The Week That Almost Wasn't (Memoir Bridge Nov 30-Dec 4)

The Week that Almost Wasn't--Nov 30-Dec 4

 These few days were simply unreal. I actually wrote several pages in my journal about the events, mostly after the fact. That mess was too voluminous to include in the blog. I decided the best way to cover the days was in excerpts from my semi-completed big memoir book --it is book length and for now unpublished but a few have read so here not quite in an nutshell you have it!.  Yes, I'd throw that book across the room too...but unless memory has failed, it  really happened. And The Powers be thanked I am here almost 60 years later to tell it. 

Part One--The Night

On Nov 30, I went to bed early. Jackiefur had tetanus and was nearing the end. Later that night I awoke and heard Dad ranting to Mom about his horrible worthless kids, especially his selfish, careless, immoral slut of a daughter. We were both labeled “donkey murderers.” The venom, anger and hate in his voice were more than I could stand. The  words and tone sounded absolutely real and genuine.

That old .32 hung at the foot of my half poster bed. How could they have never seen a hazard there-to all of us?  Shaking with my feelings, I got up and dressed, really intending to take the pistol to the bedroom and end this whole catastrophe for once and for all. But something stayed my hand. Instead I got my gray coat and slipped silently out the back door. It was a damp, chilly night and little Ringo went with me as I walked down and stood under the Bitter Creek Bridge. I listened to the river, high from all the rain, roaring by just yards away. I felt utterly worthless, unspeakably desolate and absolutely alone. The heavy coat would become soaked quickly and drag me down; a few instants of cold, choking terror and then silence and peace. I wanted them so badly; was it badly enough? 

Then I turned my head to look west and saw a light. To save me, my guardian angel guided my steps that way. There sat the work train on the siding just above the arroyo. I slipped up cautiously, peered in the windows. The radio was on and Dusty was at his desk, cussing to himself over the hated paperwork. I rapped lightly on the back door. He opened the front one and saw nothing. I tapped harder. This time he opened the right door and his eyes widened with surprise when he saw me. He reached to lift me up into the warmth and shut the door.

I huddled on the sofa, shivering and sobbing, blurted an incoherent tale, barely short of hysterical. He brought me a steaming cup of coffee in the “Monday Morning Cup” and I sipped it gratefully. Did I mention the possibility of murder and suicide? Probably, but I cannot recall. I was so close to being out of my head, raw and rattled, beyond desperate. In a few minutes he came and sat beside me, drawing me into his arms. The anguish faded as I warmed up and relaxed. His lips slid over my face. His cheek was rough pressing to mine and his eyelashes tickled against my face.  

I stirred in his embrace. “Why don’t you take that coat off? You’ll be awfully cold when you go back out.” So the coat came off and I dropped it across the arm of the sofa. As I leaned back against him, surrounded by warmth and security, I shoved the earlier horror into the back of my mind and blocked it there. The radio played on unheeded, until they played “One Has My Name” —the song that was on my gift record. “That’s my song,” he said with a touch of irony and I listened.

We gradually shifted positions until I was half reclining and he was leaning against and across me. “If anyone knew I had a girl here they’d accuse me of doing things I shouldn’t.” he said, irrelevantly. He got up to show me the glass ‘tulip’ panel in the kitchen. We came back and he laughingly said he just did that so I would move my coat. He stood behind me, holding me against him and suddenly lifted me and swung me up heels over head. I hung around his neck and laughed. He held me so easily, as if I did not weigh even 100 pounds. Then he laid me back on the sofa and settled himself beside me.  My glasses were set on the back and his eyes were smiling at me very close and very bright.

“You’re a trusting little thing,” he said. “No man has ever had you in a position like this before has he?” And then, “You’ve got a diamond in each eye.” He said I didn’t look comfortable and put a little round pillow under my head. He kissed me, nibbled, rubbed noses. I lay still, looking at him or at the ceiling, completely detached from reality. My blouse came untucked—it was the butterfly print red one and I had on my brown cord Capri’s –a warm hand slid around and under me ever so gently, lifted beneath my back and arched me up against the hard wall of his body. I sighed, shut my eyes, and felt his lips insistent against mine with teeth hard under their softness. I put my arm around him and felt the smooth warm-hard density of his back, side and shoulder.  The warm hand explored, fretting at elastic and cloth in its way. The snaps of my shirt snicked apart one by one. The butterflies were pushed aside as a work-hardened hand traced its path, caressed and sought. It shifted and I shuddered, tightened, but still answered the hungry demanding mouth that covered every inch of my face and throat.

None of this whole night was real as nightmare morphed into sweet but slightly overwhelming dream. Someone had to die this night—not ‘the real me’ and not my jailer, abuser, controller parent but one naïve 22 year old virgin who offered herself as a willing sacrifice to be ‘ruined’ in the traditional literary way! Looking back, it was absolutely revenge, the most perfect and fitting one I could ever devise or extract. One over-protected—or imprisoned --vestal virgin would be no more. She could not be reborn.

Part 2 The aftermath 

Jackiefur died that night. Not really; it was two nights later, but in my memory it always seemed to be the same day I returned home before dawn. Life is not that neat, poetic and balanced but I still picture it that way. It did happen, very soon. I used Annie who was my main ride at the time and Dad made me do the work of dragging the poor little donkey to the truck and then up over the lowered tailgate into the bed. He was stiff and probably 500 pounds or so, much harder than hoisting a big deer into a tree. I tightened my saddle as hard as I could and still the breast collar almost cut off Annie’s wind. The rope cut into my leg and made an ugly mark. I didn’t say a word that I recall but worked grimly, tears running cold down my face. There was some justice in it I suppose, and I did accept much blame for the tragedy. I finally got it done and later washed out the truck after Dad came back from dumping the carcass. I never knew where.

I had been packing more, the idea of going to California rooting deeper by the hour. I filled two apple boxes and wired them up.  I was surprised how much my suitcase would hold. I had no money but somehow I would manage.  If I stayed much longer I could not keep my promise--I had promised no guns and no river when I left before dawn that night-- as sacred as I felt it to be. Someone was still on the razor edge of death, very likely me.

Then it was Friday and about 12:30 I rode frantically north. Dusty was napping but he came out to greet me with more in his eyes than he would say. We spoke briefly and I said I'd be back. I knew the folks were going to Camp Verde to take Alex to the doctor. They left right after lunch. I snatched up my amber sugar bowl and the prettiest purple bottle from my new collection and rode. I climbed up the back way and knocked at the kitchen door.  He was tying things down so they could move the outfit and cut in the new cook car the next day. He put my gifts in a drawer under the sink. We drank coffee and talked. I was leaning in the door when he bent suddenly forward and kissed me.

A few minutes later Phillips drove up and he had to go out and talk to him. I sat in the swivel chair in front of the desk and then a letter caught my eye.  I picked it up and read it and a shocking horrid awareness swept over me. Agreement or not he was still not truly single and was also someone’s father, --the man in whose arms I had lain. I can’t recall what it said--nothing very important but just talking of family and addressed with a stupid pet name like “Dear Poopsie.”

When he returned I did not speak of it but he sensed my mood had changed. We talked, I still seated in the chair and he on the sofa. I asked him why he wasn’t afraid of Dad after all the terrible stories he’d heard. “I’m not interested in him,” he replied. That was a telling comment, really. He knew it was mostly bravado and bull shit.

The time passed quickly and I reluctantly got up to leave. We stood in the corridor door and I clung to him, somehow hating to part even more than usual. We told each other to be good and to be careful and with a final half anguished kiss I scrambled down and rode home. I went back briefly a little later with little Dusty on the line to ask him to get me a timetable. He thought going to California might be a good idea and agreed to take me to Flagstaff and see me off when I asked.

Home again I began to worry desperately over that letter. Of course the enormity of what I had done had just begun to sink in. What if? Wouldn’t he be torn between a child in which he had invested nine years and one who was not yet a reality? To understand my panic, you need to remember more about my situation and ingrained mindset. Already steeped in profound mistrust and the threat of danger from ‘outsiders’ by the enmeshed family, I was also bound in oft-preached narrow minded attitudes of ‘sin’ and the toll for doing wrong. I’d been fed those old tales meant to keep girls ‘good’ that once a guy gets what he is after, he will drop you. This all raced through my mind. As an unwed mother I would be a pariah and worse in the family and if not thrown out, would likely wish I would be.  All my old insecurity and lack of confidence, the residue of a thousand brow beatings and fault finding and berating about my weaknesses, laziness, worthless and wicked ways, washed over me. How could anyone really care for such a pathetic one as me?

When we got back from the pasture I biked over. The light was on but Spinner was gone. I opened the corridor door and went in. There was a big brown envelope on the desk. I picked up a pen and wrote a frantic note on it. Fearful he would return, I scribbled and fled. I can shake my head at my drama now but it was so real at that moment. I admitted to reading the letter and said he had to answer my one very direct question or I’d be dead on Monday. I had trouble falling asleep that night and was awake to see Spinner slide quietly down the street about 10:00. It was a good thing The Grand Canyon was late that night.

I rode out the next morning, scared to look in the message can. But I found a note: “You be here Monday. I love you. One of three that was there I think.”  It required no translation for me to understand and I was reassured.