CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

New year’s eve 1981

 

TRINITY COUNTY had experienced a mild and thirsty winter. Not a single flake of snow had fallen in altitudes less than four thousand feet in northern California, the state in general was entering its second year of drought; gold, nonetheless, was appearing far more generously in the pan. New Year’s Eve midnight, brain-buzzed Shanan, outside their trailer, barefoot as a newborn, donned only in disintegrating jeans and a disintegrating tank-top T-shirt, perhaps miming a tipsy hunter expelling vampire bats, was shooting his .38 blazingly into the skies in celebration. Echoing shots from every caliber of iron were rising from mining camps throughout the region and bouncing off three or four buttes and ridges before evaporating into the thinness of the mountain air, and he deemed a round of shots from his own his indispensable responsibility in adding charitably to the Mountainous Song of the Sky Full of Invisible dents.

 

 

MIDYEAR

 

HOT DAYS OF SUMMER covered the Trinity, and a gorgeously sunny day was wrapping itself gracefully around everything in its path, a vivid ultramarine charming a faint spirit of yellow and flooding the endless skies majestically. Light from the daystar enshrined the firmament gracefully and with a kingly golden hue. Yet, a precipitation of melancholy and apprehension was falling in Shanan’s interior. He and Cathy had spent the better part of their days gleaning the sparse yet seemly ceaseless gold from Ingot’s Bar, but it no longer had the psychological abundance as at the start. Furthermore, as days dragged into weeks, Cathy, though more and more preoccupied with her writing, would steadily discover new excuses to stay behind in their trailer, and her devil-may-care beau would go prospect or pan for the color without her.

 

 

AMONG THE BOULDERS, rocks, and sandy potentials, Shanan’s spiritless sluicing had gone on for more than three hours, and he had run at least fifty pans of gravel through the classifier to the sluice box. “Useless!” The gold, nearly insignificant in quantity, simply did not want to comply in abundance today. Sitting on a boulder, he stared screws of world-weariness into the curves of curling waves in the river, “I should quit this junk and go back to maid services,” when, without warning, that peaceful voice inside him invaded his depression: “Ask for the waters of life…waters of life….”

 

     Did our minister ever preach waters of life? he mulled as his head tilted sideways. He just sat dolefully on the rock, giving way to depression, and this was the first since arriving in Big Bar that he began feeling a tad sorry for himself: Ask for the waters of life? Left hand now on his jaw, and half his mouth, “Of life…?”

 

 

“COULD YOU BELIEVE this afternoon?” Cathy announced as she turned excitedly toward her gold miner. Shanan cleared the stoop of their trailer, leapfrogging through the doorway.

 

     “Believe this afternoon, honey?” Shanan studied her as he set his gold bottle on the warped, wooden shelf skirting the sink.

 

     “The rain!” she exclaimed. “The rain! The sun was shining, I hung my clothes on the line—Boom! suddenly rain is pouring down from the sky. Where else? They don’t have rain in California in the summer, do they? Maybe the drought is finished?”

 

     “Oh, yeah.” Shanan turned and gave her a kiss. “I caught its performance. I got endrenched. But the cloud was gone in a blink.”

 

     “What’s endrenched mean?”

 

     “I don’t know, honey, but it just ululated so good. And check the bottle. I got a fair amount of gold today.”

 

     “Endrenched wasn’t crying or raving loudly,” Cathy chided. “How come you used the word ululated?

 

     Shanan’s countenance changed confusedly from I hoped you’d be happy with the gold I got to questioning, “Didn’t I hear you use the word ululated a couple days ago?”

 

     “Yes. But your use of ululated had nothing to do with crying or raving loudly.”

 

 

As the two of them were turning in for the night, Shanan’s mind was wandering paths of inquisitiveness. He kissed Cathy goodnight, rolled over; and, his imagination taking flight through the diminutive window at the head of their bed and out into the darkening shadows, he mused, remembering his afternoon at Ingot’s Bar: I don’t think Cathy’d understand. She might, though, being as brainy and as religious as she is. But, nah. He closed his eyes and tried falling asleep: Jeeez, at the river, I just sat on that boulder. I asked for the waters of life. Whammo! Where’d th’ little cloud fly in from, Heaven? That cloud. Man, did it pop into the scene quick, or what? Cloud…rain—I hope nobody saw me.

 

     Only hours earlier, drifting in from beyond reality, a sizeable cloud had begun to shower upon him instantly, a brilliant halo of sunlight around it and scattering its diverging borders, as if chewing tatters at the edges of the cloud. Shanan had raised his head, unashamedly, naively, opening his mouth as wide as possible; and, standing with his tongue half exposed, he caught many of the falling drops, until he had wearied his subservient and rain-chasing expression in the effort: Groovy lil cloud…Boy, quite a deal...lil cloud... hmh…lil clo.…

 

 

THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY arrived with no surprises, but a more generous sprinkling of gold did fall to the foot of a wooden Cross. What is more, soon after arriving in Big Bar, Shanan made numerous observations, had ceased working on Sabbath days—to him: Sundays—and had bellowed to half the miners in those parts, “If you guys work on Sundays, you’ll experience problems. You’ll see.”

 

     This was just another of his inspirations. He had no clue as to how a genuine Sabbath was to be kept and sanctified. Nevertheless, he observed, Sabbath and toiling in the gold frankly did not mix too well.

 

     Maybe, ipso facto, a holy connection did exist, or was this merely a tacked-on item in Shanan’s forever-curious heart? The strange element in this was if the miners did work on Sundays, they did have problems; and, after Shanan’s constant pestering, plenty of them did, with indefinable consideration, holiday Sunday from their gold excavation.

 

 

LATE SUMMER

 

TWO IN THE AFTERNOON, Shanan stepped nonchalantly away from his trailer to visit the Big Bar Store for a pack of cigarettes. A young man—somewhere between his early to mid twenties—was walking at an easy gate along the narrow, earthen driveway leading to the trailer. The man’s smile was exceptionally gentle, humble; and Shanan smiled back casually at the young man as they passed each other. A screen of peace seemed to inhabit the air between them, but neither man spoke to the other.

 

 

     A white llama outfitted with a beautiful pair of gold- and purple-threaded saddlebags (the gold being the dominant of the two, profoundly visible and sewn within broad lattice-like cross-straps) following the young man glanced tranquilly in Shanan’s direction and strolled politely past him. Shanan maintained the rhythm of his own steps toward the store, but gathered to himself semiconsciously: He’s walking his llama to the foothill just behind our trailer, to allow her privacy or a patch of fresh shrubs to eat. Whatever.

 

     Shanan could not recall from all his lifelong days so gentle a smile, or so blissful. The young man’s curly and wheat-colored hair, clipped so perfectly and so close to his head, only an angel of God could have arranged; and, both the man’s hair and his smile had a placid curl Shanan had difficulty describing to himself.

 

 

WHEN THE YOUNG MAN RETURNED, Shanan was still hanging loose in front of the store, talking with three of his mining friends. As they chatted, the man walked his llama to a point approximately forty feet west of them, leaving her standing alone on the paved edge of the road. The llama stood patiently in her place, not tethered, but motionless, as the man came forth and entered the store.

 

     By virtue of the Earth’s rotation, several minutes dissolved into invisible real estate, and the man exited with a chocolate candy bar and stepped into the sunlight. With his back leaning gently against the outside wall of the store, he lowered his torso carefully until relaxing flatly upon his leather thongs.

 

     The young man sat silently while eating his candy. When he had finished, he rose effortlessly to his feet, released the bodiless wrapper into a waste receptacle, and walked to his llama, but no farther. He raised his thumb, and the very first vehicle, a beat-up blue jalopy of a pickup truck, screeched to a halt. The driver alighted from the cab, lowered the tailgate, and allowed the llama to hop into the bed of the truck. The young man entered the cab, and westward they drove. He and his animal had not stood hitchhiking long enough for Shanan to light a cigarette, and now the hiker was gone. This spectacle happened so fast that Shanan thought he had encountered a dream, and its memory immediately engraved itself into his highly impressionable heart.

 

     The strange part of this whole quasi-Shakespearean scene: Habit was, no stranger ever visited them thar hills without being interrogated by at least one of them good mountain aristocrats. Outsiders were suspected of you name what, until the local boys got used to them. Those hardcore, beer-drinking mining buddies of Shanan’s, as well as Shanan, sputtered not the laziest three-letter taunt to the young man: not a word. Not the toughest of mankind could speak to him, as though an impenetrable window existed between him and anyone standing near him. Shanan could not grasp the peculiarity of the situation.

 

     A stranger in this territory, and everything’s peaceful? Stranger yet, the young man had used a tiny nugget of gold to pay for his candy bar, a nugget he modestly explained to the surprised clerk, “I just found….” Shelana was tending the store that day, and said his soft voice was amazingly courteous. She could not describe the graciousness of his voice to a tee, but she did say, “The nugget would have paid for forty candy bars!” For a solid week, the young man was the principal talk of Big Bar Town. The entire community knew he had walked among them, but not a soul had uttered a single word to him….

 

     Shanan viewed this whole hitchhiking incident as a milestone in thumbing: Phenomenal! Observing someone hitching rides with a companioned animal larger than an Irish setter was an underscore. Regardless, the man was gone, and Shanan stood by the entrance of the store, gazing with a million questions: Jeepers! The guy’s—His face. I seen a smile God must have created in Heaven, real Heaven. Whew! Nobody’s smile is so restful, so pure. Was he even from this world? I’ll bet nothing on Earth bothers the guy….

 

 

THAT EVENING

 

AMY WAS A SLENDER DOG, and white, semi-short fur covered her sleek body. She resembled a Labrador retriever, except for her tail, which favored that between a Samoyed and a German shepherd. Curving upward and toward the back of her neck, the end of her tail all but touched the middle of her back. She had the biggest black eyes and the cutest coal-button black nose; and the employees at the Big Bar Store, and anyone walking through the doorway of Shanan and Cathy’s trailer, loved her and showered her with a great deal of affection. “Amy, you’re a pretty little girl,” was commonly heard at the door.

 

     Four miles upriver from Big Bar, standing at peace outside the Elktail Saloon at Big Flat, was Cathy; and Amy was on a leather leash at her side, all beneath a starry, starry night. A couple of nasty claim-jumping-related killings had transpired along with a slew of other woes in them thar hills during the past and blistering month. Police were still conducting an ongoing and undercover search for an escaped and criminally insane serial murderer from the Mississippi River’s finish-line-state of Louisiana. The murderer’s rap sheet revealed that the man was considered extremely dangerous and might be armed. The law presumed him to be in possession of lethal weapons, and believed he was camped with a gang of antagonistic miner pals somewhere in Trinity County. Although organizers of the Big Bar Mining Association’s Annual Miners’ Party received private notification to this affect, they had found no acceptable reason to declare a postponement.

 

     There in the dimly lit, half-forested, and tableland ambience, breathing the vegetal aroma unique to evergreens and their pine needles, as if in concert with the undecided breezes, meandering or scurrying in no identifiable pattern were men, women, and children from more than a hundred and twenty-five high-strung or feisty gold-camps. The children, equal to their parents, were dressed ragtag, kite-tail tatters fluttering behind their undisciplined strides, chasing playfully after their dogs, but just as unrestrained and mischievous as their parents among the pines, for, ’twas a mountain Mardi Gras this-here Big Bar Mining Association’s Annual Miner’s Party, and as yet unsophisticated.

 

     The Witching Hour was riding her ticking broom stealthily into the presence of the unsuspecting, and only a couple of minor fights—not to coin a metaphorical phrase—had occurred. At least fifty untied guns were under cowhide belts and cotton shirts. A dozen carousing men and women were sucking themselves cross-eyed on a special patch of their Trinity County harvest—extra curricular gardening. Shanan, carrying two more free beers, came wandering ess’s through the entryway of the blaring ‘Get-down-boogie-around’ Elktail Saloon and into the congested parking lot. He tried handing a beer to poor Cathy, and she did manage to loosen the covetous, frosty mug from his vacillating clutch. By this time, three totally shellacked nuggeteers were demonstrating claim-jumping-argument number two, and their hot, bent brows were only getting hotter.

 

     A spraying surge of blood gushed suddenly from the mouth of an angry miner! His head bounced off a log roof support, and the man fell dazed to the ground! He who threw the first punch promptly found himself kissing a rock-hard fist of a stranger to his left. Within a sip of a beer—war—began breaking merrily from the farthest end of the dusty front lot of the Elktail to the stripes dividing the moonlighted highway. A wild, unleashed melee of uncontrollable and drunken adrenaline at once stuffed the veins of everyone present. This, was a gold bash! —Yas, it was…!

 

     Shanan fumbled for Cathy’s .38, and raising it high into the air fired three aimless shots in a futile attempt to quell the fighting. His beer was slopping around in his other hand. As he was in this awkward pose, a bevy of police cars sped silently onto the riotous scene, as if notified in advance and just hidden and waiting for problems. A couple of other ecstatic miners shot off five rounds into the sky, but the moment the police were spotted, the miners panicked, and the entire pack of them and a mob of other partiers began scattering swiftly into the dense foliage on both sides of the highway and into the wooded hills directly behind the Elktail. The children were left carelessly behind.

 

     From shock and fear, Cathy and Amy took flight instinctively toward the lofty pines just west of the Elktail. Shanan, standing nearer the bedlam, without hesitation threw his mug to the ground and burst into a staggering sprint toward the hills on the east-side of the saloon. As Shanan dove between tall timbers, two miners began shooting at the police: They’re crazy! Shanan’s mind was reeling: They’re all crazy….!

 

     He crawled elbows-and-knees and peeked along the lengthy tree line and tried to watch as Cathy, Amy, and a swarm of others dodged hastily into the brush. A trooper fired six rounds in their direction. Shanan could hardly focus his blinking and swimming eyes. Screaming and short-tempered shouting filled the darkness!

 

     Shanan tossed his gun—“Get out’a the way!” expeditiously into a clump—“Holy God!” of bushes behind a group of—“Call for more backup!” trees and crouched—“Jesus, man!” half hunched over: waiting anxiously—“Look out, you bum!” and teetering, listening to—“Beat it, you jerk!” the wild gunfire, attempting—“Get down, or get the hell out of my way!” to discern—BAM—Shanan’s head snapped upward, with bulging eyes seeing nothing in the skies above, and no expression upon his face, as though his head were emptied of brains. He crumbled peacefully to his knees and fell forward flat on his face to the Earth— blackness. An infinite unity with the gross sum of the quiet universe flooded his journeying soul—“Get this dirty little mother the hell out’a here,” a redheaded officer shouted, sneering over Shanan’s lifeless body. Two police rushed in and dragged him quickly to a county vehicle. Shanan was ejected from this fight eternally.

 

     Even though I was here on the ground, something inside me was trying to raise itself up and out of me. Them suckers are scary. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. They’re different, Cath…I’ll never step into one of those things again—in my life!”

 

 

†