When they were done, I thanked them for letting me sit in.
“I’ve got to get down the hill. I’ll be out next Saturday night. See you next Sunday morning, if that’s okay.”
“Glad to have you, Aeden.”
“Ask a favor?”
“Sure, Mr. Medrano.”
“Catch a ride?”
“Certainly.”
He turned to John.
“Finish something in Parker, pick up couple tools. Back next Saturday, get started.”
“That sounds good.”
“We went out and got in my car. We drove all the way to Smoke Tree without saying a word.
I broke the silence when we got into town.
“Where do you want out?”
“South end.”
“How are you going to get to your place?”
“Hitch.”
“I can take you.”
“Hitching’s fine.
Another favor?”
“Sure.”
“Ride back with you next week?”
“Where should I pick you up?”
“Klinefelter.”
“I’ll be coming through in the early evening.”
“Pull in under the big salt cedars. Meet you.”
I drove through Smoke Tree to the south edge of town, and Joe got out.
“Thanks.”
He was already walking down Highway 95 toward Parker when I turned around and headed home.
Chapter 10
Smoke Tree, California
And the mountains
Of the Eastern Mojave Desert
June 17, 1961
Aeden Snow
On Saturday evening, I was on my way out of town before sundown, but not by much. By the time I reached Klinefelter, twilight was settling over the desert. I pulled off the road and parked next to the two large salt cedars where the southeast corner of a little cove created by the low hills cupped a decaying motor court.
I didn’t see Joe. I waited for a moment with the motor running but he didn’t appear.
I switched off the engine and got out. The twilight desert air was like warm water. There was no wind at all. There were no cars passing on 95 and no trains on the Santa Fe tracks. Highway 66 was too far away for the sound to carry to where I was.
As much as I was enjoying the stillness, I did want to get on up the road. I didn’t know whether to walk back over the hills toward the spring and see if Joe was there or just drive away. I was trying to make up my mind when I heard a quiet voice.
“Ready?”
Startled, I turned quickly.
Joe was leaning against the fender of my car, not five feet from where I was standing. I had not heard him coming. Not a sound.
He had a canteen slung over one shoulder and a canvas knapsack over the other. I could see the handle of a hammer sticking above the flap.
“Scared me, Mr. Medrano.”
“Ready when you are.”
We got in the car pulled onto the highway in the gathering darkness. Once again, neither of us spoke during the drive.
When we reached the turn off for Cedar Canyon Road, I began to slow.
“Going Carruthers Canyon?”
“Yes.”
“Drop me here.”
“I’ll take you all the way over, Mr. Medrano.”
“Rather walk.”
I stopped the car.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Ask.”
“Did you hitchhike to Klinefelter?”
“Walked.”
“Through town?”
“Base of the Sacramentos.”
“Didn’t you get thirsty? You’ve only got that little canteen.”
“Water there, know where to find it.”
“So, you walked all that way and now you’re going to walk again?”
“Rested while you drove.”
He got out of the car.
“Tomorrow.”
I noticed he didn’t walk down the road. In a few moments he was swallowed by the Joshua Trees
On Sunday morning, I was up well before dawn. I fired up the Coleman lantern and started a fire in the wood-burning stove. I filled the blue porcelain coffee pot with water, set it on the stove for cowboy coffee and mixed up a big batch of buckwheat pancake batter. While I waited for the stove to get hot, I sat at the kitchen table reading “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the book that had just won the Pulitzer prize.
When I could feel heat from across the room, I got up and cooked a big breakfast. I put everything on a platter and carried it to the table, along with a cup of coffee. By the time I finished my breakfast and two more cups of coffee, I had been so completely drawn into Harper Lee’s world I had to force myself to close the book.
I washed my dishes and banked the fire before I left.
There was a hint of light in the sky above the cut canyon as I drove off. I was climbing the last of the switchbacks to the Box S as the sun rose, ready to get to work. I hoped I wasn’t too early.
I needn’t have worried. Joe Medrano was outside hammering two by tens into forms that looked like book cases. I parked and walked over. He handed me a saw, and I went to work. After Joe finished nailing together four of the forms, he stood up, pointed at the wheelbarrow and spoke for the first time.
“Make adobe in there. Pour it in the forms.”
“Make it from what?”
“Come on.”
We got into the ranch pickup, a nearly new Ford, and drove down to the edge of Watson’s wash. Joe got out and dropped the tailgate. There were two shovels in the back.
“Could use dirt up the hill. Sand, clay and straw mixed are better.”
We spent all that morning shoveling sand and hauling it up to the ranch. By noon, we had a substantial pile. We covered it with tarps. Didn’t want to have to chase our sand back down the hill if the wind came up.
As we were piling rocks on the tarps, Kiko called us in the house for sandwiches, potato salad and iced tea.
We heard the Jeep pull up outside. John Stonebridge came in and joined us at the kitchen table.
“That’s quite a pile of sand out there.”
“Done with sand,” said Joe. “Need clay.”
“Where do we get that?”
“Ivanpah Valley.”
“That’s a long way.”
“Best clay.”
We thanked Kiko for lunch and drove the pickup west on Cedar Canyon Road. When we rose out of the canyon, we could see the hump of Cima Dome to the west. We drove down the hill through the Joshua trees, creosote, sage and yucca until the road crossed the Union Pacific tracks. We turned right on Kelso-Cima-Road and then took Morning Star Mine Road down into the Ivanpah valley.
It was harder work getting a load of clay in the back of the truck than getting a load of sand. When we had shoveled in all we could fit, we covered the bed with a tarp, tied it down and drove back to the ranch.
By the time we finished unloading, it was late afternoon.
Joe spoke for the first time since lunch.
“Need more clay, but make some bricks now.”
He picked up a shovel and explained as he worked.
“Six shovels sand, two shovels clay, couple handfuls straw.
Keep doing it.”
When the big wheelbarrow was three quarters full, he poured in some water and handed me a hoe.
“Your turn.”
I started mixing while Joe kept adding water. It wasn’t long before we had a batch of very thick mud.
“Shovel into the forms.”
When I had filled two of the forms, Joe took a piece of wood and smoothed the mud.
Kiko came out of the house with a pitcher of lemonade. She was backlit by the reddish tint of the sun sinking behind the Marl Mountains.
“Made twenty four bricks,” I told her.”
“How many do you need?”
“Nine hundred eighty eight more,” answered Joe.
She poured us each a glass o
f lemonade.
After we finished our drinks, we pulled the forms off the adobe and knocked the leftover mud from the forms with trowels while Kiko watched.
Joe stood up and pointed his trowel at me.
“Adobe man now.
More tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
At John’s insistence, I stayed over for dinner. After coffee and desert, I headed back to Lee’s camp. I was so wiped out when I got back, I didn’t even take my clothes off. Just lay down on the cot and fell asleep.
I was stiff and sore when I got up in the dark to start a fire in the stove. After breakfast, I headed back to the Box S. We hauled clay from the Ivanpah Valley until lunch and then set about making bricks in earnest.
By the time the sun went down, we had hundreds of bricks spread over the hardpan. But we needed hundreds more.
“Next Sunday?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Okay.”
I drove back to Lee’s camp. I removed the hot coals from the stove, dumped them behind the outhouse and poured water on them. Then I packed up all my stuff and locked up the house.
As I drove down the Lanfair Valley toward Goffs in the darkness, my arms, shoulders and back all ached. I was going to be stiff and sore again in the morning.
Some days off!
When I got home, I left my boots on the patio. Mom and Dad were watching Tales of Wells Fargo. I was glad to see Dad home. Between his unpredictable schedule and my work, we hadn’t been home at the same time for quite a few days.
Mom told me there was leftover roast beef in the refrigerator. I made a huge sandwich and ate it standing at the sink. When I was done, I went into the living room and sat down on the asbestos tile floor, careful not to touch the furniture or lean on the walls.
Dad got up and turned off the television.
“Looks like you got in a tussle with a mud puddle. Looks like the mud puddle won.”
“I was helping Joe Medrano make adobe bricks at the Box S.”
“Joe’s working at the Stonebridge place?”
“Yessir. He’s building a room addition.”
“Why in the world does John need another room? He’s been rattling around in that big house ever since his father died.”
“He has a guest. A young woman. He’s building the room for her. Says he doesn’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
“Wrong idea about what?”
“About why she’s there. That’s the way he explained it.”
“Does this young woman have a name?”
“Yes, Mom. Her name is Kiko Yoshida.”
“That’s Japanese?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And John knows her from where?” asked Dad.
“He met her in Baker.”
“She lives in Baker?”
“Nossir, she was passing through.”
“When was this?”
“In March.”
“And this Japanese woman has been at the Box S ever since?”
“Yessir. And Mr. Stonebridge would like to ask a favor of you and Mom. He wants you not to say anything about her being there.”
“Did he say why?”
“He says when he met her, she was on the run from something or someone. She hasn’t told him what it is, but he says she’s very afraid. He wants as few people as possible to know she’s at his place.”
“But he’s building a room for her so people won’t get the wrong idea? This is confusing. Can you tell us more?”
I related the story John told me about meeting Kiko in Baker and bringing her home with him. I also told Mom and Dad about Kiko’s unwillingness to go to Barstow with John to buy clothes.
When I finished, Dad said, “Very mysterious. But he told you it was okay to tell your Mother and I about this person?”
“He trusts you to keep it a secret. He doesn’t want anyone else in Smoke Tree to know about her. Says he’s not worried about people out his way, but he thinks town people gossip too much.”
“Well, he’s right about that.
We’ll keep this between us, but I hope she isn’t on the run from the law.”
“Mr. Stonebridge doesn’t seem to think so.”
“What’s this woman like?” asked Mom.
“She’s very nice. And she’s beautiful.”
“Son, when you’re eighteen years old, all beautiful women seem nice.”
“Judy McPhearson didn’t.”
Dad laughed. “I stand corrected. Too bad Johnny Quentin couldn’t see that. He’d be getting ready to go off to college on scholarship like you.”
I hesitated, unsure how to proceed.
“Dad, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Did you know there was a Japanese internment camp near Parker during the war?”
“Yes, I knew about Poston. Everyone in Smoke Tree and Parker knew about it.”
“Did you think it was right, what the government did to those people?”
“Those people attacked us at Pearl Harbor, Aeden,” said Mom.
“No, no they didn’t, dear. We were attacked by the Japanese nation, not Japanese-Americans. The people at Poston were citizens. Most of them were born in this country. I never thought we had any right to put them in prison camps.”
“Dick, prison camp is far too harsh a term.”
“What else can you call a place with barbed wire fences, police dogs and gun towers?”
“A relocation camp.”
“And if those people had tried to relocate themselves to someplace else?”
“Well, I suppose they would have shot them. They couldn’t just let them roam around the country loose. They could have sabotaged things.”
“If that was the case, why didn’t we relocate all the Germans and Italians in this country? After all, we were at war with Italy and Nazi Germany too.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, I think if we had rounded up all those darned Italians, we wouldn’t have this big Mafia problem in this country today.”
“And the Germans?”
“Well, they were, they were...”
She hesitated.
“Is the phrase you’re looking for ‘more like us’?”
“Yes. There, I’ve said it. And I don’t apologize for saying it.”
“As you can see, Ade, your mother and I disagree about this.”
“I can tell.
Can I ask you another question? One I feel funny asking you?”
“I have an idea what it’s going to be, but go ahead.”
“Since you thought it was wrong, did you say anything about it?”
“To my shame, I said nothing.”
“Why not?”
“When the war broke out, I was twenty five years old. I was working as a butcher at Milner’s. Your mom and I had only been married two years. I was trying to get a job on the railroad, but the country was slipping back into the Depression and I couldn’t get hired.
Right after Pearl Harbor, Lee Hoskins and I went down to enlist. When I took my physical, the doctor said I had a heart murmur. The army wouldn’t take me. I went to Las Vegas and tried to sign up there. I failed the physical again. So my best friend went off to the war, and I stayed here. Thank God, Lee survived the war. I don’t think I could have lived with myself if he had died while I was safe at home.
I’ve always felt guilty about not serving. I don’t think the heart murmur is anything serious, but it kept me out of the army. And because so many young men were signing up or being drafted, the Santa Fe needed trainmen. In ordinary times, the Santa Fe doc would have disqualified me because of my heart. But there was nothing ordinary about those times. The company waived my condition and put me to work. I’ve had this good job ever since.
I benefited twice. While other men lost their lives, I didn’t go to war. And, I got this job That’s why I didn’t think I had any right to speak up. I kept my mouth shut. It was that simple. I should have had the courage to speak up
anyway because I knew what was going on was just flat wrong, but I didn’t.”
“I’m not trying to criticize, Dad. I’m just trying to figure out what happened and why I never heard about it. I mean, this was in our back yard and everybody just forgot about it? Like it had never happened?”
“Aeden, you’re going to find that Americans are very good about forgetting things they don’t want to remember.”
Chapter 11
Las Vegas, Nevada
June, 1961
Eddie Mazzetti’s phone rang at five o’clock in the morning.
“Eddie here.”
“Send a car.”
Eddie recognized that voice. A voice he really didn’t want to hear.
“Send a car where, Thomaso?”
“The airport, stupid. Christ, you think I’m in the lobby?”
“Sorry. Half asleep here.”
“And I haven’t been to bed yet. Send somebody.”
“I’ll have a car there right away.”
“I brought someone with me.”
“Good looker?”
“You think Salvatore Lupo’s good lookin’, that’s your problem.”
Eddie was silent for a moment.
“Thomaso, you think it’s a good idea to bring a guy the law’s lookin’ at real hard to the Serengeti?”
Thomaso’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“You questionin' my judgment here?”
“No, Thomaso, of course not, but...”
“But nothin’. And fix us each up with a suite.”
“It’s Saturday mornin’, Thomaso. They’re all full.”
“So, kick some people out.”
“These are high rollers. Guys who drop fifty, hundred yards a day in the casino. You wanna kill the goose lays them golden eggs?”
Thomaso’s voice dropped so low Eddie had to strain to hear him.
“Listen, goombah, I’m tired. I flew out here to clean up a mess you made. See why you can’t find one miserable little slant-eyed whore. Already I have to tell you what to do. Now, I know you keep them showgirls out there in the best rooms so the big spenders can get a rod just watchin’ them walk by. So, kick a couple of them out.”
“Woman who directs the show will have a fit. High-strung French broad.”
Mojave Desert Sanctuary Page 16