Nahoonkara Read online

  nahoonkara

  a novel

  Etruscan Press

  Wilkes University

  84 West South Street

  Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766

  WILKES UNIVERSITY

  www.etruscanpress.org

  Copyright © 2011 by Peter Grandbois

  All Rights Reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Grandbois, Peter.

  Nahoonkara : a novel / by Peter Grandbois. -- 1st ed.

  First Edition

  11 12 13 14 15 5 4 3 2

  p. cm.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-9839346-8-4

  1. Magic realism (Literature) I. Title.

  PS3607.R3626N34 2011

  813'.6--dc22

  2010042720

  First Edition

  Cover photo by Gary Isaacs

  Design by Michael Ress

  Etruscan Press is committed to sustainability and environmental stewardship. We elected to print this title through Bookmobile on FSC paper that contains 30% post consumer fiber manufactured using biogas energy and 100% wind power.

  nahoonkara

  a novel

  Peter Grandbois

  etruscan press

  For Mom & Dad

  nahoonkara

  PROLOGUE | KILLIAN | Colorado

  ONE

  THE TAVERN | NARRATOR | Wisconsin

  SEVEN FALLS | NARRATOR | Colorado

  WHY WE FORGET | KILLIAN | Wisconsin

  THE PROCESS OF SEDIMENTATION | HENRY | Colorado

  ANGELS | ELI | Wisconsin

  THE SCHOOLMARM | ELIZABETH | Colorado

  THE SONG OF HIS PRESENCE | KILLIAN | Wisconsin

  MAD MEG | NARRATOR | Colorado

  THE FLIGHT OF THE HAWK | MEG | Wisconsin

  THE TREE OF LIFE | KILLIAN | Colorado

  TOAD | KILLIAN | Wisconsin

  THE CAMP | NARRATOR | Colorado

  THE LANGUAGE OF SELF | HENRY | Wisconsin

  THE MESMERIST | KILLIAN | Colorado

  THE CLARITY OF MYSTERY | ELI | Wisconsin

  THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BODY | ELIZABETH | Colorado

  THE COLORS OF THE RIVER | KILLIAN | Wisconsin

  TWO

  SPIDERS AND SHADOWS | WALLACE | Wisconsin

  HOW TO OPEN A NAPKIN | WALLACE | Colorado

  THE CITY OF MY SOUL | ELI | Colorado

  WHAT LOVERS SHARE | HENRY | Colorado

  THE SCENT OF DESPAIR | ELI | Colorado

  FINDING THE LOWLY | KILLIAN | Colorado

  SPINNING | ELI | Colorado

  THE POWER OF NAMES | ELIZABETH | Colorado

  DANDELION WINE | KILLIAN | Colorado

  RESURRECTION | WALLACE | Colorado

  THREE

  THE LONG SNOW | NARRATOR

  THE LARVAL DREAMS OF CHILDREN | NARRATOR

  THE SPEECH OF TREES | KILLIAN

  THE WARM BREATH | ELI

  VOICES | KILLIAN

  HANDS | NELL

  THE STAGES OF COAL | HENRY

  STORIES | Killian

  A THAWING AND A MELTING | NARRATOR/KILLIAN

  The Players

  The Gerrull Family

  Margaret “Meg” Gerrull married to Ernest Gerrull

  Children:

  1. Killian

  2. Eli married to Charlotte,

  Children: Alice and Jane

  3. Henry married to Elizabeth “Nell”

  Children: Henry Jr., Webb, and Molly

  4. Catherine

  Uncle Frank (Margaret’s brother)

  Uncle Robert (Margaret’s brother)

  Characters in Whitelake, Wisconsin (in order of appearance)

  Jake Mulenbach (suitor to Margaret)

  One-Eared Louie (a farmer)

  Doctor Apfelbeck

  Judge Salt

  Oscar Kepsky (furrier)

  Miss Olivia Hull (the schoolteacher)

  Bert Allar (farmer)

  Mr. & Mrs. Lukowicz (farmers)

  Father Blanchard

  Characters in Denver, Colorado (in order of appearance)

  Elizabeth “Nell” (adopted daughter of Bertram; Henry’s wife)

  Bertram Wheeler married to Blanche

  (bank owner and adoptive father of Elizabeth)

  Characters in Seven Falls, Colorado (in order of appearance)

  Peter Myers (first sheriff of Seven Falls, later owner of the general store)

  Carl Cluskey (owner of the dance hall) married to Ellen

  Children: Ruby (oldest of three)

  J.D. Demings (owner of the hotel) married to Mary

  Martin Watson (smithy)

  Tom Guller (saloon owner)

  Percy Hart (saloon owner)

  Lulu Giberson married to Galway

  Frank Foote (fiddle player)

  Jess Carter (midwife, lives in Montezuma)

  Wellington Taylor (the mesmerist)

  Antoinette (the mesmerist’s assistant)

  Wallace (sheriff of Seven Falls)

  Charlotte (a prostitute/dance hall girl; Eli’s wife)

  Dee (Ute girl saved by Wallace and given a new name by Elizabeth)

  Isaac Hamlin (an architect from San Francisco)

  The Miners of the “Mad Meg”

  Will Markey (foreman of the mine)

  Jim Leek (known as Big Jim)

  Silas Cordley

  Fitch Wise (an Englishman, beheaded in his tent)

  Wilbert Marshall (a drunk preacher)

  Tom Thomas (known as Double Tom)

  Ben York (attacks the Ute family along with an unnamed drifter)

  We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.

  —Aitareya Upanishad

  Life is a succession of habits, since the individual is a succession of individuals.

  —Samuel Beckett

  Also by Peter Grandbois

  The Gravedigger

  The Arsenic Lobster: A Hybrid Memoir

  nahoonkara

  a novel

  PROLOGUE

  Killian | Colorado

  I don’t know how many souls I have. Each day I wake and find another in the things that shine. And the marsh-grass behind my house shines, the wind that shakes the tavern roof at night shines, the leaves of the cottonwoods by the river shine with green fire. The shining confuses me until memories fall to dreams. But it doesn’t end there. The dreams mix with the moon and the clouds, the smell of wild ginger along the riverbank, the taste of dark loam beneath the porch. It’s the same whether I dream during the day or at night. And it doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or closed. Either way, it’s as if I don’t exist. Only memories of dreams remain. Like the beehive deep in the hollow log beyond the birch grove. The buzzing makes me feel less lonely. So I crawl up close to the blinding fire. The bees come and go, their legs taking the sun from their backs and shaping it, making more cells, more body. Or like the black river, colors mixed like licorice in sassafras, her body outlined upon the bottom, stones spilling from her pockets. The damp air the only smell left. A five-lined skink runs along the bank. I follow it. He stops on the mossy rock at the water’s edge, waits patiently for his evening meal. White foam rises upon the black, licking a branch from the shore. I watch it float, hoping to learn. But I can find no lesson worth remembering.

  And then, sometimes, the memories blend. One by one the bees sting me. I watch them writhing in the dirt. The skink’s tongue strikes the air, even as dusk falls, a harsh blow upon my skin. I peek inside the log once more just to be certain I’m dreaming. The skink is gone. I stand in its place upon the rock, searching the river’s roiling depths, arm stretching toward the icy water. It’s then I know that the bees lying silently on the ground will reemerge
from the cells of the hive, like Uncle Frank from the whale. And they do.

  ONE

  THE TAVERN

  Wisconsin

  Drift down through the snowy rooftop to the Wisconsin tavern of 1854 where his memories begin. Do you recognize the harsh tang of sweat, hops, and wood smoke? Do you hear the strum of the guitar and the breathy oom-pah-pah of the accordion? Do you see the smoke as it climbs the air, swirling about the nearly perfect web stretched between the roof beams? Do you feel the web vibrate, pulsing in time with the music, see the orb weaver in the center? She is there, waiting.

  Float through the buzz of people. Look at Meg, his mother. She turns bright red as she laughs. By ten, she’ll be red as a turnip and ready to pass out. Then she’ll sit and fan herself, swaying back and forth on the pine bench, her body a bellows moving the much needed air. And there’s his father, standing on the chair in the far corner, strumming his guitar, dark hair falling over gray eyes, sweat pouring from his face, big patches discoloring his armpits. Do you see the pain limning his mouth? Get a good look. He doesn’t show it often. And Uncle Frank standing beside him, his arm around his brother’s shoulders as he belts out another tune. Uncle Robert sits in another chair, working the accordion as if he’s conjuring spirits.

  How to find the beginning? Don’t bother. It would be better to sift through the smoke, follow the wisps, searching for a strand of story. Maybe you’ll find a strand that is rich. But then again, maybe not. Maybe it goes nowhere. Maybe the story you pull from the air is only important to the teller. Or maybe you believe that a piece of the whole lies in even the most insignificant shred. Take for example the story of Jake Mulenbach. He loved Killian’s mother. Still does, though he tries to hide it when he sits beside her children. Look. Now, as he brings the sodas to the children, as if he could still win them over, could still be their father. He walks with a limp. We don’t know why. He stops, sets the tray down and combs his hair over in a vain attempt to cover his bald spot. He is dressed in his Sunday best, though it’s Thursday. Look, but don’t be too obvious. He’s skittish, like a squirrel. And we want him to tell his story. Need him to. There. He sits on the bench beneath the farming tools, the tacks and harnesses, rakes and forks, the mill grinder and corn sheller. Look how he gathers the children about him. Seven-year-old Eli is there first, climbing into Jake’s lap, his blonde hair falling over his dark eyes. Eli loves stories. Needs them as we do, you’ll see. Five-year-old Henry approaches more cautiously. He doesn’t like Jake’s story because it doesn’t make sense. Henry asks too many questions, wanting to understand. He probably wouldn’t listen at all if it weren’t for the sodas. Do you see Killian, the oldest of the brothers, standing to the side, watching everything, one hand in his overall pocket, the other holding the hand of his baby sister, Catherine. He loves stories too, but he can’t help standing apart. He’ll take little Catherine closer, but he won’t sit. It’s how he is.

  Watch as Jake pulls out his corncob pipe, as he fills it and tamps it down. Listen as he talks of the labors of the past week, his worries for the coming summer, how he’s got to find a better way to irrigate. Be patient. It’s important to wait and watch. And most of all to listen to the roiling voices. You didn’t think there’d be just one, did you? Even if it looks and sounds like one voice, it’s just an illusion, a storyteller’s trick.

  “Tell us about the horses,” Eli says. Like so many children, he asks for the same story over and over, even though the fact that Jake never finishes it drives him crazy. It doesn’t matter. Killian will finish it for him, later. He’ll make up his own ending, and who is to say it didn’t actually happen that way?

  “You want that old story again?” Jake asks as he passes his pipe in front of his nose, inhaling deeply.

  The children nod. Killian watches. Catherine breaks from him and steps forward, eyes wide.

  “It all started,” Jake says, “the day your Uncle Robert gave me permission to visit his sister.” He puts the pipe in his mouth and puffs, considering. “And the very next day your father was over at her house, sitting high atop his horse and talking with her through the window. I saw the whole thing and couldn’t believe it.”

  “Was that horse one of the crazy ones?” Henry asks, though he knows the answer. He tucks himself in closer to Jake.

  “Your Uncle Robert had just got himself a young team after making a deal to buy this tavern,” Jake goes on. “He was so proud he took Meg, I mean your mother, for a ride down Main Street on a Sunday afternoon.” He puffs again before continuing. The rich, fudge scent mixes with wood smoke in the rafters. “They’d made a right on Second and run smack dab into your father’s pelt cart parked in front of Kepsky’s Furrier.”

  “This is the part I don’t like,” Henry says, covering his ears.

  Jake places a hand on Henry’s head, strokes his hair. “They say the moment your father came out of Kepsky’s the horses took fright.”

  “Why’d they do that?” Henry asks.

  We told you he would ask too many questions. Eli sits lost in the dream. Killian is already finishing the story in his head, imagining what he’ll tell the others.

  “I don’t know,” Jake replies. “All I know is that them horses swung around in front of Kepsky’s and tore off back the way they came, running right over Judge Salt’s lawn.”

  Meg returns from the kitchen, carrying a plate of raspberry pie to her husband as he sits playing the guitar. Jake follows her with his eyes. Turns his pipe around and around in his hands as if considering the shape of it.

  “Go on,” Eli says.

  Jake looks wide-eyed like he’s lost the thread of story, but then quickly takes it up again. “The buggy’s wheel hit the base of the Judge’s big elm and the buggy tipped, spilling your mother and Uncle Robert onto the lawn. Your mother hit her head on an exposed root and was knocked unconscious.”

  “Was she okay?” Henry asks.

  “She was fine,” Jake replies. “But I’ll get to her in a second. You see the horses didn’t stop there; they continued on down Spence Street, dragging the remains of the buggy behind them until they collided with John July’s barn. The lead horse fell down dazed, then got back up and ran into the barn again.”

  “What scared them so?” Henry asks.

  Jake stares into the cooling ashes of his pipe. “Your father was the first to arrive, he says finally. “He helped your uncle get your mother inside the Judge’s house. I was supposed to have come over for dinner that evening,” he says. “But of course, everything was cancelled.” He puffs hard in an attempt to rekindle the ashes.

  Henry takes a sip from his Birch Bark Soda. Catherine tries to steal it away until Killian steps forward and points out she has her own.

  “What happened to the horses?” Eli asks. His own soda has gone untouched.

  Jake knocks the cold ashes from his pipe onto the floor and sits staring into the smoky haze. “It don’t matter,” he says. “Not anymore it don’t. One thing can go and change everything until you don’t know who you are or what you could have been, until nothing seems to matter at all.”

  “Why don’t you just tell the story different next time?” Killian asks, but no one pays attention.

  Meg sits beside her husband as the musicians take a break. Eli kicks at the sawdust on the floor, frustrated he can never find out about the horses. Jake rises and goes over to talk with Uncle Frank by the kitchen door. Henry knocks over Eli’s soda in an attempt to steal Jake’s spot. Catherine sips her Sarsaparilla with brown-stained lips. She takes Killian’s hand once again, and Killian squeezes it to acknowledge her presence. He must do this because he is inhaling the fading fudge scent of Jake’s pipe. It drifts in the air about him, and he follows it upward. But when he peers through the rafters all he sees are the broken tendrils of web swaying back and forth as if pushed by an unseen hand.

  SEVEN FALLS

  Narrator | Colorado

  Here now is the recorded history of Seven Falls, how it came to be. T
he children are grown, though this story moves back and forth as you have probably already guessed. Watch how Henry passes through the Great Plains with Killian in tow. Look how he moves without surcease, hematite summoned by the magnetic call of the Rocky Mountains. The prairie means nothing to him. The rangy beasts. The dirty birds rising from the darkening plain. The ragged encampments of Indians or settlers. Only the red rock that lines the eastern wall of the Rockies sears itself into his dreams, night after night, as he crosses the plains.

  Let us traverse the spine of the world with them and dip down into a valley that stretches north to south. Its western edge running up against three mountains huddled together like witches over a cauldron.

  Two rivers flow between the mountains, joining at their base. Listen, as Killian names the river made from this confluence the Blue because of the pure color of its water. Hear, as he names the first and strongest of its tributaries Seven Falls for its steep passage and seven drops. The second Snake for its winding path.

  Do you see how Henry talks with the handful of Mexicans who make the valley their home, the way he finds common ground in the language of rock and earth? We drift up the three mountains together with them. We share their methods for testing the sheared rock. We follow trails of granite to denser minerals within, opening veins of galena, acanthite, and quartz, always looking for the telltale signs of silver.

  The Mexicans tell us that the three mountains are known together as “Tres Hermanas Arpías,” but that each also has its own name and the southernmost is called La Nana. What they don’t tell us is that the mountain’s full name is La Nana Bruja. But we know better. Henry lays his claim about a third of the way up the face of the Old Witch and names the mine Meg after his mother.

  Word of the mine’s potential spreads fast—as word of money always does—and caravan after caravan arrives filled with miners and store and saloon keeps ready to service them. Bankers, lawyers, blacksmiths, and even a few dancehall girls follow.