Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  The conductor looked Jack up and down and then looked over at me.

  “Mighty peculiar,” the conductor said. “Mighty peculiar. But…all right, Mr. London. You ride this line a lot. I know who you are. And this Houdini feller here. I’ve seen his picture in the paper. But let me tell you: if the two of you have been up to no good, I’m going to report on you. I don’t care how famous you are. That don’t mean nothing to me— nothing at all! Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Jack said.

  “What about you?” the conductor asked me. “You understand I’m going to report on the two of you?”

  Jack nodded at me.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “All right, then,” the conductor said. “You two watch yourselves. Just watch yourselves. I’ve got my eye on the both of you. Both of you. Man turns up dead on the side of these tracks you can know we’ll be coming for you. Yes sir, we’ll be coming for you no matter how famous you are. Famous won’t help you none in the penitentiary. Understand?”

  “We understand, conductor,” Jack said.

  The conductor looked all around the platform and then up and down at Jack and me again.

  “All right, then,” the conductor said. “All right. Just remember what you’ve been told.”

  And then, slowly, the conductor went back through the door and shut it behind him.

  “Finally,” Jack said.

  “He surely was concerned about that man,” I said.

  “Not at all,” Jack said. “He just wanted to assure himself that he was still Boss. He’s what’s known among us ‘profesh’ as ‘horstile.’ Never pays to enter into discussions with railroad men when they’re ‘horstile.’ Come on.”

  We went inside and sat back down in our seats.

  “What was that all about?” Bess asked me.

  “Just a gag,” I said. “Forget about it.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Tell me. People back there are saying something about seeing a man fall off the train. What happened?”

  “I told you,” I said. “It was just a gag— somebody’s idea of a joke.”

  “What about the man?” Bess asked.

  “There was no man,” I said. “It was just rubbish stuffed into some old clothes to look like a man. I told you. It was just a practical joke.”

  “Who did it?” Bess asked.

  “How should I know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “It was just one of those things. You know what I’m talking about. Somebody recognized me as Houdini and wanted to have a laugh at my expense.”

  “People,” Bess said, shaking her head and looking out the window.

  I looked over to Jack who was seated across the aisle from me.

  “People,” Jack said, shaking his head.

  Our train proceeded northward without further incident. We stopped at a little station out in the middle of the country, and took on a few more passengers. Then the train started off again, north into the Valley of the Moon. The distant hills to the east rose up against a sky of blue broken by white clouds. Jack was right. Sonoma Valley had its own weather, a crisp, dry kind of weather I had never quite experienced before. As we sped along, we would pass under a cloud, and the land before us would darken. Long rows of grape vines would pivot past our windows like the spokes of a giant wheel. Far away, the rolling hills were washed in sunlight splashes of ochre and green. This was a land of giant oak trees and open fields of dry grass and little farms and orchards. It was a rolling land, like the surface of some sea frozen in time, perhaps some seascape frozen from the memory of one of Jack’s voyages. It made perfect sense to me that this was Jack London’s home. But what of its name: the Valley of the Moon? What did that mean? As I pondered this mystery, our train kept to its northward track, all the while taking us into deeper woods and deeper shadows.

  We passed through a number of little villages in the woods, but our train made no stop at any of them; apparently there was no one at those stations to take on board, and no one on board who wanted to get off. In a short time our train slowed and came to a stop beside a station house surrounded by wooded hills and wild grass.

  “Glen Ellen!” the conductor sang out.

  “Home,” Jack said.

  We disembarked, and as I stepped off the train, the conductor was standing down on the platform.

  “Conductor,” I said, giving him a nod.

  The conductor didn’t say anything, but just watched us silently. I went back to the baggage compartment and retrieved our trunks. A porter put them down on a cart, and I had him roll them over to the station.

  I came upon Jack, Charmian, and Bess talking to another woman. This woman was of middle years, with blondish hair and a strong, square face, and wearing a white dress and a white sun-hat. She turned out to be Eliza Shepard, Jack’s stepsister and the business manager for his ranch. With her was Sekine, Jack’s Japanese house servant. Sekine came toward me, smiling.

  “Mistel Rondon say take tlunks,” Sekine said.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “You get those two and I’ll carry these two. You can come back for the big trunk.”

  Sekine and I carried the baggage to a large automobile with its top down. We loaded the baggage into the back trunk of the car, and Jack and the others came toward us.

  “Allow me to introduce you to my stepsister,” Jack said, “Eliza Shepard.”

  Eliza stepped forward and I shook her hand. She had a very firm handshake and looked me right in the eye.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “Welcome to our place up here.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Shepard,” I said.

  “No, ‘Mrs.’” she said very evenly, “not anymore. Everybody just calls me Eliza.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “Everybody just calls me Houdini, even my wife.”

  “We’ve been reading about you in the newspapers all week,” Eliza said. “I’m impressed. Now it’s our turn to impress you. Is everybody ready?”

  I looked over to Sekine. He was coming along with our last trunk. He slid it into the back of the car, filling up all the remaining space, and then closed the back hood.

  “We’ve got all the trunks,” I said.

  “Then let’s go,” Eliza said.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said.

  “Jack,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  Jack and I walked a few paces away from the others.

  “That fellow back there,” I said, “had a weapon, a small pistol. Very unusual. It shot a ray of light that could cut through metal. I knocked it out of his hand when we were fighting on the platform, and it fell down on the track. Somebody needs to go back there and look for it.”

  “The man disappeared,” Jack said. “Maybe his gun did too.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But somebody still needs to look.”

  “I’ll wire my MJ-Seven contact in Oakland,” Jack said. “He can send somebody down there to that stretch of the track to look around.”

  Jack turned and called over to the ladies: “Got to send a wire. We’ll be right back.”

  Jack and I went into the station. Jack got a telegram form at the desk and began writing down a coded message. When he finished, he went over to the telegraph operator.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Jack said. “Need to send this out immediately.”

  Charlie took the message and began tapping his sending key rapidly. He sent the message out and then turned and gave the telegram form back to Jack.

  “Other end got it,” Charlie said.

  “Thanks,” Jack said.

  “Want to wait for a reply?” Charlie asked.

  “No,” Jack said. “If something comes through, just send it up to my house. All right?”

  “All right, Jack,” Charlie said.

  We went out of the station. Outside, the conductor watched us as we walked toward the car.

  Sekine got behind the driver’s wheel, and Jack sat next to him. Eliza, Charmian, and Bess got into the back seat, and I g
ot in with them. Sekine started the car off and turned on to a dusty country road leading away from the station. We passed through thick woods, and then the road curved to our right, and we crossed a small bridge spanning a creek. On the other side of the bridge we came upon a few buildings where the road made a sudden turn to the left. Jack pointed to a three-storied building straight ahead of us; the bottom story of the building was built of stone, the second and third stories of wood with a balcony on the second story.

  “That’s the grocery store,” Jack said, “and also the post office— and also the saloon.”

  “All in one place,” I said.

  “It’s well consolidated,” Jack said. “I’ve been well consolidated myself there in the saloon on many occasions.”

  Sekine did not turn to the left, but continued straight ahead, so that we passed to the right of the grocery store-post office-saloon. This dirt road took us up a hill, and Sekine changed the gears of the car. We kept up the hill, the road taking a number of gradual, snaking bends as we went.

  “We’re climbing out of the valley,” I said.

  “Not really,” Jack said. “Glen Ellen is its lowest point, there by the creek. But there still is quite a bit of real estate to go before we reach the slopes of Sonoma Mountain.”

  Our car continued the ascent over the curving road past wild grass and giant oaks and spruce and other varieties of trees, the names of which I didn’t know. A cool breeze passed through us, a breeze carrying the scent of autumn earth and sun-burnt grass. It was a rugged, dry country, not a desert, but not the verdant garden I had imagined. This was not a New England farm, but a California ranch. Was it a ‘Beauty’? It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I have also heard it said that California beauty is an acquired taste. As we drove up the hill, and I began seeing more of the ranch, I started to understand why Jack had named it ‘Beauty.’ Far away a mountain range rose up jagged against the sky, and below it the land folded and rose in patches of brown, green, and purple. Then the woods around us cloaked the distant view, and we rounded yet another hill, and our ascent leveled out.

  Up ahead we came upon a massive, wooden torii gate, such as they have in Japan. This one was made of redwood logs.

  “This is it,” Jack said, “Beauty Ranch!”

  “You certainly got the name right,” I said.

  Sekine stopped the automobile in front of the gate with the car’s engine running. He then opened the car door, jumped out, ran to the gate, opened it, and then ran back to the car— got back in without shutting his door— and then steered the car through the gate, driving us past it a few feet. There he stopped the car again, jumped out once more, closed the gate, and then jumped back into the car, closing his door, and starting the car off again along the road which led to a wooded expanse.

  We continued on through a rolling, wooded landscape, and then the road took a curve to the right where we passed a very thick stand of young trees. I immediately recognized their variety, for I saw enough of them while I was in Australia.

  “Eucalyptus,” I said.

  “I planted all those,” Jack said. “A little experiment of mine.”

  “How’s it turning out?” I asked.

  “So far?” Jack asked. “Not so good. But aren’t they nice to look at!”

  We came on around the bend. To our right stood a thicket of trees; to our left was a large, open clearing of many acres consisting of rolling hills. A grape vineyard covered part of these hills; the rest of the land appeared to lay fallow. Beyond this gently rolling valley floor Sonoma Mountain rose to the west, clothed in a stand of dark green timber.

  The dusty road ahead of us dipped downward and then rose up another hill, bending toward the left, toward the west. We passed some large barns on our right; below them lay a meadow. At the top of a rise stood a cluster of trees and, amid them, I could see the gable of a house and part of its roof line. Sekine hit the brake pedal and steered the car downhill. At the bottom, he accelerated the engine and shifted gears again. We shot up the hill, rounded a curve, and then Sekine hit the brake again, and we jolted to a stop.

  “Easy on the pedals!” Jack snapped at Sekine.

  “Yes, suh, Mistuhl Rondon,” Sekine said meekly.

  “Get the trunks into the house,” Jack said back to him.

  Sekine opened the car door, jumped out, ran to the back of the car, opened the hood, took out two trunks, and then began carrying them up to the cottage in front of us— all this before any of us had even opened a door to get out.

  “That’s it!” Jack called. “Get a move on!”

  “Jack!” Charmian said, opening the car door. “Do you have to be so harsh with him?”

  Jack turned around and looked at her.

  “Harsh?” Jack asked. He opened the car door and got out and stood up to look straight at Charmian.

  “I wasn’t harsh,” Jack said. “I was merely instructing. Sekine needs definite instruction on occasion or his attention begins to wander.”

  “His attention doesn’t wander,” Charmian said.

  “I say it does,” Jack said, and then he turned away from her.

  “Let’s all go in and rest a bit and freshen up,” Jack said. “It’s been a long, dusty train ride today.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “Once we rest a bit we can take that ride up Sonoma Mountain,” Jack said. “Does everyone still feel up to it?”

  “Oh, I want to go,” Bess said.

  “Good,” Jack said. “I’ll get the hands to saddle us some horses.”

  “That’s already been taken care of,” Eliza said. “They’ll be coming with the horses right away.”

  “Eliza, you think of everything!” Jack said. “What would I do without you? I tell you, Houdini, I could never manage without Eliza and Charmian. I would be hopelessly lost. Well! We’ll get this expedition on its way very soon!”

  “Bess is great with horses,” I said. “She rode bareback in the circus.”

  “Do you ride sidesaddle?” Charmian asked Bess.

  “I can ride any which way,” Bess said.

  “I never ride sidesaddle,” Charmian said.

  Jack put his arm around Charmian’s shoulder and said, “She just utterly overwhelms all the stuffed shirts in Oakland.”

  A ranch hand came running up the road toward us.

  “Mr. London,” the hand said. “It sure is good to see you. There’s something you need to take a look at, if you could come with me for a minute.”

  “Have you talked to Eliza about it?” Jack asked.

  “No, not yet,” the hand said.

  “Eliza, let’s go see what the problem is,” Jack said with a sigh.

  Eliza stepped out of the automobile, and said, “I’ll go down by myself.”

  “No,” Jack said. “We’ll both go. It’ll be quicker that way.”

  Jack turned to the rest of us.

  “I’ll be with you all very shortly,” he said. “Sorry about this.”

  Then Jack and Eliza turned to the hand and began walking back down the road with him.

  “Let’s make this quick,” I heard Jack say.

  Charmian watched Jack walk away. She looked back at Bess and me.

  “Well,” Charmian said with a smile. Her eyes stopped on my necktie. Her head turned to the side in scrutiny.

  She stepped up, reached forward, and adjusted my tie.

  “Can’t stand things lopsided,” Charmian said. She then turned and went through the front gate of the yard and up to the house.

  “Come on in,” Charmian said as she went up the walk and around a little circular reflecting pool.

  I looked over to Bess. She was standing still with a blank expression. Then she suddenly walked toward me. When she got to me, she reached up and took hold of the end of my bowtie and pulled on it until the knot came loose. She held the end of the tie for a moment, looking me in the eye, and then let it drop against my shirt front. And then she turned up the walk, taki
ng Bobby along by the leash, and followed after Charmian.

  I turned around with my back to the house and quickly tied my tie again.

  Jack and Charmian’s house at Beauty Ranch was a little white farm cottage, sitting atop a knoll in the Valley of the Moon. The porch had been enclosed on either side of the front door, leaving only a small space for the steps and the wooden flooring for entry into the house. I went up the wooden steps and through the door which Charmian and Bess had left open.

  Inside I entered a long, narrow hall with several doors set to the right and left along its length. At the far end of the hall was another door, now closed. This door I later learned opened out on to the back porch. I had heard of “shot-gun shacks” and “shot-gun houses,” but I had never entered one before. The way the hall was designed probably qualified the cottage as a “shot-gun house,” but if it was one, it was probably the most charming of all such humble abodes. Small paintings and photographs hung on the walls of the long hall. I stopped and looked at one; it was the scene of a beach on some South Sea island. I took another step and peered around the left into an open door.

  I was looking into Jack’s “literature factory.” In front of me was a long room that was being used as an office. A table sat in the middle of the room with a typewriter on it. A small fireplace was in the wall behind it. A globe of the world stood in one corner, and in another corner a gramophone sat atop a bookshelf table. Behind the gramophone were several shelves of books recessed into the wall and enclosed by glass doors. Against the far wall in front of a window was some kind of hand-cranked printing machine for making copies from typewriter-cut stencil pages. Next to it stood a fairly substantial safe with a combination lock. On the other side of the safe a large portion of the wall had been cut away to create an opening to another room which had been added on to the original farm house. This added room was not on the same floor level as the rest of the house, but built right at ground level. Steps from the office led down into the added room, which I could see served as Jack’s study. It had a roll top desk and swivel arm chair. A good-sized table set next to the desk, and it held a number of small objects, a lamp, an urn of some sort, and a few other things. Next to the table sat another chair. Behind the desk and table, shelves were built into the wall and they were filled with books, row upon row. Another table, against an adjacent wall, also held some books and wire baskets filled with papers. Curtained windows gave a view of the yard where a giant oak stood.