Gloryland

by Shelton Johnson

  When you’re in front of a grizzly bear, you’re bout as close to the heart of these mountains as you can get without dying. The Ahwahneechee call the grizzly Uzumati, and I got close to it, right up to the edge, and was let go. It wasn’t death that had me in its grip that night, it was life. I never felt more alive than in those few seconds when Yosemite itself rose up on its haunches and looked me in the eye, and I was foolish enough to look back.

  I can’t forget that as long as I live.

  And no, I’m not going to thank that mule. He didn’t have to buck me off, he could’ve just stopped on the trail. There was no reason to throw me to the ground. I started getting angry again when I felt something behind me, something close. I turned and drew my Colt out of its holster, quickly raised it chest high, and nearly shot Satan in the head. Now that would’ve required some explaining. That mule had walked up while I was thinking, and I hadn’t heard a thing.

  Satan just looked at me, then lowered his head to nuzzle his left front leg. I could see the white of his teeth as he bit at whatever was irritating him. I knew the feeling.

  Patrol report on Yosemite Park stationery, under “Remarks,” Jerseydale, Cal., July 14, 1904

  To the Adjutant

  Sir I have the honor to inform you that the place on the Gov. Land is not a very suitable place to build a corral you cannot get up there with a wagon to feed them but the place the Comdg Officer look at is the best place. The owner was here to meet me when I arrived and says it will cost nothing to build their. Start cutting poles this afternoon waiting your orders will be ready to put it up when I hear from my Comdg Officer.

  Your Obedient Servant.

  Sgt. Morris,

  Sgt in Charge of Jersey Dale

  PS please forward me some Official Envelopes.

  letter from Yosemite

  Dear Mama and Daddy and Grandma Sara,

  I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me, and I’m sorry bout that. I really didn’t have much to say. But since I got to Yosemite, I’ve been wanting to tell somebody bout it, cause it’s news I really need to share. Kind of like a neighbor’s house is on fire and they don’t know it, except this is good news, being here in all this beauty and peacefulness.

  It’s early October, sky blue and clear. I’ve been out every day patrolling between Rogers Lake and Return Canyon. The country is empty now, but I like it that way. There are aspen leaves on the ground, and when the wind sweeps them away they make a crackling sound like women moving in their starched white dresses. Makes me think of being in church back home every time the wind blows!

  Mama, you’ll be happy to know I’m a churchgoing man again, cause every day feels like Sunday here. It’s got that hush like when the deacon would pause in the middle of his sermon. Not too long ago I passed some time round the Big Trees in what they call the Mariposa Grove, down by Wawona, and it felt like having lunch with angels. Those trees are so tall and bigger than anything except maybe God, but peaceful, like they don’t have to prove nothing to no one. Whatever was bothering me that day didn’t seem to matter after a few minutes sitting by this one tree called the Grizzly Giant.

  Speaking of grizzlies, they do got bears here. I had a run-in with a big grizzly bear and her cubs not too long ago. It turned out all right, but that mama bear scared me so bad I . . . well, I’d rather not tell you about that. It’s embarrassing. She reminded me a little bit of you, Grandma Sara, and I hope you’re still around to get mad at me for saying that, but I don’t know if you are.

  There’s been a lot worse things happened to me here, but none of that mattered too much. It’s hard to tell you why, but up here in the high country feels like home to me. You can see more stars than I ever imagined could be, and they seem so close. I think they’re closer cause these mountains are the highest in America, according to the Lieutenant, anyway. They so high you don’t have to die to get to paradise. Here in Yosemite all you need to get to heaven is a good horse, though a mule will do just fine.

  But now it’s getting close to the time when us soldiers have to head back down to San Francisco. Every morning I can feel winter coming on, there’s ice in my socks and shirt making them cold and stiff. I don’t need a message from the Lieutenant telling me it’s time to leave. Anyway, maybe you remember when I last wrote, I was still garrisoned at the Presidio, and I’d just seen President Roosevelt march through town? That was something, but I like it much better here, and I’m feeling sad bout leaving. I only ever had two real homes, back in Spartanburg with you, and here. My heart’s still there with you, and it’s here in Yosemite too. It’s lying on some granite dome with a view of El Capitan or Yosemite Falls, and it’ll never leave even if I have to.

  I miss you, and I’ll see you one day, you can depend on it, cause you’re where I come from and where I’ll go back to in some life. But Daddy, you were right bout me and South Carolina. I could never go back there and not walk on that sidewalk, not tell people what I think about them. My spirit’s too big for Spartanburg, especially now. It would be like planting a giant sequoia in Mama’s garden. I’m a sergeant in the Ninth Cavalry, and I’ve been in charge of what people do and can’t do here in this national park, and that’s a good kind of power to have. I can’t be powerful in South Carolina, I’d just end up dead. Like that mama grizzly bear I run into. All those bears are supposed to be killed off, but apparently she never got the word. People aren’t comfortable being round something so big and strong that it don’t care what kind of money you got, or what fancy clothes you wear, it’ll kill you and maybe eat you too! Folks in Spartanburg would think I was just as dangerous as that mama bear.

  That’s why I never came home. I know you understand that. But when I sleep and dream at night I’m with you. When I’m riding on some high trail or lying by a fire or sitting in the Big Trees, I’m with you. You’re in my blood and every time I take a breath, you’re moving in my heart. My hands are big and rough like Daddy’s now. I got your eyes, Mama, and my spirit is strong like you, Grandma Sara. I got you all for company every day and every night. Yeah, I’m sort of my own homecoming walking round California, looking for a good place to throw a party.

  I don’t know where I’ll get sent after San Francisco. They might be having some trouble down in Mexico pretty soon, the officers say. But right now I’m going to spend as much time as I can up in the high country, before it gets too cold. I wish I could show it to you. Anyway, I got to go feed the horses, but I’ll write again soon enough.

  Love always,

  Your Elijah

  Manual of Arms at a Halt

  At the command, SABRE, draw quickly the sabre, raising the arm

  to its full length at an angle of 45 degrees, the sabre in a straight line

  with the arm; hold the sabre in this position an instant, then carry

  it to the right shoulder, the back of the blade supported against the

  hollow of the shoulder, the wrist upon the top of the thigh, the little

  finger on the outside of the grip.

  from Cavalry Tactics

  down to the valley

  Sometimes the ending you look for is not the one you get. I expected a long dusty good-bye, and I wondered how I could say good-bye to these mountains that had embraced me for nearly half a year.

  It would be different from saying good-bye to a woman or someone else you love, cause you can’t hold mountains in your hands like you can a woman, you can’t look into mountains as if they were the eyes of someone you might never see again. And you couldn’t expect the mountains to say your name over and over again or to cry.

  It could never be like that, but it was, I thought, a farewell that would hurt. I was anticipating that hurt when I got word that I’d been “volunteered” to spend the winter in Yosemite Valley. I would be assisting a Mr. Harlow, who was the guardian of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. Back then California controlled those lands, not the federal government. The assignment meant that I’d te
mporarily avoided having to leave the national park. But it still meant I had to leave the high country behind, at least for a little while, and that turned out to be hard.

  The hurt began with the ride down into Yosemite Valley. I remember the jarring of the Big Oak Flat road, feeling as if both my mule and the ground were trying to buck me off, and the dust Satan kicked up covering everything behind me. Maybe even my mule was afraid of looking back and seeing all that beauty.

  There was no one else on the trail that lonely afternoon. There was just the sun going down like I’d seen it thousands of times before, falling slow like it had all the time in creation to go away. One thing Yosemite’s wilderness had taught me was never be in a hurry. Don’t rush, stop and consider your next move before you start down a trail you’ve never taken. So I pulled on the reins, eased back in the saddle, and straightened my legs till I could feel the stretch in my muscles and joints. I stopped Satan right in the middle of the cloud we’d been making out of the road and watched that cloud trail dust around us with sunlight in its wake. The road was busted up and on fire now.

  The world kept moving. We seemed to be the only things that were still. Maybe this was all there ever was, this moment right there, right then. I can still feel the heat of that sun beating on me, except it was more a caress than a blow. It was like a woman holding on to someone she didn’t want to let go. It didn’t surprise me that such a country could give me that feeling of being held on to. I was going down to the valley, and the sun was going down, but it didn’t feel like the end of anything.

  Only now, looking back, do I see the beginning of the road that led up to something bigger than myself, and then down to something even bigger. Led to who I would become. On that afternoon when a man and a mule were riding down into a valley, all I felt was good-bye, but the farther we went, the more it started to become a hello.

  I thought of the soldiers that would leave me behind, and how maybe it would be a good thing to not have an officer looking over my shoulder when I wasn’t expecting it, at least for a few months. After all, I hadn’t left the army. I was just on a special assignment. But right then, as I peered ahead into my new duty, I thought about the night that was coming, and the nights after that when I’d be on my own, and all the days and nights that would follow.

  Now it’s different, cause I can remember what came next. I can see the day after that ride into the valley and the day after that, and how all those days and nights overlap in layers, like leaves in the valley in fall after the dogwood and maple trees let go. When you put a shovel into the ground, those days and nights and years are still there, but they’ve become earth. Everything that once was so full of light, calling you to sit and drowse in it, has dropped to its own shadow, and the world is sweeter after such a rain. There in the ground, with all the dead, those days and that light still burn, and there I see the world for the first time, see how I fit, how everything fits, all bound freely as clouds are bound to sky.

  Now I knew my shadow as it fell to the earth, cooled it a bit before moving on. Now I knew you can never have too much quiet in your life, if it’s the quiet that finds you in mountains or forest. You can never have too much light if it’s the kind that falls out of the sky at dawn or dusk. You can never have too much darkness if it’s the blackness between the stars. You can put too much sugar in your coffee in the morning, but the sweetness that fills the air with every step of your mule under you as you amble through a meadow full of flowers, well, how can you have too much of that?

  Before Yosemite, I knew a man needed air to breathe and food to eat and someone to love and a feeling that God was looking out for him. I thought that was it. But you also need something else that don’t often get mentioned. Anyone, man, woman, or mule, needs beauty. I’m calling it beauty cause I ain’t certain there’s a name for what I mean, but beauty comes closest.

  When I look back over my shoulder at the life I’ve lived, things sometimes get clearer, as if a fog had lifted. Now I see I was riding that day down into the heart of a world people spend their lives trying to find, without even knowing they’re looking for it. And it was a place, a home, a heaven to me. Some folks pray for a sweet hereafter, but it’s already everywhere round us, the air we take in, the light that fills us, and the darkness. It’s where we hope to go at the end, and maybe where we come from at the beginning. It’s the dusty trail winding down to El Capitan, into the cool shadows of black oaks, the wet meadows their roots embrace, and a river, cold and bright, that never stops singing.

  I’m struggling to close things up here, but some things never stop flowing, like rivers and creeks never stop pushing logs out of the way. Flowing water doesn’t want to stop. And some stories don’t have endings. A period ends a sentence, makes a thought complete, but the life inside you is like water, like creeks and rivers, just getting stronger or weaker, and it doesn’t end until you do.

  Yosemite doesn’t end until I do.

  I could say that’s all there is to my story, but you can’t see my eyes and how they’re still filled with the fire of a sun long since set, can’t see how I’m still breathing in a wind that hasn’t touched the earth in more than forty years. The other day my wife told me I spend too much time living in the past, but I’m thinking, where else do we live? It’s all going away, and it’s all coming back.

  I’m Elijah Yancy, a soldier who let go of a place that became part of him but now is held captive by a place that won’t let him go. I’ve been kidnapped by the Range of Light, stolen by the quiet of mountain paths. Somewhere my broken body is rocking a chair, my dear wife is sitting next to me, but my soul is on a mule walking down from a country that knew me long ago.

  The reins are loose in my hands, cause that animal knows the path we’re following. We’re riding down into the deep shadows of Yosemite Valley, while all around us the sheer granite cliffs are remembering a day long forgotten, and their memories are like a fire burning on the edges of the world.

  Instruction to Mount Without Saddle, and to Saddle Manner of Vaulting

  To dismount, pass the left rein of the snaffle into the right hand;

  place this hand on the withers; seize the mane with the left hand,

  raise yourself on the two wrists, pass the right leg extended over

  the croup of the horse, without touching him, bringing the legs

  together, the body straight, and come to the ground lightly on the

  toes, bending the knees a little.

  from Cavalry Tactics

  getting done

  It would’ve been pretty to end like that, but not every ending is pretty. You’ve probably seen someone after a river or a creek got hold of them, yet they hadn’t been planning on going for a swim. They’re dripping with what they been through and what’s been through them, they’re cold and shaking, hair a mess, and they’re a mess inside, too.

  When something you can’t forget gets hold of you, you ain’t pretty at the end of it, but you know one thing that’s true. You’re alive, and there’s beauty in that, God helped me see there’s beauty in that.

  Now I’m standing and shivering beside what I just been through. I’m afraid to move and joyful that I ain’t got to if I don’t want to. So I’m just going to sit here rocking beside myself, watching what I’ve been and what I’m going to be flow on past, and do nothing at all. Cause at any moment the ground under me could decide not to be ground no more, could start getting thirsty for water, and that water’ll flow over me again, but different next time, always different.

  Big Creek’s never the same from moment to moment, and maybe I’m not either, maybe I’m just as wild and hard to figure. All I know is you got to fight to keep from getting moved in this world, you got to struggle to find silence and be still, cause it’s always storming outside and inside. It’s all moving, and movement is all there ever was and will be.

  That little boy I used to be is still lying beside a creek, cold as hell and wondering how he survived the swim. He got my nam
e. He got my story. He got everything I had and everything I thought I lost. I used to think I could never be that boy again, but all it takes is to be uncertain and afraid and human. Then it’s easy to lose your grip and fall into that creek, let it take you to anywhere you’ve been in your life.

  The creek beside my family’s cabin is the same water as every creek anywhere. They all flow into the same place. Each drop of water’s trying to be different, but you can’t fool the clouds and you can’t trick a river. As for the ocean, well, it ain’t got a sense of humor at all, cause it’s felt too much to ever laugh again. It’s either whispering or roaring, and if you listen close to that big water you can hear the voices of everything that was ever put into it coming out of it again.

  Water’s got a lot to say cause it’s been everywhere and over everything, maybe that’s why it’s never quiet. But now and then it slows down, gathers in a pool to reflect, and in that place I found enough quiet to know my own soul. And when pieces of me drifted to the bottom of that stream, the biggest piece, full of darkness and light, was Yosemite.

  I’m going to stop now, and if I ever have more to say bout Elijah Yancy, I might start off by singing, let the music flow in and around my words like water, cause water is the language God knows best. That’s why tears are easy to understand, and sweat and blood. They’re all mostly water, and what’s left are just words meant to be whispered or sung.

  Moving through and moving round, becoming this or that, it’s all the same to rain and to snow that becomes rain, falling on the land and the sea, giving back all that was given, taking away all that’s meant to be.