Gloryland

by Shelton Johnson

  It wasn’t planned or anything. It happened on a Sunday at Camp A. E. Wood, which was park headquarters, in the southern part of Yosemite. Camp Wood was just white tents, wooden buildings, a corral, horses, and men, built on a flat on the east side of the river, a mile or so from the Wawona Hotel. Like all things army, it looked planned but really it had just been growing up here and there since ’91, when the first cavalrymen were posted to Yosemite.

  Work was over, dinner was over, and we were all sitting round another campfire. Actually there were several campfires spread out over a pretty good space, cause we had at least two troops of cavalry present, and all getting ready to bed down for the night. At least until someone started singing.

  Usually it was a harmonica that started things off, or a banjo like the one a corporal from Troop L played. I can’t remember his name, but I can remember his music well enough. But this time a man was singing, and it wasn’t some popular song, it was a spiritual. And then it seemed everyone all at once remembered that it was Sunday. Maybe that was cause we were at headquarters, and headquarters meant letters and news and finding out what’d been happening in the world outside Yosemite. When we were up in the high country, away from headquarters, every day was like every other.

  Anyway, that man, who was sitting at another fire fifty feet away from me, started singing “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” in a fine deep voice that the still air carried over to the other campfires.

  Slowly, one by one, as if on cue, the soldiers near the first man began to sing along with him. And it didn’t take long for all the conversations taking place round the other fires to quiet down as more men began to listen, then to sing or hum along. Some of them added their own harmonies, weaving their voices into whatever space they fit.

  It seemed like we all remembered the music we had left behind with our families. It didn’t matter whether we were from Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia or South Carolina or Louisiana or Texas, we all went to church on Sundays growing up, and we grew up singing many of the same songs.

  Singing and listening to that music brought out something that had been silent in our hearts till then. There wasn’t a man there who didn’t ache for someone he’d left behind in those places where we were brothers and sons and husbands and fathers.

  Lord, I couldn’t hear nobody pray

  Couldn’t hear nobody pray

  Oh, way down yonder by myself

  And I couldn’t hear nobody pray

  sounded under the ponderosa pines, the cedar branches, rising up between wood and sunlight now going out slow, red as coal, and then more voices from other fires melted into the sound.

  “In the valley . . .” he sang.

  “. . . couldn’t hear nobody pray,” others answered.

  “On my knees . . .” he sang.

  “. . . couldn’t hear nobody pray,” came the response louder.

  “With my burden . . .” he sang slow and alone.

  “. . . couldn’t hear nobody pray,” they responded, deeper.

  “And my savior . . .” he sang, quieter.

  “. . . couldn’t hear nobody pray,” came the hushed response from more men.

  And then a wind from nowhere picked up ashes and embers, and the voice of that soldier rose right up with them to the sky.

  Lord, I couldn’t hear nobody pray

  Couldn’t hear nobody pray

  Oh, way down yonder by myself

  And I couldn’t hear nobody pray

  By the second chorus everyone was singing, or it sure sounded that way, at least all the men sitting by me were singing, and some were crying but trying to not show their tears, acting like it was smoke that made the water flow, raking their hands cross their cheeks as they cursed the smoke. They stared into the fire, remembering and singing. I can’t tell you how many soldiers went AWOL sitting right there round those campfires. They were gone, they were back home.

  And it got better. A group of soldiers farther off, in a meadow on the other side of some cedars, got tired of that one and began to sing “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” while most of Troop K, the men nearest me, kept on singing “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray,” and in the silences between the lines you could hear an echo that wasn’t an echo saying:Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  After a third chorus the voices got quieter, and you could hear one soldier singing in a high sweet tone:Up on the mountain

  My Lord spoke

  Out of his mouth came

  Fire and smoke

  Down in the valley

  On my knees

  Ask the Lord have

  Mercy please

  And men on both sides of the trees began the chorus again:Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  this time louder, as if to drown out the other voices singing “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray,” but they couldn’t, so you could hear both spirituals sound together, and it was beautiful hearing all those voices, all those souls finding their own path through the gathering dark.

  Even the ponderosas and cedars seemed to be leaning over to hear the music, and the mountains around brought it all back, shaped different from how it went out into the world. On and on, the voices rising and falling, but building the way you see thunderheads build on snowy peaks, as if the air was trying to outdo all that granite. So were these soldiers trying to outdo one another, and it was a passion coming out, all they had and all that was taken away, coming out right there, on this side and the other.

  You could see the music in the eyes across from you with fire coming up in between, you could watch the swelling of the sound in the raising and lowering of shoulders and heads, rising and falling in rhythm with what your ears could catch. I wish I could tell you true what it was like, but this is the best I can do without singing myself.

  It’s gone now, and the ponderosa, the cedar, the grasses below and sky above, none of them remembers that music. Like when the wind takes a spark from a campfire, and you see it fly out into the dark for a bit, and then it goes out, but before that it sure is pretty lighting up the night.

  Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  sounds again through the years like time was nothing, sounding strong like that spark braving the blackness that wants to swallow it up.

  Jordan River chilly and cold

  Chills the body but not the soul

  I look around me, looks so fine

  I ask the Lord if I was blind

  And then the last chorus sung loud by every soldier in camp, round every fire, brave words ringing like a farrier’s hammer at the forge, a bright gift to the Sierra and to a cold river nearby called Mercy.

  Every time I feel the spirit

  Movin in my heart

  I will pray

  And I know God took what we sang and held it, even though the river couldn’t, even though the trees don’t remember, even though the words were buried in the earth. And it can never be lost.

  That was the night we really arrived in the Sierra Nevada, the night the mountains knew us, recognized us, welcomed us for the first time, and on that night we were home.

  Of the Spur

  In order to use the spur, it is necessary to keep steady the body, the

  waist, and the wrists; to cling to the horse with the thighs, and the

  calves of the legs; turn the point of the feet a little out; lower a little

  the wrists; press the spurs close behind the girths, without moving

  the body; replace then the wrists and the legs by degrees.

  from Cavalry Tactics

  prayers from a high country

  Dear God:

  i
wanna thank you for what you did

  this mornin, i mean the sun

  comin down slow

  on Cathedral, that was mighty fine

  work so early in the day,

  and you were so quiet

  bout it, no fuss or complainin

  of the work to be done,

  you just coaxed the glow

  to a blaze on top

  of that mountain tellin the world

  below that day was comin

  soon enough, i just wanna say

  i appreciate the early notice

  that a new day was breakin,

  and how you used just a little light

  to let me know that a lot more was comin

  along, yeah, i appreciate you takin the time

  to show me all that I was missin in the night.

  dear God:

  i wanna thank you for these mountains

  which make it easier to talk

  to you cause they so high

  heaven’s practically next door.

  i swear i can reach up

  fully into the blue of the sky

  and stain my fingers

  with the footprints of angels,

  so maybe that’s why i’m happy

  cause i’m finally takin in

  what i didn’t even know

  i was livin without,

  and there’s so much of it,

  that i don’t know what to do

  with the kind of light that makes eyes

  hungry, the sounds that make ears

  go blind, i never knew there was such a country

  called yosemite and how it would wake me

  from this long sleep, wake the part of me

  that needs to feel earth

  or a cold wind blowin

  down from places where

  there are no people, i never knew

  silence was a property

  you could own,

  but i did, once, i just simply forgot

  the feel of bein naked

  on a rocky spur thrust

  out into space

  like a prayer.

  dear God:

  thank you for rain

  on manzanita.

  i never knew water

  could turn a plant

  into a sunset.

  leastways in the shine

  after a storm

  you can see twilight twistin

  red into branches.

  dear God:

  i greatly appreciate

  what you were sayin

  bout that little red fir

  bent double

  under packed snow

  as i rode through

  the merced grove this past

  spring cause when i reached over

  and shook that tree

  all the snow fell off

  that fir’s branches, quick

  to sky the tree stood tall,

  and i knew its burden woulda melted

  come summer, but if you see a burden

  pressin down on somethin

  you just reach out then and there

  cause one day it may be you

  under that mountain

  prayin for freedom.

  dear God:

  when ravens fly over

  why do they sigh?

  if something’s botherin them

  they should just speak out,

  and stop all that whisperin.

  i’m also gettin tired of hearin

  all their squawkin bout this or that,

  you see, i’m doin my best,

  but bein black ain’t easy

  unless you a raven,

  so the last thing

  i need is some bird

  thinkin it knows my problems

  whisperin to the wind.

  Patrol report on Yosemite Park stationery, Camp A. E. Wood, June 8, 1904

  I am of the opinion that a Sergeant, a corporal and six men should be stationed at Jerseydale. Their presence will prevent trouble among the inhabitants, and will prevent the herding of large numbers of cattle just over the south and west lines of the park, who are said to be driven or allowed to drift in, when no soldiers are in the vicinity. This will prevent the cutting of timber for fuel that is undoubtedly going on to some extent, among the inhabitants in wanton spitefulness of each other and to give the soldiers work.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Fred J. Herman,

  1st Lieutenant 9th Cav.

  Com’dg Patrol

  blood memory

  It was hot and the old man sitting in the sand was pushing flies away with his right hand, trying to shade his eyes with the same hand. His face was lined and brown like a delta, and I wondered if it was rain or tears that did that.

  His left hand was behind him in the sand, propping him up as he smiled at the little boy in the river. The river was low, and the boy who was like copper was laughing from the coldness. His little brown legs were almost buried in blue as the water went around and through them. He laughed again. The woman lying behind the old man heard that laugh and moved. She was red and brown like mahogany, if mahogany was soft enough for skin.

  She reminded me of Grandma Sara. She was old too, but her hair was long and still black. She had dark oval eyes that were sunk in her face like pools in red sandstone, the kind you see in Arizona. There was something about her that made me see and feel and taste the desert, as if she had very little water in her, and even that was deep down and beyond the reach of roots. But somehow it strengthened her, gave her the grace of a flower that only needs one drop of water to bloom.

  I loved her, and I didn’t know her name.

  Looking again at the man, I recognized how he held his shoulders and how those shoulders held him, saw how he saw, watched how he looked at the boy and the river and the sky. It was me, the me that was yet to be. It took a while for me to know myself in that place, cause that Elijah was so happy. You could see it all over him, coming off him like steam off your body when you step away from a hot fire into the darkness, clouds just sweat in a hurry to become air.

  The air was heavy with joy. I could move my hands through it and taste it on my tongue. I could feel it trickling down my back, and it felt cold and hot at the same time. For him to laugh would have been too much.

  I was watching myself watch my grandson who has not been born, my grandson laughing and peering shyly at an old but beautiful woman who I didn’t know, but who was his grandmother.

  It was my family, the family I was going to have, and I remember thinking how lucky I would be, how lucky I am right now, that this could be someday. And then I knew I wasn’t alone. Looking back into the leaves and branches of the trees that crowded the river, I saw the faces of my people who had run with me through the curving paths of night in many dreams, dripping with sweat, dripping with the river that runs through us all, and they were watching the little boy and smiling too.

  I was eavesdropping on my future, and they were seeing theirs too. My people who had come before, who’d been running through blackness, had eaten and drunk blackness and become blackness, had made it to this day, and they were beyond tears that happiness could be found.

  It’s a good day when a past that was forgotten finds a future to be remembered. And they weren’t alone. Behind them, half hidden by leaves and twigs, were all the Africans who had walked out of the Atlantic Ocean in another dream, striding up a silent beach. They were here, and I heard deep within me Yoruba and Fon and Adja and Bantu and Fulani and Senoufou and Malinke and Seminole and Fang and Punu and Kota and Mandinka and Fula and Wolof and Jola and Hausa and Mende and Ovimbundu and Bakongo and Kanuri and Tiv and Ewe and Akan and Ga and Tsalagi and Susu. All those names sounding though not spoken, words coming through me, making a drum of my body. Trembling from the blows, I still could see a forehead there, an arm over here, a bit of a thigh sticking out way back there, and eyes like stars blazing in the black of the forest that surrounded us, so black even though the s
un by the river was yellow and hot.

  And we were all breathing hard, taking big gulps of air, as if we had just stopped running after running for days or years or centuries, and now was the first chance to slow our hearts. And that started the sweat shining down over bodies and down to our feet, water or tears flowing. What was coming off of us was real, but where did all that water come from?

  There were thousands and thousands of black people, streaming with water like they’d all walked out of the sea, and it was flowing off me too, flowing in trickles and streams and little currents right down to my toes, as if I was standing under a waterfall you couldn’t see. And I realized this was where the river came from, the river in the desert that the boy and the man and the woman were lying next to and swimming in and wet with. All that water was going to them, to the family that was mine and theirs too, all the people behind.

  Maybe if you ran and ran for a hundred thousand years, the sweat and tears eventually would come back from the air, from the sky, and flow to you, from you, down you, making creeks, and rivers. Or if you’d been buried at the bottom of a sea you jumped into rather than be a slave, waiting for the moment to be free again, and then you stood, walked out from under the cold, and rose up onto that white beach, maybe the water would never stop coming off you.

  The river was flowing from the dead and from the living, making the plants grow tall and the rocks sing loud, cooling the sky round the very hot sun that felt so good, so good that the woman turned into it fully like some kind of flower trying to find the best way to receive the light.

  And I knew I would never know thirst again, and knew I would never be alone again, and it went on and on that way until I woke up. I slowly rose on one arm just the way she did, the woman in the dream, the woman who would one day be my wife, and I looked out with my eyes closed, looked for my boy’s boy or my daughter’s boy, I didn’t know which, and I smiled, cause from somewhere close and somewhere far away there came to me his sweet laughter.