Mojave Desert Sanctuary

by Gary J George

  “I’m sorry, I’m a little slow.

  You must be Chemehuevi Joe. I’ve heard Keith Halverson talk about you. Says you’re a heck of a carpenter.”

  “Kind of him.”

  “How’d you like to build this addition for me?”

  “Depends on the pay, Mr. Stonebridge.”

  “I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “One other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Won’t let me match adobe, won’t build it.”

  “I’d be pleased if you could match it! How long would it take?”

  “Couple weeks to cure adobe bricks.

  Build your addition while they dry. Put the roof on. Face it with adobes when they’re ready. Faster that way. Underneath the adobe, plywood. Then insulation, then drywall. Knotty pine on top”

  “I like that.

  Could you match the roof?”

  Joe walked closer to the house.

  “Long-barrel tiles. Can’t buy them. Can make them. Kiln to fire them. Hole side of that hill would do.

  Need hot-burning wood. Pine won’t do. Mesquite or cottonwood.”

  “There are some big cottonwoods over by government holes. Lots of branches on the ground.”

  “Nothin’ burns hotter.”

  “Where are your tools?”

  “My place. Long way.

  Any on the ranch?”

  “Come look at what’s in the barn.”

  We walked back to the barn. Joe looked through the old tools.

  “This stuff has all been on the ranch for years. I don’t have any power tools.”

  “Don’t like ’em. Hate the noise.”

  He sorted through the collection of old tools.

  “Most everything I need right here. Couple things from my place. Special saw, hammer, couple wood tools.”

  “Joe, I don’t even have a cement mixer.”

  “Big wheelbarrow there. All I need.

  Plenty of straw for adobe.”

  “When can you start?”

  “Have to do something. Back tomorrow.”

  “Come on down to the house. We’ll get something cold to drink and come to an agreement on a price for the job.”

  Although it was hot on the hillside, it was cool inside the thick walls of the adobe.

  The house had been cleverly designed. When the screened windows high up on the north wall were opened, they caught the down slope breeze coming over Pinto Mountain. Each of the rooms within the house had a row of rectangular openings near ceilings of their north and south walls. Those openings matched the ones on the north, exterior wall. At the front of the house, the screened windows high up on the south walls were carbon copies of those on the north.

  Built in air conditioning. Efficient and effective. The ventilation was controlled by opening and closing shutters on the north wall.

  As we moved into the hallway that ran down the center of the house, John called out, “We’ll be in the sitting room, Kiko.”

  He led Joe and me through a doorway into a large room on the west side of the house. As we entered, I saw two large, mullioned windows set on either side of a river rock fireplace on the west wall. In front of the fireplace were eight leather chairs lined up on two sides of a long, low, narrow table of highly-polished dark wood. Between the chairs were small tables of the same dark wood. On every table were large, copper oil lamps with tall, glass chimneys. A large chandelier, also fitted with lamps, hung from a heavy, black chain. The chain ran through a sturdy eyelet set into one of the open beams on the ceiling. The chain passed through a similar eyelet set into the wall, so the chandelier could be lowered to light the wicks or refill the lamps with oil.

  Sunlight streamed through the two large windows, and dust motes danced and swirled in the light.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  John and I sat down on opposite sides of the low table. I could smell saddle soap and neatsfoot oil, which explained the supple feel of the leather.

  Joe wandered around the room inspecting the workmanship of the furniture.

  “Good work. Close fits. Flush dowels. No nails.”

  “My father had this furniture shipped here from Spain in the ‘20s. This has always been one of my favorite rooms in the house.”

  Kiko came through the doorway carrying a large pitcher of Kool-Aid and four glasses on a wooden tray.

  I stood up.

  “Hello again, Ade. Please, sit down.”

  As I sat, I glanced sideways at Joe Medrano. He was standing so perfectly still he could have been carved from stone. His eyes were fixed intently on Kiko. He looked for all the world like a hunter who had just seen an eight point buck walking toward him from a stand of pinyon pines.

  “Kiko, this is Joe Medrano. He’s a well known carpenter around Smoke Tree and Parker.

  I’m trying to hire him to build the room addition.”

  Kiko put the tray on the table and straightened up to look at Joe.

  She noticed the piercing stare. Her greeting seemed strained.

  “Hello, Mr. Medrano.”

  Joe nodded his head almost imperceptibly.

  “Ma’am.”

  They stood looking at each other. Kiko looked away first. Then she looked back.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you’re Indian, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re Japanese.”

  “Have you known many Japanese people?”

  “No women.”

  “But men?”

  “South Pacific. World War Two.

  Lost friends in that war.”

  Kiko’s voice hardened.

  “And I lost two older cousins.”

  “What island?”

  “Not on an island. Hill 140, outside of Castellina in Italy. They were in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.”

  Joe visibly relaxed.

  “Tough outfit. Brave men.”

  There was respect in his voice. Kiko’s voice kept the hard edge.

  “I miss my cousins. I miss them all the time.

  I will never, ever, ever understand why they wanted to volunteer. They were in an internment camp. The government arrested us, all of us. Gave us one week to sell the family farm my father and my uncle owned for years in Salinas. People who had been our neighbors for years got it for almost nothing.

  So, Joe, can you help me understand why my cousins would fight for a country that did that to us? Because I don’t think anyone who’s not Japanese-American can understand what that felt like.”

  Joe shrugged.

  “Some can.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “In ‘32, government broke its treaty with my tribe. Took our reservation. Drowned our homes under Lake Havasu. Grandparents are buried under that water. Some nights I hear their voices all the way over the Chemehuevi Mountains.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Not to believe or not believe. Just is.”

  “Mr. Medrano,” I interrupted, “are you saying when I go fishing for crappie under the light at the end of the Scott Atwater dock at Site Six, I’m fishing on top of your drowned reservation?”

  “Yes.”

  The look on Kiko’s face changed from defiance to chagrin.

  “That’s just up the river from where we were in the camp.”

  “Poston?”

  “That’s right.

  You know it?”

  “Built on Colorado River Tribes land. Tribes didn’t want it there. Government did it anyway.

  You in camp one, two or three?”

  “We didn’t call them that. We called them Roasten, Toasten and Dustin. We were in Roasten. A hundred and fifteen degrees in the summer in wooden buildings with tin roofs and no insulation. No heaters in the winter.

  There were seventeen thousand of us inside the fence around the three camps. Nobody cared we were out there.”

  She stopped for a moment and shook her head.

  “Lord, I can’t believe I’m talking ab
out this. My parents taught me never to bring this up in front of white people.”

  “Two white people here. Two white, two brown. Standoff.

  Finish what you started.”

  Kiko took a deep breath and turned to John.

  “John, you’ve been very kind to me, and you’re a good man. But I have to ask you something I’ve never asked a gaigen before.”

  “What’s a guy jen?”

  “White person.

  Why did your government do that to us? They didn’t lock up the Germans or the Italians Just the Japanese. And most of them were Nisei and Sansei.”

  “Two more words I don’t know. What’s a née-say and a san-say?”

  “Second and third generation Japanese-Americans. Nisei were born in the United States to parents who had emigrated here and become naturalized citizens. Sansei, like me, were born to the Nisei.”

  “Kiko, I hate to disappoint you, but you’re not going to get much of an answer from me.

  It wasn’t my government then. I was born in England and lived there until my father brought me here when I was eleven. When England declared war on Germany in ‘39, I went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.

  I was in England in the Canadian First Squadron flying Hurricanes off British soil when I heard about the camps. At first, I didn’t believe it was true. And I never heard about the one in Poston until I got home from the war.

  Drove down there once to look at it before they tore it down. Still couldn’t believe it. Ugly place. Reminded me of P.O.W. camps in Europe.”

  “So can you see why I couldn’t understand why my cousins joined?”

  She turned to Joe.

  “Mr. Medrano, maybe if you’d tell me why you signed up, I’d understand my cousins...”

  “Don’t know that’s so. Was in Georgia, Pearl Harbor happened. Headed home to join.”

  “But why? You didn’t owe anyone anything.”

  “Get what the government owed us, had to serve. Come back after, fight for what is ours.”

  “And did that work?”

  The corners of Joe’s mouth turned down.

  “Not yet. But won’t stop.”

  Clearly uncomfortable with giving out this much personal information, Joe turned the conversation.”

  “Mr. Stonebridge, you in England the whole war?”

  “No. After D-Day, my squadron flew Spitfires off a field in Normandy.

  Can’t tell you how happy I was about that. First, we were taking it to Jerry all the way to Berlin. And second, Hurricanes were no match for the ME-109s. I had to be fished out of the channel twice because of those damned Hurricanes. But those Spitfires! Grand airplanes.”

  Kiko spoke again.

  “But you’re a U.S. citizen now?”

  “Yes. I knew I was going to live here for the rest of my life. Thought I might as well vote. I became a citizen after the war.”

  Kiko turned to Joe again.

  “Mr. Medrano, do you know what’s at Poston today?”

  “No wood buildings. No fence. Old adobe high school. Contractor ran out of lumber. Tribes use high school. Offices and such.”

  Kiko shuddered. “I never want to go there again.”

  “How old were you when your family was taken there?” asked John.

  “I was seven. Eleven when we left.”

  Throughout this entire exchange, I sat transfixed.

  Kiko had been in an internment camp? With seventeen thousand Japanese-American citizens? In Parker?

  We had learned about the concentration camps in Nazi Germany in history class. But I had played football and run track in Parker for four years in high school and never heard anything about Poston. Ever.

  I realized John was looking at me. He seemed to sense my dismay.

  “Kiko, you have every right to be on your high horse, but climb off it for a minute and sit down. You’re talking to two veterans and a young man who has obviously never heard about Japanese-Americans being rounded up and put in camps.

  Have you, Ade?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, you weren’t even born when it happened, and you were only two or three when it ended.”

  “Mr. Medrano. I’d appreciate it if you would sit, too.”

  Joe eased into a chair.

  “Ade, you look like you’ve been smacked with a baseball bat.

  Is there something you’d like to ask?”

  “This happened?”

  “It most assuredly did.”

  “And this place Kiko and Mr. Medrano are talking about was only forty miles downriver from Smoke Tree?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We studied World War Two. The man who taught my history class was a veteran of the war. He never mentioned any internment camps.”

  “Well, Ade, by the time you studied about the war, people were so embarrassed by what they had done to Japanese Americans they didn’t want to talk about it. Not least because the 442nd was the most decorated unit in the War, and they were volunteers from the camps, like Kiko’s cousins.

  In fact, the older generation, the one your history teacher is part of, wants to just forget all about the whole thing.”

  “But that’s crazy.”

  “All the more reason to try to forget it. Because there’s no excuse for it. Oh, there are explanations: war hysteria, national paranoia, righteous anger, mob mentality. But explanations are just that: explanations. They are not justifications.”

  “But Kiko said they didn’t lock up the Germans and the Italians.”

  Joe spoke in his usual manner, softly and without inflection.

  “White people.”

  John nodded.

  “I think you assessment is correct, Mr. Medrano.”

  “I won’t forget it. Not ever.”

  “No, Kiko, I’m sure you won’t.

  Now, I think we have stripped a sufficient number of scales from young Mr. Snow’s eyes for one day. He needs to think about this before we speak of it again.

  I am hopeful his generation will not have the experiences Joe and I had with war. I think this new president is pretty level-headed about ill-advised military adventures. He certainly avoided that mess the CIA tried to stick him with at the Bay of Pigs. And maybe he’ll take to heart President Eisenhower’s advice on avoiding land wars in Asia.

  Anyway, let’s have a glass of Kool-Aid and talk about something much more mundane, like room additions.”

  That broke the mood.

  Joe asked Mr. Stonebridge for a paper and pencil.

  After a few minutes of calculations, Joe handed John the paper with a price on the bottom.

  “Joe, this is not enough for all the work you’re going to do.”

  “Enough for me. Feed me, give me a place to sleep.”

  “You can bunk with the hands. Plenty of room in there. And you can take your meals with us, if you don’t mind company.”

  “Don’t mind.”

  John stood up and reached out his hand. Joe rose and touched it briefly.

  “Then we’ve got a deal.”

  Joe and I thanked Kiko for the Kool Aid and left the house. John caught up with us just as I was opening the truck door.

  “Ade, you still spending a lot of weekends over at Lee’s Camp?”

  “Yes. I’m off on Sundays and Mondays. Mr. Halverson says Saturday is too busy to miss.”

  “Will you be up this Sunday?”

  “I will.”

  “Then I’d be glad if you’d join us for dinner on Sunday evening.”

  “That would the great.”

  “Let’s say about five o’clock?”

  “I’ll be here. Thank you.”

  Joe and I drove down the stone-lined driveway and started down the switchbacks on our way to Cedar Canyon Road.

  “Mr. Medrano, do you think Mr. Stonebridge is right about Americans wanting to forget about what we did to the Japanese?”

  “Lots for Americans to forget about.”

  “B
ut you’re American.”

  Joe was silent while I slowed to make the turn from Cedar Canyon to Black Canyon Road. Then he turned his head to look at me.

  “I’m Chemehuevi. Chemehuevi run over by Spain, Mexico, United States. Nobody asked what we thought about it. Were we Spanish? Were we Mexican? Are we Americans?”

  Neither of us said anything else as we drove the long stretch to the spot where the paved road to Mitchell’s Caverns swung off to the west. I slowed to turn onto the pavement.

  “Stop here.”

  “I’ll take you up.”

  “Rather walk.”

  “Mr. Medrano, I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Ask.”

  “Those caverns, are they important to the Chemehuevi?”

  “Sacred.”

  “Do they charge you admission when you come here?”

  Joe Medrano gave me the briefest of smiles.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  After I left Joe at the fork, I continued on to Essex to get back on old 66. The forlorn, childless swings on the deserted playground of the tiny elementary school were rocking and twisting in the hot wind,.

  I joined Old 66 and drove across the broad, flat floor of the Fenner Valley. This was classic low desert: nothing but widely-spaced creosote shrubs, white bursage, stunted cactus and tiny clumps of desiccated grasses.

  At the wide spot in the road that had once been Fenner, old 66 began to rise, paralleling the Santa Fe tracks that were just to the south of the road. Near the top of the grade, Goffs Butte rose to the south. Shortly afterward, I could see what remained of the town of Goffs, once a major stop for the Santa Fe Railroad. In the old days, locomotives that had helped push the freight trains up the grade from Smoke Tree were disconnected, shunted onto a siding and turned around to return to Smoke Tree. Locomotives that would continue to take the train west would replace water that had been used getting the steam engines up the grade. Now the railroad’s presence was reduced to a huge pile of railroad ties, their creosote coatings glistening in the sun.

  I passed the turnoff to Lanfair Valley and the now-abandoned, Spanish-style schoolhouse, one side of its tile roof collapsing. I crossed the tracks and drove past the tiny store and gas station. When I reached the top of the climb to the east of town, I reached down and switched the fuel supply from gasoline to propane, then turned downhill until I came to Arrowhead Junction.

  I pulled off the highway to check on Mr. Stanton. I found him sitting on his rocker in the shade under the station’s overhang. He waved when I got out of the truck.