Silence the Dead
Page 36
‘Signed, Islip Feathers.
It now occupies a place of honor in the Black Range Museum in Hillsboro - formerly The Ocean Grove motel and, after Sadie’s death in 1943, the Chinaman’s Cafe - proprietor ‘Tom’ Ying.
Such a curious name for a Chinaman.
NOTES
Much of Tiffin’s account of crossing the Atlantic in the Crimea is a paraphrase of an actual first-person account by Robert Whyte called The Journey of an Irish Coffin Ship, 1847, which can be read in its entirety online under that title.
All of the place-names and most of the historical context of the Conllan’s trip west are accurate. The accounts of the wars between the miners and the mine owners in Pennsylvania, and the murders in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe, PA) are accurate.
While Roland and Patrice Orchard are fictional, the description of their life aboard a barge in the waning days of Pennsylvania’s canal system are taken from actual accounts.
The truly remarkable autobiography of J. H. Gerrard, to which Jenkins refers, entitled, Wah-to’-Yah and the Taos Trail, is published as a special edition by Time Life Books and will be an eye-opener for anyone who thinks they know the Old West. This is the breath-taking true odyssey of a remarkable, literate, and intelligent seventeen year-old boy who sets out to see the west in the 1840s – when the west was truly wild.
Maryellen and Regan’s train wreck, though fictional, is taken from an historical wreck that happened at Phantom Curve (mile marker 312.30) in 1948. The men who came to their rescue are all people who actually lived in the area at the time – and whose descendants live there still – and their physical description and character were informed by people who knew them.
All historical references to Chama, Tierra Amarillo, Chromo, Los Brazos, and the surrounding areas, including the names of their inhabitants, stores, saloons, restaurants, hotels, fires, events – both famous and infamous – festivities, and religious practices and their chronology, are accurate.
On April 13, 1881, in Mesilla, New Mexico, Judge Warren Bristol sentenced Billy the Kid to hang for the killing of Sheriff Brady. The execution was scheduled for May 13th, and he was sent to Lincoln to await this date, held under guard by two of Sheriff Pat Garrett's deputies, James Bell and Robert Ollinger, on the top floor of the town's courthouse. On April 28th, while Garrett was out of town, Bonney stunned the territory by killing both of his guards and escaping. He was missing for three months.
Any sequel to Silence the Dead would mention that the graves of Thomas and Soledad Conllan are said to be located somewhere in the woods of Canyon Ridge. They share a headstone that was carved in the shape of a boot. It would also inform the reader that Josh Conllan II is buried in France, near where he died.
Tiffin and Maryellen Conllan are still alive and live near Canyon Ridge, as do their children and grandchildren, with one exception. Young Thomas – whom they call T4 – returned to Farran and married a local girl. Her name, by pure coincidence, is Alice, and they have three children. He is a photographer of international renown who bought, and in his spare time, is rebuilding the Conlan farmsted from which his great, great-grandfather, great-great aunt, and great-great uncle were evicted. He also bought the landlord’s mansion and turned it into an orphanage.
Katy Conlan is buried beside her husband in Boston, Massachusetts. Their three children are all alive and distributed around the world, though they all convene at the house in Maine every summer. Once every five years, the entire family congregates at Copp’s Hill Burying Ground and, taking turns, they read Tiffin’s account of the Conlan’s Atlantic crossing.
There is no Fable Lake, nor was there a Fleet, but there should have been.
Apart from the Tiffin/Thomas diary, all documents quoted in this story are factual.
The last year of continuous operation across Cumbres pass by the D&RGW freight train was 1962.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the course of writing this book, many people told me their stories or stories they grew up with. I wish to extend my profound thanks to them all. First and foremost, thank you Raleigh Gardenhire, for acting as my personal tour guide, for your boundless enthusiasm for the project, for your love of the Valley and its people, your hospitality and the loan of your splendid library. Without you, Silence the Dead would only be a poor shadow of what it is.
Without history, historical fiction is just fiction. For many of the facts behind Silence the Dead, and the anecdotes that were woven throughout the narrative, I have Margaret Palmer to thank. The people of Chama, and history-lovers in general, owe her a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. In harvesting the memories of Valley residents and visitors for the stories featured in her remarkable Tattler series of magazines, she has preserved places, people, and memories that would otherwise have been lost forever. Thanks also go to her husband, Clif – a true master craftsman and gifted photographer whose careful eye captured the past before it fled away.
Chama and the railroad are inextricably entwined and no mention of one can be made without the other. For much of the information about the Denver & Rio Grande railroad that I have included in the story, I have Doris Osterwald to thank for her marvelous book – a must-have companion on any ride on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad – Ticket to Toltec. This and the Tattler have been worth their weight in gold.
My gratitude – in regards to further information on the D&RG – must extend, also, to a marvelous book entitled Chama/Cumbres with a Little Chili, compiled by Richard Dorman (R.D. Publications, Santa Fe, N.M.)
In researching the intriguing history of land grants in New Mexico, I have come across a number of publications the intent of which, it seems, is to support the claim of one faction over those of another. While the result is a legal, ethical, and moral morass that will confound the brightest minds for lifetimes to come, the simple fact – behind all the name-calling, finger-pointing, and generational hatred – is that people groups, tribes, consortiums, corporations, governments and individuals have been chasing each other into and out of the Chama River Valley since man first appeared on the scene, possibly as many as nine-thousand years ago. This illustrates two things: the desirability of the land, and the tendency to dismiss the rights of others as less important than our own.
Further enlightening glimpses into the culture were provided by Sabine R. Ulibarri’s entertaining Tierra Amarilla/Cuentos de Nueve Mexico (University of New Mexico Press) and Frank Water’s chilling account of the life and death of Arthur Rochford Manby; To Possess the Land (Sage Books, Chicago, IL)
It is most difficult for an outsider – however well-intentioned – to capture with any depth and integrity the various cultural flavors of a place with the ethnic diversity of the Chama Valley. To do this, it is necessary for the novelist to rely on the memories and memoirs of others. Among those I referred to repeatedly in writing Silence the Dead are Sombras del Pasado by Cleofas M. Jaramillo – (Ancient City Press, Santa Fe, N.M.) whose descriptions of Spanish people, beliefs, customs, festivals, dances, and foods were invaluable.
For a better understanding of the Jicarilla, I turned to Veronica Velarde Tiller’s The Jicarilla Apache Tribe, (BowArrow Publishing Company, Albuquerque, N.M.) A very well-written, balanced, and insightful account of a tragic, terrifying, and noble history.
For first-person memories of Doc Dunham (if anyone ever deserved a book, it’s him!) I extend my gratitude to his lovely daughter, Aggie.
My thanks go, too, to the people with whom I spoke informally at Foster’s, the High Country Inn, Cook ‘n’ Books, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway, and various shops and stores in Chama, the old T.D. Burns store – now home of Tierra Woolens – in Los Ojos, and the many ghosts that inhabit Monero and Tierra Amarilla.
Tierra Amarilla (T.A.) deserves a book of its own, and one such is La Tierra Amarilla (Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, N.M.) by Chris Wilson and David Kammer who have captured much of what this sleepy little backwater was in its vibrant and colorful heyday.
BOOKS BY DAVID CROSSMAN
from
Alibi-Folio
The Albert Mysteries
Requiem for Ashes
Dead in D Minor
Coda
Winston Crisp Mysteries
A Show of Hands
The Dead of Winter
Justice Once Removed
Photo Club Mysteries
Dead and Breakfast
Bean and Ab Young Adult Mysteries
The Secret of the Missing Grave
The Mystery of the Black Moriah
The Legend of Burial Island
The Riddle of Misery Light
Historical Novel
Silence the Dead
Fantasy
Storyteller
Thriller
A Terrible Mercy
www.davidcrossman.com
davidcrossman@comcast.net
David A. Crossman is a polymath – a profession for which there’s not a great demand – dividing his time between the home he shares with his wife Barbara, wherever they might be, and the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts.