The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

“So?”

  “These days, everything changing all the time, you make your own home. Your own family, too.” We took a few steps before I added, “Maybe I changed bigger than I knew.”

  The night was cold. We walked back toward the lodge, holding hands. I could feel her mind right in her hand, turning and turning and then settling itself.

  A dozen steps from the porch she turned to face me. I wanted to hold her close, but she stepped back, clasping both my hands. “So. Now.” She leaned back against my weight. “I ask you. Asie Taylor, will you make family with me?”

  Sometimes I don’t know what’s going on in my head. I stammered, “Y-you’re a nun.”

  “I am a woman.”

  “Y-you sure?”

  She spoke like a person who’s clear with words. “I am certain. I think long. You change big. Me too.”

  “You sure sure?”

  She looked onto the dark lake. “That girl-woman made life … I wanted it. I had it.” She touched her belly. “I want it again.” She paused. “You, our child. I want to jump into life.” She smiled up at me. “You jumped into river.”

  I looked at her, I put my arms around her, then I pulled back. “The river came for me.”

  She looked at me solemnly. “Life comes for me.”

  I kissed her, long.

  Then we looked around. The lake was gray, the trees black, the sky star-speckled, the lodge a ghost of light beyond some pines. I thought, This is mine. It is all mine. If I take it.

  I lowered my lips to the one who was willing to be mine, and kissed her. Pretty quick I was thinking of exploring the privileges of matrimony right there on the spot. But we heard loud rolling and squeaking from within, and a window scraped open. At the same time Sir Richard came onto the porch holding up a lantern.

  “What news?” he queried.

  “We’re going to live here,” says I. “We’re getting married.”

  In a jiffy music swooshed up, and my spirits were lifted high by Daniel’s piano. It was Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” proclaiming matrimony through the open window. I whispered in Sun Moon’s ear, “A song we use to march a marrying couple to the preacher.”

  Sir Richard’s mouth was saying, “Congratulations!” but I couldn’t really hear it over the music, or over my own excitement.

  “March in! March in!” cried Sir Richard even louder.

  We did, and Daniel brought the Mendelssohn to a rousing finish.

  Sir Richard pronounced, “Since we are without benefit of clergy here, perhaps I shall take it upon myself to administer the sacrament.” He cast his eyes about conspicuously. “I see about me, however, rather a babel of religions. A Tibetan Buddhist, a Mormon …”

  “Indian,” Asie corrected.

  “Indian, yet another Indian, a Catholic”—with nods at Maggie and Daniel—“and myself, who am, shall we say, no Christian?” He was in high delight now. “The spirit of the occasion seems to me to call for the form of ceremony that reaches back furthest into my own life, the Book of Common Prayer of my childhood. I ask the Divinity to look beyond any waywardness in the words chosen, both advertent and inadvertent, and to see the good intentions in my heart.”

  He faced us and drew himself up. “Dearly Beloved … Here I must depart from the path prescribed.” He heaved in a deep breath and heaved it back out. “Perhaps the single great force on this Earth is love,” he said. “God loves life, and has manifested us, and all creatures, and the world itself as an expression of love. We stand most utterly in the spirit of the sacred when we love one another.

  “Your love for each other honors God, honors existence itself. As you are true to this love, it will bring you infinite blessings.

  “Now I am able to recall the proper words. Who giveth this woman to be married to the man?”

  Waiting for no answer, he joined our right hands together. “Say after me as followeth. I take thee, Sun Moon, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance.”

  I said those words, and meant them.

  “Sister, say after me. I, Sun Moon, take thee, Asie, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death do us part.”

  Sun Moon said those solemn words with an utterly happy look on her face.

  He looked squinty at us and smiled big. “Since we have no rings, we’ll pass over that part. I pronounce that you are man and wife. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

  Sun Moon squeezed my hand. I lifted her chin, lifted it again when she tried to slip by me, hugged her when she squirmed, disregarded her reddening cheeks, and kissed her.

  Sir Richard and Daniel applauded. Then Maggie brought out a big bowl of pink sherbet. Daniel did the honors, filling cups with a dipper.

  “A toast!” cried Sir Richard. He lifted his cup, and said warmly, “To your happiness.”

  The taste was strawberry. It has ever since been my favorite.

  Daniel offered a second toast—“To our partnership!”

  We drank. Maggie handed out pieces of cake.

  “Now an important subject,” said Sir Richard, “my wedding gift to you.” He paused and looked at us munificently. “It is the five hundred dollars I promised Sun Moon. Perhaps you’ll use it to increase your investment in this lodge.”

  “Good idea,” said Daniel, smiling. “Partner.”

  There were more toasts, and the five of us even danced around the piano at one point, Maggie on Daniel’s arm. I don’t remember the details of the next few minutes because my mind switched to taking Sun Moon upstairs and marrying her deep and strong. That’s what I did.

  FINISH-UP

  That is the end of my big wander.

  What’s left of the story classical musicians would call fancy words, but I’ll call it a finish-up.

  As a young man I set out, not knowing where or why. I took the first step, and fell into my adventure. It was the most important step I ever made, and the best. You know where it led.

  There is more to my life, though, and maybe some things you will want to know about the people in it.

  Sun Moon and I stayed at the lodge alone that autumn and winter, a long, snowbound honeymoon. It was grand. Our son Pasang was conceived then, and born the next fall.

  In the spring we cut trees and floated them across to the mill, to a handsome profit.

  Sir Richard and Daniel went immediately back to Virginia, Sir Richard because he had a little matter back to take care of with Tommy Kirk. He bought discreet items at the chemist’s shop and showed Tommy’s mistress Lu Pu-wai how to slip them into food. Sir Richard knew his beans. When Tommy died mysteriously a few months later, neither he nor anyone else guessed how or why.

  In two years Daniel, Sun Moon, and I were prosperous, even halfway to rich, through our wood-cutting enterprise. But we didn’t like sending our Lake Tahoe trees into graves in a mountain for the purpose of gouging out silver. So we sold our wood contracts and put full effort into the music school. In four years it failed and took everything we had. We had a lot of fun going broke, though, and made a lot of good music.

  While we were going broke in the music business, Daniel got news his father had died and his mother needed him. He headed back to New Orleans. On the way, in East Texas, he got into a bar fight with a man as made a racialist remark, and took a knife through the lights. We missed him bad. Turned out he had willed us his half of the lodge.

  Though it was ours, we always let people think the place belonged to Daniel and was only managed by us. This was partly our tribute to our friend, and mostly a ruse. Americans think it’s OK for people of color to manage a hotel, but not own one.

  Sun Moon and I turned it into a resort. It was a lot of work, but the transcontinental railroad came in at
the right time, not way round the south end of the lake like we thought, but right up the Truckee River past the Rock Child and over the old Indian trail, a poor route for them but good for us. We made a go of the resort, and got half-rich again. The best part is, we are open only five months a year, and we live here all twelve. That gave us time for each other, for walks, for snowshoeing, for music, and for Sun Moon’s prayer and meditation.

  There are several resort hotels on the lake now, and I believe one day there will be more. That will be good for the white people who come here to breathe the spirit of the alpine air and drink the mountain waters, but it will be hard on the Washo people.

  We had some fun with the name of our lodge. It’s called Gastonia, and the sign over the drive says in big letters, WELCOME TO GASTONIA.

  Sun Moon mostly left the running of the lodge to me, with hired help. She stuck to her own life, raising our son, educating him in the Buddhist and the Western way both, meditating long hours every afternoon, and praying for the liberation of all sentient beings.

  Today Pasang Richard Daniel Taylor is a fine young man of twenty-seven years, and will go far. Not in music—he has no ear. His eye for drawing, however, is excellent. We had only one child, we never knew why, but we had a lot of fun trying for more.

  The Washo and me became dearest friends. I joined into their religious ways by learning their songs. For years I have sung or drummed at the Pine Nut ceremonies every autumn. Washo religion makes more sense to me than any Mormonism, Brotherhood of Life, Catholicism or any sort of Christianity, or, for that matter, Buddhism. We worship things that are real—the four winds, the waters flowing and still, the sway of the sun, moon, and stars, the powers in the rocks. And we don’t tell other people what to do, but respect each man’s medicine. The Washo way suits me.

  We heard from Sir Richard regularly. He always wrote us what a fine time he was having from Africa, Brazil, Damascus, and Trieste, wherever that is. We lived through every clever tactic which he employed against his many political and literary enemies, mourned his defeats, and celebrated his victories. We never thought he was having any fun, though, and he never did go on any more big explorations. Seemed to us his wife, Isabel, got the better of him.

  I did enjoy reading his books, keeping in mind that lots of his life, like his adventures with us, could never be told—they were government secrets. My favorite is A Thousand and One Nights, which he sent us all sixteen volumes of. As I am a musician, he was a storyteller.

  I had a dream that he would visit us one day. It’s an easy trip now—you can sleep in a Pullman car across the U. S. of A.—nothing like how we trudged over the California Trail breathing alkali. I pictured us three utterly different friends, the three playing in conflicting keys, being together for a few days on the shore of the most beautiful lake in the world. It’s hard to let dreams end, and mine never did until the mail came last fall. A business friend in San Francisco sent a clip from the newspaper about the death of the famous author Sir Richard Burton (he finally got that knighthood).

  That was small, however, beside the letter from Pasang last week about his mother and my beloved wife. She had been going to the doctor in San Francisco for treatment for more than a year. This time she asked Pasang to come with her. I’m sure she didn’t have a premonition of her death, because she would have wanted me beside her, and I would have wanted to be there. Pasang going along was lucky, though. He read The Book of the Dead to ease the passage of her soul to wherever it is going next. He read for seven days, which is a high honor, and I trust that her way is good.

  Our life here was good because we put first things first. Sun Moon concentrated on Pasang and her prayers, and I kept my music ahead of the resort. My family and my music. I did play most nights at the lodge, giving folks what they wanted to hear, songs and dances. I also played Gottschalk, Chopin, Schubert, and other stuff our guests admire but don’t really like. And I played my own music. Because once I started listening, it was there in my head. If I turned on my fingers, out it came.

  I got lucky, too. The folks at Dr. Bourne’s Hygiene Establishment, up at Carnelian Bay, asked me to play my own music at what they called a salon every Sunday afternoon. I have done that steadily for many years. I’ve been invited to Virginia to play from time to time. Jenny Lind came there to sing, and then stopped here, and we made music together at Dr. Bourne’s, just the two of us. These opportunities, they’ve been more than lots of musicians ever get.

  Almost every day now since coming to Tahoe more than twenty-eight years ago, I have walked the countryside and listened. From listening I have got lots of my own pieces, for piano, banjo, harmonica, dulcimer, guitar, everything a musician can play alone. And I’ve got some music written for woodwinds, brasses, and even stringed instruments. From time to time the bands and orchestras over at Virginia have played my music, which made me proud. I’ve done everything but publish it. My music has been for me.

  Curious thing, though. Last summer a fellow from San Francisco heard me play at the salon and said he would come back with one of those new phonographs and take my music down. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

  So that’s how it came out, my wander. I went looking for big things, what I heard in the river, and to find out who the Rock Child was, and where I belonged. I came to the truth of that, and it was not outside me. I didn’t have to go adventuring to find it. Home is always inside, in the heart. In me, in Sun Moon, in Pasang, and in you.

  I am lucky, and deeply grateful, that when I figured out that home was wherever I was, I happened to be at Lake Tahoe. It could have been Deseret, the Rocky Mountains, the Nevada deserts, Virginia City, or anywhere. But my good fortune is that at Lake Tahoe, the most beautiful place in the world, I became willing to plant my feet on the earth and live like a human being.

  So my big wander gave me a good life.

  Not all of it good, of course. After Sun Moon took sick, it has been harder than I’d care to say. When they told us it was liver cancer, we both knew. We only took a few guests this summer, just old friends, and we spent most of the days sitting in the sun, holding hands. I also kept taking my walks and listening for whatever music the gods would give me. Each evening I played it for her.

  No marriage is all easy, no marriage all smooth. But some things I know, and Sun Moon knew them, too. I loved her. She loved me. I have set all this story down in her honor.

  Pasang wants to do her honor, too. When he came back from San Francisco on the train, he said he’s going to finish what she surrendered—go to Tibet, to Zorgai, to her convent, and to her relatives. He wants to tell them about her life. He also wants to see where he came from, and to learn about that half of his bloodline, just as I did once. He is possessed of a restless spirit and a vast curiosity. He thinks that makes him unlike me.

  He’s asked me for the money to go halfway around the world. I will give it to him. I set out on a big adventure twenty-eight years ago, and it brought me everything good. Now it’s his turn to look. It’s the zig in his rabbit path.

  I hope he comes back one day. He doesn’t know how much a father loves a son.

  He has a suggestion about that. If he isn’t back in maybe two years, he says, I should sell the lodge and go over to Zorgai and find him. Join him, maybe stay forever. Join him anyhow, and have an adventure. He’ll write me an address.

  You never know.

  I am tempted to say no to him, but that might be no to myself. Last time I threw my life to the winds, those powers carried it to a kind of glory. I bet they would again. I am only fifty years old.

  You would be amazed if I went to Tibet?

  Me too.

  Flabbergaster, huh?

  AFTERWORD

  This book has some fun with history, in an attempt to speak truths that seem to me larger than facts.

  Yes, Rock Child is intended to be both accurate and truthful historically. Richard Burton, Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young, and Samuel Clemens actually lived, and if their deeds here are
imagined, my portrayals of their characters are meant seriously. (Yes, I believe that Burton was a wonderful madman and addict, and Rockwell a tortured spirit.) Salt Lake City, the California Trail, Virginia City, and Lake Tahoe are depicted in accordance with the record; so are the life ways of the Mormon people, Comstock miners, and Washoe people in 1862. Burton did travel to Salt Lake City in 1860, and the opinions of Mormons attributed to him here were set down in his book City of the Saints.

  I hope that Mormon people, long sensitive about depictions of their history and ways by gentiles, see that my pictures of Brigham Young, and the Young household are drawn from empathy and in accordance with the record. When sketching the wives and children of the Lion of the Lord in a way that might cause controversy, I have generally used fictional names. Though the record is less than clear about Porter Rockwell, I believe my portrait is accurate.

  Asie and Sun Moon are entirely creations of my imagination and my love. So is Gentleman Dan. Yet their dilemmas are as real as the dark history of racism in America. For decades following 1849, tens of thousands of Chinese women were brought to the western United States, and their years as prostitutes amounted to slavery. Male Chinese were also treated as half-human. Indians and half-blood people living among whites faced just the predicaments that Asie faced, often in much more dire form. In 1862 slavery had corrupted the soul of the country, the Civil War was destroying the corpus, and Southerners like Gentleman Dan, aware, were in terrible straits.

  The picture offered here of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture is as accurate as I can make it, and is written from love of a marvelous people and way of seeing the world. If I have used the Sanskrit form of words (lingam, yoni, puja) instead of the Tibetan forms, it is because the Sanskrit is somewhat more familiar in the West.

  While the settings and situations here are historical, and some of the characters, the action is imagined. To my knowledge, Captain Burton did not travel to the United States in 1862, though he could have (and given the clandestine nature of his life, he may have). He was a relentless keeper of journals, but they were burned by his wife Isabel after his death, along with his letters and manuscripts; the journal entries here, I believe, are the sort he might have made. If Porter Rockwell chased any fugitives all the way to Lake Tahoe in that year, they were not our trio. I do not know whether any of the Asian women brought against their will to America were nuns, though many were surely Buddhists.