These labor disputes carried Grey afield of his usual subject matter. He knew little about labor strife, and did not bother to learn more. In The Desert of Wheat (1919), he makes little effort to explain the background or organization of the I. W. W. This union was merely an excuse for his anguished obsession with the war. The I. W. W. in his novel has been infiltrated and corrupted by German agents who promote strikes that undermine the war effort. Grey conceives of the union as an organization with many immigrants who avail themselves of American opportunity, but secretly hate its people and government. Local ranchers triumph over the union’s subversive plotting by turning into vigilantes. After hanging its corrupt leader, they ship his band of outsiders away in freight cars.
The Desert of Wheat was the first of a series of novels set in the present that assessed the war’s damage to homeland culture and beliefs. The central part of the story features another conflict between father and son, only here the conflict is due to opposing attitudes toward war. Chris Dorn, one of the wheat ranchers, is a German immigrant who believes that his homeland is misunderstood and that England has turned the United States against it. He feels betrayed by his son Kurt, who is ashamed of his German heritage and believes that he has to spill German blood, and perhaps his own as well, in order to prove that he is a true American. After he is wounded in combat, Kurt questions his xenophobic assumptions and lapses into depression. Into Kurt’s reevaluation of his patriotic rush into war, Grey channeled his own reservations about the war, and this character would be the first of several wounded veterans who reconfigured his previously sick fugitives from civilization.
Lenore nurses Kurt through his recovery, saves him from disillusionment, and wins his love. She is another strong, independent woman eager to help the man she loves, but her reluctance to change Kurt sets her apart from Grey’s heroines so far. Her father wants her to keep Kurt away from the war, and realizing that she has the power to do so, she instead allows him to go and to do as he wants. “No longer could she think of persuading him to stay home,” she reflects at one point. “She must forget herself. She knew then that she had the power to keep him and she could use it, but she must not do so. This tragic thing was a matter of his soul.”92 Lenore’s acceptance of Kurt’s need to leave and his peculiar thinking bespeaks more than a little of Dolly’s tolerance of Zane’s misbehavior and his recent gratitude for her patience and support. Given this similarity, it is hardly surprising that Dolly was impressed by Lenore. In fact, Dolly’s attachment to Lenore provoked an angry letter denouncing Zane’s betrayal of his heroine with a demeaning flourish of sexuality:
I’m worn out struggling with that awful chapter of yours where Lenore hands herself over to Kurt on a platter—so now you’ve got to at least share the agony with me. My God—what hit you when you wrote that chapter? It sounds just as if you’d had a liebestod session with Mildred Smith. Lucinda fades into insignificance—“cool, soft pressures, white soft hands, arms, shoulders, dim starry eyes, heavy eyelids, white graceful images, reeling senses, brutal hugs, exquisite gowns, palpitating bosoms, sweetness, sudden-flashing, incredible portents, tremulousness, tumultuous Lenore Anderson!” … I groaned & cussed and got violent & furious and disgusted. And I’d been looking forward to this particular passage because you’d spoken so much about it. I don’t know what to do. Do you want to rewrite it? Or shall I try? It has some very good flashes, here & there, but most of it is the limit. You’ve made a beautiful character of Lenore all the way through—and just here, where she should reach her pinnacle, you’ve made a nasty little mink out of her. What possessed you when you wrote that chapter? It’s erotic … She was a fine type of girl & in this chapter she ought to do herself justice. And he was a splendid man. The big love passage between them should be big & noble and clean—not a mere appeal to the sensual.93
Needless to say, Zane rewrote the scene. This letter is a rare example of Dolly pressing Zane for revision. The letters exchanged by Zane and Dolly from before their marriage confirm that she did suggest modifications to his early work, but these letters do not reveal what they were or what he changed. The handwritten holographic manuscripts of Grey’s novels from 1915 to 1923 reveal varying amounts of revision from the extensive reformulation of “The Last of the Duanes” and “The Rangers of the Lone Star” into The Lone Star Ranger to minor corrections of routine copyediting. Although the dearth of hard evidence poses irresolvable questions about the reasons for these changes and the person(s) responsible for them, the editors at Harper and Brothers undoubtedly influenced him more than Dolly, and this kind of request was unusual for her at this point in Zane’s career. That said, had Dolly and his editors actually encouraged him to write more descriptions like this “liebestod session” and Madeline’s horseback ride with Gene, it is possible that Grey’s romances could have become less conventional and better attuned to the future.94 Of course, if Grey had channeled more of his sexual experience into his stories, his novels might also have been more controversial and less popular, and his fear of controversy may have contributed to the repeated breakdowns with writing his novel of social protest.
When Grey, Dolly, and the other members of their party reached San Francisco on July 24, 1917, he learned that his mother had died the day before in Lackawaxen. Although her health had been declining, her death was unexpected and upsetting. Realizing that it would take him almost a week to return to Lackawaxen, he advised R. C. to hold the funeral without him and proceeded with his original plans.95 Dolly, Mildred, and Dorothy took the train east for Lackawaxen, and he went south to Los Angeles. There he was joined by Claire, Lillian, and Elma, and together they took the ferry to Catalina. This time he rented a house for the summer. While he awaited the girls’ train, he dispatched Dolly a brief letter declaring, “I want to thank you for being such a brick on this trip. I never really knew how fine you could be, and I love you more than I ever did. It was splendid of you … [and] I’ll not forget it.”96
Whatever misgivings Grey had about his decision not to be deterred by his mother’s death were allayed by news that the fishing was sensational. On the boat over, he and the girls saw large schools of flying fish. After dinner that night, William Boschen showed them a broadbill caught that day, and told about two others from the week before, one weighing 422 pounds that established a new record.97 During his season of unproductive fishing back in 1914, Grey had watched Boschen catch a 300-pound marlin that jumped sixty-three times, and later commented that “it made me wild to catch one, of like weight and ferocity.”98 This longing made him ecstatic when he landed a 316-pound marlin a year later, but Boschen’s success with broadbill also intensified his envy. In “Swordfish, the Royal Purple Game of the Sea,” Grey describes his fascination with this formidable adversary and Boschen’s epic battle with one:
The broadbill swordfish is a different proposition. He is larger, fiercer, and tireless. He will charge the boat, and nothing but the churning propeller will keep him from ramming the boat. There were eight broadbill swordfish hooked at Avalon during the summer, and not one brought to gaff. This is an old story. Only two have been caught to date. They are so purposeful, so resistless, so desperate, and so cunning that it seems impossible to catch them. … Boschen fought a big broadbill for eleven hours. And during this fight, the swordfish sounded to the bottom forty-eight times, and had to be pumped up; he led the boat almost around Catalina Island—twenty-nine miles; and he had gotten out into the channel, headed for Clemente, when he broke away. This fish did everything. I consider this battle the greatest on record (259–60).
Later he confessed, “It is my great ambition now to catch a broadbill. That would completely round out my fishing experience. And I shall try. But I doubt that I will be so fortunate. It takes a long time” (260).
Realizing that twice as many broadbill had been caught during the final days of July 1917 than all the years before, Zane was chagrined over what he had missed, but he was also optimistic that this unprecedented opportunity
was not over. Over the next week, he averaged three sightings a day and got many strikes, but he did not hook one.99 On August 3, following a conversation with Zane about these sightings, William Boschen landed a 462-pound broadbill that bettered the record set the week before. The following day, Grey confessed to Dolly, “Had a horrible disappointment yesterday. Dan and I have been trailing a big swordfish for days. He has taken 6 baits from me, and we were sure we’d get him eventually. But I foolishly blabbed about him to Boschen, and yesterday Boschen quit his usual ground, invaded ours, and hooked and killed my fish. The world’s record—462 pounds. It made me sick!”100
This misfortune was reversed that same day when Zane hooked and successfully landed his first broadbill. Though it weighed only 260 pounds, it provided a memorable four-hour fight that he described in “The Gladiator of the Sea.” Claire Wilhelm was on board at the time, and likewise described the momentous event in her journal. Unlike Grey who eloquently reconstructed the dramatic fight and the skillful, well-coordinated responses of himself and the crew, Claire acknowledged the mayhem and near disaster. Her account is both vivid and different enough to merit quoting:
It was all so quiet and smooth on the water that we were deathly afraid the fish would hear or see us. Mil and I were tense—He ignored the bait—we cursed him—we swore at him and we waited. Was it to be the same old story? We almost wept at the thought of it. But why give up? Capt. Dan said, ‘Let the bait sink a minute and keep it still. He may come back. That’s what my big fish did.’ We were going to tantalize it till we chased it if nothing better. The fins disappeared. Our heads stood still. We didn’t dare say farewell. What! A thrill went through Doc—the line twitched ever so little. Was he beating the bait with his strong bill? He dared not open his mouth—he was speechless in fact. Yes, the line gradually ran out and then of a sudden the reel sang. What music to our ears! … In one of his leaps the whole body quivered and it looked immense. It was the most beautiful thrilling sight I’ve ever witnessed. At times he would just remain still and then he would go down several hundred feet. When he’d come up we were all on the alert watching eagerly for another leap or sight of him. … About 4:30 Doc had him up to the boat—there he woke up. Out he swam and Doc swore. At 20 minutes of five we had him up to the boat again and he slashed about and beat his sword against the boat and made the water fly, some excitement! … Dan got the gaffs in him alright and Doc slipped the noose over his tail lassoing him. The blood covered the fish and discolored the water all around. He fought frantically. The gaff came loose and Dan yelled to us to all help pull the rope. Doc jumped up on the stern of the boat rope in hand and we pulled. Dan yelled to take in slack rope and we had a h—of a time even holding it for the fish was pulling out his end and we nearly had our hands torn off. For a minute I thought all was up—Doc and Dan just escaped being pulled overboard. I screamed with terror. All was bloody and slippery and the sea was getting rough and the boat rocking. Doc finally got the rope on the cleat and the very worst was over.101
Zane Grey, his first broadbill (260 pounds), and O. I. Danielson, Catalina, August 4, 1917. (Courtesy of Pat Friese.)
This catch earned Grey a coveted white button. Despite his persistent claims that he was the world’s unluckiest fisherman, his timing and luck were perfect this time. Immediately following this catch, the broadbill disappeared, but tuna showed up to replace them. On August 10, Zane caught two. One weighed ninety-five pounds, his biggest so far—five pounds shy of the 100 necessary for a blue button, but large enough to spark hope that the four-year drought of big tuna might have ended. Three days later, Zane introduced a former classmate from Penn to the challenge and excitement of tuna fishing. Dr. Riggin had previously been captain of the football team and was currently an anatomist at Penn’s medical school. He arrived just after Zane landed his broadbill, and together they performed an elaborate autopsy on the fish. When the muscular Riggin hooked a tuna several days later, Zane reset the reel’s drag so that he was strained to the point of exhaustion. This prank kept Grey from fishing several hours during a record-setting day on which fifty-six tuna were landed.102 Though Zane landed seven that day, his catches averaged only seventy pounds, much smaller than his ninety-five pounder and well shy of the 100 pounds required for the blue button on which he had his heart set.
Four days later, Zane and the girls returned to Los Angeles and hopped a train for Denver. Lillian’s exit in Flagstaff was emotional for everyone, especially Claire. Meanwhile, R. C., his wife Reba, “Fergie,” and Dorothy Ackerman had coordinated their departure from New York City so that they arrived in Denver the same day. After a two-day tour of the city, the group headed west to Yampa, a small town midway between Steamboat Springs and Vail. From there, an outfitter named Teague took them into the Flat Tops Wilderness area. From a well-situated base camp, they passed a pleasant but rather uneventful month riding horses, exploring high peaks, trout fishing, and hunting. Grey drew upon this experience for The Mysterious Rider (1921), which he completed after The Desert of Wheat.103
When Zane returned to Lackawaxen at the end of September, his spirits were much improved, but his return to the circumstances of his spring depression revived the demons he had been fleeing. “My mother died here on July 23,” he wrote in his journal on his third day back. “The news, reaching me in San Francisco, was a rude and severe shock. I cannot remember ever having been so affected. There was sudden shock, then slow bewildered thought—then numb pain. … She is gone. Autumn is here. The flowers are fading.”104 Three weeks later, a meeting with Elma convinced him that their spring rift had irreversibly damaged their relationship and that any future trips with her would never be what they once were:
It is settled now—and we will never be the same again. Alas! Where is it gone, the glory and the dream? Five years ago this month I met her, and never had I seen a more beautiful girl. Will October ever come without my remembering her and the sweetness of her charm, the allurement of her beauty, and the dreadful certainty of the death of love? Not death, perhaps, but change!105
These losses and work on The Desert of Wheat reactivated corrosive thoughts about the war. Over the winter, the devastating influenza epidemic intensified, as did Dolly’s fears about its threat to her children. Grey agreed with his wife when he learned that the epidemic had killed Nasjah Begay and many other Indians.
By June, this fixation with mutability and loss colored his view of fishing as well. Following the completion of The Desert of Wheat, Grey wrote an article entitled “Avalon, the Beautiful” that appeared in the May 1918 issue of Field and Stream and was rerun on the front page of the June 4th issue of the Catalina Islander. Grey’s title for this landmark essay anticipates a celebration of Catalina’s pastoral beauty and magnificent fishing, and it opens with a long description of the previous summer’s extraordinary run of fish. However, the article also contends that this bounty masked a looming disaster, and informs its reader about the devastation being caused by commercial fishermen, their round-haul nets, the canneries, and especially the fertilizer plants that were harvesting tons of kelp. This commercial exploitation was a menace to fish and their habitat, depriving big fish of staples in their diet. Conceding that fish populations were still strong, Grey argues that Clemente Island, beyond the three-mile limit of protection, is no longer the paradise of fish, especially the beautiful, sporting yellowtail, that it once was. He maintains that the war has worsened this situation, pointing out that Germany had supplied the country’s need for potash for many years, but the outbreak of war had compelled farmers to resort to kelp as an alternative. He is equally disturbed by “Jap” fishermen who harvest tons of albacore. He charges that “aliens” hostile to the United States make millions from netting fish, and that these foreigners use this money to foster political corruption and revoke existing laws against such practices.
Although remarkably prescient today, Grey’s predictions about fish declines were discredited by the fishing that followed. When he returned t
o Avalon for the seasons of 1918 and 1919, they proved to be two of the best ever—especially for tuna. The 362 tuna caught during the 1917 season were a decided improvement over the catches from his previous seasons, but 1918 yielded a far more impressive 639. William Boschen caught a staggering 102. Though Zane took only twenty-one, this more than doubled his previous best.106 Even better, large tuna returned for the first time in a decade. In “Big Tuna,” Grey relates that tuna did not arrive until late June; fishermen harvested abundant catches for a full six weeks before the first big ones appeared. On August 14, 1918, when he and Danielson first spotted them, Grey received thirteen strikes, broke off ten, and did not land a single one. “Yesterday was the most wonderful and tragically unfortunate day I ever had fishing, since I was a boy,” he complained to Dolly.107 The total disappearance of tuna over the week that followed was almost as demoralizing. Finally he spotted another school and was able to hook one, but this tuna was so submissive that he guessed it to be small and became dejected. A three-and-a-half-hour fight followed, and when it was over, he discovered that he had a 138-pound giant that finally ended his five-year quest for the blue button.108 During the next season, an unprecedented 775 tuna were caught, and Grey earned the red button for catching one with light tackle.109
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