Redeye

by Edgerton, Clyde

  We got her wrapped, then back in the box and outside into the early morning sun and in the wagon. She was stiff as a log and didn’t seem to weigh more than twenty or thirty pounds.

  ———

  They all had stuff to do in town and so it was my job to ride Cleopatra back out to the Merriwether Ranch and get her back in the museum. I didn’t mind. I was driving one of Mr. Copeland’s buckboards and had just got started when I met Andrew riding in from the ranch. We pulled up and stopped.

  “Surely you people were not attempting what I heard, were you?” he said.

  I like old Andrew, but sometimes he seems a little too proper. “What’s that?” I said.

  “Applying electricity to the mummy.”

  “We juiced her up a little. Brought her back to life.”

  “You didn’t.” He sort of tucked his chin in his neck.

  “Yep. She talked some kind of Indian talk and was doing fine till the Cheekwoods burnt a hole in her chest.”

  “That’s impossible. Let me see,” he said. He got down off his horse, his eyes on the box.

  “She sat up, talked, and ate some oatmeal,” I said, “then they burnt the hole in her chest and she died again.” I opened up the box and he saw what we’d done.

  “You did burn the skin,” he said. “That was not very intelligent, you know.”

  “I don’t think it was supposed to be intelligent.”

  “Why didn’t somebody wake me up?”

  “Zack said not to, and I figured with Star there and all . . .”

  He stared at me a second or two, then said, “Was it that obvious?”

  “Well, yeah, it was pretty obvious. Y’all making love on the fence.”

  “She’s a most delightful person. And she’d like to go with us on an expedition.” He looked back at Cleopatra. “This is a very real shame. Mr. Merriwether wouldn’t have allowed it.”

  I asked him where he was going. He said he was taking the train to Denver to do some research and to talk to some people about getting money for excavations. Then when he was getting on his horse he said Mr. Merriwether was back from the ruins early. “Go see what he brought,” he said.

  ———

  When I got back to the ranch, Star was out by the irrigation ditch with the girls.

  “Mr. Merriwether’s back,” she said. “Wait till you see what he found up there. He brought it in a tow sack.”

  Three or four Mexicans and Juanita was on the porch circling around something. I got up there as fast as I could. It was a baby they’d set up in a chair, a almost perfect mummified baby tied and wrapped onto a big snowshoe-looking baby board that still had straps for the mama’s back. Its head was sticking up out of all the wrappings, turned sideways, and its mouth was open more on one side than the other. It looked like a little girl. She looked almost alive, except she was staring out of little dark holes where her eyes had been—made her head look hollow. Ears and nose was still there. At some time, when she was buried I guess, her neck had been painted red and her face and bald head yellow. Between her eyes up on her forehead was a little red cross, almost disappeared. She was all wrapped in a feather cloth that still had color in it—from bluebirds and yellow birds it had to be, or maybe parrots, but at the same time, you could tell by the faded and rotten parts of the wrapping that she had to be real, real old.

  While I was standing looking, Juanita came out and said Mr. Merriwether wanted to see me in his office.

  “Sit down,” he said when I got in there. He was on his settee with his feet up and some open letters on the couch beside him and some other things. “Did you see it?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I can’t imagine anything like that more perfect, but I need to talk to you.” It was kind of like I was a grownup. “First look at this.” He pulled a very large jar out of a towsack. “Look at that. Take it. Be careful.”

  I took it. It was lighter than it looked. White with black meanderings.

  “The form is the best I’ve seen,” he said. “Very admirable work.”

  It was big and almost perfectly round with a little hole on top that had a short neck and little loop handles on each side. “But it was never baked enough,” he said. “Almost as if the baking were interrupted. Put your finger right there. See? It’s soft. And the ornament is sloppy . . . and here, look at this.” He pulled a basket out of the sack. “Look at the tightness of the weave of this. You don’t see anything like that done today—anywhere in the Southwest. These things were in the trash pile down the cliff, hidden in there—not thrown away, but hidden. The next time we go in, I’m going to have somebody do nothing but the trash piles down below, because . . . but look at this.” He pulled out a black, shiny bird, as big as my hand, a crow it looked like, with turquoise eyes and collar. He handed it to me. My frog was in my pocket. I started to show it to him, and then figured no, I’d better not. I’d been keeping it too long.

  “It’s made from jet,” he said. “I’ve never seen another like it. It had to be brought in, traded in from somewhere. I’ve sent Andrew to the library in Denver to see if he can find out anything about where it might have come from. I think maybe Mexico. But I can’t imagine when. Did you see the miniature bow and arrow on the porch?” he said.

  “No.”

  “It was with the little princess.”

  “She was in the trash pile, too?”

  “No, but I did find two skeletons there—packed into jars, children, with bones broken to get them in there. The little princess was in a very small room up high. One of those we talked about getting into—with the door mortared closed. It took me a day to get in there, and the room had been airtight I’m sure, because you saw what condition she’s in. She had two bowls, a ladle, and a miniature bow and set of arrows in there with her. It was actually more of a hole than a room, but there she was, about perfect, which is why I need to talk to P.J. Because from the time I got her out until nightfall I’m afraid she withered, just the tiniest bit. What we’ve got to do is get her in an airtight coffin with a glass cover and that’s what I want P.J. to do for me. I need you to go tell him, and take her with you. I can show you how to tote her.”

  He was kind of getting me in on helping him out and telling me all these things, so I felt like he liked me, and I decided maybe I ought to just say something about what all Mr. Blankenship was planning. “Do you know about Mr. Blankenship’s plan?” I said.

  “I’m not sure. Which plan?”

  “He wants to bring in tourists. He’s got some kind of setup with the railroads and he thinks people would come in and pay to be took up to see the cliff dwellings. That’s what he’s been talking about.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that but, on the other hand . . .” He picked up an open letter on the couch beside him. “The Smithsonian refuses, flat refuses to help with the first nickel for any kind of exploring in the Southwest. But if we can get some photographs of the princess to them, and of this bowl and the bird, and some other relics, then I don’t see how they can refuse. I need to hire some people to go back in there. We could use twice as many as we had, and dig in that one ruin for years.”

  I wondered again if I should show him my frog, but I decided not to. He showed me how to take Princess, in a canvas bag, on my back. It was a pretty day and I rode easy so as not to shake her apart or anything. It’s not far to Mr. Copeland’s, but I stopped where Bobcat Creek crosses the road and took a little rest and ate biscuits and venison that Mrs. Merriwether had give me in a paper sack. I laid back in the grass beside Princess and while Sandy grazed I drifted off to sleep and dreamed about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. There was skeletons all over the ground, painted yellow, and somebody was walking through a field, picking them up with one hand, and holding them up. They looked stiff and held together, the whole skeleton, not falling apart. I woke up and got to worrying a little bit about keeping that frog with me so I put it under this big rock at the base of a big cottonwood right where the creek and road inter
sected. I was thirsty and so I took a drink from the creek and then we headed on toward Mr. Copeland’s.

  I had to be careful about the dogs not getting at Princess, so I went ahead and put her down on the table in the corpse—tree—room. I had her propped up so everybody could see her when they come in the kitchen door. Sister was the first one, then Mrs. Copeland came in just before Brother rolled Grandma Copeland up the ramp outside. Brother and Grandma had been playing dog.

  After he backed her in there and turned her around, Grandma looked at the baby mummy—then let out this cry like some kind of high-pitched old war whoop, and held her arms out. I’d never heard her make any noise at all, except for this little grunt she did while she was eating. We didn’t know what was wrong at first. Mrs. Copeland tried to talk to her, but all she would do is reach out toward the mummy. Then she let out one of those cries again with Mrs. Copeland down in her face trying to calm her down, and Sister, standing there, says, “Give her the baby doll. She wants the baby doll.”

  Grandma Copeland was crying, so Mrs. Copeland lifted the mummy and passed it down to her sitting there in her wheelchair and she took it in her lap facing her and slowly lowered her head until it was touching the mummy, and she started talking a kind of baby talk, but you couldn’t understand it. Her voice was up real high and almost like singing.

  “She thinks it’s hers,” said Mrs. Copeland. “She lost four. She must think it’s the one that lived a little while. One lived a little while, you know. Here, Grandma, let me put it back now. This is not your baby, Grandma. This here is a mummy.”

  Mrs. Copeland was bending down, but when she tried to take it away, Grandma Copeland held on tight and let out this high wailing sound.

  I was thinking if they didn’t watch out they was going to pull it apart, and I was thinking how Mr. Merriwether had said we had to get it in a airtight glass case right away. I figured we couldn’t put Grandma in there with it. Or maybe we could if Mr. Blankenship got in on it.

  Later, Mrs. Copeland sent me after Star at her cabin and they took turns sitting with Grandma Copeland in the tree room with her holding the mummy in her lap. She would turn it one way and then the other like she was trying to get it comfortable. She tried once to get it out of the wrappings, but it was wrapped tight and you couldn’t get at it very good.

  Mrs. Copeland said wait till Mr. Copeland got home and let him decide what to do since Grandma was his mama. I had Brother and Sister on the porch shelling peas when he come riding up in the buggy about sundown. He stopped by the saddle store for a few minutes and checked on things before he came on over to the house.

  “We got another mummy out in the corpse room,” I said. “Mr. Merriwether brought it back and wants you to make a coffin with a glass top. It’s a baby, and in better shape than the other one.”

  “Grandma thinks it’s alive,” said Brother. “She thinks it’s her baby.”

  “Pearl Jane,” said Mr. Copeland.

  We could see in from the kitchen—Grandma and Mrs. Copeland in Grandma’s room. Mrs. Copeland put her finger up to her lips, so we tiptoed in there. Grandma was in her rocking chair by the window, asleep, and at first I couldn’t figure it out, but then I saw: Grandma Copeland’s dress was unbuttoned up top and she was . . . she was nursing the mummy—or had been trying to. We just all stood there staring. Her head was back and she was snoring.

  “She just went to sleep,” Mrs. Copeland whispered. “I’m afraid to take it or she might start hollering again.”

  “Her name was Pearl Jane,” said Mr. Copeland. “Y’all stand back, let me do this.” He went over and picked up the baby real easy and Grandma Copeland didn’t budge. He put it on the bed. “Bumpy, help me move this bed over against the wall so she won’t push it off.” We pushed the bed against the wall. “Y’all move on in the kitchen,” he said quiet-like.

  “Mr. Merriwether wanted you to put it in a glass case,” I said.

  “I can’t do that right now. Can’t you see that? Get in the kitchen.”

  We heard him wake her up. “Mama,” he said, “Pearl Jane’s in the bed now, and it’s time for you to go to bed with her. She’s sick. She ain’t feeling good at all.”

  And we could hear him getting her in the bed. Then he come to the door. “Has she eat supper?”

  “Lord no. I forgot,” said Mrs. Copeland. “Here.” She got a ham biscuit off the side table and handed it to him.

  Mr. Copeland gave her the bread and chewed up the ham for her, then Grandma laid down in bed beside the mummy and we all went in and said good night and she seemed just as calm as she could be, blinking her eyes up at us and gumming her food.

  “I think she’ll be all right now,” said Mr. Copeland. “Let’s go eat.”

  “How you gone to get it away from her?” I asked him on the way over to the house.

  “Well, tonight when I go out there to set her on the pot, first thing I’ll do is get the mummy and hide it, and then when I wake her up, or in the morning, I’ll just say, ‘Pearl Jane has died, Mama,’ and that I’m making a coffin for her. And if we have to, we’ll have a little funeral service. Sing a song and so forth. I’ll have to start on a baby coffin after supper. But I ain’t got no glass top that will fit . . . well, yes, I’ve got those two big panes that didn’t fit the hearse. What’s for supper?”

  “Sister,” said Mrs. Copeland, “go back and get them ham biscuits from the kitchen. We got corn, tomatoes, squash, and onions.” Then she stopped on the house steps. “P.J., I want you to add on a new kitchen. I ain’t been able to use that kitchen but once this week. You ought to be able to do it if you’re making so much money in Mortuary Science.”

  “I’ll start soon, in the next week or so. But I got to get on that little display coffin tonight so the mummy don’t wrinkle no more.”

  STAR

  In four days I have been visited by three men.

  Wednesday, Bishop Thorpe brought me a book while I was at the ranch with the girls. Mr. Blankenship came calling at my cabin yesterday, and today Andrew Collier happened to ride by, heading to the ranch after a visit to Denver.

  It’s almost as if a tornado has been through my mind.

  Wednesday, I was sitting in the shade of the cottonwood trees with the girls, when I saw Bishop Thorpe riding in from a distance. I recognized him from far away immediately. He has a very straight back, an almost knightly bearing upon his fine horse. He also wears a tall black hat.

  As he approached, I immediately knew, somehow, that he was not expecting me to answer his proposal. I knew this before either of us spoke. It was as if that kindness preceded him.

  “I was hoping you would be here,” he said. “I’m riding into town and decided to come the long way to leave you off a little book that I think you might enjoy. May I sit for a moment?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’m not here to speak of marriage, Miss Copeland,” he said as he very adroitly sat himself upon the ground a short distance away, “but rather to bring you this. Would you please give this book to Miss Copeland?” he said to Elisabeth.

  Elisabeth brought me the book. It was a book of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I . . . had an opportunity to talk to Harmony Beasley,” I said.

  “Yes, she told me. She is a dear person, and a very strong woman. But let me get to the point of my visit. This book. Emerson’s essays.”

  “We studied those at Berryhill in North Carolina.”

  “A college?”

  “Yes, we have colleges in North Carolina.”

  He didn’t laugh the way Andrew Collier had.

  “Emerson’s teachings,” he said, “are very pertinent to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I quote—from Emerson: ‘The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition, and a rel
igion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?’ Revelation. That’s what we’re about—this is such a clear enunciation of our reasoning about how God works his ways. Surely Emerson was a Mormon and didn’t know it. He recognized the fact that we could experience God in America, directly, without relying only on heritage and tradition. He was a great American, before his time. It’s America we’re talking about, Miss Copeland. America was founded in order to give Jesus a place to reign for one thousand years, and oh, Miss Copeland, I want you to reign with us when he comes back. There is not much time. There are wars and rumors of wars as we speak. You know how the Mormons are persecuted. You can sense it almost in the air. Jesus will not allow that to continue. God does not speak to Gentiles and non-Mormons today. Only to Mormons. I’m very happy about it, can’t seem to be quiet about it. And, Miss Copeland”—he raised his hands—“I so much do not want to force this on you.”

  It was as if he were charging, then retreating, staying just out of my reach. “Oh, no, Bishop Thorpe. You know, I’d never considered that Emerson’s writings might be related to any religious group—other than the transcendentalists, and they weren’t very religious, as I recall.”

  “Those inspirational words were truly said for and about Mormons.”

  “I can see that. It’s just that . . . I don’t know.”

  “Miss Copeland, Miss Copeland. It is not my purpose or duty to be forceful in any way. I just need you to be exposed to the truth about our journey with God—the Saints’ journey with God. It is a journey on which I hope you will join me. A year is . . . will a year give you sufficient time to decide?”

  “Yes. Yes. I’m sure it will.”

  He rose, stood towering above me, put on his hat, gave me a little bow. As he mounted his horse, he said, “This little stop made the detour more than worthwhile, and if you consent to my doing so, I would like to stop again on my trip into town next month. I will be glad to ask your uncle for permission.”

  “Oh no. No, you don’t need to ask Uncle P.J. I’m twenty-four years old.”