Traveling Light

by Lynne Branard

  “Drought,” he replies. “State’s water table is still low. There’s a scandal with the police chief, and the school is getting remodeled over the summer.”

  I’m sure I’ll be assigned the story about the drought. James William will be all over the scandal. I don’t know who will want to write about the remodeling.

  “Well, be safe and hurry back,” he says.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yep.” And he hangs up.

  I shake my head at Roger. “There’ll be no two lovers crying for me,” I tell him. “Just my father and the citizens of Clayton, North Carolina, wondering why no one told them the high school got new toilets.”

  And I lean back against the seat, hit the gas, and keep heading west.

  chapter thirty-eight

  GRANTS, New Mexico, is seventy-eight miles west of Albuquerque and just over sixty from Gallup at the state line with Arizona. It sits near the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna and shares a mountain with the people of Zuni. It is near the Continental Divide and an area known as El Malpais, Spanish for the Badlands. You pass this area on the interstate, a black basalt terrain created by volcanic forces over the past million years.

  The landscape on both sides of Interstate 40 is black and stark and, according to the material I have read, displays the best continuous geologic record of volcanism on the planet. To see it, however, is to feel like you’re looking at the remains of the Apocalypse, the trenches and cones covered in molten lava, miles of endless barren land.

  The small community of Grants was first a ranching one, the region shared by Spaniards and Indians, farming and shepherding cows and sheep. Then in the 1880s a railroad camp was founded by three Canadian brothers named Grant who’d been awarded a contract to build a section of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad through the region. Logging soon became the big employer for the people of Grants as lumber was taken from the nearby Zuni Mountains and sent by train to larger cities like Albuquerque and Santa Fe in need of the wood.

  In the 1930s, as logging declined, the high desert area gained fame as the carrot capital of the United States, growing and then trucking the crop to outlets all across the country. And finally, in 1950, the greatest economic as well as social change came to the area. A Navajo shepherd named Paddy Martinez discovered uranium ore on a mesa near the community of Grants, announcing his finding to the leaders in town and forever altering the little village of loggers, farmers, and railroad workers.

  At first there was a great mining boom, bringing in lots of companies and developers all seeking fortune from the uranium-rich hills. There were churches built as well as bars and a few nice restaurants. Subdivisions were developed, schools came; Grants was turning out to be one of the fastest-growing towns in the entire state, becoming the lead producer of uranium in the entire country.

  Lots of people from all across the world came to work in the mines: engineers, scientists, human resources specialists, and, of course, miners. Lots and lots of young men came to Grants, some from elsewhere in the state, others from across the country, eager to make money, unconcerned about what they were digging out from the mountain, and completely ignorant of what mining might do to the environment or to their health.

  Grants continued to prosper, growing in population from about twelve hundred to twelve thousand, until the 1980s, when the mines began to close, one after the other, the recession hitting and the government finally acknowledging the grave consequences of the work done to extract the mineral from the mountains. Mining companies closed up shop, and the owners and managers, the engineers and white-collar workers, left for brighter pastures, leaving the miners and their families with open mines, contaminated watersheds, scarred hills, and the residual consequences of lung disease and cancer. The town almost died.

  However, today, according to the brochures I have picked up at the Chamber of Commerce, there is new blood in Grants. The little community is now touted as a retirement haven, trying to bring in new residents and more money. Grants pushes the tourism angle, promising great hiking at its local mountain, Mount Taylor, the largest peak in the region, great sightseeing at several national monuments and pueblos, and a fine city golf course just on the outskirts of town. It’s a stop along the famous Route 66, promising tourists a town with a great hidden spirit.

  I stopped at the Chamber of Commerce to get a better feel for the place—it’s the journalist in me, the natural-born researcher—and later, at a gas station near the interstate, a clerk told me where to find the funeral home. It’s exactly where she said it would be, across the street from an empty parking lot and standing between a dilapidated motel on one side and a liquor store on the other. I pull in and park in the lot across from the Serenity Mortuary. And then I kill the engine in Lou’s truck and roll down the windows, choosing to stay a few minutes just where I am.

  I’ve decided to stop here because I want to meet Mr. Harold Candelaria, let him know I’m still searching for Hart’s family, before heading out to find the property Hart apparently still owns. Since Mr. Candelaria has already learned from the police in Little Rock that I am on my way, maybe he will ease up with his information and share more with me about Roger. I thought it might be the better place to start. And since I am a reporter, after all, I should know how to get the story.

  I put the box on the dashboard.

  “You remember anything about this place?” I ask Roger, but then I think better of showing him the funeral home. I return the box to the passenger’s seat.

  “I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me. Of course you remember this place. It’s the funeral home.”

  I pat the top of the box.

  “Well, I think I’ll just go in there and have a look around.” I glance down at him.

  I roll up the windows a little but leave them cracked just because I’m used to doing that for Roger. I’ve been doing it since I set out on this trip. I get out of the truck, lock the doors, and walk across the street to the front door of Serenity. A chime rings when I open the door, and in a few seconds I hear a man call from the back of the building. “Be right there,” he says.

  The place itself smells like bouquets of old flowers even though all I see are a couple of arrangements of plastic ones, while the walls are adorned with pictures of canyons and mesas, a few of Jesus. There is old living room furniture in the foyer: two large chairs in a floral print, a rug, and a small table. Everything looks to be in need of a little housekeeping, with dust on the tops of frames, dirt in the corners. There is an office on the left and an entrance to the chapel on the right. I can see a narrow lectern with an open book, and over the door a sign reads, Peace to All Who Enter Here.

  I have been in only two funeral homes before this one, Harvey’s Chapel in Clayton and the Rosewood Mortuary in nearby Benton. Both were approached by the big funeral corporations now taking over many of the small-town family funeral homes; but both declined the offers. I went to school with old Mr. Harvey’s sons and now they run the place, the older of them, Charles, handling sales and working with grieving families, and the other one, Darrell, in charge of the embalming and body preparation. Even as a boy Darrell was slightly freakish. I sometimes think that neither he nor I had much of a chance to do anything but follow in the footsteps of our fathers. This thought makes me glad I was born in the house of a newspaperman and not a funeral director.

  “Can I help you?”

  Harold Candelaria has entered the foyer from the back of the building. He’s wiping his hands on a handkerchief and when he extends one to shake mine I’m a little reluctant to take it. I guess I’m still thinking about Darrell Harvey and all that embalming fluid.

  chapter thirty-nine

  “WEREN’T you arrested in Little Rock?” he asks as he sits down in a big leather chair behind his desk.

  I take the seat across from him. “No, not arrested,” I reply. “It was just a misunderstanding,
” I add.

  “Always is,” he says, sounding like he doesn’t believe me. His chair tilts back as he leans away from me.

  Mr. Harold Candelaria appears to be in his sixties. His face is weathered and his hair is all salt-and-pepper, slicked back and cut just above his neck. He’s a big man, tall and wide shouldered; and he’s trying to be cordial, but it’s easy to see he doesn’t really want to talk to me. He reminds me of the Big Tobacco businessmen back home. They looked just the same whenever I tried to ask questions, as I did at a town hall meeting where they met to disclose information about the warehouses they intended to build, insisting that the entire city was going to benefit from their business.

  I had announced myself to those businessman as a reporter with the Clayton Times and News and I was immediately met with a look of disdain and what felt to me to be a closing door. The man I’d introduced myself to looked right over me and took a question instead from Larry Goads, a farmer who had sold his property to the businessman for a large sum of money and had agreed to be in the crowd that night to lend his support. Apparently, Big Tobacco knew my father’s stance on bringing their business to town and wanted nothing to do with the small local paper. I was not allowed an interview.

  Now I address myself to the matter at hand. “I just need the name of somebody in the family,” I say to Mr. Candelaria. “I don’t want to know anything about how Roger Hart died, if he had debts or left any sums of money to anyone. I just found his remains and want to give them to someone in the family who might know what to do with them.”

  The funeral director clasps his fingers together and places his hands over his belly. He seems to be sizing me up. “Aren’t you a newspaper reporter?”

  The question surprises me. “How did you know that?”

  “After you called, I checked you out. Alissa Wells from Clayton, North Carolina. You work for the local paper there.” He grins, looking every bit like he thinks his moves are smarter than mine.

  “Well, yes, that’s me; but I’m not doing this for the paper.”

  He nods, still grinning, like he wants to see me try and get out of this.

  “What I told you on the phone is true,” I say, leaning toward him from my chair. “I found this box of ashes with the name Roger Hart and your business card. I just want to return his ashes to his family.”

  “Uh-huh,” he responds. He just sits and watches me.

  “Why would you think I’d be doing a story about Roger Hart?” I ask.

  He hesitates, and I decide to wait, letting him have all the time he needs.

  “Well, see, I don’t really know the answer to that. I just know that over the years we’ve had lots of reporters from all over the country come here and want to dig up information about the miners. Some of them want to get the families all agitated and eager to file lawsuits, and others just want to write a story about how we’ve ruined the environment, how bad mining is for a town, maybe win themselves a Pulitzer or something.”

  I have to admit there is evidence of a good story here, about the pitfalls of uranium mining, and more than a couple of lawsuits to be filed in this old mining town. Surely Mr. Candelaria is telling the truth about his reluctance to share any information with a stranger, especially a stranger with a press badge.

  He goes on. “And see, about a month after I find out that we’ve got real interest coming from Canadian and Japanese companies to pick back up the work that was being done in the mines, I get a call from you out of nowhere, a small-time reporter claiming to find someone’s ashes, wanting names and numbers. And I know from experience that every time companies hear we’ve made the news—some article somewhere about the dangers of uranium mining—those companies drop and run like they just got caught with their hands up a married woman’s dress. They don’t want nothing to do with a city in the news.”

  I can’t help it, but this makes me laugh. “Their hands up a married woman’s dress?” I have to admit that’s funny.

  He’s just watching me. I know I’ve got nothing to lose.

  “Mr. Candelaria . . .”

  “Harold,” he says, interrupting, and smiles. And I almost think it seems genuine this time.

  “Harold, I think a piece about uranium mining and the dire consequences of its excavation both to the environment and to the workers would make a fine story. And you’re right, it could win a Pulitzer.”

  I sit back in my chair and drop my hands in my lap.

  “But that’s not a story I am trying to write. I report on car crashes and the style of gowns that brides are wearing this year. I write about the best pumpkin recipes and when trash is scheduled to be picked up during the holidays. I report on the weather and the traffic and local politics.” I take a long breath, depressing myself with this assessment of my work.

  “I don’t cover Grants, New Mexico, or the business of uranium mining; I cover Clayton, North Carolina, Johnston County, and maybe Zebulon and Smithfield, but not Durham or Raleigh or Chapel Hill. I write local stories, Harold, not national ones, and certainly not southwestern ones. Frankly, they don’t interest people in my hometown—and even if I did decide to write about what is happening in Grants, New Mexico, the publisher of the Clayton Times and News, my father, Oscar Wells, would rip the story to pieces and tell me to write for the place I live and the people who don’t care about anywhere else.”

  I take another breath.

  “The truth is, Mr. Candelaria, I called you with an honest request. I discovered Mr. Hart’s ashes when I bought the contents of an abandoned storage facility. I found your business card and his name on the box that contains his remains. I just want to return what I have to his family. I have no hidden agenda. This is not some hoax to gather names for a petition. I just want to return a man who’s met his end to those who might wish to lay him to some final rest.”

  Either Harold is feeling sorry for me or he believes that what I’ve just told him is the truth. He softens.

  “Look, after hearing from you, I tried to call the numbers I had on file. Every one of them is disconnected or has been changed. The truth is, Miss Wells, I’m not trying to be hard to get along with. I really don’t have any information to give out.”

  “But surely somebody in town knows the family. This isn’t New York City. You only have a population of about nine thousand.”

  “Well, even with such a paltry population of nine thousand, we don’t all have Sunday dinners together. Our children don’t all share the same classroom.” He shrugs, and there’s a little sorrow in the gesture. “I don’t know Mr. Hart’s family.”

  I just lost the connection. I’ve done all I can do.

  Mr. Candelaria checks the clock on his desk. He’s given me as much time as he intends; I can tell I’m about to be dismissed. Then I hear a phone ring from the back, but it seems as if another employee has come to work.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be a troublemaker.” I’m trying one more time. “I’m actually just trying to do a nice thing here. I found the ashes and your card and that’s all I’ve got to go on.” I don’t mention the property records I only recently discovered. “I’d just like to get the ashes to somebody who might know what to do with them.”

  The funeral director takes in a breath, gives me another long, hard look, stands up, and walks around the desk. “Give me a minute,” he says and heads out the door.

  I sit and wait, and I hear him talking to someone. It’s only five minutes before he walks back in.

  “Here’s the record from the cremation. There’s all the information I have about Mr. Hart’s family; maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.”

  I stand to face him and take the file he’s holding out to me. I drop it on the chair and take his right hand in both of mine, giving it a firm, hearty shake. “Thank you, Harold; thank you very much.”

  And with that, I head back to Roger.

  chapter for
ty

  “HAROLD wasn’t lying, after all,” I tell Roger after I’ve finished calling each of the numbers listed in the file Mr. Candelaria has given me. There are only three and all three are disconnected or no longer in service. “So, it looks like you have a nephew from Gallup, an ex-wife in California, and a stepdaughter with no address given. All other family members are deceased.” I glance over to the box beside me. “You were kind of a loner, I guess.”

  I turn the contract over and read the back, see who paid the final bill. There’s a name listed that doesn’t match any of the three on the front, Georgia Pointer, but there is no contact information for her, just a signature and her name printed in neat block letters.

  I take my chances and open up my computer to Google her. “Well, what do you know?” I tell Roger. “There she is.” I find a pen and a piece of paper in the glove compartment of Lou’s truck and write down an address for Ms. Georgia Pointer, living in Milan, New Mexico, the next town over from Grants.

  But first, I crank up the truck and put the address from the properties search into the GPS.

  “Here we go.”

  From the funeral home it is only about fifteen minutes to the last known property owned by Mr. Roger Hart. I take a right on the main street through town, passing old buildings boarded up, relics of a better time. There’s a Catholic church, a park with a nice lake in the center, a few offices, two fast-food restaurants, and another liquor store. I make a left, cross over the interstate, and head south. Eight miles out of town I am directed to turn right on a road listed as FR 37; but I don’t see it. I drive up a few hundred yards, turn around, and look again.

  “You want to give me a sign?” I ask Roger, who is really no help at all.

  There’s a narrow driveway on the right, but it can’t possibly be the road I’m supposed to take. I go back toward town, turn around again, and drive as slowly as I can. I inch toward the driveway while the synthetic voice of the GPS assures me this is where I’m supposed to turn. So I do. I make a right and head west on a dusty, bumpy, unpaved dirt road, finally coming upon the sign—FR 37—that confirms I am indeed heading in the right direction.