The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

  More differences. There I’m hearing grand organ music, here it’s light women’s voices, a cappella….

  I nearly jumped to realize. I’m hearing music in my head. It seemed an indescribable gift. At this dawn, after my night of greatest darkness, I discover a valley like my dream.

  A tear ran, maybe two.

  I felt something at my side and looked sideways. Sun Moon was squatted down beside me, looking not at the sunrise but at my face. A couple more tears ran, one at a time.

  She took my hand. A thought flicked through my mind. How could I hurt so much last night and feel so much healing this morning? I banished the thought, and all thought. For a long time we sat and looked together across Lake Tahoe at the dawn.

  I’ve had a few days that were truly unforgettable. Like the day I fell in the river and heard voices, and the night I made love with Sun Moon. That first day at Lake Tahoe stands next to them all.

  When we mounted up and started down the trail into the valley, Daniel walked his horse alongside of me and Sun Moon, her between us. “I have a special reason for bringing you two here,” he said gently. “Partly it’s some people to meet.”

  “People?” Funny, from the ridge I’d looked and looked and thought I took in the whole scene, breathed it in precious as air. But I hadn’t seen any people. The way Sun Moon was smiling at me, I figured she had.

  Daniel chuckled and pointed into the timber, but now more trees were in the way.

  “Washo,” he said.

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Just one family, maybe twenty people.” He looked at Sun Moon. “If you need to hide, they’ll take care of you.”

  He switched his eyes to me. “But I wanted you to come here for a completely different reason.”

  I could feel him wanting me to look into his face, so I did.

  “Asie, I believe the Washo are the people you were born to.”

  I sailed along for a moment like I was riding a star through space. Finally I whispered, “How come you think so?”

  Sun Moon gazed at me, back at Daniel, back at me.

  “Your one clue, Rock Child. It’s a rock near here. The Washo know about it.”

  I rode along with that for maybe one second or one eternity, I couldn’t say which. Waves ran up and down my body, warm and cool. Thoughts whirled in my head, though I knew neither then nor now what they were. A tune of some kind sang in my ears, and the horses’ hoofs beat out a slow, steady rhythm.

  “Let’s go see it,” says I.

  Daniel smiled. “Let’s ask the Washo.”

  Just then we came out of the timber into the clear. To the left the lake shone strong and vibrant, like a great gong of polished brass. I looked across the tawny grasses and the blue-flecting river and into the trees on the far side and saw them. Stick lodges, set back in the shadows of the trees.

  The tune in my head came clear, and I now remembered the words:

  I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger,

  A-travelin’ through this world of woe.

  But there’s no sickness, no toil nor danger,

  In that bright world to which I go.

  I look at Daniel, and his eyes are shining, too. I commence to sing, and he joins me in a high, floating harmony.

  “I’m going there to see my father,

  I’m going there no more to roam.

  I’m just a-going over Jordan,

  I’m just a-going over home.”

  We cross the meadow now, splash through the little stream, brush through more red willows and yellow grasses, toward the lodges among the evergreens. Everything has a glow for me, like halos. Maybe it comes from the rim of tears in my eyes.

  The four or five homes were built of willows leaned together in the shape of tepees, facing east toward the lake. Somewhat back from them we left our horses with the Celestials and the four of us, Daniel, Sun Moon, Paiute Joe, and me, walked into camp.

  I flicked the reins of my mind and started thinking just a little. Since my whole world had long since gone funny and peculiar, and since this place was even more strange than it was beautiful, I decided to act right at home. Then chuckled at myself. Why not right at home?

  A couple of young men met us and exchanged some words with Paiute Joe, too low for me to hear. We followed them through the camp. Women were at work, drying strips of flesh, pounding pine nuts into flour, weaving baskets. They wore rabbit-skin dresses that maybe did better for warmth than decency. Children of all ages played everywhere. One old woman sat idle with her face turned to the morning sun, soaking it up. They were a short people, mostly round of face and body. I couldn’t help thinking that I was, too. If a first impression meant anything, they were a cheerful bunch.

  We walked up to a fire in front of a lodge and an old man who indicated with his arm that we were welcome to sit down. Even in my daze I managed to sit without falling. Is this man my grandfather? Are any of these people my brothers or sisters? Aunts or uncles?

  The old man gave Sun Moon an odd look or two, and I didn’t find out until later that it was against custom to bring a woman to a parley. He decided to make generous allowance for our barbarian ways and said a few words, friendly-like. I strained to hear each one clearly, and repeated those I could in my mind. But to my disappointment I didn’t recognize a single word, nor did the general sound of the language seem familiar.

  The old man’s wife had put the coffeepot on the fire, and now she poured it into tin cups for us. I didn’t find out until later that this was a significant gesture of hospitality, with coffee and cups given by Daniel.

  When we’d sipped awhile, the old man signed, and Paiute Joe spoke his words to us. “His name is Giver,” said Paiute Joe. “He is the grandfather of this family. He greets me and Daniel as friends, and offers his fire to you two.” Paiute Joe signed and said some words and made a gesture toward Sun Moon and me. The old man regarded us each in turn. “If you need protection, he offers it to you.”

  “Thank you,” we said. I added, “I believe we are safe now.” I could hardly shove my mind back to Porter Rockwell, who wouldn’t be doing any more killing from beyond the grave.

  Paiute Joe signed to Giver whatever we said.

  “Ask him,” prompted Daniel.

  Paiute Joe talked with his fingers. I could have done that, but was glad to watch. Giver answered in words and signs. The words still sounded as foreign as Sun Moon’s Tibetan. Maybe I’d never lived with my people enough to learn the talk.

  “It’s OK,” Paiute Joe told Daniel.

  “Sun Moon, when you want to go to San Francisco,” Daniel said, “Giver’s sons and grandsons will escort you and Sir Richard to the stage on the Placerville Road.”

  “Thank you,” said Sun Moon.

  “I want to see the Rock Child,” I said.

  Paiute Joe answered, “How about after you sleep?”

  Daniel was looking at me curiously.

  I looked around. Is this my place? I couldn’t tell. Maybe. Did I come from here? Should I come back to here? I looked into Sun Moon’s face. Maybe I can stay and she can go and it won’t be heartbreak. Maybe.

  I sat real still and turned my head and looked in every direction, east toward the lake, west up the river valley, north to the timbered ridge, south across the rolling hills. The world shimmered.

  This was the most beautiful place in the world. However many wonders there were, this was the most beautiful.

  “Time for another surprise,” said Daniel. “Come along?”

  I got up, still more or less in a trance.

  “You are invited to dinner tonight,” said Daniel to Giver.

  Dinner? We didn’t have decent food, but at least it wouldn’t be boiled garbage.

  We rode down the valley and then south along the lakeshore. “What you are about to see is my true ambition,” Daniel told us. “No one else has seen this.”

  Oh you friend of many secrets.

  The lake was spanking bright. “It’s a wonderful coun
try,” I says to Sun Moon.

  “Like my home,” she said. “Like my home.” I realized all the mountain West she’d seen till now was dry. This country was extravagantly watered, by compare.

  We turned right along the shore into a natural clearing, with giant pines set wide apart. There sat a fine two-story log house with a porch running across the whole front, facing the lake. “I have built a lodge,” said Daniel. “Welcome.” For once he sounded happy, and the hawk look of his eyes was softened.

  We rode up to the hitching rails in front of the lodge, and I surveyed the spot. It was the handsomest place to live a man could ever lay his eyes on, and a handsome day to come to it, warm and sunny. “What in Gastonia?” I murmured.

  Daniel grinned, the merriest expression I’d ever seen on his face. “I’ll explain over breakfast,” he says.

  As we dismounted, a white man and a Paiute wearing white-man pants came out of the lodge. Paiute Joe spoke to his tribesman, and the fellow took our horses to some corrals out back. “This is my foreman, Splinter,” said Daniel of the white man. He looked tickled that the world held someone named Splinter. “You’ll meet his brother Andy. Splinter will show you to your rooms.”

  We carried our bedrolls inside and followed Splinter up the stairs. The whole second story appeared to be bedrooms, like in a hotel. They had ticking mattresses stacked against the walls, four and six to the room, but no bed frames yet. Maybe they were meant for bunks. The Celestials settled in one room, all of them together. When Splinter gave Sun Moon one and started me toward another, I said, “Sun Moon, I want to be with you.”

  She looked at me and her eyes were soft. “Yes,” she said gently.

  We put the mattresses on the floor close together and spread the blankets. I felt jimmy-joomy—we were going to spend our last nights near together. I wondered how many more nights there would be.

  Daniel met us at the foot of the stairs and gave us the tour while breakfast was being whipped up. The kitchen was ample, outfitted with a stove, where brother Andy was making flapjacks. The dining room had four long tables with benches. On the other side of the hall and stairs was a single great room for sitting, lounging, talking, and drinking.

  “One of my shipments has come in from San Francisco,” said Daniel, leading the way to the middle of the spacious room.

  Then I saw his prize. In the middle of the far end of the room, with a tidy dance floor around it, sat a grand piano.

  Oh, Gastonia.

  He plunked some keys. “Do you think we could make some music on this?” His eyes were alight.

  Before I could head for the bench, Sun Moon said, “Let’s rest a little before breakfast.”

  Seeing her eyes were tired, I realized I was worn-out, too.

  We went upstairs and stretched close by each other. I half awoke at midday, saw Sun Moon near me, and went back to sleep.

  Knock-knock!

  I rolled over.

  Knock-knock!

  We both sat up in bed. “Come in,” Sun Moon said softly.

  The door flung open and framed Sir Richard, brow thunderous and cheek scar flaming. He pushed into the room, eyes fixing on us. “I apologize,” he said. “I failed you at the crucial time.”

  This admission sounded trumped-up to me.

  Sun Moon stood up and showed generosity. “You save my life,” she said. “You take me for protect when you no need. You big-hearted man to me, always so, I never forget.”

  Sir Richard’s eyes softened, even if his jaw stayed hard, and I knew that her words were special to him.

  I looked in my heart and saw that I wanted the apology he gave, and it might not be enough. Sir Richard in the grip of drink or drug was a madman. I will never be able to depend on you. Nothing more to say. Except that it hurt.

  I looked at him and done my best. “I understand what happened.”

  He shifted his weight on his feet, and I knew the way he looked at himself was in my hands. “My self-regard,” he would put it.

  I took thought. I wondered, not for the first time, whether twenty years of alcohol, hashish, and opium, the pressure of spying, and especially his disappointments in getting fame and fortune had parched the soil of his heart and spirit. I wondered whether anything could grow there anymore. I didn’t have anything more to say to him right then.

  Sir Richard turned into the hall and came back with a surprise in each hand—my banjo and my drum.

  “Let’s play!” I shouted.

  “Actually,” answered Sir Richard, “I believe Daniel is expecting us downstairs for supper.”

  I looked out the window and saw that it was twilight. We’d slept the day away, and I hadn’t got to the Rock Child. But I’d been sunset to sunset without food. “Is it ready? Let’s eat!”

  The guest of honor was Giver, and he brought one of his three wives, a granddaughter, and two great-grandsons, seven or eight years old. All the Washo but Giver looked foot-draggy, and I wondered whether eating with the white folks seemed to them like a treat or a punishment. White-man food wasn’t much like theirs, and they wouldn’t be able to join in the talk.

  Daniel asked us to push two of the long tables together and seated Giver and family square in the middle, where they wouldn’t miss anything. The other Indians, all Paiutes, he seated across from the Washos. I supposed the tribes weren’t enemies, but they didn’t seem to speak each other’s language. I did feel fortunate the Celestials had gone back, or we would have had four outfits of people bumping elbows without being able to talk to each other.

  Maggie, the Washo cook, served up what the whites thought princely camp food, fried deer tenderloin, fried potatoes, fried wild onions, coffee, and raspberry cobbler. It was every man for himself out of big serving bowls.

  Sun Moon and Sir Richard ate fastidiously, but not me—I felt real white when it came to meat and potatoes. I noticed that you nearly had to fight for the serving spoon, everybody was gobbling it so good, the Washos, too. Though silverware was set by their plates, the grown-up Indians ate with their belt knives and the kids with their fingers. A couple of times Giver and I met eyes, and we nodded with smug smiles, like princes passing in a procession.

  When the dessert came, Sir Richard says, “Well, you’ve had an adventure. Nothing is as good for the digestion as a rousing adventure story.”

  So we told it, right from when we went lickety-split out of the Heritage. Right off I thought, Either our audience can be just Sir Richard or it can include all these Indians. So I signed while we talked. Daniel and me took turns telling, for Sun Moon wouldn’t join in, despite our urging.

  Daniel told about owning an abandoned mine where he sometimes went, and that brought admiration. He looked hangdog when he had to admit he let Rockwell follow him back to us the next day.

  The rest was a pure bang-bang, bad-guy-chases-the-good-guys tale, fun to tell and fun to hear. When we told about blowing up the mountain on Rockwell, Sir Richard actually clapped, which made me feel great.

  I told the part about coming out into the magically lit snowstorm, and about fleeing to Lake Washo.

  There I had a decision to make. When I held eyes with Sun Moon, it was easy. I hopped over the part about losing our baby. That was ours alone. I skipped straight to when Q Mark came back and told us Rockwell was dead.

  Sir Richard sang out a strain of a funeral march—oh, he was in fine fettle tonight!

  Then I studied Sir Richard and saw a certain look in his eye. He was hurting. And a word rose in my mind—compassion.

  So I looked at him solemn, and said, “I know you wish you’d been there. It would have been fine to have you. To me you will always be Sir Richard Burton.”

  He nodded, thanking me, and his eyes said the thanks was deep.

  Maggie brought out a second round of coffee. I noticed Giver was keen for it, and filled the cup about an inch with sugar.

  I couldn’t keep a stopper on my curiosity. I says, “Joe, will you ask Giver what he thinks of our story?”
/>   Joe done that.

  Giver came out with a good smile and a wagonload of words and signs, which Joe put into English.

  “He says it is a fine story, and he honors those that keep it in the memory of the people and tell it so the people will understand.

  “The Washo had a demon like Rockwell, name of Ong. Ong was a monstrous bird that nested in the middle of Lake Tahoe. From time to time he flew out and hauled people away to his nest and ate ’em.”

  When the old man talked about Ong, his voice trembled, and I imagined the monster bird rising out of the deep, dark waters to dramatic music. There was a tremolo in the bass, and the right hand pounced from note to note in the tritone, the devil’s interval, trouble a-rising.

  “Long time since Ong came against the people, but they not forget him,” Joe went on for Giver. “Not forget either to act like true human beings and thank the gods and honor them, so that Ong does not get loose again.”

  I wasn’t ready to switch to how they gave what for to Ong. I wanted more scary stuff.

  “Giver, he tell you some stories of Ong, but it is not the time for telling stories—he means it isn’t winter—and he has talked too much already.”

  That put a stop to my musical dream. I wished I could get a bunch of Ong stories, and write some Ong songs. Then I realized …

  Like reading my mind, Daniel says, “How about some music?”

  Everyone gathered around the piano, Indians included, and Daniel and I played four hands. He rolled out an introduction to a fine quadrille. Catching on that dancing would be just the thing, I joined right in, and we set the feet to moving. Sir Richard grabbed one of those Washo women and led her right through her paces. Giver and Joe partnered each other in the same style, though none could tell whether Giver or Joe was dancing the woman.

  After the quadrille and a reel, we played a waltz. Sun Moon got to her feet and asked Giver to dance. The old fellow accepted. You couldn’t say which shone more, his old face or her young one. I noticed how much they looked alike, bronze-skinned and black-haired, these children of opposite ends of the earth. Then I realized that Sun Moon, who had done some waltzing and liked to dance, was taking the man’s part and leading Giver. Beaming, the chief of the Washo made an endearing old woman. And I was delighted to see Sun Moon just purely enjoying herself.