Centennial

by James A. Michener

“Gentlemen, the only fair thing will be to start over,” Garmisch said, his throat very dry. “Do I hear a bid?”

  “Five dollars,” Vesta Volkema said in a clear voice.

  “Five once, five twice, five three times-sold! To Mrs. Volkema for five dollars.” The words came in one gasp.

  When Sheriff Bogardus and his deputies heard the gavel fall, they left the law-breaking boy and wandered back into the sales area. A representative of the bank rushed up to Bogardus, complaining that the bank had been defrauded of its money.

  “In a sense that’s right,” Bogardus agreed. “You’re entitled to the total proceeds of the sale, after taxes.”

  “But since the farm only brought—what was it?—five dollars.” The sheriff shrugged his shoulders. He had no intention of bucking forty angry farmers, most of them with concealed guns, not when they were led by the Calendars.

  “Where the hell were you?” Auctioneer Garmisch asked the sheriff, for he, too, had been bilked of his fee.

  “Enforcing the law,” the sheriff said, pointing to the miscreant boy with the ball.

  Difficult as these years were, they were not devoid of the rowdy humor that had always characterized western life.

  In 1935 Denver society was bedazzled by the visit of Lord Codrington, announced as the scion of a family who had long been associated with Colorado ranching. He was a charming man, from Oxford he said, whose gracious manners won him entry to the very topmost levels of Denver society, where he courted several marriageable heiresses and lent both amusement and dignity to the better clubs. He ran up some bills, but not many, ordered suits at various tailors patronized by his hosts, but not an excessive number, and in the end was discovered to be a complete fraud, a Cockney sailor off the Cunard Line who had mastered his accent studying Ronald Colman movies while his ship plied the Atlantic.

  His downfall was a six-day wonder, with the cream of Denver society made to look like asses in the local press. The photographs, taken earlier by bored cameramen dragooned into covering for the society page, now made front page, top and center: “Mrs. Charles Bannister, leader of Denver society, presenting Lord Codrington to the Delmar Linners at the March Fete.”

  And then the affair took a typical Colorado twist. No one in Denver would bring suit against Lord Codrington. As Mrs. Bannister said, in an interview which brought chuckles and a sense of restored propriety: “Who did he hurt? He was utterly delightful and provided everyone with a sense of joy during a rather bleak period in our lives. He did me no harm.”

  Her husband, Charles Bannister, said pretty much the same: “I’m certainly not going to bring charges against a man who bilked me out of three suits. I pay a lot more than that these days without getting half the entertainment.”

  When the police bustled the errant lord out of town, with a warning never to appear within the precincts again, at least two dozen leaders of Denver society appeared to bid him farewell as he stepped aboard the train which would whisk him to Chicago and deportation. Three young women ignored the flashing bulbs to kiss him goodbye, and Delmar Linner, father of one of the girls and a leading banker, told reporters, “He looks a damned sight better in that suit than I ever did.”

  At about this time Centennial became the butt of a prank by a group of high school students, who had been complaining about poor food served in the cafeteria. They erected over its portals a sign which infuriated some, evoked hilarity in others. Unfortunately, all the perpetrators were offspring of Republican families and a regrettable political overtone was cast over the affair, where none was intended. The sign read:

  ALFERD PACKER MEMORIAL CAFETERIA

  And when the teachers saw it, all hell broke loose, the local Democratic leader claiming that to erect such a sign on a building paid for by taxpayers was an insult to Franklin D. Roosevelt, not a favorite figure in the area. The leader of the Republicans had the wit to snap back, “Nonsense! That sign has no national significance whatever. It merely recognizes, and belatedly at that, a thoughtful citizen of Colorado who performed a public service for which we should all be grateful.” And so the confrontation raged, until some children from Democratic families tore the sign down.

  Alferd Packer had been a mountain guide, as mixed up as the spelling of his first name, and late in 1873 for a grubstake he volunteered to lead a hunting party of twenty into the western mountains. When a blizzard struck he got lost with five of the members. The party was snowbound for three months. They ran out of food, so Packer, as the man responsible for the leadership and survival of the group, began eating his fellow sportsmen.

  When the spring thaws came Alferd Packer returned, picking his teeth and showing no signs of ordeal, but later the skeletons of his companions were found, each skull showing signs of having been smacked with the sharp edge of an ax.

  The macabre episode might have passed unnoticed into history as one more macabre affair along the Continental Divide, except for the memorable charge made by the judge when he sentenced Packer. Whether the judge actually said these words cannot now be proved, but they have passed into the folklore of the state, providing Colorado with its one indisputable folk hero. Said the judge, “Alferd Packer, you voracious, man-eating son-of-a-bitch. They was only seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, and you ate five of them.”

  This affair made Packer the patron saint of the Republican party, and small wallet cards are printed up bearing his well-fed, handsome, bearded face accompanied by the legend: “I admire the example set by the great Alferd Packer and wish to be a member of his club. In proof of my fidelity to his sterling principles, I agree to eliminate five Roosevelt Democrats.” It must be pointed out that Packer escaped punishment, for a clever Republican attorney proved that whereas the supposed crime had been committed while Colorado was a territory, the case had been tried under the criminal laws of the new state, and any fair-minded man would have to agree that that was unfair.

  Contributions to public hilarity were also made by the Mexican community. In 1920 Pancho Villa, having made a fool of General Pershing, was about to launch a similar campaign against the Mexican government. They bought him off with a spacious ranch in Durango, where he ruled like a feudal lord, even resuming his less provocative original name, Doroteo Arrango.

  However, many citizens remembered not his victories over the Americans but his brutal assassinations of Mexicans, and one hot afternoon, July 20, 1923, as he was driving in his new Dodge, he was ambushed by seven ancient enemies. When colored postcards of his disemboweled body were placed on sale, little white arrows pointed to forty-seven bullet wounds.

  Villa was buried in his favorite city of Chihuahua, but one night in 1926 persons who had suffered at his hands invaded the cemetery, dug up his coffin and made off with the skeleton. The official history reports the grisly denouement: “Being carried off his skull to New Mexico, vile opportunists there continue to sell it six or seven times each year to rapacious norte-americanos.”

  Two of his skulls landed in Denver, brought there by tourists, and controversy arose as to which had once been the real Pancho Villa. Skull One was large and round and looked as if it might once have belonged to the legendary bandit. Skull Two, however, had been sold for twice the amount of Skull One, and therefore had to command respect. Furthermore, it had been sold by a woman who offered written affidavits proving that she was the one legal widow of Pancho Villa and was selling the skull only to help educate Pancho’s children, whereupon the owner of Skull One produced a newspaper clipping from Old Mexico: “There are no fewer than twenty-seven women with papers proving each to be the only true wife of Pancho Villa, and of these, sixteen have skulls to sell.”

  Once more the argument was resolved in a manner which did credit to Colorado. The Anglo owners of the skulls agreed to put the decision in the hands of men from the area who had fought in Villa’s army. They were brought to Denver to compare the skulls, and Centennial was proud when their own Tranquilino Marquez boarded the train to serve on the jury. The old soldiers l
ooked at the two skulls, and in few minds was there any doubt that the bigger and rounder skull—that would be Skull One—conformed to the remembered physiognomy of their martyred leader, but there was that nagging problem raised by the fact that Skull Two had cost more and had come with a written documentation.

  A judgment worthy of Solomon was handed down: “Skull One is undoubtedly that of Pancho Villa, the mature man. But Skull Two, somewhat smaller, is also his, at the age of sixteen.”

  After the disastrous sale of his cattle in Chicago, Beeley Garrett had put his foot down: “Your mother and I have no intention of spending another winter in this Godforsaken climate. Come October, well go to Florida for good, but before we go, we do wish you’d get things straightened out with Ruth.”

  “They’re all right,” his son said evasively.

  “Don’t be a damned fool, Henry. What you and Ruth have can barely be called a marriage.”

  “It’ll work out,” Henry insisted. On this topic he was reticent, and he was much relieved when his parents actually packed their car.

  For some years he had been making major decisions regarding the ranch, and under his tutelage Venneford bulls had strengthened their reputation as the blue-ribbon bulls of the west. Purists noted that each generation was a fraction of an inch shorter than the preceding, and they suspected that the dwarfism which Jim Lloyd had feared was operating, but Venneford publicity masked this deficiency, and the great Crown Vee bulls with their ponderous stride and drooping horns continued to bring top price at the auctions.

  When Beeley and Pale Star climbed into their Cadillac for the long drive south, Ruth was not present to bid them goodbye. She was feeling poorly, and Beeley said, “I’ll give you two years, Henry. Get your marriage squared away or I’ll have to take the ranch back. It’s too valuable to let you ruin it.”

  When his parents were gone, Henry had ample time to survey his situation, and the more he considered Ruth and her peculiar behavior, the more worried he became. Shortly after their marriage she had begun to act strangely, and before long she was another of those nervous, self-condemning, withdrawn women who haunted western ranches.

  Beeley had said of her, “She ought to leave Venneford and live out there on the drylands for a year. Let her see what some women endure without complaining.”

  “A week in one of those tipis would drive her truly crazy,” Pale Star had said. She considered her daughter-in-law’s behavior disgraceful. “You’ve been very patient with her,” she had told Henry. “Don’t let her ruin your life.”

  Now, alone, Henry wondered if he had in some way failed Ruth when her parents were killed in the plane crash. If so, there were no amends he could make. When he considered his wife’s withdrawal, her complaining, her inability to pursue any interest, and especially her lack of affection toward either him or their children, he was bewildered.

  It was in this mood that he started making regular halts at La Cantina on his way home from Centennial. In fact, he was finding much ranch business to do in town, and often instead of sending one of the cowboys to fetch a bucket of red paint to touch up the barns, he would ride in himself, then park his Dodge at La Cantina while he had a cold drink.

  He never indicated that it was Soledad Marquez that he was stopping by to see, but when he entered the smoky, noisy room he always cast one swift, encompassing glance to ascertain the situation. If she was present, he sat and stared at her. If she was not there, the men could see that his shoulders sagged a little.

  She had known, of course, from the first moment, that he was attracted to her, and this gave her enormous satisfaction. It was like the time when the family spent the winter in Denver and a singer up from Old Mexico had taken her on his knee and sung to her. It had signified nothing, really, yet she treasured the remembrance.

  She knew that Henry Garrett was married, had children and was a Protestant, so there could be nothing in this for her. She also knew that her brother Triunfador watched her closely and had openly threatened to send her back to Mexico if she gave the gringo any encouragement. But in spite of these impediments she caught herself listening for the sound of the Dodge coming from Venneford as it carried Garrett into town on one or another of his missions.

  Without betraying emotion, she listened as the car sped south, knowing that on its return it would not go by so swiftly, but would halt. Smiling to herself, she would clean the tables or make some refritos, and after a while she would retreat to her room, in the new section of the building, where she would comb her hair and tend her ribbons.

  For half a year this desultory exchange continued; only once had the two touched hands, that day when he started to change records at the machine and she had reached for the needle. The effect had been electrifying, like the touch of disparate wires in the box which ignites the distant explosion.

  One surprisingly warm day in January 1936 Henry drove into town, and when she heard the reassuring signal of his car, Soledad reacted in a new way. When he returned later and stopped for a drink, his first swift glance told him that she was not there. He drank his Coke, listened to the “Ballad of Pancho Villa,” whose words he was beginning to know, and waited till the Mexicans threw General Pershing out. Disappointed at Soledad’s absence, he climbed back into his car and drove north.

  He had gone only a short distance when he saw Soledad standing boldly beside the road. Braking to a stop, he clicked open the door and she jumped in. With one wild sweep of her arms she embraced him, and whispered, “Over there. Down the road.”

  They drove westward along a trail that led to a broken dam which had once impounded the waters of Beaver Creek. When the car stopped, facing a swamp-like area crowded with birds, she threw her arms about him again and kissed him passionately. They sat there a long time, indulging their hopeless affection for each other and watching the red-winged blackbirds as they alighted deftly on the tips of long-dead rushes. They spoke of conditions as they were, without magnification or vain hope, and they acknowledged how dangerous a game they had entered into.

  “My brother might kill you,” she said. They are required to do that in Mexico, you know.”

  “I’m not afraid of your brother,” he said. And then came the question which so tantalizes men in love with girls they cannot marry: “How is it you’re not already married?”

  “I’ve been waiting,” she said, offering no further explanation.

  They contrived to meet in strange places, and once when Ruth Mercy Garrett was in Denver, Henry actually spirited Soledad into the Venneford castle, where in one of the towers they pretended no longer. In a flood of passion they undressed and lay on an ancient buffalo robe brought there by Oliver Seccombe.

  They made love for two hours, and when they crept out of the castle, praying that no one had seen them, their lives were tangled and lost. Now, when Garrett entered the cantina, he made no attempt to hide his savage disappointment if she was not there. They drifted into playing certain records, particularly “Serian las Dos,” about the girls who no longer were content to eat tortillas.

  In this accidental manner Henry Garrett became the first Anglo in Centennial to discover that the Mexicans had their own sweet, stable patterns of society, and that in some strange way they tended to find a happiness with nature that the Anglos missed. There were not many men in the region as totally stable as Triunfador Marquez, not many young women who vibrated to the whole of life the way his sister Soledad did. Off to a wretched corner by themselves, living in hovels, these quiet people arranged a world that gave them dignity and a kind of rude repose. In places like Denver, Santa Fe, San Antonio and Centennial they evolved a placid, self-sustaining pattern of life, creating values of peace and joy which in years to come the Anglos would seek and not find.

  A marvelous symbiosis of English and Spanish culture might have evolved in these decades if it had been encouraged or even permitted to flourish, but there was almost no Anglo who could even comprehend that such a thing was possible, so the two races lived
apart in deepening suspicion.

  Still rejected by white Catholics, the Mexicans turned inevitably to exotic religions, and Henry Garrett would never forget the wintry Sunday afternoon when the Children of God in the Mountains outraged the honest citizens of Centennial by appearing with a brass band in the public square to conduct religious worship.

  Soledad Marquez was there in a long white dress decorated with cheap red roses purchased from the J. C. Penney store. She was exquisite, there was no other word for it, Henry thought, a slim vision of a strange way of life. She marched arm in arm with two other girls almost as pretty as she, and they were followed by other trios of men and women, and as they swirled their way in a great circle around the square, the band played and they chanted the hymn that best summarized their hopes: “Con Cristo en el Mundo Otra Vez.”

  The hymn had a compelling rhythm and many verses, all telling of how life would be when Christ returned to the earth the next time:

  “There will be justice then,

  And bread for all.

  And I shall have a new dress,

  And my sister shall have shoes.”

  It would be such a different world when Jesus came back and looked at the injustices under which his children labored. Then his brown-skinned Mexicans would stand free of their oppressors, and there was even a crude verse about the beet workers: