I didn’t like the way that sounded.
12
My first significant memory of the impact of my father on other people and what he was actually doing with his life came when I was eight. Word about Dad had spread. People were driving from California to hear him, and he began looking for bigger venues. We hired four guys just to park all the cars, and we’d grown from one tent to five—tied in the shape of a cross with the center being the stage. Each tent could seat over two hundred, and on most nights every chair was full. Not only that, but folks who couldn’t find a seat were standing four and five deep along the edges. Crowding in. Kids sitting on their fathers’ shoulders. Moms nursing babies. Old folks in wheelchairs.
Evidently fire and brimstone are more palatable than most folks let on. So with growing need, Dad needed room to grow.
He used to go on long hikes by himself. A quiet time to think. A few miles south of BV, Dad found a high-walled canyon set against the base of Mt. Princeton that had piqued his interest. He pulled out a topo map and showed it to me. From the air it looked like someone had cut a piece of pie out of the side of the mountain. The thirty- to forty-acre section of flat ground, shaped like a funnel, extended out from rock walls that rose several hundred vertical feet. To someone like Dad, who communicated to hundreds, if not thousands, at a time, it created a perfect venue.
There was just one problem. Somebody else owned it. Wanting to show it to me, he hiked me past the umpteen No Trespassing signs and we slipped up through the evergreens, through the national park that bordered our property, and to the ledge that overlooked the ranch below. A bird’s-eye view. He pointed. “We’ll put the stage back there where it narrows.” Another direction. “All the tents out here, parking over there, bring in the portable bathrooms over there.” He wiped his hands together like he was dusting them off. “Piece of cake.”
I scratched my head. “But, Dad, we don’t own any of this.”
He waved me off. “Somebody does.”
That next week Dad approached the landowner, Mr. Tom Slocumb—a cattleman whose land had been in his family a hundred-plus years. Dad, Big-Big, and I drove across the cattle guard and parked out in front of the man’s ranch house. Dad spoke to both of us. “Come on. If Mr. Slocumb doesn’t like me, maybe he’ll like you two.”
Dad knocked on the door, and a small, wiry man wearing a hat and spurs and a belt buckle the size of his head answered the door. He sized each of us up, spending considerable time studying Big-Big. He looked like he was not in the mood for door-to-door solicitation. “He’p you?”
Dad shook the man’s hand and explained who he was and what he wanted. Mr. Slocumb listened while pushing a toothpick around his mouth with amazing dexterity. Every few seconds he’d flip the toothpick end over end and then shove it in either corner of his mouth, where it would sit motionless for a few seconds until his tongue started the whole process over again. Halfway through Dad’s story, the man reached in his back pocket and pulled out a pouch of chewing tobacco. He opened it and began digging his fingers into it like he was tossing a salad. This was about the time I noticed he was missing the index finger on his right hand. Once he had the salad good and mixed like he wanted it, he raised a goodly sized wad of brown leaf tobacco into his mouth and packed it into his cheek. When he was finished, it looked like he was sucking on a golf ball. As he listened to Dad talk, one part of his mouth was flipping the toothpick end over end while the other chewed voraciously on the tobacco. I kept waiting for him to spit, but he never did.
When Dad finished, Mr. Slocumb looked at me, then back at Dad, then at Big-Big, then back at me, and finally back at Dad. He tipped his hat back slightly and hung his thumbs in his belt loops.
“Let me get this straight. You happened to be trespassing one day on my land, where I’ve posted more than two hundred No Trespassing signs, and you happened upon my pretty little meadow up yonder. And you thought to yourself, this’d make a great site for a preaching tent revival where you’re gonna have a stage and some tents that will just magically appear. And this man here”—he thumbed at Big-Big—“who’s bigger than any human I ever seen, is gonna play pianer while you—” He glanced at me, flipped the toothpick, and then stared back at Dad. “While you preach fire and brimstone to several hundred, maybe even a few thousand self-proclaimed and attentive sinners who are gonna miraculously appear with cars and picnics and umbrellers. And every one of them people, in order to get to your little revival, is gonna parade across my pasture here and then park on the grass that I intend to feed to my cattle before it snows this winter.”
He paused and swallowed. “And to top it all off, you’re gonna do all this without passing no plate, without taking nothing from nobody and without talking once’t about money or giving or how if they don’t they’s stealing from”—he pointed up—“the Lord.” He nodded. “That right?”
Dad nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”
The man laughed. “Mister, you got bigger—” He glanced at me again. “Than my bull out yonder.” He rolled his eyes and turned to Big-Big. “Fella, what size shoe you wear?”
Big-Big never hesitated. “Fi’teen.”
The man sucked through his teeth. “I believe it.” Then he pointed at the drive toward the highway nearly a mile in the distance. “You see that sign in the distance? The one that’s nearly as big as a drive-in theatre screen that you drove by to get to my house?”
Dad nodded.
“Well, in case you didn’t read it, it says that this property, which been in my family now for three generations, is being sold along with all my cows ’cause we ain’t got no water.”
That didn’t make sense to me, because winding through the man’s property looked to be a rather large and very dry riverbed. I spoke out of turn. I said, “What happened to your river?”
“That’s a good question. And I’ve asked the same thing many times myself.” He pointed to the riverbed snaking around and through his property. “That used to flow with the most pure water. Adolph Coors himself ain’t got better water than that right there, and I reckon it’s been flowing in that river since God squeezed it out of the mountain. But then some city slicker with a law degree done some digging in some law books somewhere and bought the land to the north of me.” He pointed. “And as it turns out, his water rights predate mine, so—” Another flip of the toothpick. “I’m screwed. And so are my cows.”
I scratched my head. “Where’d the water go?”
He waved his hand across the land toward the north. “Through his fields.” He turned toward the highway. “It joins the river ’bout a mile that way.”
My dad finished his sentence. “Leaving you high and dry.”
“Yep. So now my riverbed is dry and my cows is drinking mud and there ain’t no hay in sight nor any hope of any. So I tell you what, Mr. Preacher Man. If you can fill up that dry riverbed and get my cows a drink of water, you can use my little medder up yonder for as long as you’ve got breath to preach. If not”—he held out his hand, palm up—“I need ten thousand dollars.” He smiled, revealing a mouthful of stained teeth. “Otherwise, you’re SOL.”
A wrinkle appeared between my eyes. I looked at my dad. “What’s SOL?”
He thought for a minute. “Sorta-outta-luck.”
The rancher nodded. “That too.”
Dad craned his neck, studying the back of the man’s property where the riverbed wound toward the vertical cliffs. “You got a bulldozer?”
The man shrugged. “It’s wore slap out, but I got one.”
“Can I borrow it?”
The man didn’t even offer a response. He just looked at Dad and sucked on his tobacco.
Dad continued, “If I can get you some water, you’ll forgo the ten thousand and let us use your meadow?”
“Mister, you gonna just snap your fingers and water’s gonna all of a sudden appear?”
Dad shrugged. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
The man’s disbelief
was palpable. “You gonna do what three years’ worth of appeals and sixty thousand dollars’ worth of attorney’s fees couldn’t do?”
Dad didn’t respond.
The man considered Dad. “I tell you what, Preacher Man, you get my cows some water and I’ll help you park the da—” He glanced down at me. “The cars. Otherwise—” He held out his hand again, palm up. “Ten thousand.”
Dad shook the man’s hand. “Deal.”
The man raised a single eyebrow. “You gonna get me ten thousand dollars?”
“No.” Dad was staring at the mountain. “I’m gonna get you some water.”
Big-Big and me drove out of the driveway in the truck while Dad piloted the dozer. We followed him for two miles on the highway with our hazard lights flashing, ’cause he was bouncing down the road like a drunk snake while trying to get used to the steering.
Big-Big spoke through a smile. “I seen it all now.”
When we got to the T in the road, Dad sent us to town to fill up every five-gallon can we could find with diesel while he drove up to the cabin. When we got there two hours later, he was in full-on creek-construction mode. By evening on the third night he’d burned through a lot of diesel and had carved a four-foot-deep trench spiraling around our side of the mountain. Would have made a great creek, had there been any water in it. When I asked Dad where he was going to get the water, he said, “I’m going to try and poke a hole in God’s Cereal Bowl.”
On the fourth morning Dad and I walked back up to the rancher’s front door and knocked. He met us in much the same way as he had before. Flipping a toothpick end over end.
Dad said, “Wonder if we might go for a drive?”
The rancher did not look impressed, but he obliged us, and so Dad drove us to the back side of the man’s property where the dried-up riverbed of his once-flowing river met the granite cliffs of Princeton. As a crow flies, our property was only about a mile from the rancher’s, but it took nearly thirty minutes on the road. As Dad said, you had to go around your elbow to get to your thumb.
Dad got out of the truck and started looking at his watch. Then he started walking the riverbed with his arms raised. The rancher leaned against the truck, crossed his arms, and eyed Dad with a bit of amusement. At 10:30 a.m., Dad counted off ten paces from the side of the cliffs to what happened to be the middle of the dusty riverbed, where he set down a small round stone. He was purposeful in setting it down and made sure the rancher saw it. Then he too leaned against the hood of the truck and crossed his arms. Casually, he said to the man, “How much you spend on your legal battle?”
Mr. Slocumb didn’t even blink. “Sixty-three thousand, eight hundred and fourteen dollars.”
Dad nodded and kept staring up at the cliff.
When 10:35 came and left, the man waved his hand toward the river stones. “Maybe you should walk out there and dance. Sing a tune or something.”
Dad just kept staring at the cliff.
At 10:40, Mr. Slocumb said, “Mister, are you on the level?”
Dad shook his head. “Probably not, but—” He stared up at the cliff and smiled. “I know where to find water.”
As he was speaking, a rumbling sound occurred above us, followed by a roar that sounded like a coming storm. I was standing in the back of the truck and I could hear it getting closer, so I moved around behind the truck, hiding behind the tailgate.
Seconds later a stream of water as big around as the front end of the truck shot like a cannon off the edge of the cliff, extending some eight to ten feet out from the rock wall, where it then landed directly on top of the rock Dad had set in place. The initial explosion carved out a pool in the sandy bottom, which, as the flow increased from up above, filled the riverbed to its banks.
As the water fell from above us, the man’s mouth dropped open, chewed tobacco leaves spilled out, and his eyes grew big as half-dollars. He walked to the bank, stared up, then down at the water, then back up as tiny spray droplets landed on his face and shoulders. He did this several seconds as the roar of the now-raging waterfall landed on our ears.
When the water had reached the defined edges of the bank, it did what all rivers do. It began flowing downhill, following its natural course through the rancher’s pasture and directly past his more than two thousand thirsty cattle. He stared in absolute disbelief at the cliff, the water, and then back up at the sixty-foot waterfall shooting onto his property. He stared for a minute, then two, as if he were waiting for it to stop as suddenly as it had started.
When it did not, he said, “Is it gonna keep doing that?”
Dad nodded.
Mr. Slocumb took off his hat, wiped his brow, and threw his hat down. “Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule! Preacher Man, you did it! You actually did it!” He started laughing and charged into the water, which rose to midthigh. He then walked against the current into the waterfall, opened his mouth, and held out his arms. The weight of the water on the man’s back and shoulders pushed him down into the pool, where he rolled and frolicked like a dolphin.
Finally he stood up, splashing, laughing, and spitting. “There’s enough water here to fill fifty thousand head, let alone two.” He raised both hands to his mouth, drank several large gulps of water, spat with great delight, and then started dancing a jig.
I wanted to ask what happened to the rest of his tobacco, but never did. Given that the water temperature was subfreezing, he didn’t stay there long. He walked to the bank, stepped out, picked up his crushed hat, and pulled it down tight over his head. Then, without warning, he grabbed my dad in a great big bear hug, which struck me as funny ’cause Dad was nearly half again as big as the rancher. Once he’d finished hugging him, he began shaking my father’s hand with both of his.
Dad laughed. “We start parking cars at four Friday.”
The man laughed. “Mister, I’ll he’p you park ever’ last one.”
13
One unintended outcome was that the resulting waterfall could be seen from the highway more than a mile away, creating an easily recognizable landmark. Word spread, the name caught, and our first weekend at “The Falls” was sold out—and memorable.
We started setting up tents on Thursday, the stage on Friday morning. When Friday noon rolled around, there was already a line of cars trailing out the gate. Dad loved parking cars. Said it was like putting his finger on the pulse of the congregation without their knowing that he was the doctor. He’d open a door, give them a hand, and ask folks how they were doing. By six o’clock he and Mr. Slocumb had parked several hundred cars.
In the lull before the service, Mr. Slocumb wiped his sweating face with a towel and said, “You like doing this, don’t you, Preacher Man?”
Dad shrugged. “Years back I learned how to ask one question, and people will spill fifteen years’ worth of pain in three minutes. Even the quiet ones will open the door to what hurts. And when they do . . . I try to listen.” He paused. “With the ears of my heart.” He borrowed Mr. Slocumb’s towel, wiped off his face, and then waved his hand across the rancher’s pasture. “People don’t drive out here to the middle of nowhere to be entertained. There’s better entertainment elsewhere. No, they make the drive because they’re hurting. Broken.”
He pointed at the tent. “You think this is some strange circus tent show, and I’m just some quack snake-oil salesman.” He shook his head. “This is triage.” A long silence followed. “It’s where we stop the bleeding.”
I’d never seen so many cars or so many people. Big-Big started to play the piano. The choir was swaying, humming. Several lights were flickering over the stage, swaying in rhythm with the wind—which had, oddly enough, picked up all of a sudden. A bunch of the women were waving fans. Cooling themselves. Everyone was waiting. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I doubt it’s what they got.
Dad’s booming voice rose up out of the back. From my seat on the edge of the stage I could see my dad, his face shining with sweat. Had a white sweat towel draped around his n
eck. Muddy shoes. No suit. No flashy tie. No gold rings. Just Jimmy hanging around his neck. I think Dad did that on purpose. Because when folks saw him, they immediately knew he was one of them.
Dad took his time making his way forward, slowly tapping out a rhythm on the body of the guitar. Making him both percussionist and guitar player. We never handed out song sheets because they were expensive to print, most ended up in the mud after the service, and if you played songs folks already knew, they didn’t need them anyway.
Dad wound his way toward the stage like a corkscrew. By the time he reached the stage, everybody was standing and singing so loud they didn’t even need him. He had started a wave with enough kinetic energy to carry itself to shore. A lot of the kids were standing on the chairs or sitting on their daddies’ shoulders. Amidst a raucous chorus, Dad set Jimmy down and sat next to me, toweling his forehead. Big-Big kept playing at the piano. The volume beneath that tent was so loud it hurt my ears.
Near us, a lady pressed a baby to her bosom. Couldn’t have been but a few weeks old. The mother rocked slowly, covering herself with a cloth diaper. A group of kids had come up front and were holding hands and singing and dancing in a circle. Dad and I sat on the edge of the stage, blanketed in song. Big-Big softened his touch on the keys, and the choir quietly hummed. Soon the entire place was just humming along. Dad put his arm around my shoulder and spoke, looking out across more than a thousand people—all looking at him. Dad was smiling at the kids. “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babes . . .”
Sometimes I felt like my dad spoke in riddles. Half the words were his. The other half he found in Scripture. This was one of those riddles I didn’t understand for years to come. He saw the look on my face and he touched my vocal cords with the tip of his finger. He whispered, “God gave us pipes for a reason.”
I was too young to follow him. “What’s the reason?”
Long Way Gone Page 9
