Gloryland

by Shelton Johnson

  We changed our course, riding toward the Tuolumne River and toward them, and as we got closer, I saw they were Indians, an old woman and a girl around ten or eleven. They were bent over because they were picking up acorns off the ground and putting them in baskets. I looked around again but still saw just the two women, which was surprising. I was used to coming across Indians in Yosemite Valley, members of a tribe called Ahwahneechee who lived in cedar cabins, the children peering out when soldiers rode by or playing outside near the chukkas, raised wooden structures where the Indians stored acorns. Close by would be a roundhouse where they held ceremonies, a low building that was bigger inside than outside on account of it being mostly a hole in the ground with earth and cedar for walls.

  But there were no cabins here, and no other people I could see. I wondered if these two were living here all on their own, at the heart of clouds and sky, granite cliffs and tall grass. They seemed so alone in a valley big enough to hold a city.

  They saw us too, and didn’t seem happy at the sight. I couldn’t blame them much. I’ve seen very few Indians who enjoyed the company of soldiers, particularly soldiers in the U.S. Cavalry.

  As we crossed the river I could feel Satan tense and then ease into the coldness. It was already a hot day, and not yet past noon. We gained the opposite bank and wheeled to the left, but not too sudden. I signaled to Bingham and McAllister to fall into single file instead of three abreast. I was really working on not presenting myself as an enemy, but then again, it’s just like an enemy to not act like one when they’re closing in.

  The woman and the girl stopped their gathering as we came up, and the girl began to cringe and cry a little. Both of them watched us the way you eye a rattlesnake that’s about to strike. I heard the girl say something to the woman, but the only words I could make out sounded like suntati and tuma’ asi. She kept repeating those words while pointing at my uniform and gesturing at me.

  About ten feet from them we halted our mules. The old woman slowly backed away, and the little girl screamed and ran off a bit, but stopped and edged back when the old woman shouted at her. They were both wearing long calico dresses, which seemed out of place in the wilderness of Hetch Hetchy. Like they were wearing their Sunday best, only they were in church all the time, so why dress up for it?

  Then I remembered what First Lieutenant Resnick told me about the Indians that lived in Yosemite back before the settlers and the army came, and what happened to them. There were a bunch of tribes with names like Miwok, Ahwahneechee, Paiute, Chukchansi, Yokut, Mono, and Karuk. Most of them just traveled through the mountains to hunt or trade, and some lived here. But around fifty years ago, the Gold Rush brought so many new people into the Sierra foothills that game got scarce. It got harder and harder for the Indians to find food, so they got desperate, and some of them began to raid the mining camps. The miners fought back, mustering up a battalion to hunt down the Indians. They found them, all right, and found Yosemite Valley at the same time, and there was a skirmish. The troops burned the Ahwahneechee homes and graneries, and the Indians got sent to a reservation but eventually scattered in the mountains without food or shelter.

  The lieutenant didn’t seem at all upset by any of this, but I felt bad hearing it. It made me think of Grandma Sara and the Seminole. Well, the Indians who survived those times seemed to figure that resisting anymore would just get them killed, so they tried to get along with the strangers who’d invaded their lands.

  The lieutenant also told me, with a wolf ’s smile, that most of the Indians hereabouts used to go almost naked in the summer, when it could hit 100 degrees in the valleys. Being from South Carolina, I could understand that just fine. But some of the white folks considered it improper and made the Indians cover themselves. So the women got used to wearing those calico dresses, I guess.

  Now this old woman was standing in front of us, her knees bent, arching back with one arm shielding her eyes as if she was blinded by what she was seeing or recoiling from a blow that hadn’t fallen yet.

  We didn’t do anything. We just sat there, listening to insects feeding in the meadow, the bees droning, the wind. After a long spell, her arm went down and she stood up almost straight. Then she surprised the hell out of me by saying loudly, “What you want?”

  It wasn’t that I’d never heard an Indian speak English before. Some of the ones living in Yosemite Valley or around the outskirts of the park worked for stock packers or traded skins for food or dug latrines for the army. But here we were in a place that seemed like it had been the same since the beginning of time.

  I finally found my own tongue. “Hello, ma’am,” I said with a nod. “We don’t want anything at all. We’re just on patrol in this part of the park.” I stopped, not knowing how much she understood, but also on account of how hard she was looking at me. It was a bit unsettling.

  “Well,” I went ahead, “we had a report of sheep grazin over here, and we got orders to find out if that was true.”

  There was a long pause, which the river filled nicely, otherwise it would have been quieter than a grave.

  “No sheep here, soldier.” The old woman spoke quickly when she did respond. She jerked her head toward the southeast. “You go away now.” She understood a fair amount, it seemed. But now I could feel the fear in her, even stronger than the fear that was so obvious in the girl. The old woman had kept it hidden till now. Along with the fear was anger, too.

  I had to do something, so I dismounted slowly. A cavalryman is always at a disadvantage if he’s dismounted. I figured she might know that if she’d spent any time around soldiers. Before I got down, I looked back and smiled at McAllister and Bingham, not saying anything but telling them to stay on their horses. They understood and smiled back.

  So we were all smiling when I turned to face the old woman again. I thought about the people in history who’d been killed by men who were smiling. How do you tell someone you ain’t a threat when you’re a soldier wearing a uniform and carrying weapons, and they’re Indian?

  I decided it was best not to talk anymore just then, but to behave as if I was an invited guest. So I yawned and sat down with my back to Kolana Rock, facing the old woman. There were lots of things I wanted to know, like what tribe was she from and how did she come to speak any English. But I figured that just being still might settle things down right then.

  “Ma’am,” I said softly, “we been ridin a long time, so you don’t mind if I sit a bit?”

  She looked back with just a sly hint of a smile herself.

  “Soldier,” she said, “you sitting now.”

  I nodded again and said in as clear and as level a tone as I could find, “Yes, ma’am, I guess I am, but I meant no offense, and I’m sorry if I offended you or the girl.”

  The old woman was small but had a power in her. She didn’t answer right away but looked at me steady. Then her eyes went inside, and she started talking. “When I . . .” she pointed to the girl, “was like her, soldiers come. They kill, but not all. They chase. The people . . .” she bent over and reached down, grabbing some dirt with her right hand. Then she straightened and opened it to the wind, “go away, many places. Most never come back. Cold. No food.”

  She stopped talking and her eyes looked away, then came right back at me. “Soldiers burn everything, everything.” Her voice rose higher as she spoke, but she whispered the second “everything” much softer than the first. “The people not killed,” she continued, words emptying out of her, “much sickness.”

  The little girl urgently pulled on the woman’s arm, making her lower her head so she could whisper something to her. The woman said something back just as quick, and her body seemed to give off a coldness as she spoke. The girl lowered her head then and turned to stone.

  The old woman carefully sat down a few feet from me.

  “Why you here?” she asked again, calmer this time.

  “Like I said, ma’am, we’re just on a patrol, and we don’t mean you or anyone here any harm
.” I was trying my best to sound reassuring. “We’re not that Mariposa Battalion came through here years back, we don’t soldier for the state of California. We’re Ninth Cavalry, United States Army, and we’re here patrollin the park, that’s all, lookin for sheep or cattle grazin where they shouldn’t be, lookin for poachers, ma’am, lookin for timber thieves and fires that weren’t put out proper. We’re just doin a lotta lookin, ma’am, but one thing we ain’t lookin for is families like yours here, cause there ain’t no Indian war I know of goin on in Yosemite.”

  She looked at me and smiled a little, but her eyes were small and cold like two stars barely lit in a winter sky.

  “Good speech, soldier,” she said. “You say no killing people, but I think long time about soldiers killing my relations, there.” She pointed toward the east, and I wondered if that meant she was Paiute. I knew they came from the east side of the Sierra. She hesitated. “Maybe you the same?”

  My shoulders slumped a bit at that, and I got frustrated and sad cause she wasn’t understanding at all. But I couldn’t fault her opinion. How would my mama and daddy have responded if a group of Klansmen had come knocking on our cabin door, offering to help us out?

  “Ma’am,” I started again, “look at me. You ain’t the only one who’s seen bad times. My men here and myself, our people were slaves once, and when that ended, they were beaten and whipped and strung up under trees just so they’d never forget who was who, so I understand how—”

  “You know nothing!” she choked out. “Nothing about us, understand nothing. You not white, but not our people . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  I let a little quiet get in before I tried again.

  “Ma’am, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just a colored soldier from South Carolina, a soldier who’s African and Seminole and who knows what else. So I guess when you look at me you could just as easily be seein a friend as an enemy, and right now I’m under orders to be a friend.”

  I paused, knowing how that must’ve sounded, then added, “I’m a soldier and I follow orders, that’s true, but I got a heart, ma’am, and I got family like you, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my people. So I appreciate why you don’t trust a word I’m sayin, and I appreciate you talkin to me at all, but please watch our actions, ma’am, before you decide.

  “We’re headin out now, and I’m sorry for comin in here and scarin you and the girl, but we got a job to do, and our job is takin care of the park. And maybe we can’t do that like you, but that don’t mean we don’t care bout it, cause we do.”

  I was a bit out of breath after that. The girl still looked scared but now wondering too. That woman smiled that little smile again, and spoke to me like I was a child.

  “Soldier,” she said, “your park a new thing, but my people live many lives in these mountains.” She spread her arms wide and said a name I couldn’t understand. “I born in Ah-wah-nee.” Now, I knew that was the name the Indians called Yosemite Valley. “Ran away when those soldiers came. Long time after, I come back, work in hotel, speak American.

  “Now new soldiers come but not stay. You go away, but we stay. Maybe you come back, we talk. Maybe not. Go away, soldier. Bye bye.”

  I got up and so did she, and at least she was still smiling.

  “My name’s Elijah,” I said to her.

  “My name not for you,” she responded with a small shake of her head. “Name of this place not for you. You don’t know where you are. You lost, soldier, you lost.”

  She paused as I mounted Satan again.

  “Maybe you come back, Elijah,” she went on, “maybe I tell where you are, and you get off that mule. Stay off, stay on ground.”

  “That’d be nice, ma’am,” I said back. “I hate not knowin where I am, so I’d appreciate hearin that bit of information.”

  I nodded to my men and we rode off. But as we started to get some distance between us and those two, I kept on thinking bout them. Did the old woman and the girl live there all the time or move from place to place? It made sense that these folks would head down to the foothills before winter and return to Hetch Hetchy in the spring.

  One question in particular had been gnawing at me since we first came upon them, and it finally got clear in my head. I sat back deep in the saddle and pulled gently on the reins, stopping my mule. Bingham and McAllister were riding ahead and didn’t notice, went on cantering toward the trail out of the valley.

  I rode slowly up to the old woman, who had already gone back to her work.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I called out, “but you’re all alone out here. Where are the rest of your people?”

  Then her eyes got a look in them that cut and stung. In a voice halfway between a sob and a cry, she answered, “All dead, all gone, you go away too!” And she put her back to me and kept gathering her acorns. I sat there for a bit, but that was all. Then I put spurs to Satan and rode away to the others.

  It didn’t take long to catch up with Bingham and McAllister, who had waited for me just around the first bend. They never asked for an explanation, and I was done talking for that day. From halfway back up the trail, the old woman and the girl had shrunk to almost nothing, or maybe they were just such a part of the place that you couldn’t really pick them out. I never saw them again.

  That old woman of Hetch Hetchy reminded me of my grandmother, both full of pride and anger and fear all mixed in. Grandma Sara and this woman, they had the same defiance, the same fire, but the Indian woman was still in her home and Grandma Sara had been torn away from the place she loved. This old woman and her grandchild hadn’t been taken from their home, at least not yet. They were what made Hetch Hetchy a place that lives in my head even after so many years have passed.

  When we got to the patrol cabin back at Rogers Lake, I wrote in the ledger about the day’s patrol. After the date, I wrote: “Entered Hetch Hetchy. Found Indians, inquired about sheep in area, none found, continued patrol.”

  What I didn’t write was how quiet the valley was when we left, quiet the way a lake rides over something you can’t see or touch, something that’s drifted down slow through water. And the weight of coldness keeps it down so you never see it again unless you jump into it and pull yourself to the bottom.

  Some might call that suicide. But what did the old woman and the girl call it? I don’t know if it had a proper English name, but it felt like a kind of sadness so deep that it would make you want to die and never stop praying for the deaths of others.

  Or maybe it would make you want to live, and never stop praying for the lives of others. Yeah, I been there too.

  Practice of Paces for Maneuver

  Nothing can be more important to the regularity and order, and

  often the success, of large bodies of cavalry than uniformity in the

  gaits. The walk should be at the rate of three and three-fourths

  miles an hour, the trot seven and a half miles an hour, and the gallop

  ten miles an hour. To confirm the horses in these uniform rates,

  measure off a half mile and practice the horses to walk it in eight

  minutes, trot it in four minutes, and gallop it in three minutes.

  from Cavalry Tactics

  right there at heaven’s gate

  I met God during the summer of ’03, a time when clouds like black anvils were stacked high over the mountains and a cold wind was coming down hard. I was in the country just east of the Minarets, high up along a creek where there’d been reports of herders grazing sheep, though there wasn’t much to chew on up here but rock. All that rock did make me feel sorry for the sheepherders. Most of them were Indian or Mexican or Basque, the kind of people who couldn’t run their sheep down in the Central Valley. They’d been run out, or run up would be closer to the truth.

  Because I was close to timberline, it was a chilly night. Because I was sleeping so close to the sky, I knew the night wouldn’t be long. I was by myself this time. No patrol. Lieutenant Rubottom had asked me to take a new
ledger to the patrol cabin near Devil’s Postpile. It was on the sunrise side of the range, and night caught me before I could get there. After taking care of my mule, I just spread my blanket on the ground and fell asleep with no dinner, cause I had no need for food just then.

  I fully expected rain or snow to find me, but the clouds went away late in the night, leaving a hole big enough to fall into, if you could fall up instead of down. The stars were close enough that you could almost feel their heat, almost. I could feel the frost beginning, so after getting up to pee off in the bushes, I went back under my blanket. I remember feeling happy before falling back to sleep, happy cause I was by myself. No one to give orders to. No one giving me orders. No one complaining. Just me, Satan, and mountains.

  Come to think of it, I was beyond happy. If Happy is a country you can find on this earth, I’d already walked through it to the other side. That’s how I was feeling when I went back to sleep.

  Sunrise in the Sierra is always pretty, but this one was different, or I was different. I recall how ice grew in the wool of my blanket right before sunup, and how that ice figured out a way to get into my right knee bout the same time it was dampening the blanket. I must’ve opened my eyes, cold and in a little bit of pain, to see the sky not getting brighter but losing a little blackness.

  I wondered what that would be like, to lose a little blackness. I appreciate what God’s done for me, but I might not mind losing a little blackness, kind of how the sky was doing it. Sky don’t appear guilty for not being black no more. Guess I was feeling sort of tired from being black, and here was this black sky turning blue with a little red and then some yellow mixing in, till the whole world seemed colorful and a bit confused.