by Robert Cabot
Boston, with all that racket and the stinks and the buggies and automobiles coming at you from every side and the crowds hustling you where you’d not be going. Policemen whistling like marmots, the fire engines clanging and stampeding about. Electric lights like they’ll no more need the sun, or the gas that hisses and rattles at you. And no one picking up, though all those crowds and they’d know what a mess they can make. You’d have to scratch under the sand to find the ashes before you’d know most any campsite in Death Valley, and not just so’s you’d not know perhaps where they’d been prospecting.
Be best out of it, Willy boy, best well away. They’ve had enough of you. They’ve got your mine and they’ve had a good look at you and a good laugh at you, and . . . Jenny, she never came. So you’ve had enough of them, and you’ll be getting on.
but the
crowdeder
the
Boston to Death Valley. Shake it off, shake free, like a dog coming out of the river. Breathe, Willy, let the air clear you out, the stinks and the shadows and the highfalutin ignorances. And if Death Valley isn’t enough, now that they’ve your mine, and there’s a telephone line across the Valley to keep the claims speculators informed, and almost a hotel at Furnace Creek, and the borax boys cluttering around, Scotty turned to showmanship and hoaxing: guess there’s nothing to keep you, plenty of territory empty.
emptier
Field Expert. Little printed card. All right, then that’s what you’ll be getting to. They’ll be needing you for a bit, and you’ll see, you’ll see.
Old Will
moving on
Jack Canterbury, they’ll be putting him in charge, out at the Golden Girl. Good mining man from Tonopah. But nothing for Willy Speare. Maybe disappeared too much, not the show and the shooting like the others.
the accepting
hold
Spear’s Outlook: lie still, Jamie Pope, when the north wind comes cold across the sage, Spear’s Outlook and now it’s Smoke Tree View to put the twist on old Will, and he wouldn’t twist and so it stuck and it’s on all the signs and they’re all beginning to forget, and the last there’ll be of Willy Spear is here in the Joshua trees where the bighorns peer over the granite rims into your secret valley – or the Volga, and oh come! little Lily, come with me to paradise on earth.
it
off
Good fellow, though, knew his mining well. Good mine you sold them, Willy. Five hundred dollars the ton and she producing for ten years. Till Jack goes over on his own at his Carbonate on the other side of the Valley.
And all them other mines, kind of pressing on you, Willy, kind of scratching away, and you wonder. The Ibex in the hills back of Saratoga Springs, with the talc mines coming in. The Confidence between Saratoga and One-Man Canyon (Scotty’s Canyon) by the Mormons in from Salt Lake, first mine in the area, the Confidence Mill well the oldest in the Valley, maybe, though there’s Surveyor’s well north of the Stovepipe Sand Dunes . . . Ruins, they say, dying in the sand.
stolen
And Scotty’s Mystery Mine, keep it up, Willy, and who’d not story the emigrants and the greenhorns? Augustus Enfield, he’d grubstaked Scotty at the beginning and he’d got hoaxed at Windy Pass, and he’d sent his man, his explorer, out who gets to the camp down at the mouth of the canyon and, like usual, there’s no Scotty but there is Willy and you take him up and up the canyon and to that red-yellow hilltop where you could look down and across and up to the black cliff, two hundred fifty feet up, to where the hole is and you, “Think that’s Mister Scott’s mine.”
Volga
apples
her
cuffing
hand
There’s no getting to it, so he can get home happy about how he’d seen the Mystery Mine and the thousand dollar a ton and the nuggets like cows’ teeth. Better than Windy Gate, where things kind of went wrong and they got shot up more’n they’d figured and a thousand dollars if you’ll save my dear brother’s life and a bullet through Pearl’s hat with only an eighth inch to spare ’cause his mule bucked just then. And still there’s them that swallows it whole like J. Levin Meld from New York who tells in L.A. about the fellow who, he won’t tell who, said he’d ambushed Scotty, though he’d not meant a bit to shoot up nobody, he’d just wanted to capture Scotty and find out where at’s the Mystery Mine.
Scotty, he’ll drop dead of a stroke, and long before old Will who even him he’d tried to hoax. Scotty and his goldmine, that fellow Johnson. And the Castle, right there where you’d camped with the grapes and the vegetables and the willows and the creek flowing to vanish in the desert, first time when you’d come in from Bullfrog. Towers and battlements, his automatic orchestra, the imported masons and wrought-iron artists and the carpenters, marble and carvings and skins and the prospector weathervane frying bacon to the north wind. Go up to see it, Will, before they’ll be sending you off to San Quentin. Scotty and his mules and his mottoes and his emigrants pouring through the turnstile. And Alla, his wife, she’s left him.
corn-holing
black
range
nights
Johnson, he seems to make a better partner, or a better mine. Got himself crippled on his own railroad and his doctor tells him he needs hot climates and that’s where he finds Scotty who’s looking for just that sort of mine. A. M. Johnson of the National Life Insurance Company, Chicago. They’d slept together there in that little shack, the Original Castle, and they’d let Alla go. And when there’d be tax trouble, Johnson, he’d get himself two million dollars on the Missis’ life: shove her from their car, some said, and off a cliff. Alla when she’s left off with Scotty, she’ll be suing Johnson for half the Castle and Johnson’ll pay her off handsome for he’d rather not they’d hear about that mishap on the cliff, some said.
Easy, old Will, old Will of the Joshua tree.
Look out, Willy, out from your rock, the soft one, is it worn by the seat of your jeans? On the ridge above your camp. Home a camp, and for more than a few years, whenever you’re around. Not much time you’ve got, for lazying, not much use for doing nothing when something’s always to be done. Still, though, last looks. You’ll be going, Willy, moving on, for there’s nothing here for you, not much. Kind of say good-by.
O Mana
sweet
juices
Here where the burros are browsing in the sage and switching at the flies and braying like the heaves, cursing the water trough so far below, and the echoes come back in herds from the cliffs of the Golden Girl. Where the bees come poking in the beaver-tail blossoms and you’ve found wild honey in the crevices and the piñon stumps. Here where the early sun comes in first while you’re chewing maybe on your jerky with a can of coffee. Comes in to cut the winter frost and stop your shaking and you’re all clenched up tight, to shine on the snow of the Panamints across the Valley and reach down into the desert and the sand and the salt flats and the Badwater and the tracks in the saltbush where the antelope step lightly on the graves. Running up to the north, into the haze where the desert’ll rise gradual into Ubehebe and the craters of the Indians’ evil.
Or where noon’d burn you off quick and you’d only go to see who’s coming, knowing they’re coming from the cicadas and the marmots stop their racket and then the echoes, freak, a whisper in the canyon throat. Coming and you could spit on his hat, or just not be there, or make him turn quick with a rifle and its echoing sentinels.
tying
And where sun turns the reds to blood, when it lowers by Telescope, so the Indians call it Bleeding Brave. Lights straight up the canyons on both sides for a few moments, this time of year. Turns cold by the coyotes’ cry and the hooping of the owl. Camp smoke rising straight up to find the last sun, white, high above Jubilee. And the stars are ice for the last time, through the dugout door.
Not much. You’ll be getting on.
Earth
to
Sky
An old Indian, it was, told you how life is
the rising sap. Up the stem of the grass, up from the earth and the dark moist and the roots, up into the light, leafing one way, then another, together in the strengths. Moving up, up with the others, but always also apart. Stages of life, he’d say, if you don’t get cropped or droughted out, or rise too fast or slow or miss the desert rain. Toward the sun, leaves of grass, till you’re rooted in the sky.
Shamans and their ropes you’ve read of here under the oil lamp when the Missis has gone up hers and looks down on you. Her window in the sky. Keep climbing, though there’s few who can, few who are given ropes to climb. Hanging down from the sky, reaching up from the earth, tying, for a few. You’d known it, too, way back, maybe where the bottles sparkled on the Elbe and Ma said you’d never fear. Maybe where the warning came to you, the cougar’s tail switching, the high hissing of the snake’s rattle, or the bawling of the heifers on the heaving sea. Maybe where the Omaha Indian girl, back in the hills, took you to her and caressed you so gently and asked you for nothing.
climb down
the
Rope
Climb up the rope that’s offered, and if you don’t you’ll die.
Willy – the weaving threads – Lily
The web and the weaver, threads in the design. Threads, if you’ll see them, tied to the wind, sails for the spider who would climb to heaven. Threads of gold sailing in the sun over the black water, black under the rock walls, white under the sky.
O Spider
Know
the passing
the tearing
Hoist up, me, old Will, steady with the two canes, two extra roots into the earth, steady with the buzzing behind the eyes. Up the old steps, I’d know them in the night, up the shoulder of my dam, Third Lake. Here where I’d fell fifteen feet, young fellow of sixty-three, onto the pink granite and could walk off, not even a hand from daughter June and Mana. Crazy old man, June’d said—hush up! Hauling on the cable car: lugs concrete to pour at the top of the dam.
the re-weaving
Know
Finished now, long finished. June in the Vegas corruptions, Mana her window in the sky, the cattle stole, this land and its water lie black and useless, acres, thousands of tons. I’d done it, Will, dammed it up, one old man and the womenfolk, for the cattle I’ll never have again and the hay and the grain and the fruit I’ll never grow. Dammed it to leak away, trickle there where the moss and the poppies grow in the cement face, thousands of tons and the humming-bird hangs on his invisible wings drinking the drops, and the bees skim the puddle below, thirsty, where it disappears into the desert.
the thirsting
the hungering
Out on the far side, Lily girl, that’s where the bighorns come to water, and before there was this they’d go twenty miles summer nights and back. That track is the cat, you’d know it from up your way, and the coyote and the kit fox, in the mud edge – wider every time, bleeding away, bleeding away.
Easy, down on the hot rock where I’d stretched a tarp once for shade – need the sun full now – and’d eat a pail of food the Missis’d fixed.
the replenishing
Over by the edge, there, you can look straight down into the water, see the fish sleeping. Stocked them in the first year, after the rains.
“Sit here, girl, I brought these cookies. Closer, I’d see you. Cataracts, yuh.”
Clouding over, old soul needs the sun. This Jenny? Touch lightly, Willy pains here inside. The others, crowding, silent. Where? shark’s teeth scattered on the sand
“Pa loves cookies too, eat a boxful; half and half, splits, if I’m there.”
Halving: two wholes. Pa in Valley Hope, honey, currents of time. Lily in the desert, Valley Hope childhood past – love Pa steady with the half smile. stone Hero: storms, the rounding, worn to flowering sand
“Pretty hair, Lily. I’d not have liked it short. Colin, he told me. Kov women too, cut their hair off for the grieving.”
Hair tips tickling on my lips when Janice she’d turned away. No no, my Mana, they combed it nice, a ribbon, like you’d do; Will sniffling by the casket. womb
“Pa wanted it long, but it’s really growing back for Colin.”
His hair caresses, my cheek sleeps on his heart. Touching when I never would before. My Colino only, like the sun: the moon on Valley Hope, thin shadows, past. solar phallus
“Yuh, yuh, your pa, he’d like to see it. Like he sent the honey.”
To June from his Loving Dad. Why’d you have to, Juney, Dad here, looking on’ard, free like the air in the Joshua; you there, all fouled and your sharp tongue? breathe, Willy; Boston, shake it free
“I know. I’ll go, with Colin, when he comes.”
Here too, though, Will, I’ll be here, you and the Joshua, you’ll know, you’ll see. Now I touch you, like I didn’t that first night – so you’ll know. high desert graves, the joy
“Be getting on, girl, just I’ll rest a little spell.”
Look, straight down, down into the useless dead water. Dark shapes, waiting, slowly sliding through, through long honey hair falling forward.
final
dissolution
Almost a bighorn would peer over my shoulder down into this dark mirror, almost. Will sitting behind, his knees in the sun, dozing. Dreaming. Trickling, leaking away. Swallows picking bugs from the lake’s surface. A lizard flicking at an ant. Water world, propped up here over the desert by this flimsy curve of cement, seeking to die, to abandon these lives. Holding the buzzards high in the white sky, two hawks, the granite rim, the long hair swinging.
I turn to me, I must.
A leaf falls free from my hair, up into the image, ripples distorting.
my
Upper Ocean
to
Lower Ocean
So too shorn hair . . . Comb it out with your fingers, lift it, wide with the scissors, slicing, slicing. Sudden cool weightless, the locks fall softly, lightly on the glistening sand . . . Here it would hardly stir the surface, floating gently, drifting, threads settling slowly through the shining surface into the black water.
So too salt tears.
Sad flowers, Lily; the passion dance
Head’s Hair
No mirror saw you then, Lily, and the mice carried off your hair during the night for their nests, and the sand drank your tears. Sand which still held the tracks, criss-crossing confused, would hold them forever. Flashbulbs scattered (your bottles shining on the Elbe, old Will?) where his body lay.
let
it
fall
Sit there, cross-legged in the sand, your hair strewn about, the cold evening air on your cruel new neck. A lone car’s rising rush and the falling! . . . Doppler dwindling – yes, Pa, I know now, your Doppler effect . . . Teach your little Lily, your Liliana; it’s too late, much too late, and you’ll never know for I would not hurt you still more. Enough this. Oh, if there were but another way!
the
end
The hollow where his face turned so slowly from the sun. Had you never loved him, not now or ever? But his eyes would shelter, and he followed you uncomplaining to the end.
How had you come back here to the desert, back where the buzzards circle forever? Maybe some bus driver would know or a motorist lost by now in the vultureland of Las Vegas. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one to see. Maybe later, when they find you, stretched in the sand. Will it matter? Will it matter, will they have to notice, that even now, after how many days or weeks, you still couldn’t wear panties, they hurt so, remind you?
He’ll know from the hair anyway, Pa will know, or will he think it was for Perry? But it does not matter, dear Pa, there is nothing left.
And maybe, Pa, you will know now what you did to your little Lily, driven from her home where her heart could sing. You who could talk of loving her: you who could put her on that bus. For a better life, a future, opportunity, for this where the mouse even now steals off with the beautiful shorn locks. Vanity and pride, Joe Tocca, that killed
your heart and your Lily.
I hate you, Pa, I hate you, I hate you, I shall die hating you.
each
breath
a
death
Cold and clear like your heart under the fading moon, under the coyote cry, cold, Lily, till the last trembling has left you still. Ready, it’s so very easy, you just breathe no more. There’s no one here to crush the breath back into your empty heart. That’s it, so easy, no longer to disturb the silence and the rest with the futile suckings in your breast. The tap-tappings in your head, but they are fainter now. The shooting star over Vega, even it has stopped its flight.
