Redeye (3 page)

Aunt Sallie has entreated me to care for my soul with daily Bible reading and prayer, because the spiritual status of the West is not clear. There are pockets of lawlessness here yet still. And of course, along beside the lawless, stand some men of great faith and daring. There are churches in every town and even on the train I met two Mormon missionaries who explained how God
has called all Mormons west to establish a kingdom. I have never been sure what the Mormons believe, but the young men assured me that I should find out all I can about the Mormon way. I must say that I was impressed with these two young gentlemen, especially as they compared with some of the more rustic “cowboys” who began appearing here and there as we continued west. I was impressed that the young Mormon missionaries in no way coaxed me unfairly, and isn't it such a great example of common sense to send missionaries among
your own peoples
as well as to, say, China?

Finally, we beheld the mighty mountains of the western states and territories, characterized by such splendor they can never be described by word but must be experienced in the very air, felt from a great distance, for it is at a great distance that they stand large and looming as if they were close at hand. But upon traveling several miles, there they stand, yet, still as if close at hand. Another mile of travel and they seem to
still
stand where they stood before—at yet the same distance away.

And the air between you and the great mountains is so clear—so void of mist, so clear that it seems to have a life all its own. No fog, no smoke. No hazy mystery of the foothills that lie far, far behind me. Here instead is a shining clarity, and as we do finally approach the base of these mighty bulwarks, we find that the North Carolina mountains are, in comparison, mere hills, as Mr. Perkins—the gentleman who wore his maroon-colored shirt and maroon-colored tie every day on the train—said over and over. Mr. Perkins convincingly proclaims that the West will fulfill the
last great hope of America, and in twenty short years, by 1911, through the miracle of irrigation, the great dry western desert will become teeming gardens of more vegetables and fruit than we can ever use. That is when, perhaps, my little sister Content, and more of my aunts, uncles, and cousins may follow Uncle P.J., Aunt Ann, Grandma Copeland, and the children out into this great adventure called the Wild West.

———

There is a notable difference in the folks out west. I see this on our stops. Their clothes are dusty; their eyes, bloodshot; and there is a roughness and a sense of dark, hard, secret experience about many of them—whole families even. I have seen whole families
living
in dirty cluttered wagons that have wooden sides
and
wooden tops, so that they become permanent living quarters.

But the clean air sings, and dark shadows of clouds traverse the mountainsides as would shadows of giant flying carpets. And how is it possible that for centuries, only savages have been heirs to such air electric, mounts gigantic?

And the nights—surprisingly cool.

. . . Already residing in Mumford Rock in the year 1891 was a youth of unknown origins, young
BUMPY COPELAND
, an orphan adopted by Star Copeland's uncle,
P.J. COPELAND
, saddle and furniture maker, who traveled west from North Carolina years earlier with his fair wife Ann and settled near Mumford Rock.
Bumpy apparently fell from a westward-traveling wagon around the year 1877 and was found in good shape . . .

I work for Mr. P.J. Copeland—Pleasant James. He makes saddles and furniture mostly. Now he's starting into the corpse business. Him and Mr. Blankenship. Except they don't plan to call them corpses when women are around. They said they'll call them trees.

I'm probably sixteen now. Or fifteen. Mr. and Mrs. Copeland—Ann—took me in when I was little. I'm pretty happy here. I got my own room. Some of the things I do around the house and store is haul water from the windmill every morning, feed the chickens, milk the cows, feed the horses, black shoes for church, cut Brother's hair, grease the wagons, tend the garden, whitewash the chimney rock, and wind the clock.

Sometimes people stay in Mr. Copeland's shop all night for five bits. This man that just stayed had a dog named Redeye that would run get a rubber ball, but the man had to jerk him with a long rope around his neck to keep him from jumping on Soldier. He said he was training him to halt. Redeye's eye was scary. If I'd seen him out somewhere and I had a gun I'd shot him. Anyway, the man and Mr. Copeland sat in the saddle shop and talked about Mormons and the war. His name was something Pittman and he rode the biggest mule I ever seen, and had a new Hotchkiss rifle in his scabbard.

———

Mr. Copeland is building a hearse. It'll be black, with silver on it, and it'll be used to haul around corpses plus some of the grievers and it will have a big sign on the side which says the name of their corpse company: Modern Mortuary Science Services, Incorporated. I'll get to help embalm people, I think, except they ain't told me for sure. I hope I do. I don't think I'll mind it.

Mr. Copeland has just got back from Denver with Mr. Blankenship. They learned about embalming. They brought back a grip full of gear and Mr. Copeland learned how to be a surgeon while he was up there because as soon as he got back he sewed up the hole that had come in Grandma Copeland's cheek where she had to hold a washcloth every time she ate.

Anyway, first I heard of the explosion plan, I'd been helping one of the Mexicans repair Mr. Copeland's windmill. On the way back to the house I saw Mr. Blankenship get out of his buggy and go in the saddle shop. Instead of taking the path in front of the saddle shop I took the one behind it and stopped and sat down at my spot right up against where the boards don't meet the ground. I heard a match strike on the anvil.

“The first move,” said Mr. Blankenship.

. . . Others making up the cast of the drama leading to the killings of '92 include
ZACK PAULSON
, cowboy, and
WILLIAM BLANKENSHIP
, community leader and developer of the scenic, natural, cultural,
anthropological, and touristic resources of Mumford Rock and her region. Copeland and Blankenship (and vigorous and farsighted organizations such as the Denver and Santa Fe Railroad Coopany) figured in the modernization of the West in the latter part of the last century through their contributions to the “civil” in civilization. Without Blankenship's leadership surely our territory would “lag” in the march out of the old century into the new . . .

“The first move,” said Mr. Blankenship, blowing out, “is to get a dead man to explode. It's already happened in Arizona. One exploded down there.”

“That's Arizona,” says Mr. Copeland. “It ain't happened around here.”

“Well, it will now. If you serious about all this. And if we've come this far, then we ought to do it up right . . . I say. Do it up right, pard—at the train station.”

Then Mr. Blankenship says that when somebody's husband dies they can say something like: “Now, Mrs. Brown, we can certainly preserve Mr. Brown the tried and true way, on ice. There is no problem there, as far as it goes. But there is one potential drawback. There is one thing that can happen on the funeral day if the weather is real hot and you got a real fine, airtight coffin like P.J. Copeland builds. I don't want to upset you, Mrs. Brown, but this has happened in the past, in Arizona, and recently right here in Mumford Rock as you recall, at the train station. The
prevention
for that, Mrs. Brown, is a kind of
drying out
, called
embalming
. And now Mr. Copeland and I have studied the procedure in mortuary college in Denver. It's called ‘the modern method.'”

Mr. Copeland says, “But it
ain't
drying out.”

“It is in a way.”

“It don't seem like drying out to me.”

“Well, you get rid of the blood—that's what I mean by drying out.”

“I guess if you stopped there it would be drying out, but you—”

“You don't want to tell Mrs. Brown every damned step of all the procedures, P.J. You got to get some business sense.”