| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goat herder: 16 June 1981
Breakfast at the Lodestone Cafe. Pancakes and coffee warming in my belly as first
sun hits the road, me ambling along it, with a toothpick, toward the Post Office, Perkins
Store, a newspaper and a bench in sleepy, mountain morning. Hi to the town people.
Hanging around a bit with local drifters.
Breakfast at the Lodestone Cafe. Pancakes and coffee warming in my belly as first
sun hits the road, me ambling along it, with a toothpick, toward the Post Office, Perkins
Store, a newspaper and a bench in sleepy, mountain morning. Hi to the town people.
Hanging around a bit with local drifters.
| Chapter Fifty-one GENETIC GIFTS |
John Barlow thought of Old Fargo, sure. But he also remembered Andrea herself as she had been that
evening. He had gone first with Fred Clark to the crossroads, in response to a call from Sarah Devlin. Andrea
Clare had been brought home wrapped in a blanket. Although Johnny Dolan was in virtual shock himself over
the loss of his sister, Glow, he had taken the devastated Devlin girl under his wing, away from the scene, and
back to her mother's farm.
Her father, Hank Devlin, was in shock. Bill Casey stayed at the crossroads with him. When Deputies Clark
and Barlow arrived, they found engines idling and headlights illuminating the tragic stage. There were bodies
everywhere. The blood that night was not dry, but steaming red, and it had boiled scarlet canyons into the snow.
Old Fargo was standing in the snow, lighting his pipe and gazing in dark, private grief at the body of Gloria
Dolan. The sight of his beautiful young cousin lying killed in the autumn snow left him cleansed of any regret
or uncertainty about his having done the same to her murderers. If only it would have… could have brought
her back.
Or them. He looked over at the crumpled forms of Tom and Joe Devlin as the two uniformed deputies
approached, as if to say, don't miss these. These were good guys. He and Bill had quickly checked the three for
any signs of life, and then had left them as they were for the peace officers to inspect.
But concern for the still-suffering Andrea Clare had taken paramount concern. Johnny offered to get her off
of the battlefield, and Fargo and Bill agreed. After receiving from them quick directions on how to reach what
was to be his new home, he got into his pickup with the bundled Andrea Clare, and together they vanished into
the snowflakes and the blackness.
Hank Devlin had got out of his truck as ready to do battle as anyone, but by then it was over. The gathering
shock, as the awareness that his two sons were dead and his daughter violated set in, caused him to need to be
led back to his truck by Bill Casey.
When Hank's pickup had entered the crossroads, and he had seen what lay ahead, he had hit the brake just
as Johnny Dolan had done. The truck's rear end slid to the right and it stalled, so, just like with Johnny and
Glow, the passenger door was left to face the excitement. The women and children from both trucks leapt to
the fray and were slaughtered, while the men were delayed to helpless witness by the positions of their vehicles
on the ice.
Fargo swerved his own truck's bed to the left and slid to a stop, shielding Bill Casey from the danger of
participation. Even while the truck still was sliding, engine off, locked in second, handbrake jerked, Fargo was
opening his door. When the truck stopped he stepped down from the running board where he had waited the
last quick seconds with ol' Betsy pulled from behind the seat.
His cold rubber boots hit the ice and planted themselves like the roots of two thick trees. While the truck still
rocked on its springs, he had become as motionless as a snowman for the instant that it took to aim at and to
shoot, first one, then the other. Carl and Clyde joined the bloody slush.
"I didn't have time to think about it. Hell, Fred, I didn't even need to think about it! We come sliding up to
that ruckus, and I seen right away what I'd got to do, and I seen that I'd got to do it purty quick.
"If I'd a done the wrong thing," he said, gesturing with his pipe toward Deputies Clark and Barlow, "I'd say
nail me.
"But I done right." This solid attitude kept him afloat through all the attempts to manufacture a case against
him. Even that, Fargo did not begrudge the D.A.
"He's doing his job," he said to Bill Casey. "He's supposed to see if he's got a case. But he don't, 'cause there
isn't one."
There was one, but it would have been all uphill to convince a jury in 1937 that Arthur Fargo's killing of Carl
Dullen was any kind of murder. Never mind that Carl had not killed anyone, that he was unarmed, that Arthur
Fargo had not seen Carl Dullen do anything except stand motionless in the dazzle of a set of headlights.
evening. He had gone first with Fred Clark to the crossroads, in response to a call from Sarah Devlin. Andrea
Clare had been brought home wrapped in a blanket. Although Johnny Dolan was in virtual shock himself over
the loss of his sister, Glow, he had taken the devastated Devlin girl under his wing, away from the scene, and
back to her mother's farm.
Her father, Hank Devlin, was in shock. Bill Casey stayed at the crossroads with him. When Deputies Clark
and Barlow arrived, they found engines idling and headlights illuminating the tragic stage. There were bodies
everywhere. The blood that night was not dry, but steaming red, and it had boiled scarlet canyons into the snow.
Old Fargo was standing in the snow, lighting his pipe and gazing in dark, private grief at the body of Gloria
Dolan. The sight of his beautiful young cousin lying killed in the autumn snow left him cleansed of any regret
or uncertainty about his having done the same to her murderers. If only it would have… could have brought
her back.
Or them. He looked over at the crumpled forms of Tom and Joe Devlin as the two uniformed deputies
approached, as if to say, don't miss these. These were good guys. He and Bill had quickly checked the three for
any signs of life, and then had left them as they were for the peace officers to inspect.
But concern for the still-suffering Andrea Clare had taken paramount concern. Johnny offered to get her off
of the battlefield, and Fargo and Bill agreed. After receiving from them quick directions on how to reach what
was to be his new home, he got into his pickup with the bundled Andrea Clare, and together they vanished into
the snowflakes and the blackness.
Hank Devlin had got out of his truck as ready to do battle as anyone, but by then it was over. The gathering
shock, as the awareness that his two sons were dead and his daughter violated set in, caused him to need to be
led back to his truck by Bill Casey.
When Hank's pickup had entered the crossroads, and he had seen what lay ahead, he had hit the brake just
as Johnny Dolan had done. The truck's rear end slid to the right and it stalled, so, just like with Johnny and
Glow, the passenger door was left to face the excitement. The women and children from both trucks leapt to
the fray and were slaughtered, while the men were delayed to helpless witness by the positions of their vehicles
on the ice.
Fargo swerved his own truck's bed to the left and slid to a stop, shielding Bill Casey from the danger of
participation. Even while the truck still was sliding, engine off, locked in second, handbrake jerked, Fargo was
opening his door. When the truck stopped he stepped down from the running board where he had waited the
last quick seconds with ol' Betsy pulled from behind the seat.
His cold rubber boots hit the ice and planted themselves like the roots of two thick trees. While the truck still
rocked on its springs, he had become as motionless as a snowman for the instant that it took to aim at and to
shoot, first one, then the other. Carl and Clyde joined the bloody slush.
"I didn't have time to think about it. Hell, Fred, I didn't even need to think about it! We come sliding up to
that ruckus, and I seen right away what I'd got to do, and I seen that I'd got to do it purty quick.
"If I'd a done the wrong thing," he said, gesturing with his pipe toward Deputies Clark and Barlow, "I'd say
nail me.
"But I done right." This solid attitude kept him afloat through all the attempts to manufacture a case against
him. Even that, Fargo did not begrudge the D.A.
"He's doing his job," he said to Bill Casey. "He's supposed to see if he's got a case. But he don't, 'cause there
isn't one."
There was one, but it would have been all uphill to convince a jury in 1937 that Arthur Fargo's killing of Carl
Dullen was any kind of murder. Never mind that Carl had not killed anyone, that he was unarmed, that Arthur
Fargo had not seen Carl Dullen do anything except stand motionless in the dazzle of a set of headlights.
| * * * |
| * * * |
How is a goddess born? Does she come into the world borne on butterfly wings, with the chiming of silver
bells?
bells?
Number four in Birmingham had been the cabbie who had driven him away from Days Inn. He never killed
another cabbie; somehow he felt bad about it. The cabbie had been, after all, engaged at Vikor's request. Had
he planned it as a trap, or an ambush, it would have been different, but it had been only a sudden whim that led
him to cut the poor man's throat.
The cabbie had been black. Number five had been a white man in an alley. Vikor hadn't found a dime on him.
Numbers six, seven, eight and nine had been a gang of drunken rednecks. Vikor hadn't even started that one;
the boys were looking for trouble, and they found it. Vikor impressed himself with the dispatch with which he
handled their threats. He even had to pursue the last member of the foursome, who had suddenly realized that
their beating of a stranger was not going as planned. He had fled from the blood-soaked parking lot outside of
the little cafe. Vikor overtook him with the grace of a cheetah, cutting him down in full stride.
He himself kept right on going, disappearing into a river bottom that wound through that part of town. No
cash, no jewels, he escaped with his freedom and his life, covered again with blood, breathing hard, and bruised
from the punch or two that he had taken in the scuffle before the jerks had realized that their intended victim
was cutting them to ribbons with his silly dance.
Vikor washed up in the river, and then made his way back to the populated area, back to the fringes of the
herd. He had left his suitcase in a locker at the bus station following the taxicab incident. He had some money
on him, fifty or sixty dollars, he reckoned.
Had the thugs knocked him senseless, they would have taken the money. They might have done some
kicking too, but the chances were they would have left him alive. Alive to suffer, alive to struggle, crippled
perhaps, scarred almost certainly, inside and out. Alive to identify, and to testify.
In all honesty, any of the Alabama rednecks would have loved to kill him without reason. Each of the four had
it in him, recessive but lurking, the instinct to hunt, to kill. Had they been more wholesome they would have
indulged the inclination by hunting whitetails and groundhogs. As it was, they were barely conscious, minds
weakened by hate and poverty, confused by laws and religion, dampered by drugs and alcohol, fettered by
imagination and reality. Had they killed Vikor, it would have been by accident.
Then, or maybe in a day or two, some or all of them would turn themselves in, or they would brag their deed
to their buddies (to hide their shame from each other and from themselves), and one of the buddies would
make the call. On the stand they would make apologies and excuses; they would turn on one another with
blame and accusations. Their lawyers would back them up, thumping on books, files and statements. Friends of
the family would back them up, with character praise and phony alibis. One by one they would have been
sentenced. They would have been sent, scattered, to an assortment of detention centers, ranging from the
tough scout camp in the woods, and work on the road gang, to death row. Some of them might have escaped
with convictions of mere second degree murder, or battery, confirmation that this or that one's boots were not
the pair that delivered the killing kicks.
Had victim Vikor survived this imaginary outcome, he would have been available to point out his assailants,
one by one, from a line-up. He would have been able to point out their brothers, their cousins, guys who looked
like them, blacks, guys whose looks offended the offended witness, guys who looked, to Vikor, like they
needed to be locked up. But, sooner or later, with or without the help of citizen Victor W. Dolan, these guys
would have got bagged.
He came out of the wooded river bottom a mile or more from the redneck rumble into a seedy downtown area.
A thrift store caught his eye, and he went inside. He emerged twenty bucks lighter and clothed again in a clean
suit, shirt, tie and shoes. The wet rags that he had washed clean of blood, he disposed of, dropping the sodden
roll of cloth into the nearest dumpster.
Ten was the clerk in a liquor store. Hell, thought Vikor, might as well try one of these. He plopped a package
of chocolate peanut candy on the counter. The instant the cash register drawer slid open, he seized the
middle-aged Iranian man by the hair, jerking him backward over the counter and slashing him with a practiced
hand. Forty-five dollars in the till, two hundred twenty, no, make that two hundred fifty, hidden under the tray.
He walked up the street, spotless, surging with reckless power. The neighborhood became more upscale as he
progressed. Pawnshops gave way to banks. Shabby saloons were replaced by trendy bistros. Instead of walkup
slums, there began to be professional office buildings, and parking structures.
Choosing one of the latter, Vikor disappeared into the roomy shade. Gad, these are dangerous places, he
thought with cynical humor. By then it was mid-afternoon. Most of the cars that occupied the several stories of
spaces and lanes were still waiting for the reappearance of their owners. But a trickle of early quitters was
showing up, bound for dentists, golf courses and little league.
Vikor waited in the shadow cast by the mercury fixtures imbedded at intervals in the concrete overhead. He
was patient. It took some time, but within half an hour a young woman came striding in the no-nonsense;
business-bitch gait that even in Birmingham was endemic.
Her own bad luck had her parked three cars away from where our killer crouched in the darkness. Moving
silently he closed that distance. She already had her door open and had tossed her purse across to the
passenger seat when a quick sprint brought Vikor across the remaining few feet.
He pushed her forward hard, so that her forehead struck the top edge of the open doorway of the BMW. His
left hand curled in her hair and jerked her head back while his knee rose and slammed into her back so that
her body assumed the shape of a drawn bow. Without any hesitation the right hand came up and around and
drew the blade back across her neck.
Stepping nimbly out of the way, he hurled her by the hair, away from the car, and let her tumble to the
concrete.
another cabbie; somehow he felt bad about it. The cabbie had been, after all, engaged at Vikor's request. Had
he planned it as a trap, or an ambush, it would have been different, but it had been only a sudden whim that led
him to cut the poor man's throat.
The cabbie had been black. Number five had been a white man in an alley. Vikor hadn't found a dime on him.
Numbers six, seven, eight and nine had been a gang of drunken rednecks. Vikor hadn't even started that one;
the boys were looking for trouble, and they found it. Vikor impressed himself with the dispatch with which he
handled their threats. He even had to pursue the last member of the foursome, who had suddenly realized that
their beating of a stranger was not going as planned. He had fled from the blood-soaked parking lot outside of
the little cafe. Vikor overtook him with the grace of a cheetah, cutting him down in full stride.
He himself kept right on going, disappearing into a river bottom that wound through that part of town. No
cash, no jewels, he escaped with his freedom and his life, covered again with blood, breathing hard, and bruised
from the punch or two that he had taken in the scuffle before the jerks had realized that their intended victim
was cutting them to ribbons with his silly dance.
Vikor washed up in the river, and then made his way back to the populated area, back to the fringes of the
herd. He had left his suitcase in a locker at the bus station following the taxicab incident. He had some money
on him, fifty or sixty dollars, he reckoned.
Had the thugs knocked him senseless, they would have taken the money. They might have done some
kicking too, but the chances were they would have left him alive. Alive to suffer, alive to struggle, crippled
perhaps, scarred almost certainly, inside and out. Alive to identify, and to testify.
In all honesty, any of the Alabama rednecks would have loved to kill him without reason. Each of the four had
it in him, recessive but lurking, the instinct to hunt, to kill. Had they been more wholesome they would have
indulged the inclination by hunting whitetails and groundhogs. As it was, they were barely conscious, minds
weakened by hate and poverty, confused by laws and religion, dampered by drugs and alcohol, fettered by
imagination and reality. Had they killed Vikor, it would have been by accident.
Then, or maybe in a day or two, some or all of them would turn themselves in, or they would brag their deed
to their buddies (to hide their shame from each other and from themselves), and one of the buddies would
make the call. On the stand they would make apologies and excuses; they would turn on one another with
blame and accusations. Their lawyers would back them up, thumping on books, files and statements. Friends of
the family would back them up, with character praise and phony alibis. One by one they would have been
sentenced. They would have been sent, scattered, to an assortment of detention centers, ranging from the
tough scout camp in the woods, and work on the road gang, to death row. Some of them might have escaped
with convictions of mere second degree murder, or battery, confirmation that this or that one's boots were not
the pair that delivered the killing kicks.
Had victim Vikor survived this imaginary outcome, he would have been available to point out his assailants,
one by one, from a line-up. He would have been able to point out their brothers, their cousins, guys who looked
like them, blacks, guys whose looks offended the offended witness, guys who looked, to Vikor, like they
needed to be locked up. But, sooner or later, with or without the help of citizen Victor W. Dolan, these guys
would have got bagged.
He came out of the wooded river bottom a mile or more from the redneck rumble into a seedy downtown area.
A thrift store caught his eye, and he went inside. He emerged twenty bucks lighter and clothed again in a clean
suit, shirt, tie and shoes. The wet rags that he had washed clean of blood, he disposed of, dropping the sodden
roll of cloth into the nearest dumpster.
Ten was the clerk in a liquor store. Hell, thought Vikor, might as well try one of these. He plopped a package
of chocolate peanut candy on the counter. The instant the cash register drawer slid open, he seized the
middle-aged Iranian man by the hair, jerking him backward over the counter and slashing him with a practiced
hand. Forty-five dollars in the till, two hundred twenty, no, make that two hundred fifty, hidden under the tray.
He walked up the street, spotless, surging with reckless power. The neighborhood became more upscale as he
progressed. Pawnshops gave way to banks. Shabby saloons were replaced by trendy bistros. Instead of walkup
slums, there began to be professional office buildings, and parking structures.
Choosing one of the latter, Vikor disappeared into the roomy shade. Gad, these are dangerous places, he
thought with cynical humor. By then it was mid-afternoon. Most of the cars that occupied the several stories of
spaces and lanes were still waiting for the reappearance of their owners. But a trickle of early quitters was
showing up, bound for dentists, golf courses and little league.
Vikor waited in the shadow cast by the mercury fixtures imbedded at intervals in the concrete overhead. He
was patient. It took some time, but within half an hour a young woman came striding in the no-nonsense;
business-bitch gait that even in Birmingham was endemic.
Her own bad luck had her parked three cars away from where our killer crouched in the darkness. Moving
silently he closed that distance. She already had her door open and had tossed her purse across to the
passenger seat when a quick sprint brought Vikor across the remaining few feet.
He pushed her forward hard, so that her forehead struck the top edge of the open doorway of the BMW. His
left hand curled in her hair and jerked her head back while his knee rose and slammed into her back so that
her body assumed the shape of a drawn bow. Without any hesitation the right hand came up and around and
drew the blade back across her neck.
Stepping nimbly out of the way, he hurled her by the hair, away from the car, and let her tumble to the
concrete.
| * * * |
Soon after the fire, Johnny had acquired the new mare. He had never even given her a name. Now he had
shot her out of her agony; he received back a silent shower of thanks. He couldn't get to where Spot was
wailing in a tangle of blood and bones. After a thousand handfuls of precious oats, after hundreds of apple
treats, he couldn't give his buddy's faithful cayuse that last, special gift.
He holstered the gun and began to half-limp, half-crawl down west toward the gates of heaven. His original
thought had been to ride without a slowdown through the gate, up behind the old pump-house where he had
used to store his clothes and his uniform, and on, out of sight by then, through the second gate and away, into
the hills.
He couldn't see the moon anymore, but he could hear her in his mind. You can still run! You can still run! He
ran, crawling and limping, his left leg mashed and bruised, but not broken. Now the bullets began to chatter
into the pasture on the north side of the road. Only the sharpshooters on the two hills had open shots at the
fugitive now, as he raced the one hundred yards from the mailbox to the open gate. Each promptly missed once
more, then settled down and zeroed in his resolve.
shot her out of her agony; he received back a silent shower of thanks. He couldn't get to where Spot was
wailing in a tangle of blood and bones. After a thousand handfuls of precious oats, after hundreds of apple
treats, he couldn't give his buddy's faithful cayuse that last, special gift.
He holstered the gun and began to half-limp, half-crawl down west toward the gates of heaven. His original
thought had been to ride without a slowdown through the gate, up behind the old pump-house where he had
used to store his clothes and his uniform, and on, out of sight by then, through the second gate and away, into
the hills.
He couldn't see the moon anymore, but he could hear her in his mind. You can still run! You can still run! He
ran, crawling and limping, his left leg mashed and bruised, but not broken. Now the bullets began to chatter
into the pasture on the north side of the road. Only the sharpshooters on the two hills had open shots at the
fugitive now, as he raced the one hundred yards from the mailbox to the open gate. Each promptly missed once
more, then settled down and zeroed in his resolve.
| * * * |
Vikor was already examining the contents of Miss Susan Delaney's purse by the time the last of her blood had
flowed through the gaping slash.
The first thing he found was her can of mace. I sure would hate to catch a blast of this, he thought to himself.
Another couple of hundred dollars and a diamond engagement ring was the net of this gory deed, along with a
nearly new BMW. Vikor would not be keeping or selling the car, but for now it was his. With the drained lump
of human flesh stored safely in the trunk and covered with a raincoat, he was once more roaming the streets
and causeways of Birmingham, Alabama.
The humid heat had finally given way to rain. The hot tarmac steamed. Vikor was impressed with the
loveliness of the parts of Birmingham that he now explored. Flowering trees like dogwood and mimosa lined the
broad avenues and screened the mansions and lawns. The relief of the downpour was palpable. The music on
the radio was perfect. The car was a dream.
Cat One had taught the young monster how to drive and she had done well, despite her decidedly
unconventional attitudes.
Surprisingly, Agnes Tawny had found time to say quite a bit to Cat about driving vehicles, and this was passed
to Vikor. By nineteen thirty-seven, she had not yet mentioned the subject to Andrea Clare Devlin. Perhaps she
had not finished learning about it.
By nineteen fifty-three, when Agnes' younger protégé was first learning to drive, Cat One could recall several
comments, delivered over the preceding three or four years, to flavor her preconceptions. Her mother had
never learned to drive. (This meant that Agnes Tawny had not learned any of what she knew about driving
through the medium of her student, Andrea Clare. Had she been out driving herself? Who knows?)
By nineteen ninety-two, the old mountain woman had formed a definite theory about the nature of this
creature that had hatched and grown within her lifetime.
She remembered the theory of her youthful grandson. Minus the part about hatching, a creature was just
what Vikor had suggested was a fit definition for the phenomenon. It was a creature of many parts. It could
even be defined by the names of some of those parts. It could be called traffic. It could be called the road. It
could be called the automobile. It could be called driving.
It could not be called the driver. The creature was something else, a being with a different identity from any
solitary Catherine or Victor behind the wheel. Even on an otherwise deserted road, this would hold true, she
could speculate. By then the hold of this composite monster might be tenuous and gentle; a drive alone down a
soft, maple lane does not seem like participation in the life of such a creature. But it is. Even with total
freedom, we play our roles.
As a long-tailed dragon, appearing from the mist was how Agnes Tawny saw the creature. With a start, Vikor
was suddenly alert, disturbed by his own thoughts. That was how Ma had spoken of the freeway! He
remembered suddenly how clearly he could see that dragon, at night, when he and Diana had sat on the end of
a ridge and watched the freeway that lay to the west. Then it was like a stream of fiery gems. It was a rhythmic
dance of lights.
But he learned that it existed, and was just as real, when it was all velvet dark across Murphy's west pasture,
and quiet enough to hear the whippoorwills. It lay out there like a lion in the night, not even asleep, its
attention elsewhere, not a car in sight. It was still there, slipping like a long snake through the hills, still
capable of killing in a second. Cars don't need to have lights on to roll. Nor do they need to make any sounds
louder than the sea breeze playing with the shoulders of the freeway.
Diana never learned to drive either. Never learned to drive! Never learned to be a part of this eerie creature
coming into existence from nothing but the collective interaction of its parts. The physical roads themselves
give it form, yet it can go where there are no roads, and it makes its own in so doing, whether it's the first faint
trails from the passage of a dirt bike, or the two ruts on the back pasture of a dairy farm that connect in
unbroken ligament all the way to the cheese factory in the downtown city, and to every other city's downtown
as well.
Certainly the carnage, in degree and detail, can be as awesome (awful) at the back end of a country road as it
can during the rush hour in the city. There's just more of it down there.
The number one rule of driving is survival, your own. That's what Diana, who never had used the controls of a
car, told her son. Don't become one of the ingredients in the awesome carnage.
Number two, don't get stopped by the law. The ramifications of this went on for hours. Diana had been born a
fugitive. She knew that we all were fugitives and that the hunt did not slacken whether you were on the busy
highway or up in the arsenic mine. Blending in was the rule in both places. Her father had been Johnny
Stream, and he was at a master at that, at least up in the draw that contains the mine on the backside of Black
Mountain.
He didn't call it blending in. He called it "keeping down." He could have called it low impact camping were
such a phrase in vogue before he suffered his own high impact with lead. In the meantime, to the casual eye,
nothing ever changed about the places where the Stream tribe camped. Beyond the unavoidable, the impression
of bedding and bodies, the shifting of nagging stones and twigs, the fire, when there was one, no sign was left.
There was no general clearing of sites. They shifted about frequently enough to where even the golden
summer grass of favorite bedding grounds was not completely worn away. The deer were worse, for they would
sleep in the barley, lying down to leave large ruined swirls.
flowed through the gaping slash.
The first thing he found was her can of mace. I sure would hate to catch a blast of this, he thought to himself.
Another couple of hundred dollars and a diamond engagement ring was the net of this gory deed, along with a
nearly new BMW. Vikor would not be keeping or selling the car, but for now it was his. With the drained lump
of human flesh stored safely in the trunk and covered with a raincoat, he was once more roaming the streets
and causeways of Birmingham, Alabama.
The humid heat had finally given way to rain. The hot tarmac steamed. Vikor was impressed with the
loveliness of the parts of Birmingham that he now explored. Flowering trees like dogwood and mimosa lined the
broad avenues and screened the mansions and lawns. The relief of the downpour was palpable. The music on
the radio was perfect. The car was a dream.
Cat One had taught the young monster how to drive and she had done well, despite her decidedly
unconventional attitudes.
Surprisingly, Agnes Tawny had found time to say quite a bit to Cat about driving vehicles, and this was passed
to Vikor. By nineteen thirty-seven, she had not yet mentioned the subject to Andrea Clare Devlin. Perhaps she
had not finished learning about it.
By nineteen fifty-three, when Agnes' younger protégé was first learning to drive, Cat One could recall several
comments, delivered over the preceding three or four years, to flavor her preconceptions. Her mother had
never learned to drive. (This meant that Agnes Tawny had not learned any of what she knew about driving
through the medium of her student, Andrea Clare. Had she been out driving herself? Who knows?)
By nineteen ninety-two, the old mountain woman had formed a definite theory about the nature of this
creature that had hatched and grown within her lifetime.
She remembered the theory of her youthful grandson. Minus the part about hatching, a creature was just
what Vikor had suggested was a fit definition for the phenomenon. It was a creature of many parts. It could
even be defined by the names of some of those parts. It could be called traffic. It could be called the road. It
could be called the automobile. It could be called driving.
It could not be called the driver. The creature was something else, a being with a different identity from any
solitary Catherine or Victor behind the wheel. Even on an otherwise deserted road, this would hold true, she
could speculate. By then the hold of this composite monster might be tenuous and gentle; a drive alone down a
soft, maple lane does not seem like participation in the life of such a creature. But it is. Even with total
freedom, we play our roles.
As a long-tailed dragon, appearing from the mist was how Agnes Tawny saw the creature. With a start, Vikor
was suddenly alert, disturbed by his own thoughts. That was how Ma had spoken of the freeway! He
remembered suddenly how clearly he could see that dragon, at night, when he and Diana had sat on the end of
a ridge and watched the freeway that lay to the west. Then it was like a stream of fiery gems. It was a rhythmic
dance of lights.
But he learned that it existed, and was just as real, when it was all velvet dark across Murphy's west pasture,
and quiet enough to hear the whippoorwills. It lay out there like a lion in the night, not even asleep, its
attention elsewhere, not a car in sight. It was still there, slipping like a long snake through the hills, still
capable of killing in a second. Cars don't need to have lights on to roll. Nor do they need to make any sounds
louder than the sea breeze playing with the shoulders of the freeway.
Diana never learned to drive either. Never learned to drive! Never learned to be a part of this eerie creature
coming into existence from nothing but the collective interaction of its parts. The physical roads themselves
give it form, yet it can go where there are no roads, and it makes its own in so doing, whether it's the first faint
trails from the passage of a dirt bike, or the two ruts on the back pasture of a dairy farm that connect in
unbroken ligament all the way to the cheese factory in the downtown city, and to every other city's downtown
as well.
Certainly the carnage, in degree and detail, can be as awesome (awful) at the back end of a country road as it
can during the rush hour in the city. There's just more of it down there.
The number one rule of driving is survival, your own. That's what Diana, who never had used the controls of a
car, told her son. Don't become one of the ingredients in the awesome carnage.
Number two, don't get stopped by the law. The ramifications of this went on for hours. Diana had been born a
fugitive. She knew that we all were fugitives and that the hunt did not slacken whether you were on the busy
highway or up in the arsenic mine. Blending in was the rule in both places. Her father had been Johnny
Stream, and he was at a master at that, at least up in the draw that contains the mine on the backside of Black
Mountain.
He didn't call it blending in. He called it "keeping down." He could have called it low impact camping were
such a phrase in vogue before he suffered his own high impact with lead. In the meantime, to the casual eye,
nothing ever changed about the places where the Stream tribe camped. Beyond the unavoidable, the impression
of bedding and bodies, the shifting of nagging stones and twigs, the fire, when there was one, no sign was left.
There was no general clearing of sites. They shifted about frequently enough to where even the golden
summer grass of favorite bedding grounds was not completely worn away. The deer were worse, for they would
sleep in the barley, lying down to leave large ruined swirls.
| * * * |
Johnny leaned over and hugged the neck of the speeding mare, leaning with her as he guided her into the
turn. When her steel-shod hooves hit the pavement she was already at an angle. She slid across the road,
landing heavily on Johnny's leg about half-way across, and continuing into the ditch where she broke her own
leg. She began to whinny with pain.
Johnny Stream muscled himself out from under the thrashing body of the injured horse. The eruption of
gunfire had convinced him and his partner that their choice to flee had been correct, at least in the
presumption that there was indeed a danger at hand from which to flee. It was likewise with the decision to try
to negotiate that turn onto a paved road at such a speed. Now his horse was broke and he was a sitting duck;
his partner was dead, and both of the horses were shrilling in agony.
Johnny glanced back to where the shots came from. He only saw the two deputies down the road between the
cornfield and the trees. He pulled his own forty-four, still strapped into its holster, and riding clean on the high
side during the slide. Without pausing for a moment, Johnny Stream sent a forty-four slug through the head of
his faithful and deserving horse.
turn. When her steel-shod hooves hit the pavement she was already at an angle. She slid across the road,
landing heavily on Johnny's leg about half-way across, and continuing into the ditch where she broke her own
leg. She began to whinny with pain.
Johnny Stream muscled himself out from under the thrashing body of the injured horse. The eruption of
gunfire had convinced him and his partner that their choice to flee had been correct, at least in the
presumption that there was indeed a danger at hand from which to flee. It was likewise with the decision to try
to negotiate that turn onto a paved road at such a speed. Now his horse was broke and he was a sitting duck;
his partner was dead, and both of the horses were shrilling in agony.
Johnny glanced back to where the shots came from. He only saw the two deputies down the road between the
cornfield and the trees. He pulled his own forty-four, still strapped into its holster, and riding clean on the high
side during the slide. Without pausing for a moment, Johnny Stream sent a forty-four slug through the head of
his faithful and deserving horse.
By nineteen sixty-two, it was no longer such a done deal, that public mores would more or less justify a
woman's inflicting fatal punishment on her yet to be accused rapist. The phrase "judge, jury and executioner"
was starting to smack too much of vigilantism and rights trespass. By then, a good many citizens had been
exposed to thoughts that suggested that, toleration of these acts of taking the law into one's own hands, leaves
us all somewhat at the mercy of what a killer says to society while we lie mute and untried at the base of the
cliff.
Had Cat One been convicted of second degree murder, it would not have been the first time that a victim of a
crime served a sentence in prison as reward for her response to that crime. But she was lucky. It never got
past the hearing. The judge and the D.A. privately agreed with Cat's lawyer that she had already been
sentenced, by her pregnancy, to punishment that was adequate repayment for whatever outrage she had cost
the state by preempting the right of capital punishment.
In all they were proud of her, and sorry, and ashamed.
Cat was none of these. She didn't live in the past; Agnes had taught her nothing if not the ability to see things
as they are, and to act upon what is.
Selabjun Kirkhaz had been dismissed. He had delivered whatever genetic gifts he carried from his own earlier
generations. Cat had no further use for him now, and she was glad he was dead. She wanted no man who
related that way to a woman to serve as role model for her son, nor image ideal for her daughter.
But, oh, those genetic gifts!
woman's inflicting fatal punishment on her yet to be accused rapist. The phrase "judge, jury and executioner"
was starting to smack too much of vigilantism and rights trespass. By then, a good many citizens had been
exposed to thoughts that suggested that, toleration of these acts of taking the law into one's own hands, leaves
us all somewhat at the mercy of what a killer says to society while we lie mute and untried at the base of the
cliff.
Had Cat One been convicted of second degree murder, it would not have been the first time that a victim of a
crime served a sentence in prison as reward for her response to that crime. But she was lucky. It never got
past the hearing. The judge and the D.A. privately agreed with Cat's lawyer that she had already been
sentenced, by her pregnancy, to punishment that was adequate repayment for whatever outrage she had cost
the state by preempting the right of capital punishment.
In all they were proud of her, and sorry, and ashamed.
Cat was none of these. She didn't live in the past; Agnes had taught her nothing if not the ability to see things
as they are, and to act upon what is.
Selabjun Kirkhaz had been dismissed. He had delivered whatever genetic gifts he carried from his own earlier
generations. Cat had no further use for him now, and she was glad he was dead. She wanted no man who
related that way to a woman to serve as role model for her son, nor image ideal for her daughter.
But, oh, those genetic gifts!
| * * * |
The mare had been the one to replace Widowmaker. After all the heroism of the battle, after the sturdy
performance on the long hard trail, after all that Widowmaker had become to Johnny and Bob and Carol and
baby Diana, after five years as the horse of an outlaw, she had to go back to her owner, Bob's aunt, Marilyn
Fiero.
Marilyn had finally married again; perhaps she thought the horse was a spell that would make her a widow
once more, and so free her from this tyrant electrician Fiero she had married for no sensible reason. Anyhow,
she wanted Widowmaker back, and Johnny and the others were at no war with Marilyn. She had helped them
often in their struggles to survive and to remain invisible. They had lived in her silos; they had eaten her beef
and her beans. They understood how a horse could be special, and how a loss could feel like betrayal, so they
had bid the sweet nag adieu.
At the time of the fire they had only the one horse, Spot. Bob Cabler at one time had owned a cat and a dog as
well as the horse, and to all three he gave the name 'Spot.' He had to shoot the dog one day. The cat still lived
at Marilyn's stable. The horse did double duty during the crazed escape. Good old Spot.
performance on the long hard trail, after all that Widowmaker had become to Johnny and Bob and Carol and
baby Diana, after five years as the horse of an outlaw, she had to go back to her owner, Bob's aunt, Marilyn
Fiero.
Marilyn had finally married again; perhaps she thought the horse was a spell that would make her a widow
once more, and so free her from this tyrant electrician Fiero she had married for no sensible reason. Anyhow,
she wanted Widowmaker back, and Johnny and the others were at no war with Marilyn. She had helped them
often in their struggles to survive and to remain invisible. They had lived in her silos; they had eaten her beef
and her beans. They understood how a horse could be special, and how a loss could feel like betrayal, so they
had bid the sweet nag adieu.
At the time of the fire they had only the one horse, Spot. Bob Cabler at one time had owned a cat and a dog as
well as the horse, and to all three he gave the name 'Spot.' He had to shoot the dog one day. The cat still lived
at Marilyn's stable. The horse did double duty during the crazed escape. Good old Spot.
| * * * |
Diary of a Goat herder 17 June 1981
Spring fever; a winter, a year of goats alone on the mountain. Bean sprouts and canned
mackerel. Steep pastures in four hours of rain, day after day. Long nights of cards,
checkers, chess and backgammon, till Bob and I could hardly bear.
Spring fever; a winter, a year of goats alone on the mountain. Bean sprouts and canned
mackerel. Steep pastures in four hours of rain, day after day. Long nights of cards,
checkers, chess and backgammon, till Bob and I could hardly bear.
| * * * |
| * * * |
Diary of a Goat herder 18 June 1981
A train trip to San Luis Obispo. City pleasures, and light-headed travel.
A train trip to San Luis Obispo. City pleasures, and light-headed travel.
The next two shots hit Johnny Stream at the same instant, close to his heart, and blew his chest to
smithereens. He ran now like a lion, free of the trammels of life. The gate way loomed as it had in the past, a
portal to another world, a bridge. It led to a place where a cowboy could strip to the flesh, then pull on the crisp
skivvies of another life, another crew, another band, another tribe.
Another allegiance. It was a place where a sailor could go, could metamorphose himself into a shaveless
scruffian, a saddle-tramp, a slouching, back-country wrangler with no more in common with his shipboard
mates than the tobacco under his lip and the denim covering his ass.
It was also a cemetery.
He raced for it now, and damn the moon, for he did think of all that she had cautioned him against. She had
known that he would. She knew he would think of Carol and Diana. She knew he would see the creeks and the
mountains, and the sunshine and the happiness.
smithereens. He ran now like a lion, free of the trammels of life. The gate way loomed as it had in the past, a
portal to another world, a bridge. It led to a place where a cowboy could strip to the flesh, then pull on the crisp
skivvies of another life, another crew, another band, another tribe.
Another allegiance. It was a place where a sailor could go, could metamorphose himself into a shaveless
scruffian, a saddle-tramp, a slouching, back-country wrangler with no more in common with his shipboard
mates than the tobacco under his lip and the denim covering his ass.
It was also a cemetery.
He raced for it now, and damn the moon, for he did think of all that she had cautioned him against. She had
known that he would. She knew he would think of Carol and Diana. She knew he would see the creeks and the
mountains, and the sunshine and the happiness.
| * * * |
| * * * |
The trick to staying in the arsenic mine was dealing with the horses. The narrow canyon full of scrub oak and
chamise had little in the way of grass. Moreover, a lot of the terrain was steep and rocky. But the area to the
northeast of Black Mountain was open pasture. One of the concrete impoundments lay right in the center of a
large, dish-shaped valley full of grass.
Spring had turned to summer and romance. Autumn in the mountains was cold, dry wind; winter was snow
and rain. Now it was still winter in the mountains, but in the coastal hills, it was springtime again. The valleys
and mesas were lush with green grass. There were at least three problems with turning the three horses out to
graze on their own, especially Widowmaker and Spot.
Horses fed on stored, dry alfalfa and grain would have foundered in the meadows, their bellies engorged with
green grass, legs stiff, making deep mumbles as they lay with green juice trickling from their mouths.
Cheyenne, Spot and Widowmaker had lived with the changes day by day, had gone from pastures blown and
nibbled bleak in the long dry autumn months in the mountains, to the greening that came right after the first
rain, a tough crop that would grow long and weathered itself before the rest of the rain arrived, but was enough
to fill a trio of wide ranging mountain horses' bellies, to the lush glut of verdant blades and trefoils that
cloaked the openings in the brush as the days grew long again.
As the horses had borne the little family back down through the arroyos and canyons that gathered into
valleys, spring had advanced with each step into the lower, warmer climate. The grass was taller and taller. The
wild roses came into bloom with the passing of a half day's ride.
They were tired of the cold winds and isolation, and tired of the relentless rains. They figured things to have
cooled down back in the bean fields of Del Mar. With Carol's baby coming due, and life hard enough already,
they decided to come down.
The arsenic mine was hopefully only a step on the road to the silo. And so it proved, but it was a long step.
Diana was born in the arsenic mine.
Had it been a clear night, she would have been born outside, under the stars that crossed the rift of sky that
squeezed between the walls of the canyon. But it was raining, so they were holed up in one of the mines,
blankets draped on stone.
Carol remembered first seeing the dark hole that peered at her suddenly from beneath its ledge of rock. Then
there were two of them, peering like dark eyes at the three riders who emerged from the narrow trail up
through the chaparral.
At the mouth of each opening was an apron of tailings. It had been years since the miners had departed, but
on these broken rocks had grown not a morsel of moss or lichens. Grass had not grown up between the chunks.
Their favorite hole was a mere ten feet deep, expanding from a small opening to a spacious room where one
could stand upright and walk around. She remembered the old piece of timber that had lain there. After all the
many years, it had not rotted, for the arsenic in the environment would not tolerate the life forms that are rot.
So the hunk of wood had simply desiccated, dry and sterile, its atoms and molecules letting go of one another's
grip in silent entropy.
The horses knew better than to founder themselves on lushness. Aside from that were the worries that the
horses might not come back, and worse, that they might be seen. Widowmaker and Spot especially were known
in the area. Wandering too far to the west they might be seen by Heinz or anyone, including Murphy. Carol's
mount… they called him Cheyenne, was the gelding that Johnny had stolen for her.
The answer was to let the nags graze at night, in the open darkness.
Just at the first light of dawn, every morning, one of the gang… sometimes it was Carol… would appear at
the opening to the draw with a basket of grain. The grain had come trussed in hundred pound sacks on the
backs of one of the same well-fed, four-legged morons that now stood in the chill of dawn and surrendered to
capture again for a few mouthfuls apiece.
Groomed and babied, they would spend their idle hours patiently standing in halters fastened by lead ropes to
a log, hidden deep in the tall brush part of the way up the draw.
Often they were saddled up and being ridden. Sometimes they were hidden in the old red barns at the Heinz
place. Who ever knows, when looking at a place, what horse might stand in silent darkness behind the walls of
this or that shed or barn? A swish of a tail, a munch of hay, and after a long pause a thump from a hoof on the
cool, flat dirt… the hours would pass.
Marilyn was an angel to the outlaws when they were at the arsenic mine. The Heinz ranch was the trading
post where the pay was thanks. With the old man purring on his tractor, Marilyn and her mother could safely
host her nephew and his strange partners.
She was filled with wonder that they had survived the way they had. Marilyn would ply them with coffee to
hear their stories of six months on the lam in the mountains of Southern California. It stirred the adventure in
her own heart. Her mom was fairly senile and only listened in with smiles and nods. But old Mrs. Heinz had a
past of her own.
She knew friends when she saw them, and she smiled and nodded.
Later on, when they had set up housekeeping in the old barley silo, life took another step toward normalcy.
By then old Heinz had been mollified to acceptance. He understood part of what had happened. His step-
daughter's kid and Johnny were not the bad guys after all. They were the heroes, the western savior and his
'breed sidekick.
Somebody got that gal pregnant, (and too bad about the Murphy girl) Bill Heinz would grumble to himself, and
he would go ride his tractor, and his lips were sealed.
It was good that he feuded with Murphy. Murphy stayed away from the Heinz spread. Bob and Johnny used to
discuss a fanciful event in the life of Marilyn's pa. Heinz and Gus Stelling had also feuded over the years.
One morning, Gus Stelling was found shot dead. Bob and Johnny had imagined old Bill Heinz saddling up his
favorite horse one night in the barn with thunder rumbling and kerosene lamplight. Then they had him riding
out in the storm, an old man on an old horse, plodding up the long, eucalyptus bordered road. In their minds he
sat like a statue in the rain and called Gus Stelling out, and shot him down in harmony with the thunder. Old
squabbles about fence lines settled and done with, he would ride off slowly, horse and rider equally stooped with
age.
Apparently nobody ever suspected anything of the sort. Gus Stelling had been a friendless old coot. But, in
spite of the current feud, or maybe because of it, Murphy did come to suspect that Bob Cabler was holed up at
his aunt's place. When word of this reached Heinz, the pack was summarily evicted from the silo.
Even in this they were fortunate, for deputies did pay a polite visit to the Heinz ranch a few days later, and
they took a look around. If they didn't look in the silo, it probably was because it was full of barley.
Under the stars again at the mine, the little family, swollen now to four, spent many a happy day and night,
and many a happy month. Most of the year a stream gurgled through the canyon. At night with the moon full
and the creek singing, and cool breezes blowing down to wash away the heat of the summer, it felt good to be a
baby, and to be allowed to play.
It felt good to be a baby, and to look at the moonlit walls of rock, the enticing trails disappearing into the
silvery magic. It felt good to be a baby and to turn back and be swept into the beautiful arms of your mother. It
felt good to be a baby and to hear the gurgling creek, and to fall asleep to the whisper of wind.
It felt good to be Ma, and to stir the campfire ashes for coals to make the morning coffee. She found it easy to
imagine it feeling just as good or better in a house. The boys still went riding a lot. Carol took a sad
amusement in noticing that with the arrival of the baby, she herself became a mother of three, and Johnny and
Bob became 'the boys.' She nurtured them all, but they would go riding, and she would stay with the baby.
The days were quiet and eerie. Diana was never much of a crier, and as she grew she was not much for the
loud screams and chatter that many groups of children find. She quickly became more adept than her ma at
negotiating the trails. Like the horses set free to graze at night, Diana was lured back by food. At first, it was
the milk at her mother's breast. Carol Gallagher stayed fresh for five years. There was usually always plenty of
food for her to stoke the fires in her mammary glands. The boys made sure of that.
Whether it was from the charity of Bob's aunt, or the boys own poaching and rustling, there was plenty of
food. And plenty of time to prepare it. There was plenty of easy firewood.
The boys transported everything in from the outside world on horseback. In broad daylight they knew every
back lane and trail in the maze across the landscape. By moonlight they rode the main road, loping along at a
good speed through the dirt curves and the unpaved ruts. When they saw or heard a vehicle they slipped off the
road and waited for the truck to go by. Then the road was theirs once more.
The boys. Carol missed them when they rode off on their missions and adventures. She stayed in the canyon,
and she watched Diana grow. Practical realities honed her mind. She was alert to a thousand dangers. She
missed Maggie, who had been the object of her devoted prudence, but her baby nicely filled the niche.
It was back and forth between the mine and the Heinz ranch for years. Carol loved the calm eras when she
was able to socialize with Marilyn. The barley silo gave way to the abandoned house that Johnny and Bob
discovered hidden deep in the chaparral north of Black Mountain Road, up in a lonesome canyon where no one
ever went. Some new shingles, throw rugs and curtains, and the tiny place became a home one last time.
The place was a forgotten example of what the old-timers called a 'little house.' The little houses were the
ones built first by the farmers who migrated to Southern California in the nineteenth century. Designed to be
built with one load of lumber delivered, hauled in on the lumber merchant's big wagon, the shacks were
marvels of design.
Where the Spanish and the Mexicans had used timber and clay from the environment to construct their ranch
houses, the new wave of settlers chose to buy dimensioned lumber. They squeaked by with as little as possible.
Given the uncertainty of agriculture in this strange, dry land, it seemed prudent to thrifty Germans to buy
what fit the budget, and then to build a house as large as possible. With a little planning these midget houses
served for half a generation before each was supplanted by a more substantial structure, built from many
wagon loads of lumber and cement.
Often the stone that had dotted the fields of the patient family would be found in the walls of their new home.
Until then living was cramped. The little houses were not built with such barbaric concepts as a shelter that was
one large room. Some of the little houses would have been one small room had they been left whole, and still
they were divided into separate spaces. There was an old one over on the Cortes place that had come complete
with an upstairs and a staircase leading up to it, a tiny flight enclosed in its own slim chute.
They were created in unintentional mockery of the homes left back east and in Europe. They mocked even
the big houses that would someday replace them. Separate rooms for separate uses. Carol had once read a book
that listed the many rooms of a large English manor, and the functions that defined each, the sewing room, the
folding room, the polishing room, and so on.
She marveled as she explored the three little rooms of her new house. What functions here were so precise
that they demanded their own territory, she wondered. Sleep here; cook here; eat here. Each room now
impossibly small… Diana often imagined how it would have been better to have left it as one, one big kitchen,
as well as one big dining room, and one big sitting room, and one big area to throw out the bedrolls when the
time came. Different uses for different times.
She often wondered if the farm couple had endured spells of not speaking to one another. She wondered if
they ever used the tiny walls to isolate themselves. She could picture the woman sitting, dressed in a flower
print and a shawl, on the bed that filled the room. In the eating room, the man sat on a chair by the table. If
the chair leg creaked beneath his tired frame, she heard it. Through the thin walls, her any whimper, sob, pout
or bitch could be heard clear as a razor.
He might stand and take the three steps through the doorway into the kitchen, stooping to do so lest he strike
his head on the low header. She would hear his boot steps; she would hear him stoop. She would hear him burp
and stretch.
She would turn, and he would hear the mattress stretch. He would hear her sigh; he would hear the mist on
the tin roof. It sounded like rain, and he thought of his lima beans.
She could hear the rain on the leaves; she could hear him think.
chamise had little in the way of grass. Moreover, a lot of the terrain was steep and rocky. But the area to the
northeast of Black Mountain was open pasture. One of the concrete impoundments lay right in the center of a
large, dish-shaped valley full of grass.
Spring had turned to summer and romance. Autumn in the mountains was cold, dry wind; winter was snow
and rain. Now it was still winter in the mountains, but in the coastal hills, it was springtime again. The valleys
and mesas were lush with green grass. There were at least three problems with turning the three horses out to
graze on their own, especially Widowmaker and Spot.
Horses fed on stored, dry alfalfa and grain would have foundered in the meadows, their bellies engorged with
green grass, legs stiff, making deep mumbles as they lay with green juice trickling from their mouths.
Cheyenne, Spot and Widowmaker had lived with the changes day by day, had gone from pastures blown and
nibbled bleak in the long dry autumn months in the mountains, to the greening that came right after the first
rain, a tough crop that would grow long and weathered itself before the rest of the rain arrived, but was enough
to fill a trio of wide ranging mountain horses' bellies, to the lush glut of verdant blades and trefoils that
cloaked the openings in the brush as the days grew long again.
As the horses had borne the little family back down through the arroyos and canyons that gathered into
valleys, spring had advanced with each step into the lower, warmer climate. The grass was taller and taller. The
wild roses came into bloom with the passing of a half day's ride.
They were tired of the cold winds and isolation, and tired of the relentless rains. They figured things to have
cooled down back in the bean fields of Del Mar. With Carol's baby coming due, and life hard enough already,
they decided to come down.
The arsenic mine was hopefully only a step on the road to the silo. And so it proved, but it was a long step.
Diana was born in the arsenic mine.
Had it been a clear night, she would have been born outside, under the stars that crossed the rift of sky that
squeezed between the walls of the canyon. But it was raining, so they were holed up in one of the mines,
blankets draped on stone.
Carol remembered first seeing the dark hole that peered at her suddenly from beneath its ledge of rock. Then
there were two of them, peering like dark eyes at the three riders who emerged from the narrow trail up
through the chaparral.
At the mouth of each opening was an apron of tailings. It had been years since the miners had departed, but
on these broken rocks had grown not a morsel of moss or lichens. Grass had not grown up between the chunks.
Their favorite hole was a mere ten feet deep, expanding from a small opening to a spacious room where one
could stand upright and walk around. She remembered the old piece of timber that had lain there. After all the
many years, it had not rotted, for the arsenic in the environment would not tolerate the life forms that are rot.
So the hunk of wood had simply desiccated, dry and sterile, its atoms and molecules letting go of one another's
grip in silent entropy.
The horses knew better than to founder themselves on lushness. Aside from that were the worries that the
horses might not come back, and worse, that they might be seen. Widowmaker and Spot especially were known
in the area. Wandering too far to the west they might be seen by Heinz or anyone, including Murphy. Carol's
mount… they called him Cheyenne, was the gelding that Johnny had stolen for her.
The answer was to let the nags graze at night, in the open darkness.
Just at the first light of dawn, every morning, one of the gang… sometimes it was Carol… would appear at
the opening to the draw with a basket of grain. The grain had come trussed in hundred pound sacks on the
backs of one of the same well-fed, four-legged morons that now stood in the chill of dawn and surrendered to
capture again for a few mouthfuls apiece.
Groomed and babied, they would spend their idle hours patiently standing in halters fastened by lead ropes to
a log, hidden deep in the tall brush part of the way up the draw.
Often they were saddled up and being ridden. Sometimes they were hidden in the old red barns at the Heinz
place. Who ever knows, when looking at a place, what horse might stand in silent darkness behind the walls of
this or that shed or barn? A swish of a tail, a munch of hay, and after a long pause a thump from a hoof on the
cool, flat dirt… the hours would pass.
Marilyn was an angel to the outlaws when they were at the arsenic mine. The Heinz ranch was the trading
post where the pay was thanks. With the old man purring on his tractor, Marilyn and her mother could safely
host her nephew and his strange partners.
She was filled with wonder that they had survived the way they had. Marilyn would ply them with coffee to
hear their stories of six months on the lam in the mountains of Southern California. It stirred the adventure in
her own heart. Her mom was fairly senile and only listened in with smiles and nods. But old Mrs. Heinz had a
past of her own.
She knew friends when she saw them, and she smiled and nodded.
Later on, when they had set up housekeeping in the old barley silo, life took another step toward normalcy.
By then old Heinz had been mollified to acceptance. He understood part of what had happened. His step-
daughter's kid and Johnny were not the bad guys after all. They were the heroes, the western savior and his
'breed sidekick.
Somebody got that gal pregnant, (and too bad about the Murphy girl) Bill Heinz would grumble to himself, and
he would go ride his tractor, and his lips were sealed.
It was good that he feuded with Murphy. Murphy stayed away from the Heinz spread. Bob and Johnny used to
discuss a fanciful event in the life of Marilyn's pa. Heinz and Gus Stelling had also feuded over the years.
One morning, Gus Stelling was found shot dead. Bob and Johnny had imagined old Bill Heinz saddling up his
favorite horse one night in the barn with thunder rumbling and kerosene lamplight. Then they had him riding
out in the storm, an old man on an old horse, plodding up the long, eucalyptus bordered road. In their minds he
sat like a statue in the rain and called Gus Stelling out, and shot him down in harmony with the thunder. Old
squabbles about fence lines settled and done with, he would ride off slowly, horse and rider equally stooped with
age.
Apparently nobody ever suspected anything of the sort. Gus Stelling had been a friendless old coot. But, in
spite of the current feud, or maybe because of it, Murphy did come to suspect that Bob Cabler was holed up at
his aunt's place. When word of this reached Heinz, the pack was summarily evicted from the silo.
Even in this they were fortunate, for deputies did pay a polite visit to the Heinz ranch a few days later, and
they took a look around. If they didn't look in the silo, it probably was because it was full of barley.
Under the stars again at the mine, the little family, swollen now to four, spent many a happy day and night,
and many a happy month. Most of the year a stream gurgled through the canyon. At night with the moon full
and the creek singing, and cool breezes blowing down to wash away the heat of the summer, it felt good to be a
baby, and to be allowed to play.
It felt good to be a baby, and to look at the moonlit walls of rock, the enticing trails disappearing into the
silvery magic. It felt good to be a baby and to turn back and be swept into the beautiful arms of your mother. It
felt good to be a baby and to hear the gurgling creek, and to fall asleep to the whisper of wind.
It felt good to be Ma, and to stir the campfire ashes for coals to make the morning coffee. She found it easy to
imagine it feeling just as good or better in a house. The boys still went riding a lot. Carol took a sad
amusement in noticing that with the arrival of the baby, she herself became a mother of three, and Johnny and
Bob became 'the boys.' She nurtured them all, but they would go riding, and she would stay with the baby.
The days were quiet and eerie. Diana was never much of a crier, and as she grew she was not much for the
loud screams and chatter that many groups of children find. She quickly became more adept than her ma at
negotiating the trails. Like the horses set free to graze at night, Diana was lured back by food. At first, it was
the milk at her mother's breast. Carol Gallagher stayed fresh for five years. There was usually always plenty of
food for her to stoke the fires in her mammary glands. The boys made sure of that.
Whether it was from the charity of Bob's aunt, or the boys own poaching and rustling, there was plenty of
food. And plenty of time to prepare it. There was plenty of easy firewood.
The boys transported everything in from the outside world on horseback. In broad daylight they knew every
back lane and trail in the maze across the landscape. By moonlight they rode the main road, loping along at a
good speed through the dirt curves and the unpaved ruts. When they saw or heard a vehicle they slipped off the
road and waited for the truck to go by. Then the road was theirs once more.
The boys. Carol missed them when they rode off on their missions and adventures. She stayed in the canyon,
and she watched Diana grow. Practical realities honed her mind. She was alert to a thousand dangers. She
missed Maggie, who had been the object of her devoted prudence, but her baby nicely filled the niche.
It was back and forth between the mine and the Heinz ranch for years. Carol loved the calm eras when she
was able to socialize with Marilyn. The barley silo gave way to the abandoned house that Johnny and Bob
discovered hidden deep in the chaparral north of Black Mountain Road, up in a lonesome canyon where no one
ever went. Some new shingles, throw rugs and curtains, and the tiny place became a home one last time.
The place was a forgotten example of what the old-timers called a 'little house.' The little houses were the
ones built first by the farmers who migrated to Southern California in the nineteenth century. Designed to be
built with one load of lumber delivered, hauled in on the lumber merchant's big wagon, the shacks were
marvels of design.
Where the Spanish and the Mexicans had used timber and clay from the environment to construct their ranch
houses, the new wave of settlers chose to buy dimensioned lumber. They squeaked by with as little as possible.
Given the uncertainty of agriculture in this strange, dry land, it seemed prudent to thrifty Germans to buy
what fit the budget, and then to build a house as large as possible. With a little planning these midget houses
served for half a generation before each was supplanted by a more substantial structure, built from many
wagon loads of lumber and cement.
Often the stone that had dotted the fields of the patient family would be found in the walls of their new home.
Until then living was cramped. The little houses were not built with such barbaric concepts as a shelter that was
one large room. Some of the little houses would have been one small room had they been left whole, and still
they were divided into separate spaces. There was an old one over on the Cortes place that had come complete
with an upstairs and a staircase leading up to it, a tiny flight enclosed in its own slim chute.
They were created in unintentional mockery of the homes left back east and in Europe. They mocked even
the big houses that would someday replace them. Separate rooms for separate uses. Carol had once read a book
that listed the many rooms of a large English manor, and the functions that defined each, the sewing room, the
folding room, the polishing room, and so on.
She marveled as she explored the three little rooms of her new house. What functions here were so precise
that they demanded their own territory, she wondered. Sleep here; cook here; eat here. Each room now
impossibly small… Diana often imagined how it would have been better to have left it as one, one big kitchen,
as well as one big dining room, and one big sitting room, and one big area to throw out the bedrolls when the
time came. Different uses for different times.
She often wondered if the farm couple had endured spells of not speaking to one another. She wondered if
they ever used the tiny walls to isolate themselves. She could picture the woman sitting, dressed in a flower
print and a shawl, on the bed that filled the room. In the eating room, the man sat on a chair by the table. If
the chair leg creaked beneath his tired frame, she heard it. Through the thin walls, her any whimper, sob, pout
or bitch could be heard clear as a razor.
He might stand and take the three steps through the doorway into the kitchen, stooping to do so lest he strike
his head on the low header. She would hear his boot steps; she would hear him stoop. She would hear him burp
and stretch.
She would turn, and he would hear the mattress stretch. He would hear her sigh; he would hear the mist on
the tin roof. It sounded like rain, and he thought of his lima beans.
She could hear the rain on the leaves; she could hear him think.
| * * * |
The game is over. A greater game is beginning, true, but for now we have a man walking on a country road.
He is limping. The air has the chill of autumn.
So much had happened. It was as if a war between magic and reality had been won by magic. The stress of the
years, the balance broken, the mind pushed over into wonderland.
He reached Fugitive Creek. Oak leaves spread in a golden carpet on the other side. He was barefoot.
Carefully he stepped on the stones to the other side. A twist of his hip brought a wince of pain.
Learning is painful. He was learning to walk again, after being on crutches for weeks. The bullet had bounced
off his femur, cracking it.
He started down the trail. Autumn was growing up everywhere. He had been at the beach. It was warm there;
all his friends were there. Except for Ming.
Right now Ming was probably back up at the trailer, making some vegetarian delight. The man walked on.
Funny how the thought of Ming always set his mind to swirling curiously. He knew the man was a homosexual.
Brrr. He shook his head and walked on.
He stopped. He thought he had heard something. He sat down, on a log. He hadn't realized how far he had
walked. He had heard that sound before, in spring and summer. It came like the sudden gush of sleep. Soft
female voices. Singing. Perfect melody. Silver bells.
The man was trying to grasp some way to pull this all together before the end. Less self-reflection? Perhaps.
The voices were very clear, in harmony, in melody. Chills in the nerve. Breathtaking.
It had been so long since he had been with a woman. The urgency had passed. And more. Familiarity had
vanished.
Now there was this, and it all seemed to tie together. She was alive.
Here there's a long pause. Someone clears her throat and looks up at you, raising eyes that had been lowered.
It sounds like seduction, and she says:
"Hi! It's me again. I'm talking to the all the readers now, including the one who's writing this book.
"It was one day back there in Carmel Valley. My ma hadn't seen me for a while. No one had. I was drifting
`round the hills, a wild girl. I would climb the giant eucalyptus in Murphy's pasture by moonlight. I fished in
Peňasquitos Creek. I knew the mushrooms of the elfin forest, would stay there for days on all fours, naked in
the summer, absolutely alone, eating mushrooms until thirst and passion spun me on, to the creek, or some
cow pond. Sometimes to the deep ponds, with concrete dams, near Black Mountain.
"Sometimes to the spring in the deep canyon that penetrates Black Mountain, the canyon that shelters the
arsenic mine.
"And sometimes the arsenic mine, in turn, sheltered me, daughter of the mountain. Black Mountain lady.
"I lost touch with people. All of them. My mother. Other kids from the school bus. I lived strangely. I was
perfect. No one ever saw me. I would wait all day in the shadow of a bush, or a ditch, to stay unseen.
"But I was everywhere. I hunted with a bow. I feasted on rabbits and doves, quail and squirrels. Even deer.
"And I gathered grain, barley and lima beans. I nested, wherever. In the tiny cave in Shaw Valley. Up in the
Torrey Pines by the coast.
"I was, through all this, as you might imagine. I watched the lights. From the top of Black Mountain I
watched the ring of suburban incandescence closing in on the land. Mira Mesa. Rancho Bernardo. Del Mar. The
isolated homes in the country.
"The end was coming so fast. I passed loneliness. I walked the roads, mud between my toes in the winter rain,
barefoot always, clad in rags that I had found on Black Mountain Road. And some of them were very fine rags.
A silk blouse that I loved and wore to shreds. A leather shirt that I wore forever. My hair was as long as could
be."
He is limping. The air has the chill of autumn.
So much had happened. It was as if a war between magic and reality had been won by magic. The stress of the
years, the balance broken, the mind pushed over into wonderland.
He reached Fugitive Creek. Oak leaves spread in a golden carpet on the other side. He was barefoot.
Carefully he stepped on the stones to the other side. A twist of his hip brought a wince of pain.
Learning is painful. He was learning to walk again, after being on crutches for weeks. The bullet had bounced
off his femur, cracking it.
He started down the trail. Autumn was growing up everywhere. He had been at the beach. It was warm there;
all his friends were there. Except for Ming.
Right now Ming was probably back up at the trailer, making some vegetarian delight. The man walked on.
Funny how the thought of Ming always set his mind to swirling curiously. He knew the man was a homosexual.
Brrr. He shook his head and walked on.
He stopped. He thought he had heard something. He sat down, on a log. He hadn't realized how far he had
walked. He had heard that sound before, in spring and summer. It came like the sudden gush of sleep. Soft
female voices. Singing. Perfect melody. Silver bells.
The man was trying to grasp some way to pull this all together before the end. Less self-reflection? Perhaps.
The voices were very clear, in harmony, in melody. Chills in the nerve. Breathtaking.
It had been so long since he had been with a woman. The urgency had passed. And more. Familiarity had
vanished.
Now there was this, and it all seemed to tie together. She was alive.
Here there's a long pause. Someone clears her throat and looks up at you, raising eyes that had been lowered.
It sounds like seduction, and she says:
"Hi! It's me again. I'm talking to the all the readers now, including the one who's writing this book.
"It was one day back there in Carmel Valley. My ma hadn't seen me for a while. No one had. I was drifting
`round the hills, a wild girl. I would climb the giant eucalyptus in Murphy's pasture by moonlight. I fished in
Peňasquitos Creek. I knew the mushrooms of the elfin forest, would stay there for days on all fours, naked in
the summer, absolutely alone, eating mushrooms until thirst and passion spun me on, to the creek, or some
cow pond. Sometimes to the deep ponds, with concrete dams, near Black Mountain.
"Sometimes to the spring in the deep canyon that penetrates Black Mountain, the canyon that shelters the
arsenic mine.
"And sometimes the arsenic mine, in turn, sheltered me, daughter of the mountain. Black Mountain lady.
"I lost touch with people. All of them. My mother. Other kids from the school bus. I lived strangely. I was
perfect. No one ever saw me. I would wait all day in the shadow of a bush, or a ditch, to stay unseen.
"But I was everywhere. I hunted with a bow. I feasted on rabbits and doves, quail and squirrels. Even deer.
"And I gathered grain, barley and lima beans. I nested, wherever. In the tiny cave in Shaw Valley. Up in the
Torrey Pines by the coast.
"I was, through all this, as you might imagine. I watched the lights. From the top of Black Mountain I
watched the ring of suburban incandescence closing in on the land. Mira Mesa. Rancho Bernardo. Del Mar. The
isolated homes in the country.
"The end was coming so fast. I passed loneliness. I walked the roads, mud between my toes in the winter rain,
barefoot always, clad in rags that I had found on Black Mountain Road. And some of them were very fine rags.
A silk blouse that I loved and wore to shreds. A leather shirt that I wore forever. My hair was as long as could
be."
| * * * |
Back to flashing knives.
Are these men and women that we see in the daily streets, hidden only by disguise? Or are these like
vampires, who move too swiftly to be seen at all?
Certainly these are not like the criminals of old, who plagued us like swarms of miserable, buzzing parasites.
We knew who they were, whether we recognized them leaning against the lamp post downtown flexing their
tattoos, or we spotted them in the docket with charges of fraud, blackmail or war-crimes, or we spied them
coming over the horizon with the jolly roger flapping from the main-mast.
We used to spot them as they were gunned down in front of banks or liquor stores. We used to see them in
their high speed chases, crimes before witnesses, resignation and surrender. We used to keep them alive, in
prisons, by the millions.
They were only the death of a few, but a thorn in the side of us all. We all were enslaved by taxation, to pay
for dungeons and police. We paid to have them rooted out and suppressed, and then we spotted them again on
election posters. We paid to have them eradicated, and we paid for laws to create them by the venal million,
and to reward them for their own creation.
We don't have people like that now. They have all disappeared, one, by one, by one.
Are these men and women that we see in the daily streets, hidden only by disguise? Or are these like
vampires, who move too swiftly to be seen at all?
Certainly these are not like the criminals of old, who plagued us like swarms of miserable, buzzing parasites.
We knew who they were, whether we recognized them leaning against the lamp post downtown flexing their
tattoos, or we spotted them in the docket with charges of fraud, blackmail or war-crimes, or we spied them
coming over the horizon with the jolly roger flapping from the main-mast.
We used to spot them as they were gunned down in front of banks or liquor stores. We used to see them in
their high speed chases, crimes before witnesses, resignation and surrender. We used to keep them alive, in
prisons, by the millions.
They were only the death of a few, but a thorn in the side of us all. We all were enslaved by taxation, to pay
for dungeons and police. We paid to have them rooted out and suppressed, and then we spotted them again on
election posters. We paid to have them eradicated, and we paid for laws to create them by the venal million,
and to reward them for their own creation.
We don't have people like that now. They have all disappeared, one, by one, by one.
