob. He was looking across the back of Spot, fastening his
saddlebags. Johnny was doing the same. He looked up and looked all the way up to the sky, as though gauging
the chances of rain. High, scattered cirrus clouds feathered the deep, blue air.
“I suppose,” he said. He wondered how the air, so invisible right in front of his eyes, could be so hard to miss
on a sunny day, up against the backdrop of space. He wondered what the ignorant ancestors on his father's side
of his family might have thought that blue dome of daytime really was. He had been left out of any such sacred
shit that had to be handed down. Maybe they thought it was a great, dome-shaped mosaic of turquoise and clam
shells that was opened at night to reveal the universe.
"Aren't you into this?" Bob wanted to know.
"Sure, I am," said Johnny. I was just thinking about whether it's safe."
"Wha'dya mean? It worked okay the other times."
"I know. That's just it."
"What is?"
"The other times. It's like we have laid down a trail."
"Stream, do you really think anyone is still looking for us?" Bob asked this with a trifled note of
exasperation in his voice.
"Why are we still hiding, if they're not still looking for us?" They were leading their mounts now, hugging
the base of the steep northern slope of Del Mar Mesa. An observer, farther north on Carmel Valley Road,
would have been able to see them clearly had they known where to look, out across the sweep of pastureland,
between the scattered clumps of sycamore and cottonwood that lined the creek bed, to where the outline of
men and horses was muted against the deep chaparral that covered the southern wall of the valley from tip to
toe.
"I like this time of day," said Johnny Stream.
"Yeah, me too," said Bob Cabler.
"I like it when the days start getting shorter. The nights get longer. You get more sleeping and hunting
done, and the days don't get so hot."
"No shit," said Bob.
"We need to get back over here and get some frog legs," said Johnny. They were walking past a man-carved
nook in the ground, a large, vee-shaped notch that had been excavated long ago, deep into the high water table
of Carmel Valley. Tucked up against the south valley wall, full-grown willows now surrounded a long, deep
pond, lined with cattails and filled with bullfrogs.
"Man, that sounds good!" Bob was generally enthusiastic about everything. Johnny was more reserved. At
thirty-three, he sometimes felt that it was for him to be just that little bit more cautious, less reckless, more
watchful, and less trusting, watching out for his buddy like a big brother or a father.
Besides he was a father. And there was that little tinkle of guilt. Bob didn't seem to have it.
Johnny did. Even though he wasn't married to Carol… and neither was Bob, for that matter… he felt queasy
in a number of ways. He felt like he was betraying Diana's mother by messing around with other women, if
women were what the two tramps from the school bus could be called.
They had always joked that they really didn't know, which of the two males was the one who had fathered the
child. It could have been either, they all agreed, and they capitalized on that belief, for all of them loved one
another, and two fathers were better than none.
Except for that it was all a lie. Johnny Stream didn't know what Bob and Carol saw, when they looked at the
face of Diana, but he saw the family of his own mother. It was only in the barest twinkles of recognition, and
only sometimes, that he would catch a glimpse of a cousin or an aunt, something around the mouth and eyes,
indescribable but unmistakable. Diana was related to those folks, and it had to be through him.
Bob saw something else, harder to miss, and galling the good-natured, what-me-worry kid like nothing else
ever had, every time the little angel called him 'Daddy.' He saw the face of his only true friend, and he was glad
for him and sad for himself. He never, ever, mentioned it.
Carol? She knew it too. She knew it before anyone ever saw the face of her beautiful daughter. She knew
when the confrontation was consumed, deep in her hollow mystery, that she had conceived, and that only
Johnny could have done it.
invisible in the sunny blue sky. She saw the day go by, and she saw the preparations. She saw the nearest
homes surreptitiously emptied of humanity, ferried away to refuge in St. Andrew's church in Del Mar.
Luna saw emplacements carefully prepared with sand bags and camouflage. She saw old man Murphy striding
among the deputies passing out suggestions and good wishes in exchange for snappy affirmations.
By the time appointed for the dreadful confrontation, the meeting spot appeared pristine. The leaves of
autumn played over grass yet ungrazed. Cool afternoon breezes shook more golden leaves from the spreading
arms of the giant sycamore that stood at the base of Del Mar Mesa, just a hop skip from the entrance to Shaw
Valley. They floated with tiny rustling sounds to light on the earthen road. Straight north, one hundred and
fifty yards, was the school bus stop, where Johnny and Bob would expect Donna Schultz and Wendy Ward to
disembark at four-fifteen.
They would expect to see them loom larger as they walked toward the sycamore, on a dirt road lined with an
autumn cornfield on the west and an empty pasture across from it.
Just past the sycamore, the road forked. The right fork angled across to the edge of the field and then
hugged the deep shadow of a ridge, while heading south, toward the Cortez place.
The left branch ran parallel to it, across the field of limas. A couple of hundred yards further south this road
forked as well. One way led straight on into Shaw Valley. Out there was where Johnny Stream and Bob Cabler
had been dressing an illegal doe when Donna and Wendy had first met them, (more illegal does, these eager to
be un-dressed!)
The other way switched back to the left and worked its way to the top of Del Mar Mesa. By the time that road
reached the top of the wide ridge, after following the contours of gully and hill, it had come back to a point
straight up the steep hill from the fork by the sycamore. There was an old road going straight up this slope,
which the vehicles of the day could only use to go down on. The children of Del Mar Mesa trudged both down
and back up at that spot on their way to and from the school bus, however, for it was a shorter route than the
long and twisty path the cars had to follow. They called it 'the steep hill.'
Down at the bottom of the steep hill, in the shade of the big sycamore, was where Donna Schultz and her
friend Wendy had arranged to meet with Johnny Stream and Bob Cabler. They had done it this way before.
Donna and Wendy did not usually get off at that particular bus stop. Wendy would normally have gotten off
already up at the wye, where Carmel Valley Road and Black Mountain Road converged. From there on out to
the mountain itself, and beyond, it was just Black Mountain Road, plain dirt besides, and the school bus didn't
go any farther east from there.
Donna usually didn't get off until the stop near her home, another half mile down the road toward the ocean.
But Geoff did not question the gettings on and off of the teens on his route. Anything was possible, and he was
not the social director for the south end of the San Dieguito Union High School district's bus route.
On this day the chill of autumn was in the air. Johnny and Bob had gone to the big walnut orchard up the
valley. They gleaned a couple of saddle bags full of the succulent nuts, each thinking how Diana and her mom
would have enjoyed picking through the grass for the ones the pickers had missed or dropped.
It didn't matter. Carol and the little girl had been to each of the walnut groves earlier in the season, just
before the harvest, and they had done a little picking of their own from each. Walnuts were one of the foods
that the little group had stashed in some quantity, not only out near the mine, but closer down toward the coast
as well.
Diana loved building the mound of branches and twigs that hid the big, covered tins which her ma and herself
had filled with food to be stored. Her ma taught her, as Johnny had taught her ma. She learned to do it all
herself so that, when she was done, it looked like a wood-rat's nest back in the chaparral, and that was all.
"'Bout time we drift on over," suggested Bob. He was looking across the back of Spot, fastening his
saddlebags. Johnny was doing the same. He looked up and looked all the way up to the sky, as though gauging
the chances of rain. High, scattered cirrus clouds feathered the deep, blue air.
“I suppose,” he said. He wondered how the air, so invisible right in front of his eyes, could be so hard to miss
on a sunny day, up against the backdrop of space. He wondered what the ignorant ancestors on his father's side
of his family might have thought that blue dome of daytime really was. He had been left out of any such sacred
shit that had to be handed down. Maybe they thought it was a great, dome-shaped mosaic of turquoise and clam
shells that was opened at night to reveal the universe.
"Aren't you into this?" Bob wanted to know.
"Sure, I am," said Johnny. I was just thinking about whether it's safe."
"Wha'dya mean? It worked okay the other times."
"I know. That's just it."
"What is?"
"The other times. It's like we have laid down a trail."
"Stream, do you really think anyone is still looking for us?" Bob asked this with a trifled note of
exasperation in his voice.
"Why are we still hiding, if they're not still looking for us?" They were leading their mounts now, hugging
the base of the steep northern slope of Del Mar Mesa. An observer, farther north on Carmel Valley Road,
would have been able to see them clearly had they known where to look, out across the sweep of pastureland,
between the scattered clumps of sycamore and cottonwood that lined the creek bed, to where the outline of
men and horses was muted against the deep chaparral that covered the southern wall of the valley from tip to
toe.
"I like this time of day," said Johnny Stream.
"Yeah, me too," said Bob Cabler.
"I like it when the days start getting shorter. The nights get longer. You get more sleeping and hunting
done, and the days don't get so hot."
"No shit," said Bob.
"We need to get back over here and get some frog legs," said Johnny. They were walking past a man-carved
nook in the ground, a large, vee-shaped notch that had been excavated long ago, deep into the high water table
of Carmel Valley. Tucked up against the south valley wall, full-grown willows now surrounded a long, deep
pond, lined with cattails and filled with bullfrogs.
"Man, that sounds good!" Bob was generally enthusiastic about everything. Johnny was more reserved. At
thirty-three, he sometimes felt that it was for him to be just that little bit more cautious, less reckless, more
watchful, and less trusting, watching out for his buddy like a big brother or a father.
Besides he was a father. And there was that little tinkle of guilt. Bob didn't seem to have it.
Johnny did. Even though he wasn't married to Carol… and neither was Bob, for that matter… he felt queasy
in a number of ways. He felt like he was betraying Diana's mother by messing around with other women, if
women were what the two tramps from the school bus could be called.
They had always joked that they really didn't know, which of the two males was the one who had fathered the
child. It could have been either, they all agreed, and they capitalized on that belief, for all of them loved one
another, and two fathers were better than none.
Except for that it was all a lie. Johnny Stream didn't know what Bob and Carol saw, when they looked at the
face of Diana, but he saw the family of his own mother. It was only in the barest twinkles of recognition, and
only sometimes, that he would catch a glimpse of a cousin or an aunt, something around the mouth and eyes,
indescribable but unmistakable. Diana was related to those folks, and it had to be through him.
Bob saw something else, harder to miss, and galling the good-natured, what-me-worry kid like nothing else
ever had, every time the little angel called him 'Daddy.' He saw the face of his only true friend, and he was glad
for him and sad for himself. He never, ever, mentioned it.
Carol? She knew it too. She knew it before anyone ever saw the face of her beautiful daughter. She knew
when the confrontation was consumed, deep in her hollow mystery, that she had conceived, and that only
Johnny could have done it.
| * * * |
Diary of a Goatherder 7 March 1980
Today I built a mini-greenhouse to start things like squash, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes in.
Today I built a mini-greenhouse to start things like squash, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes in.
| * * * |
It would seem that a goatherder can get away with anything when writing a diary. At least this is true in
relation to grammar. He can end a sentence in the entry with a preposition, and no one can chide or change it;
nobody will even ask him to apologize. By contrast, his freedom with the truth is expected to be curtailed
considerable.
Excuse me, considerably.
relation to grammar. He can end a sentence in the entry with a preposition, and no one can chide or change it;
nobody will even ask him to apologize. By contrast, his freedom with the truth is expected to be curtailed
considerable.
Excuse me, considerably.
| * * * |
Warden French was even asked to apologize to the respected so and so in an effort to return the applecart to
its wheels, but he steadfastly refused. That wasn't even hard to do. He remembered all of that for a moment
while he stirred his coffee and heard out Johnny's tale.
Empathy has no place in this job, he told himself as he started his vehicle and drove away from the
Lodestone. He had had to remind Johnny that the mountain lion was totally protected, and that, to procure a
special permit to kill one that is marauding stock, requires definite evidence.
"Like what?" Johnny wanted to know.
"Like visible sighting with witnesses," said Warden French. "Or best of all, a kill."
"A kill?"
"A corpse. A body. Like with the filly in La Posta. I could tell from the signs, the marks that I saw, the claw
marks and the way that the predator began to eat at the head. I had no doubt that it was a lion. So I issued a
permit."
"I guess that guy was lucky the lion didn't carry his horse away like what happened to my goats."
"Lucky? That piece of paper didn't bring back his horse," said the game warden with a wry bitterness in his
voice that was obvious.
Johnny was curious. "Whatever happened with that deal?" he asked.
"They ambushed her that night when she came back to finish what she had started."
"Who were 'they'?"
"The horse owner and his buddies."
"You say 'ambush' like it was a bad thing they done… did."
"It didn't bring back his filly."
"But I got more goats I gotta think of, Mr. French," was the last protest from the young goatherder.
"Take care of them," said the game warden, on his feet and laying down a tip beside his plate with the sticky
remains of fried eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns. He moved over to the cash register. His thoughts were not
on the filly from La Posta, nor how the gang with twelve gauge buckshot had riddled her murderess when she
had returned to fill up once more.
No, he was thinking about that ram's head, now decorating a storage locker down in the state offices in San
Diego. He was thinking about how he and Marsha really didn't fit in around here anymore, and about how there
were openings for wildlife managers and game wardens in Idaho.
As for the dead lion, it had been a mangy, old female, dull of coat and claw. It probably hadn't bred for years.
It was no loss to anyone, and it was incinerated.
"Get a dog," he advised in farewell, and he stepped from the warm cafe back into the cold, mountain winter.
its wheels, but he steadfastly refused. That wasn't even hard to do. He remembered all of that for a moment
while he stirred his coffee and heard out Johnny's tale.
Empathy has no place in this job, he told himself as he started his vehicle and drove away from the
Lodestone. He had had to remind Johnny that the mountain lion was totally protected, and that, to procure a
special permit to kill one that is marauding stock, requires definite evidence.
"Like what?" Johnny wanted to know.
"Like visible sighting with witnesses," said Warden French. "Or best of all, a kill."
"A kill?"
"A corpse. A body. Like with the filly in La Posta. I could tell from the signs, the marks that I saw, the claw
marks and the way that the predator began to eat at the head. I had no doubt that it was a lion. So I issued a
permit."
"I guess that guy was lucky the lion didn't carry his horse away like what happened to my goats."
"Lucky? That piece of paper didn't bring back his horse," said the game warden with a wry bitterness in his
voice that was obvious.
Johnny was curious. "Whatever happened with that deal?" he asked.
"They ambushed her that night when she came back to finish what she had started."
"Who were 'they'?"
"The horse owner and his buddies."
"You say 'ambush' like it was a bad thing they done… did."
"It didn't bring back his filly."
"But I got more goats I gotta think of, Mr. French," was the last protest from the young goatherder.
"Take care of them," said the game warden, on his feet and laying down a tip beside his plate with the sticky
remains of fried eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns. He moved over to the cash register. His thoughts were not
on the filly from La Posta, nor how the gang with twelve gauge buckshot had riddled her murderess when she
had returned to fill up once more.
No, he was thinking about that ram's head, now decorating a storage locker down in the state offices in San
Diego. He was thinking about how he and Marsha really didn't fit in around here anymore, and about how there
were openings for wildlife managers and game wardens in Idaho.
As for the dead lion, it had been a mangy, old female, dull of coat and claw. It probably hadn't bred for years.
It was no loss to anyone, and it was incinerated.
"Get a dog," he advised in farewell, and he stepped from the warm cafe back into the cold, mountain winter.
