| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goat herder 4 June 1981
After the first two lion attacks, Judy came to the herd, our infant Messiah. This black puppy, born
within sound of the breakers in Ocean Beach, coddled ball of fur, nursed in a safe home in town, was
the chosen one, to save the goats from the lion. Eight weeks old she found herself on a chain,
surrounded by these huge creatures with horns and flashing eyes, who had only before known Sadie,
who had smelled lion, and who now regarded this tiny black devil, this needle fanged little carnivore
that had mysteriously been adopted into the herd.
Her refuge was the roomy plywood and tin dog house on the end of her chain. At first she was driven
there often.
On the trail next day, she was easy prey. Smaller than the smallest goat, she was target to all.
A bruised little dog, she huddled at night in the doghouse. She quickly learned that she could be free
of the chain if she stayed with the goats. In days she was curling up against a warm goat belly to sleep.
She grew.
As she grew she played with the young goats, came to dominate them, and moved upward.
She was still very young when the lion came. The baby kids had been born after Judy's arrival. They
were her pride. They were all smaller than her, helpless. She licked them and cuddled them, during the
day, while the mammas were in the pasture. She would divide her time between the kids in the pen and
the browsing herd, trotting from one location to the other.
At night each kid curled up with its mother. Judy would likely snuggle up to one of the bucks.
Silence and darkness fell. The stars twinkled above the breeze. Oak leaves rustled in the winter. A
cold, dry night. Dark at five-thirty. Six and a half hours, cuds are chewed, the herd shifts and settles.
Lucy in the corner alone with her doe kid, Michelle, fiercely jealous. Clusters of four or five goats,
Torie, Amy, and Dolly with their kids. Dee Dee and her little bucks and Crystal, still pregnant with
her first? No, hers came first, premature, sad young Crystal. Her sister, Maya of the nimble feet, had
vanished on another night, blood on the rocks, that smell.
That smell of cat. Four paws pat a rhythm on the soft soil and droppings of the pen. The lion is in the
pen. It is dark. The smell is everywhere. Judy awakens with it reaching her nostrils in a wriggling
terror. Terror washes the pen. All hooves stamp in a rush, milling and snorting. A baby cry and a new
smell. Blood! The herd is pressed to the far wires of the pen. Abandon to terror. The kid is screaming
in Judy's ears and she screams too, flies through the fence and hurtles through the darkness, the blood
behind her, the smell.
In the pen a light comes on. Vivid in the brown earth is a rage of red. A murderous pupil in the eye of
violence. The tawny cat whirls and crouches in total guilt and total threat. The goats are eternally
awed. Thundering Luke has dragged his balls over the electric fence in his retreat. From the source of
the light comes the voice of the herdsman, frustrate with rage, powerful with loss, liquid with death.
The wise lion flies into the night, a griffin, true cousin to a gargoyle.
After the first two lion attacks, Judy came to the herd, our infant Messiah. This black puppy, born
within sound of the breakers in Ocean Beach, coddled ball of fur, nursed in a safe home in town, was
the chosen one, to save the goats from the lion. Eight weeks old she found herself on a chain,
surrounded by these huge creatures with horns and flashing eyes, who had only before known Sadie,
who had smelled lion, and who now regarded this tiny black devil, this needle fanged little carnivore
that had mysteriously been adopted into the herd.
Her refuge was the roomy plywood and tin dog house on the end of her chain. At first she was driven
there often.
On the trail next day, she was easy prey. Smaller than the smallest goat, she was target to all.
A bruised little dog, she huddled at night in the doghouse. She quickly learned that she could be free
of the chain if she stayed with the goats. In days she was curling up against a warm goat belly to sleep.
She grew.
As she grew she played with the young goats, came to dominate them, and moved upward.
She was still very young when the lion came. The baby kids had been born after Judy's arrival. They
were her pride. They were all smaller than her, helpless. She licked them and cuddled them, during the
day, while the mammas were in the pasture. She would divide her time between the kids in the pen and
the browsing herd, trotting from one location to the other.
At night each kid curled up with its mother. Judy would likely snuggle up to one of the bucks.
Silence and darkness fell. The stars twinkled above the breeze. Oak leaves rustled in the winter. A
cold, dry night. Dark at five-thirty. Six and a half hours, cuds are chewed, the herd shifts and settles.
Lucy in the corner alone with her doe kid, Michelle, fiercely jealous. Clusters of four or five goats,
Torie, Amy, and Dolly with their kids. Dee Dee and her little bucks and Crystal, still pregnant with
her first? No, hers came first, premature, sad young Crystal. Her sister, Maya of the nimble feet, had
vanished on another night, blood on the rocks, that smell.
That smell of cat. Four paws pat a rhythm on the soft soil and droppings of the pen. The lion is in the
pen. It is dark. The smell is everywhere. Judy awakens with it reaching her nostrils in a wriggling
terror. Terror washes the pen. All hooves stamp in a rush, milling and snorting. A baby cry and a new
smell. Blood! The herd is pressed to the far wires of the pen. Abandon to terror. The kid is screaming
in Judy's ears and she screams too, flies through the fence and hurtles through the darkness, the blood
behind her, the smell.
In the pen a light comes on. Vivid in the brown earth is a rage of red. A murderous pupil in the eye of
violence. The tawny cat whirls and crouches in total guilt and total threat. The goats are eternally
awed. Thundering Luke has dragged his balls over the electric fence in his retreat. From the source of
the light comes the voice of the herdsman, frustrate with rage, powerful with loss, liquid with death.
The wise lion flies into the night, a griffin, true cousin to a gargoyle.
| Chapter Forty-five DOLLY |
| Dolly’s horn curved down, Back, and into Her face, Making a sore; She didn’t complain. It would kill her. Do not try to improve on nature; The strong survive. But she is Dolly. She's our goat, And, damn it, we love her. |
| * * * |
| * * * |
Back at the house, Vikor brought her tea, and waited while his mother changed into dry and warm lounging
clothes. She came back in her bathrobe, thick purple terry, with her flannel nightgown under that. She had her
long johns on even deeper, for the storm was howling on the rise. She wondered, as had her mother so many
years ago, what it was like for Agnes, out there all of the time, her shelter at most a cave.
Cat knew damn well that Agnes seldom took refuge in any cave, even though she had several from which to
choose. She used her caves to shelter her few possessions and treasures. She didn’t live there.
Both Cat and her mother, Andrea Clare, knew full well what it was like, for Agnes. Each of them had spent
many hours with her, under any and all conditions, faces wet, chilled from standing or warm from climbing,
talking, exclaiming at the beauty or the power of the storm, or merely dwelling in silence. Agnes Tawny gave
new meaning to the word ascetic, and yet she wallowed in pleasure. She would wriggle, naked in a sheltered
patch of minty sunshine, when the time was right, when the world offered. She would eat with raven the coal-
broiled meat of a squirrel or a rabbit, or a venison steak brought to her by Cat One.
She would live on wild herbs and vegetables in the spring, berries in summer, and fruit from surrounding
groves. She would live on fish. She would live on nuts in the fall, garnered from trees both tame and wild. She
would live on nothing at all.
She would fast. "Whenever you eat or drink anything," she had said to Andrea and to Andrea's daughter,
Cat, "you are using yourself up."
She would fast. When her system had cleared she would aestivate; she would dry up like a dandelion and
when the water was gone, the air would follow, and Agnes Tawny would come apart and vanish as dust.
Molecular dust.
Atomic dust.
clothes. She came back in her bathrobe, thick purple terry, with her flannel nightgown under that. She had her
long johns on even deeper, for the storm was howling on the rise. She wondered, as had her mother so many
years ago, what it was like for Agnes, out there all of the time, her shelter at most a cave.
Cat knew damn well that Agnes seldom took refuge in any cave, even though she had several from which to
choose. She used her caves to shelter her few possessions and treasures. She didn’t live there.
Both Cat and her mother, Andrea Clare, knew full well what it was like, for Agnes. Each of them had spent
many hours with her, under any and all conditions, faces wet, chilled from standing or warm from climbing,
talking, exclaiming at the beauty or the power of the storm, or merely dwelling in silence. Agnes Tawny gave
new meaning to the word ascetic, and yet she wallowed in pleasure. She would wriggle, naked in a sheltered
patch of minty sunshine, when the time was right, when the world offered. She would eat with raven the coal-
broiled meat of a squirrel or a rabbit, or a venison steak brought to her by Cat One.
She would live on wild herbs and vegetables in the spring, berries in summer, and fruit from surrounding
groves. She would live on fish. She would live on nuts in the fall, garnered from trees both tame and wild. She
would live on nothing at all.
She would fast. "Whenever you eat or drink anything," she had said to Andrea and to Andrea's daughter,
Cat, "you are using yourself up."
She would fast. When her system had cleared she would aestivate; she would dry up like a dandelion and
when the water was gone, the air would follow, and Agnes Tawny would come apart and vanish as dust.
Molecular dust.
Atomic dust.
| * * * |
What a lovely world it would be, goat herder, if all the humans followed the path of Jesus, or Buddha or Lao
Tzu, or the real and modest holy folk who hide in the world everywhere and deal only in hard work and smiles
and care and generosity, who struggle to avoid, delay or outwit the perils of life, but who accept them all,
including death, without an ugly response.
Imagine for a moment the sub-continent of India, with its thousand million humans, and its paltry five
thousand tigers. When a tiger kills a human, and that they seldom do, the community rallies to the cause of
the lost, and follows the predator into the jungle, and kills her, and brings her body in high triumph back to
their crowded rat-hole of a village, to mount her hide and to sing their own heroic praise.
Suppose they took no action at all. What's five thousand tigers? What if all of them became human-eaters?
How many times would five thousand tigers need to kill, to wipe out one billion Indians?
Of course, these examples are extremes to illustrate the parameters of our subject. Hopefully, you have the
stomach to follow the arithmetic. I know I like it, but then, I'm a mountain lion, and we are supposed to like it.
Are we not? If you don't understand, maybe you will in a minute.
One billion divided by five thousand gives us two hundred thousand. If then each tiger pulled down one a day,
it would take more than five hundred years to finish them off. I don't understand numbers, but I have a feel
for what that is, what five hundred years ago might mean. Auld lang syne.
Five hundred years into the future, however, might take me about that long to get used to, maybe a little
more. I can hardly deal with what is going on now.
But, of course, the tiger population would grow. We could be using lions in Africa; we could be using panthers
in America. We could be using the lynx in Europe, so everyone sit tight; you'll get your turn.
With hunting that good, the population of tigers could… could, mind you… double in two years, allowing for
normal kitten loss to other predators. So, in five hundred years it would double two hundred fifty times. That's
a big number; let's start at the other end. Five thousand tigers, ten thousand tigers, twenty thousand tigers,
forty thousand tigers, eighty thousand tigers, one hundred sixty thousand tigers, how are we doing?
With one hundred sixty thousand tigers killing an Indian a day, the billion would be gone in about seventeen
years. Let's see, how many generations is that? You may wonder where I get my math; well, wonder on.
Five generations, five doublings of the breeding base of females. (There are always enough males.) Ten years.
Plus seventeen.
Twenty-seven years.
Tzu, or the real and modest holy folk who hide in the world everywhere and deal only in hard work and smiles
and care and generosity, who struggle to avoid, delay or outwit the perils of life, but who accept them all,
including death, without an ugly response.
Imagine for a moment the sub-continent of India, with its thousand million humans, and its paltry five
thousand tigers. When a tiger kills a human, and that they seldom do, the community rallies to the cause of
the lost, and follows the predator into the jungle, and kills her, and brings her body in high triumph back to
their crowded rat-hole of a village, to mount her hide and to sing their own heroic praise.
Suppose they took no action at all. What's five thousand tigers? What if all of them became human-eaters?
How many times would five thousand tigers need to kill, to wipe out one billion Indians?
Of course, these examples are extremes to illustrate the parameters of our subject. Hopefully, you have the
stomach to follow the arithmetic. I know I like it, but then, I'm a mountain lion, and we are supposed to like it.
Are we not? If you don't understand, maybe you will in a minute.
One billion divided by five thousand gives us two hundred thousand. If then each tiger pulled down one a day,
it would take more than five hundred years to finish them off. I don't understand numbers, but I have a feel
for what that is, what five hundred years ago might mean. Auld lang syne.
Five hundred years into the future, however, might take me about that long to get used to, maybe a little
more. I can hardly deal with what is going on now.
But, of course, the tiger population would grow. We could be using lions in Africa; we could be using panthers
in America. We could be using the lynx in Europe, so everyone sit tight; you'll get your turn.
With hunting that good, the population of tigers could… could, mind you… double in two years, allowing for
normal kitten loss to other predators. So, in five hundred years it would double two hundred fifty times. That's
a big number; let's start at the other end. Five thousand tigers, ten thousand tigers, twenty thousand tigers,
forty thousand tigers, eighty thousand tigers, one hundred sixty thousand tigers, how are we doing?
With one hundred sixty thousand tigers killing an Indian a day, the billion would be gone in about seventeen
years. Let's see, how many generations is that? You may wonder where I get my math; well, wonder on.
Five generations, five doublings of the breeding base of females. (There are always enough males.) Ten years.
Plus seventeen.
Twenty-seven years.
| * * * |
Were Vikor to be tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the disappearance of the
big tree came the closest to feeling like the effects of… of what? Even the magnitude of grief that he felt for
the loss of the giant eucalyptus was not enough to take him past the edge of condemnation. The tried and true
claim that they were only doing their job was more than enough to relieve the workers of any suspicion or
shame. But sons of bitches!
After he had settled down, Vikor walked the length of Murphy's pasture. Now it was not the vast prairie he
had walked as a child. The earth that had supported the tramp of the conquistadores' boots, and the gallop of
vaqueros, now supported a huge exhibition barn, a tack shop grown from a tiny old wood-frame house with a
sign out front to a new and giant department store for horses, and a polo field complete with bleachers, and
parking lots.
Further west, the remains of the pasture were less disturbed. He made his way over the grass, down toward
the bridge that carried the interstate over the San Dieguito river, passing the old Spanish cistern, still
undiscovered, and looking up with the blinking curiosity of a wild animal at the stream of late afternoon
commuters that were already making their own ways home. Vikor walked along the edge of the river, almost
to the race track. Then he turned north, to Border Road, and finally he disappeared into The Jolly Oval.
Visible in a dim light from the entrance to the bar, the telephone hung on the wall by the doors to the
restroom. The piano sat in a cozier nook, invisible in a pool of darkness, but Vikor found it first anyhow. He
still had plenty of time to make his flight to Houston. He fetched himself a beer from the lady at the bar, and
then he walked back into the shadows of The Jolly Oval.
He was hot and sweaty from the hike. The beer and air conditioning hit him like euphoria. He sat on the stool
and played D minor, just the one chord, just D minor, just once. The barmaid turned her attention to the unlit
corner beyond the tables. The fellow in the scullery stopped pretending to work. The solitary customer at the
bar paused with his drink in the air. D minor.
The last echoes had faded away before he played it again. In all that time, those long seconds, there wasn't
another sound. When it came again, it was like the resumption of a symphony. The room had filled with music.
He played it a couple of times more, with the mystery of cadence and command, slow and assured, tensing with
the rhythm, and at last he changed to G. The piano had never sounded better.
The barmaid returned to her silent polishing of glass. The guy in the kitchen found something quiet to do with
his hands. The customer drank his gin. Vikor played. The notes came faster, and he dreamed. He saw the big
tree, in all its glory, and a tear ran from his eye.
He saw the harp his mother had wanted. He could have built it; they could have built it together, but he could
never convince her of that. Now he heard the wind blowing through its taut cables, and his heart thumped, and
he played. The wind of the imagination found its voice in reality, that day in The Jolly Oval. The sweet howl
reverberated. He saw his mother dancing in the branches, and he heard her singing, and all of it was in the
splashes of piano that ran from his fingers to his heart.
big tree came the closest to feeling like the effects of… of what? Even the magnitude of grief that he felt for
the loss of the giant eucalyptus was not enough to take him past the edge of condemnation. The tried and true
claim that they were only doing their job was more than enough to relieve the workers of any suspicion or
shame. But sons of bitches!
After he had settled down, Vikor walked the length of Murphy's pasture. Now it was not the vast prairie he
had walked as a child. The earth that had supported the tramp of the conquistadores' boots, and the gallop of
vaqueros, now supported a huge exhibition barn, a tack shop grown from a tiny old wood-frame house with a
sign out front to a new and giant department store for horses, and a polo field complete with bleachers, and
parking lots.
Further west, the remains of the pasture were less disturbed. He made his way over the grass, down toward
the bridge that carried the interstate over the San Dieguito river, passing the old Spanish cistern, still
undiscovered, and looking up with the blinking curiosity of a wild animal at the stream of late afternoon
commuters that were already making their own ways home. Vikor walked along the edge of the river, almost
to the race track. Then he turned north, to Border Road, and finally he disappeared into The Jolly Oval.
Visible in a dim light from the entrance to the bar, the telephone hung on the wall by the doors to the
restroom. The piano sat in a cozier nook, invisible in a pool of darkness, but Vikor found it first anyhow. He
still had plenty of time to make his flight to Houston. He fetched himself a beer from the lady at the bar, and
then he walked back into the shadows of The Jolly Oval.
He was hot and sweaty from the hike. The beer and air conditioning hit him like euphoria. He sat on the stool
and played D minor, just the one chord, just D minor, just once. The barmaid turned her attention to the unlit
corner beyond the tables. The fellow in the scullery stopped pretending to work. The solitary customer at the
bar paused with his drink in the air. D minor.
The last echoes had faded away before he played it again. In all that time, those long seconds, there wasn't
another sound. When it came again, it was like the resumption of a symphony. The room had filled with music.
He played it a couple of times more, with the mystery of cadence and command, slow and assured, tensing with
the rhythm, and at last he changed to G. The piano had never sounded better.
The barmaid returned to her silent polishing of glass. The guy in the kitchen found something quiet to do with
his hands. The customer drank his gin. Vikor played. The notes came faster, and he dreamed. He saw the big
tree, in all its glory, and a tear ran from his eye.
He saw the harp his mother had wanted. He could have built it; they could have built it together, but he could
never convince her of that. Now he heard the wind blowing through its taut cables, and his heart thumped, and
he played. The wind of the imagination found its voice in reality, that day in The Jolly Oval. The sweet howl
reverberated. He saw his mother dancing in the branches, and he heard her singing, and all of it was in the
splashes of piano that ran from his fingers to his heart.
The original idea had been to have two deputies encounter Cabler and Stream near the base of the steep hill.
Murphy had suggested that out there it was a considerable distance to any concealment. There were two
problems, however, which were that the suspects would be able to see the deputies approach for quite a ways,
and that the officer in charge was not convinced that he could find anyone in his detail who really wanted to go.
If the two gentlemen that the girls had called Johnny and Bob were indeed John Stream and Robert Cabler,
and if they really were the perpetrators of several murders, and if they were armed, then it must be supposed
that they were dangerous as hell.
The assumption was that they were to be gunned down. Old rancher Murphy was willing to go, alone if he had
to, preferably accompanied by a gang of shotgun-toting sheriff's deputies who could join him in running the
boys down like a pair of renegade sons of bitches.
Neither the San Diego County Sheriff's office nor the district attorney wanted to be directly responsible for
something like that.
Murphy had suggested that out there it was a considerable distance to any concealment. There were two
problems, however, which were that the suspects would be able to see the deputies approach for quite a ways,
and that the officer in charge was not convinced that he could find anyone in his detail who really wanted to go.
If the two gentlemen that the girls had called Johnny and Bob were indeed John Stream and Robert Cabler,
and if they really were the perpetrators of several murders, and if they were armed, then it must be supposed
that they were dangerous as hell.
The assumption was that they were to be gunned down. Old rancher Murphy was willing to go, alone if he had
to, preferably accompanied by a gang of shotgun-toting sheriff's deputies who could join him in running the
boys down like a pair of renegade sons of bitches.
Neither the San Diego County Sheriff's office nor the district attorney wanted to be directly responsible for
something like that.
| * * * |
| * * * |
"No."
"No? I'm sorry Miss…" here Jim glanced at the first blank on the document where the appropriate name of
each student who was to sign as witness had been inked in. I, Heidi Westbocker, do affirm… "Miss
Westbocker. Is there a problem with the way we have worded the statement?"
"Can't you get along without my signature?" she countered. Heidi Westbocker was a pretty young
sophomore. She hailed from a dairy farm in Wisconsin. She was eighteen now in the spring of her second year
at the university. In the fall of her freshman year she had been taken under the wing of the housemother at
her dorm at the tender age of sixteen. Her parents had urged her to spend the first two years of her higher
education at a community college close to home. But Heidi was a serious student. She had a scholarship offer,
and she fancied the local junior college to be not really serious enough for her level of scholarship.
She had had enough of rubbing elbows with the future dairy farmers of America. She longed for the cloister of
true intellectuals. While that was not what she found at Dove Springs, she at least had the illusion of the ivory
tower.
"Well, sure," replied Jim Crowley, hesitantly. "But…" This was puzzling him. Was the young gal just too
dainty to sign a form that refers so bluntly to the penis of the dead man? "Do you mind telling me why?" he
asked in exasperation.
"I didn't see anything."
"Excuse me?"
"It's not true for me."
"What's not?"
"Your… your document," she said. "I can't sign it." By this point her resistance had attracted the attention
of her fellows, most of whom had already signed their own statements. Heidi felt a redness creep into her
cheeks.
"What's not true, Heidi?" her boyfriend asked. Paul Lake was a junior. He was a nice guy. He thought
Professor Kirkhaz to have been a nice guy as well. His own adventures with wholesome Heidi had been limited
to the goodnight kiss; to press further, without her explicit consent, would have offended his sensibilities as a
gentleman. Now he was curious and concerned. "What's not true?"
"This paper."
"This?" Paul was perplexed. "I signed it; we are all signing it. It's all true."
"No." Heidi had the urge to turn and walk away, to run back to the room she shared with two other young
ladies, to call her mom, to pack her bags, to catch the evening train back to Wisconsin. It was impossible for
her to utter the answers to the multiplying questions that were coming at her now from Jim and Paul and the
others.
She stopped them with an outburst, "I didn't see… anything!"
"You didn't see… but, Heidi, you were right there with us when we found the body!" Paul did not want to
offend her, but his own maturity was wearing suddenly thin. Perhaps this young girl was more complex than he
had believed.
She was complex enough to grow angry at his last remark. "Are you telling me something I don't know?" she
lashed. "Paul?" His stunned silence begged her to continue. The group held its breath.
Heidi looked away and down and flushed further. "I just didn't look that closely," she said. It was a quiet
scream.
It was also a slap in the face at the other three young ladies in the group. They had already signed papers that
freely announced that they had looked "that closely." They felt the slap, but they could not know that the
sarcasm that dripped in Heidi Westbocker's explanation was a disguise for bitter shame.
Heidi was telling the truth. She did not look that closely.
She didn't need to. She saw the dreadful meat almost before she saw the battered face. She was still pushing
her way through the barrier of scrub oak when she recognized her instructor in physical science and geology
from her freshman year.
So she was lying as well, for she saw it alright. How could she miss it? It was the pinnacle ornament on the
mountain of mangled Mongol, draped in a crimson splash on his back on the hump of rock. Selabjun Kirkhaz
had not subjected himself to the same trousers around the ankles treatment that he had imposed on Cat One.
So the penis that lolled from the open button fly of his woolen climbing breeches was the only flesh tone in a
field of forest green. The khaki shirt, red suspenders, grey socks and brown boots came next. The hands and
face were nearly obscured by the sea of dried blood that encrusted and surrounded the spread-eagled corpse.
No one would have needed to look closely to see the cock at the top of the heap. Closer questioning brought
Heidi to tears, and the quest for the eighth signature was politely abandoned.
"No? I'm sorry Miss…" here Jim glanced at the first blank on the document where the appropriate name of
each student who was to sign as witness had been inked in. I, Heidi Westbocker, do affirm… "Miss
Westbocker. Is there a problem with the way we have worded the statement?"
"Can't you get along without my signature?" she countered. Heidi Westbocker was a pretty young
sophomore. She hailed from a dairy farm in Wisconsin. She was eighteen now in the spring of her second year
at the university. In the fall of her freshman year she had been taken under the wing of the housemother at
her dorm at the tender age of sixteen. Her parents had urged her to spend the first two years of her higher
education at a community college close to home. But Heidi was a serious student. She had a scholarship offer,
and she fancied the local junior college to be not really serious enough for her level of scholarship.
She had had enough of rubbing elbows with the future dairy farmers of America. She longed for the cloister of
true intellectuals. While that was not what she found at Dove Springs, she at least had the illusion of the ivory
tower.
"Well, sure," replied Jim Crowley, hesitantly. "But…" This was puzzling him. Was the young gal just too
dainty to sign a form that refers so bluntly to the penis of the dead man? "Do you mind telling me why?" he
asked in exasperation.
"I didn't see anything."
"Excuse me?"
"It's not true for me."
"What's not?"
"Your… your document," she said. "I can't sign it." By this point her resistance had attracted the attention
of her fellows, most of whom had already signed their own statements. Heidi felt a redness creep into her
cheeks.
"What's not true, Heidi?" her boyfriend asked. Paul Lake was a junior. He was a nice guy. He thought
Professor Kirkhaz to have been a nice guy as well. His own adventures with wholesome Heidi had been limited
to the goodnight kiss; to press further, without her explicit consent, would have offended his sensibilities as a
gentleman. Now he was curious and concerned. "What's not true?"
"This paper."
"This?" Paul was perplexed. "I signed it; we are all signing it. It's all true."
"No." Heidi had the urge to turn and walk away, to run back to the room she shared with two other young
ladies, to call her mom, to pack her bags, to catch the evening train back to Wisconsin. It was impossible for
her to utter the answers to the multiplying questions that were coming at her now from Jim and Paul and the
others.
She stopped them with an outburst, "I didn't see… anything!"
"You didn't see… but, Heidi, you were right there with us when we found the body!" Paul did not want to
offend her, but his own maturity was wearing suddenly thin. Perhaps this young girl was more complex than he
had believed.
She was complex enough to grow angry at his last remark. "Are you telling me something I don't know?" she
lashed. "Paul?" His stunned silence begged her to continue. The group held its breath.
Heidi looked away and down and flushed further. "I just didn't look that closely," she said. It was a quiet
scream.
It was also a slap in the face at the other three young ladies in the group. They had already signed papers that
freely announced that they had looked "that closely." They felt the slap, but they could not know that the
sarcasm that dripped in Heidi Westbocker's explanation was a disguise for bitter shame.
Heidi was telling the truth. She did not look that closely.
She didn't need to. She saw the dreadful meat almost before she saw the battered face. She was still pushing
her way through the barrier of scrub oak when she recognized her instructor in physical science and geology
from her freshman year.
So she was lying as well, for she saw it alright. How could she miss it? It was the pinnacle ornament on the
mountain of mangled Mongol, draped in a crimson splash on his back on the hump of rock. Selabjun Kirkhaz
had not subjected himself to the same trousers around the ankles treatment that he had imposed on Cat One.
So the penis that lolled from the open button fly of his woolen climbing breeches was the only flesh tone in a
field of forest green. The khaki shirt, red suspenders, grey socks and brown boots came next. The hands and
face were nearly obscured by the sea of dried blood that encrusted and surrounded the spread-eagled corpse.
No one would have needed to look closely to see the cock at the top of the heap. Closer questioning brought
Heidi to tears, and the quest for the eighth signature was politely abandoned.
| * * * |
The guys at the morgue felt compelled to take signed statements from each of the "accident" witnesses. They
would merely stow the body in a locker until the police could look at it. But John Barlow, who was the sheriff's
deputy in nineteen sixty-two in Dove Springs, could not be found right at the moment. When he did see it, it
would have the penis hanging out the fly of the blue jeans. Jim and Doc, at the morgue, wanted to be sure that
everyone who ever knew, knew that the stiff prof had come to them just that way. You just never know.
Besides, it seemed like evidence to Jim Crowley, but evidence of what, he did not know.
The remains were tucked in the chill box by the time that the statements had been typed and run through the
mimeograph machine and laid before the kids to be signed. That’s when they ran into Heidi Westbocker. She
refused to sign the simple statement.
They hemmed and hawed over the wording of this document for a while. It wasn’t a standard form. Several of
the students insisted on participating in the composition of the statement. Somebody flew for donuts and coffee.
would merely stow the body in a locker until the police could look at it. But John Barlow, who was the sheriff's
deputy in nineteen sixty-two in Dove Springs, could not be found right at the moment. When he did see it, it
would have the penis hanging out the fly of the blue jeans. Jim and Doc, at the morgue, wanted to be sure that
everyone who ever knew, knew that the stiff prof had come to them just that way. You just never know.
Besides, it seemed like evidence to Jim Crowley, but evidence of what, he did not know.
The remains were tucked in the chill box by the time that the statements had been typed and run through the
mimeograph machine and laid before the kids to be signed. That’s when they ran into Heidi Westbocker. She
refused to sign the simple statement.
- I, ____________, do affirm that on 18 April 1962 I participated in the recovery of the body of Selabjun Kirkhaz from
Clark’s Hill. We turned the body over to the on-duty attendants at the emergency door at the university hospital. I
further affirm that the penis of the dead man was out of his pants and in full view during this entire procedure, from
when we found him until he was received and placed in cold storage.
________________
They hemmed and hawed over the wording of this document for a while. It wasn’t a standard form. Several of
the students insisted on participating in the composition of the statement. Somebody flew for donuts and coffee.
| * * * |
It was a faint trail, but Deputy John Barlow picked it up. It's curious that Barlow was not much of a police
officer in most respects. For instance, he was not honest. Nor was he principled. He was corrupt. He faked
paperwork, befriended rich cronies and extorted traveling motorists.
But he had a nose. He could sense crime and mischief. When Heidi Westbocker broke down again during the
deputy's informal interview with the students at the little house that was his office, his nostrils twitched. On
this occasion, Ms Westbocker went frankly hysterical.
Deputy Barlow referred her to the psychiatrist back at the university. When a week passed, Dr. Clemens
came into the sheriff station one morning.
"Morning, Doc," said the deputy. Dr. Clemens let himself wince. He did not care to be addressed as "Doc."
Doc was one of the two fruitcakes who manned emergency and did some of the lab work down at the hospital.
Doc was a fine fellow, and Charlie Clemens had no quarrel with him, but he himself preferred to be called Dr.
Clemens.
"I put Heidi Westbocker on the plane to Milwaukee this morning up in the city," he began, dispensing with
polite greetings. Barlow knew that he didn't care to be called Doc.
"You what?" burst the deputy, now fully distracted from the paperwork in front of him. "Doctor…"
"Her parents are meeting her."
"I wanted to talk…"
"I have a statement from the girl," he went on, with authority. "You talked with her enough, John," he
added with a stern measure.
"I'll decide…"
"No! She's gone. Now listen. Heidi Westbocker is traumatized. And you don't need her."
"Why don't I need her?" asked John Barlow. He was cooling his heels for the moment. It was more important
right now to hear what it was that Doctor Clemens had to relate than to spend any energy reminding him who
was who. His strange sense that a crime had been committed, and that this was a connection, a lead, a trail, was
tingling madly.
To start with, someone was hiding something.
"She's merely traumatized, Officer Barlow," said Clemens.
He's hiding something. Obedient to his own curiosity, and now to the demand for respect from this imp doctor
as well, Deputy Barlow swallowed his pride and said, "Listen, Doctor Clemens, I'm sorry if I offended you with
that 'Doc' stuff. I ought to know better. (I'll get you later, maybe on the road to Collins Cove, in your Porsche.)
"But I know something's going on!" Here his voice rose in genuine excitement. Deputy Barlow was like a
cheerful hound dog when he had the scent of something. He loved to share his enthusiasm. He knew the shrink
was not at the end of the trail, not the perpetrator of the crime that Barlow more and more felt sure had been
committed, but he was holding something back.
His altered attitude fetched Charlie Clemens along immediately. He also enjoyed sharing. He also enjoyed
popping the deputy’s bubble.
“This has to be in confidence, John,” he said. His voice assumed a confidential tone that only amused the cop,
but he went along with it.
“Absolutely, Dr. Clemens.”
“Well, Deputy, you are right about a crime's having been committed. But your job is already done. The
perpetrator is locked up in the fridge over at Ol' Grey."
"Tell me more."
Clemens continued. "Miss Westbocker, Heidi, was a freshman in Kirkhaz' physical science class two falls
back.
"I guess she got it into her head that she was going to fail or get a 'B' or something like that. I don't know if
you know how it is for these high achievers (not being one yourself). They are used to being straight 'A'
students back in Podunk, Wisconsin. Suddenly they’re out here competing for those ‘A’s, no longer with a
bunch of freckle-faced morons with hay stems dangling from the corners of their lips, but with others like
themselves.
Heidi Westbocker was like that. She didn’t know anymore if she was really smart or not. Maybe she had just
been the big fish in the small pond.
"This Kirkhaz… I never really liked him. I'm glad he's dead so I don't have to kill him myself."
"What?!"
"Just a second. I'll tell you." Dr. Clemens, who was fifty-three, motioned for the sheriff to relax and to let
him keep talking.
"He was a slimy bastard," he said. "Apparently he detected the anxiety in Heidi, and he exploited it.
"Funny (ha, ha) thing was, she was doing okay in his class, and in the others too, according to her, and
according to her transcript.
"But he got to her early in the semester, when she really was fresh. The idea, after some button-pushing
about the intensity of the competition at this backwoods diploma mill, and the importance of first semester
grades to the rest of her career, and especially the importance of contacts in assuring all of the good things
about being a university girl, was that she needed to have a close friend among the faculty so that she could
stay head and shoulders above the rest of the student body."
"And he was to be that 'close friend?'" was the deputy's dry question.
"Right. And head and shoulders above the class meant head and shoulders below the belt line for Heidi
Westbocker."
A pervert! A child molester! John Barlow registered the appropriate indignant sympathy. Another part of him
squirmed with envy toward the dead alien who had had such a thing going for himself. The thought of that shy,
blushing face at his own crotch was making him weak at the knees.
"The bastard!"
"Yeah. So you see, it's case closed. There's nothing to be gained by forcing any more contact or exposure on
that poor girl or her family. They don't want it; the university doesn't want it. And he's dead," he finished with
a jerk of his head in the general direction of the university morgue.
Deputy John Barlow stared in blank torpor for a moment while his wheels turned. This was not it. This was
not the end of the trail.
Hell, his super-sleuth sense didn't turn on over a teacher getting a blowjob from a student. He wasn't even
sure if that was a crime; oh, yeah, he supposed it was, but just because the law said so.
Real crimes, for John Barlow, did not have to be said to be so by law. Oh, they were illegal all right, but they
were against the law because they were crimes. They weren't crimes just because they were against the law.
Right now he had a body. It could be the result of an accident. Selabjun Kirkhaz did go rock climbing alone
that day. It was misty, if not downright wet. It had happened before.
Deputy Barlow had known immediately what rock the unfortunate Mr. Kirkhaz had landed on. Fifteen years
earlier he had been in charge of the crew that came with a stretcher and removed another pasted climber from
the blood-splattered boulder.
John Barlow had already been the local deputy for five years when that happened. Now he was forty-five. In
his twenty years at the post he had seen a few other deaths and injuries on the rocks of Clark's Hill. He didn't
climb for fun (and certainly not for contemplation), but duty and curiosity had got him onto the mountain a
number of times, and twice he had been on the ledge itself. The first time had been related to the incident
fifteen years earlier.
That time it had been a student. That was how John Barlow knew that the origin of Selabjun Kirkhaz' plunge
had to have been the peak.
So far that suggested nothing. The peak was the obvious destination of virtually all of the climbers on Clark's
Hill, with the exception of Agnes Tawny and Cat One Dolan, who climbed about on the mountain on a daily
basis, but went only on occasion to the top.
officer in most respects. For instance, he was not honest. Nor was he principled. He was corrupt. He faked
paperwork, befriended rich cronies and extorted traveling motorists.
But he had a nose. He could sense crime and mischief. When Heidi Westbocker broke down again during the
deputy's informal interview with the students at the little house that was his office, his nostrils twitched. On
this occasion, Ms Westbocker went frankly hysterical.
Deputy Barlow referred her to the psychiatrist back at the university. When a week passed, Dr. Clemens
came into the sheriff station one morning.
"Morning, Doc," said the deputy. Dr. Clemens let himself wince. He did not care to be addressed as "Doc."
Doc was one of the two fruitcakes who manned emergency and did some of the lab work down at the hospital.
Doc was a fine fellow, and Charlie Clemens had no quarrel with him, but he himself preferred to be called Dr.
Clemens.
"I put Heidi Westbocker on the plane to Milwaukee this morning up in the city," he began, dispensing with
polite greetings. Barlow knew that he didn't care to be called Doc.
"You what?" burst the deputy, now fully distracted from the paperwork in front of him. "Doctor…"
"Her parents are meeting her."
"I wanted to talk…"
"I have a statement from the girl," he went on, with authority. "You talked with her enough, John," he
added with a stern measure.
"I'll decide…"
"No! She's gone. Now listen. Heidi Westbocker is traumatized. And you don't need her."
"Why don't I need her?" asked John Barlow. He was cooling his heels for the moment. It was more important
right now to hear what it was that Doctor Clemens had to relate than to spend any energy reminding him who
was who. His strange sense that a crime had been committed, and that this was a connection, a lead, a trail, was
tingling madly.
To start with, someone was hiding something.
"She's merely traumatized, Officer Barlow," said Clemens.
He's hiding something. Obedient to his own curiosity, and now to the demand for respect from this imp doctor
as well, Deputy Barlow swallowed his pride and said, "Listen, Doctor Clemens, I'm sorry if I offended you with
that 'Doc' stuff. I ought to know better. (I'll get you later, maybe on the road to Collins Cove, in your Porsche.)
"But I know something's going on!" Here his voice rose in genuine excitement. Deputy Barlow was like a
cheerful hound dog when he had the scent of something. He loved to share his enthusiasm. He knew the shrink
was not at the end of the trail, not the perpetrator of the crime that Barlow more and more felt sure had been
committed, but he was holding something back.
His altered attitude fetched Charlie Clemens along immediately. He also enjoyed sharing. He also enjoyed
popping the deputy’s bubble.
“This has to be in confidence, John,” he said. His voice assumed a confidential tone that only amused the cop,
but he went along with it.
“Absolutely, Dr. Clemens.”
“Well, Deputy, you are right about a crime's having been committed. But your job is already done. The
perpetrator is locked up in the fridge over at Ol' Grey."
"Tell me more."
Clemens continued. "Miss Westbocker, Heidi, was a freshman in Kirkhaz' physical science class two falls
back.
"I guess she got it into her head that she was going to fail or get a 'B' or something like that. I don't know if
you know how it is for these high achievers (not being one yourself). They are used to being straight 'A'
students back in Podunk, Wisconsin. Suddenly they’re out here competing for those ‘A’s, no longer with a
bunch of freckle-faced morons with hay stems dangling from the corners of their lips, but with others like
themselves.
Heidi Westbocker was like that. She didn’t know anymore if she was really smart or not. Maybe she had just
been the big fish in the small pond.
"This Kirkhaz… I never really liked him. I'm glad he's dead so I don't have to kill him myself."
"What?!"
"Just a second. I'll tell you." Dr. Clemens, who was fifty-three, motioned for the sheriff to relax and to let
him keep talking.
"He was a slimy bastard," he said. "Apparently he detected the anxiety in Heidi, and he exploited it.
"Funny (ha, ha) thing was, she was doing okay in his class, and in the others too, according to her, and
according to her transcript.
"But he got to her early in the semester, when she really was fresh. The idea, after some button-pushing
about the intensity of the competition at this backwoods diploma mill, and the importance of first semester
grades to the rest of her career, and especially the importance of contacts in assuring all of the good things
about being a university girl, was that she needed to have a close friend among the faculty so that she could
stay head and shoulders above the rest of the student body."
"And he was to be that 'close friend?'" was the deputy's dry question.
"Right. And head and shoulders above the class meant head and shoulders below the belt line for Heidi
Westbocker."
A pervert! A child molester! John Barlow registered the appropriate indignant sympathy. Another part of him
squirmed with envy toward the dead alien who had had such a thing going for himself. The thought of that shy,
blushing face at his own crotch was making him weak at the knees.
"The bastard!"
"Yeah. So you see, it's case closed. There's nothing to be gained by forcing any more contact or exposure on
that poor girl or her family. They don't want it; the university doesn't want it. And he's dead," he finished with
a jerk of his head in the general direction of the university morgue.
Deputy John Barlow stared in blank torpor for a moment while his wheels turned. This was not it. This was
not the end of the trail.
Hell, his super-sleuth sense didn't turn on over a teacher getting a blowjob from a student. He wasn't even
sure if that was a crime; oh, yeah, he supposed it was, but just because the law said so.
Real crimes, for John Barlow, did not have to be said to be so by law. Oh, they were illegal all right, but they
were against the law because they were crimes. They weren't crimes just because they were against the law.
Right now he had a body. It could be the result of an accident. Selabjun Kirkhaz did go rock climbing alone
that day. It was misty, if not downright wet. It had happened before.
Deputy Barlow had known immediately what rock the unfortunate Mr. Kirkhaz had landed on. Fifteen years
earlier he had been in charge of the crew that came with a stretcher and removed another pasted climber from
the blood-splattered boulder.
John Barlow had already been the local deputy for five years when that happened. Now he was forty-five. In
his twenty years at the post he had seen a few other deaths and injuries on the rocks of Clark's Hill. He didn't
climb for fun (and certainly not for contemplation), but duty and curiosity had got him onto the mountain a
number of times, and twice he had been on the ledge itself. The first time had been related to the incident
fifteen years earlier.
That time it had been a student. That was how John Barlow knew that the origin of Selabjun Kirkhaz' plunge
had to have been the peak.
So far that suggested nothing. The peak was the obvious destination of virtually all of the climbers on Clark's
Hill, with the exception of Agnes Tawny and Cat One Dolan, who climbed about on the mountain on a daily
basis, but went only on occasion to the top.
Vikor's winning way was his attention, and the questions that he asked, and the way he enjoyed and was not
shocked by her answers. Chela saw herself reflected in his awareness, and never had she been more beautiful.
The feeling stayed and grew, and spread to include her children, her home, her environment, so that as they
rolled cautiously down the ruts of the home stretch, the rain-fresh hills and trees and grass glowed for her with
nearly impossible beauty. She needed no excuse for the rustic cabin in the hollow, for it was suddenly flawless.
Suddenly it was the perfect place. She had led him first to her house, before stopping by Violeta's, just over
the hill, for the kids. She wanted, something, and she got it, there in the sweet shade of home. There beneath
the scented droop of the pepper tree that a pioneer wife had planted a hundred years ago, they knew each other
well enough. Too soon? Too late? They were right in the middle, and when they consummated their union, and
the rain returned for a little while, despite the flashing sunshine, there were rainbows and daydreams
everywhere, and Chela and Vikor thanked the gods and goddesses from every end of eternity.
Later on, they turned up over at Vi's.
Vikor would have recognized them all, had he met them at random in the streets of Santa Fe or San Diego.
Lillia and Bonita, Chela's daughters… how could he miss those eyes, and just the flash of the Rico that he
knew from his lover's lips. It was the same with Violeta and the boys, the recognition of kinship.
For their part, they found Vikor easy to accept from the start, for if he was startling he was also impeccable,
if he was strong he was also gentle. Perfect step-father and uncle right from the swing of the gate, he filled
pools that had lain dry for years in the hearts of the boys and girls. This new cowboy had all the best of Ivan
and Rico. The memories and legends of the fathers had swirled with fertility, and now had blossomed. There
was no stopping him.
We can leave Vikor here. He's going to be all right. Believe that, or don't; it doesn't matter a bit.
Albuquerque stays crossed off the list, forever. Life is sweet. New blue jeans and a new cowboy hat are the
signs of the times. Now there is hard treasure buried in New Mexico too. The wolf is far from the door. Too far?
Maybe just far enough.
shocked by her answers. Chela saw herself reflected in his awareness, and never had she been more beautiful.
The feeling stayed and grew, and spread to include her children, her home, her environment, so that as they
rolled cautiously down the ruts of the home stretch, the rain-fresh hills and trees and grass glowed for her with
nearly impossible beauty. She needed no excuse for the rustic cabin in the hollow, for it was suddenly flawless.
Suddenly it was the perfect place. She had led him first to her house, before stopping by Violeta's, just over
the hill, for the kids. She wanted, something, and she got it, there in the sweet shade of home. There beneath
the scented droop of the pepper tree that a pioneer wife had planted a hundred years ago, they knew each other
well enough. Too soon? Too late? They were right in the middle, and when they consummated their union, and
the rain returned for a little while, despite the flashing sunshine, there were rainbows and daydreams
everywhere, and Chela and Vikor thanked the gods and goddesses from every end of eternity.
Later on, they turned up over at Vi's.
Vikor would have recognized them all, had he met them at random in the streets of Santa Fe or San Diego.
Lillia and Bonita, Chela's daughters… how could he miss those eyes, and just the flash of the Rico that he
knew from his lover's lips. It was the same with Violeta and the boys, the recognition of kinship.
For their part, they found Vikor easy to accept from the start, for if he was startling he was also impeccable,
if he was strong he was also gentle. Perfect step-father and uncle right from the swing of the gate, he filled
pools that had lain dry for years in the hearts of the boys and girls. This new cowboy had all the best of Ivan
and Rico. The memories and legends of the fathers had swirled with fertility, and now had blossomed. There
was no stopping him.
We can leave Vikor here. He's going to be all right. Believe that, or don't; it doesn't matter a bit.
Albuquerque stays crossed off the list, forever. Life is sweet. New blue jeans and a new cowboy hat are the
signs of the times. Now there is hard treasure buried in New Mexico too. The wolf is far from the door. Too far?
Maybe just far enough.
