Redeye (7 page)

The cabin belongs to Mr. Merriwether and sits on a knoll between Uncle P.J.'s saddle shop and the Merriwether Ranch. The Merriwether Ranch is the normal one hundred sixty acres, with a long low sprawling house, a huge hay barn, two windmills, three other outbuildings, pens, cattle, sheep, hay, Mexicans, cowboys, horses, and occasional Mescadeys. Somewhere I got the idea that Mescadeys were little worrisome animals. I didn't realize they were members of the Mescadey Indian tribe.

And beyond the ranch flows the wide, swift Bright Owl River, sparkling in the sunlight as it jumps among rocks and boulders.

And then across the river is the mighty Mesa Largo.

Behind my cabin runs a lovely stream with rocks and pebbles, Bobcat Creek. Trees grow all along the creek bank and up in the yard, cottonwoods, tall for this valley—short compared to the long-leaf pine back home—though some are gnarled and bent over. From the little front porch I can also see three mountain peaks in the distance—Johnson's Point, the Steeple, and Captain's Rock. Those are beyond the town to the north, and below their high bare or snow-capped peaks the mountains are green. Toward the mesa, the land is more bare, more desolate. It is all breathtaking, and produces in the viewer a sense of boundless, open, expansive freedom that speaks of the mysterious handiwork of God. And a kind of scary openness where anything can happen. It's almost as if, out here, God is farther away than back home.

The cabin itself has two rooms. A bedroom and the main room, in which Uncle P.J. has installed a shiny new three-eye Premier cookstove. I'm almost sure Aunt Sallie sent him the money to buy it, because she and I had talked about the need for such a commodity before I traveled west.

When Aunt Ann and I finished our four-day task of setting up the cabin, the floor was scrubbed smooth and the windows shone clean and clear behind fresh, ironed pink-and-white checked curtains. In one window is an old blue cracked vase, filled with thistles, which like other dry things out west—like that ancient mesa visible through the same window—seem to possess an
inward, cracked, and weathered beauty you thought not possible, but somehow find working on you, in a positive way. And how it is that the dry, the expansive, the cracked, the dusty, and the bright all work in a positive way I do not yet understand.

Also about the West I must say this: a new place makes a new person—if one but follows the lead of God. Somehow I feel that out west I am able to be more honest than I was at home, more open to the new. And I feel that as Aunt Sallie promised, adventure awaits. And it is a good place to heal from the sorrow and sadness brought by Mama's passing.

Above the fireplace we hung a beautiful Indian headdress from the plains, and on the wall nearby we placed a match holder formed into the heads of two eagles.

In one corner is a washstand, and behind it hangs fishing tackle. Above the back door is a rifle on a gun rack and over the front door is a pair of antlers from a buck shot by Bumpy. Uncle P.J. insisted I have a rifle here, as I learned to shoot back home. I agreed without hesitation, and have already seen in these few short days that some activities considered unladylike in North Carolina are accepted without reservation in the West. What a relief, in a way. The greatest relief is that a corset is not mandatory daily wear, a relief I never dreamed I would live to experience. And women out here are not bound to riding sidesaddle.

In the bedroom is a narrow pine plank bed. We first scrubbed it, then filled it with fresh, soft pine boughs fetched by Bumpy, and over them spread canvas from a wagon sheet that Aunt Ann had washed and boiled and pounded until clean and sweet.
Against the wall beside the bed is my dresser, and above that, my mirror, made of course by Uncle P.J.

Doesn't it sound grand?

Aunt Ann had two spare rolls of light yellow wallpaper with a peacock pattern, and with that I have made a border about eighteen inches from the ceiling. This brightens the room considerably.

I have a set of shelves on which my china and glass treasures will be arranged, and a cabinet bookcase made from an old walnut bedstead that was a relic of the Mountain Meadow Massacre—or maybe it was the Mountain
Meadows
Massacre. In any case it was a horrid event in which wild Indians murdered people from a wagon train. It happened many years ago.

Uncle P.J. made the bookcase just for me. In it I have the few books I brought, but as I order more, it will fill up. And yesterday, after a long day of her own work, Aunt Ann brought me a set of dishes, a supply of coffee and tea, a cured ham, and two dozen ears of corn for hominy. The tea is for special occasions—it's called “Afternoon Delight,” and is from
England.

And just out back is a sturdy new outhouse. The old one was in need of repair, so Uncle P.J. simply hooked two mules to it, pulled it away, and constructed a new one.

I have written Aunt Sallie about all of this, much as I just described. I related to her Aunt Ann's story about their early hardships on the trip out, hardships we had never heard about—the stillbirth of a child, and Grandma Copeland's illness. Aunt Ann told me all about it while we set up the cabin. At first she was reluctant to talk about those hardships, but I persisted, and she
told me these few details. I think Aunt Ann may be like Mama was. Mama never saw me as grown up, even after I got grown—that is, to talk to me straight on like a woman.

Uncle P.J. has procured for me an absolutely grand employment, as promised, on the Merriwether Ranch nearby—caring for Mr. and Mrs. Merriwether's two little girls, Melinda and Elisabeth, ages four and eight. My care for the children will be in exchange for meals while I'm there, clothing made by a Mexican woman who works for them, and a small wage. No one has used the word “governess,” but that is almost what I will be.

———

This morning after chores around the cabin, I waited on my little porch for Bumpy. Although the Merriwether Ranch is within walking distance, Bumpy was to deliver me by wagon for my first day. He also works for Mr. Merriwether on occasion. I sat on the porch waiting, absorbing through my pores the energy of the wide-open blue sky and the thin Colorado air. God went to majestic geographic lengths in the West that He never attempted in the South. How could I explain other differences? In the South there is a loaming, a gloaming, a loss, a pain that allows us to laugh and scoff at the North. Out here there is no North.

Sitting beside Bumpy in the wagon, riding to the ranch, I asked him about these people by whom I was about to be employed. I already knew from Aunt Ann that they were serious, good people—Quakers. Bumpy told me about Mr. Merriwether's quietness, his short stature, his “strutting like a bantam rooster,” and his large library.

“Do you like him?” I asked. I have already come to trust Bumpy. He is a wiry little fellow who blushes quite easily. Aunt Ann confided that he was an abandoned child. Someone left him behind in town when he was little more than a baby boy and he has yet to mention his past to me. Uncle P.J., in addition to feeling sorry for him, decided that he might be a good worker.

“I like him all right. He works hard. He don't talk too much, and you ain't supposed to talk when you eat at his table. Have you ever met a Quaker?”

“No, but I've heard that they like to just sit quietly without a preacher during their church services and that they refuse to fight in a war.”

“They're different than the Mormons,” says Bumpy.

“I met some very nice Mormon missionaries on the train.”

“There's a whole town of them across the river. Beacon City. Some people don't think they're so nice. Some people do. They come over from Beacon City and sell things.”

“I hear they've been unreasonably persecuted for a long time.”

A beautiful deer bolted across the road in front of us, then another.

When we arrived in the yard at the Merriwether Ranch, several friendly dogs rushed out, leapt across an irrigation ditch lined with cottonwoods, and met us. Beneath the tall cottonwoods hung two white rope hammocks and at the end of the line of trees along the irrigation ditch stood two large white tents. Bumpy said visitors to the ranch are not uncommon and often stay in the tents.

Mrs. Merriwether herself was waiting for us, standing on the porch—a low porch, right on the ground, running the entire
length of the house. She stepped into the yard to greet us. She is a short, round-faced, happy-acting woman who straightaway insisted that I call her Libby.

Thank goodness Melinda and Elisabeth, with little round faces like their mother's, are well behaved. They followed us playfully and happily, and I immediately formed an attachment to each of them.

I met the smiling, rotund Mexican cook, Juanita, who was busy setting the table in the dining room—a quite extraordinary dining room, long and narrow, rather like a large railroad car, with a bench running around most of it, coat pegs on the walls, and shelves with kettles and pots, and four big dark bronze coal oil lamps hanging from the ceiling.

The cookstove was in the corner, and beside a door leading into what appeared to be an office, a fiddle hung on the wall. “Who plays the fiddle?” I asked.

In charge of the sprawling Merriwether Ranch is none other than the energetic Quaker and well-rounded (fiddle, archaeology, horse breeding) Abel Merriwether. Merriwether's family migrated . . .

“Mr. Merriwether,” said Libby. “Except only occasionally now. He's gotten all caught up in exploring the mesa. He's been drawing
that map there—of the mesa.” A large, detailed map with numbers was on the wall. “But Juanita's little boy, Jose Hombre, loves to sing and I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to hear him before long.”

The dining room windows are deep set in light stone masonry, and the dark wooden walls are decorated with squaw dresses and sixteen Navajo Indian blankets. Libby explained that Navajo Indians are numerous in the area and long ago established sixteen different clans, each with a different symbol: bear clan, wolf clan, eagle clan, and so on. She said she had been unaware of the complexity of Indian customs and culture before she traveled west and met Mr. Merriwether, and through him, several Navajo and Mescadey Indians who are now her friends.

Then, in walked Mr. Merriwether himself, short and dusty, intense, hat in hand. He's the first man I've seen out here who takes his hat off inside the house. A welcomed sight! He introduced himself to me. His eyes, under bushy brows, glitter with what can only be called intellectual intensity. He joined our little tour, along with the children, now in my care during the hours I am on the ranch grounds—and what a good place to find activities for children. Educational.

It is immediately apparent that Mr. Merriwether is an expert on the ways of Indians. There are, in fact—as he pointed out to me—
many
different tribes of Indians in the West, and he indicates that there are great differences among these tribes. In all my previous experiences at home in North Carolina and on the trip out here, Indians have been considered and pronounced as
savages or worse and what I have
seen
supports this perspective. Mr. Merriwether says Indian culture is as complex as that of the ancient Egyptians, or any other culture.