embryonic journey 2

        Redwood tables, cedar walls, leaded windows, oil lamps: the Captain Cook Taproom even offered a book exchange, dog-eared paperbacks and roach-eaten hardbacks, stacked in a bookcase varnished the color of cypress bark. Hank and Maxine's first date.
        A golden late afternoon.
        The bartender had recommended a special porter. He proudly uncapped the dark bottles and left two frosty mugs on the blue and white paiseley oil cloth. His patrons took first sips and smiled.
         "Ah yes," Hank said to him. "We will need more of this."
         Maxine smacked her lips. Fingerwiped her foamy moustache away. "Yup."
         Hank grinned grandly. Life, he had decided, was the perfect game.


                                                                                 *


        In a conspiratal voice, with a blush in her cheeks Maxine leaned close, looked right and left, then said: "Daddy knows about you, Greendozer. Don't worry. He knows the difference between an eco-terrorist and a fucking terrorist. He has friends,  two men who helped dynamite the King David Hotel in Palestine. Before there was a State of Israel."
         "Wow. I read about that in 'Thieves In The Night' by Arthur Koestler."
         "Koestler. Daddy knows him. I met him once. Oh, God, Daddy knows everybody!"
         "That makes me anxious to meet him."
         "You will," Maxine said with a glint in her eye.


                                                                                 *


        "So tell me about this protest," Maxine said after another porter.
        Hank gave her his standard thumbnail sketch. In 1778 vast timberlands were noted by Captain James Cook. During his stopover he cut down a giant tree for masts, spars, and wood to burn in his stoves. "The rest," he said. "Is History."
        "Meares Island is about wiped-out."
        "And that gauls me!"
        "I'm with you. One hundred percent." She squeezed his hand, was reminded of chokes on a baseball bat.
        He burped frothy.
    

embryonic journey 1

        "So you're the eco-terrorist," Nathan Silver said, handing Hank a tumbler full of Johnny Walker Black. "Greendozer, is it?"
        "That's what the Globe and Mail calls me."
        "I don't suppose you've read 'The Monkey-Wrench Gang'?"
         The two of them clinked glasses and toasted: Confusion to the Enemy!
         At length, Nathan added, "Her mother would rather Bernice marry one of the lads in my discussion group. A legal scholar. Someone who will make money."
         Hank was sprawled in an enormous winged chair opposite his host. With a shrug he replied, "So it goes."
         "Not at all. Make your move. Now."
         "Neither of us want marriage."
         "Who said anything about marriage?"


                                                                                    *


        As a teen Bernice fantasized being swept away by Ari Ben Canaan.
        A fictional hero.
        Then she grew up a bit and began adoring the author himself. Leon Uris was phographed in the Negev for the book jacket.  She began dreaming of meeting him and seducing him. Together they would make love in the land of milk and honey.
        The nattering schoolboys with their dreadful schmooze gave her headaches. They were always trying to impress her with what they knew of the Law and Torah. Finally she began throwing up when accompanied by just one of them, especially on a date, and the dork  would be reciting jokes from Playboy.
         It was in defiance that she joined a Red Cell.
         Within a month she had fucked three comrades.


                                                                             *


        Upon leaving the Silver estate Hank shook Nathan's hand again and confided: "I haven't blown up anything."
        "Yet!" Guffaws. And the swallows were flying to Capistrano.
        
                                        


         

lotus land 4

        On the ferry returning to Vancouver Island Hank vividly recalled Bernice's mother, a scrappy two-fisted Jewish woman who loved protests and civil disobedience. When she wasn't schlepping toward Bethlehem (her anti-Yeats quote) in a halter-top, she wore loose-flowing granny-dresses of paisley, madras, calico and gingham. She was a rock and roll head-bandana warrior whose tribal enemy was the dreaded brain-dead bourgeoisie. Maxine.
        Her parents were Ruth and Nathan Silver. Patrician socialists of the Old Left. Classic humanists with an elite appreciation of the Beaux Arts. Wealthy, of course, having earned large sums as class action trial lawyers in litigation against vile villains of industry. And even more money teaching law.
        At the moment they were caught up with Jerry Spence who was litigating on behalf of Earth Justice.
        Hank loved the Silvers. It tickled him that they named Maxine after the esteemed social historian Max Lerner.


                                                                                   *


        Hank met with Nathan often. Not once did he catch the gentleman without a jacket or cardigan and the bowtie. Ever reminding him of John Houseman in "The Paper Chase." And if Nathan knew Houseman personally, it would not be a surprise.
        Early on, Hank surmised that Maxine was a dilettante activist, concerning herself with the newest hottest cause-of-the-month. She felt strongly for her causes. Boycot Nestles, No Nukes, Save The Whales. And she never missed a rally. That was how she hooked up with Hank.
        She cornered Greendozer at a rally protestting the ruin of Meares Island. Here was a guy fighting the industry that put food on the tables of most of the working stiffs in the area. Rugged, blessed with knotty brawn, Hank was a far cry from the scrawny, coughing, pot-smoking, all-night talkathon pencilpricks who gathered around her father. How Nathan could abide their obsessive bickering over points of civil law and The Talmud, was beyond her.
        Here was a strapping flannel-shirt eco-warrior going head-to-head and fist-to-fist with British Columbia logging interests. The real deal. Wow!

vasudev

        Oops! He almost forgot!
        He needed to go to Vasudev's spice shop for a package of garam masala and a jar of mango pickle.
        The dusky store carried the combined scents of coriander, cumin, fenugreek and dried pepper. It was quiet as a Hermann Hesse novel.
        Middle-aged, portly. Vasudev answered the tinkling of his Customer Is Waiting bell. He wore his usual silk vest.
        "Hurry up, you old chai wallah!"
        "Hank! Hank!"
        "You're a sight for sore eyes. How long has it been? One whole month?"
        "Ho ho ho! You're a card, Hank."
        Hank could remember his first dinner at Vasudev's home thirty years ago. Elegant and delicious. With food costing but a small purse of pennies. Meals cooked in ghee, that celestial butter. Vegeterian dal. A salsa-like sauce of chickpea or snowpea, maybe lentil: over rice with cashew. After dinner Vasudev played the sitar. Lantern light billowed!
        A spell was cast that night, and it spanned the years.
        "We go back a-ways, eh, dear chum?"
        "That we do, Hank. Say, say, I have a gift for you. Let's see. Let's see. Ah, here!"
        Vasudev handed Hank a 1910 copy of "India's Hood Unveiled." Publ;ished by Dr. L.W. deLaurence. Hank opened it to Lesson #41. Hindu Levitation.
        "My Uncle Krishna Anandadev had it for such a long time--"
        "--Before he levitated."
       The two friends laughed until their sides hurt.
       
    

lotus land 3

        Hank's business in Vancouver was to hire someone to look after Bernice. In fact, he felt uneasy with leaving her alone for this trip.


        Since her homecoming Bernice had transformed into some kind of female pagan version of the blackrobed Jesuit. A mystic and scholar, erudite and esoteric. She had plans of setting up a tutoral service. Hank was delighted. One morning he strode out upon the dewy lawn. She was so absorbed with her writing that she never heard him. He stood apart from her. In stark silhouette against the gray sky, she reminded him of that rare quality found in early Ingmar Bergman films. His favorite was "Through A Glass Darkly."
        "I think it would be wonderful," he said eventually. "If you could teach again."
        "Well, I did hold court at Mac's catered affairs."
        "The select few."
        "Yes. The select few."
        "I bet your favorite subjects were Camus, Lao Tzu, Existentialism and Magical Thinking."
        "We laughed at the incongruencies."


        The clerk at the employment agency was a cherubfaced Asian woman. She wore her hair as a social statement. Certainly not as a political statement. She was far too young for that. But then, he could be mistaken. Her nape and temples were buzzcut. Her spiked thatch was dyed magenta. A dainty ring gleamed in her left nostril. Today's counterculture, he thought. Maybe I should hire this kid. Bern would consider her quite a dish.
        "What you want, sir, is an au pair. Eh."
        His bushy red eyebrows arched dramatically, and he launched into his best "rube from the sticks," with a dash of Sean Connery.
        "A WHAT?"
        "Au pair."
        "Sounds suspiciously FRENCH, doesn't it?"
        "It IS French."
        "Well, I dunno. This aint Quebec."
        Magenta sat back with a robust laugh. "Yure a game ol' coot, aintcha?"


                                                                                   *


        Hank went out of his way to stop at a popular skidrow greasyspoon, the Only Cafe.
        Its street sign was a neon seahorse.
        He sat between two suits at the counter. They nodded and smiled recognition and greetings.
        A boisterous voice: "Hey, Greendozer! Saved any trees lately?"
        Hank saluted a burly guy in a white apron who was busily panfrying fish so fresh you would think thay had swam up the street and leaped into the canola oil.
        "Trees? You betcha."
        The Only Cafe was famous for fish, oysters, clams, homemade bread, and no place to pee.
        "What's that on your head?"
        "It's called a Tilley Hat."
        "Ya look like one of those Sierra Club swells out for a stroll in the woods. Like Hansel and Gretel."
        Instead of flipping the bird, Hank flashed the peace sign.


                                                                                      *


        The peace sign was a holdover from the days when he hung out, loafing at the venerable Naam Restaurant with his Haight-Ashbury antiwar expatriot hippie friends from the States. Golden days. Sitting on the open-air patio, truly al fresco, with the Grateful Dead wending from the sonic system. Sampling spicy vegetarian meals and exotic teas. Chatting with and observing a variety of beautiful young people. Chapeaux ranging from tam to beret.
         The Naam.
         Where he met this buxom California woman in a lavender halter-top. She caught him ogling her bouncy breasts. Unabashed, she shook her magnificent head of auburn curls and flashed him the peace sign. Her smile captured his heart.
        In time, quite some time, she would give him his daughter. Bernice.







        

lotus land 2

        A wheelchair and a hospital bed were added to her life. Invading and corrupting her carefully wrought realities. She idled much beneath an open window. On a clear day she could see the channel islands. Winking like diamonds and shards of jade.
       It was ten o'clock in the morning. A breeze visited her: the buffeting of butterfly wings, fractal designs from China.
       Hank knocked at the doorway. "I'm taking the ferry to Vancouver. Anything special you want?"
       "Why don't you just drive the Rover down to Victoria?"
       "You know why."
       "It's such a lovely place."
       "Too damn lovely. Nothing but dandies and snobs. Anglophiles all. And the only good tree is a log!"
       "Not true--"
       He lifted her to the wheelchair and rolled her outside to where he had prepared a breakfast table with coffee and scones. She sighed, "I wish I could go with you."
       He hugged her. "Wish you could too."
       Her body was ethereal, birdlike. Crushable. She wore her black ankle-length gown and hooded cloak. Midnight noir.
        As he left her sitting in the shade of his prized dogwood arbor he heard the chirrup of the house telephone. It rang fifteen times before he was able to answer it.
        "It's me," said the insect. "Mac."
        McEwan. Bernice's ex.
        "What can I do for you, Mac?"
        "Tell Bern I'm sorry. So sorry."
        "I'll do that." Hank cut it short. Hanging up before he lost his temper.
  

lotus land 1

        Each morning he would find his daughter sitting cross-legged at the edge of the lawn and gazing down the fjord. She was a small huddled form dwarfed by a forest of fern and cedar. A black hooded cloak hid the helmet of red hair. It also occluded the skullface.
        Bernice. More spirit than woman.
        Fog began to drift in. It ached him to see her shrouded by the elements, communing with herself, drifting further from his realm.
        Only once did he dissent: "It's poor for your health. Out in the wet."
        She tried to chuckle. It came out as a cackle.
        By now a mist had wafted from her sward of emerald grass and spread a mantle upon the water: visible in clear spots like pools of cobalt oil. Beside a skeletal hand were a Schaeffer pen and a Big Chief tablet. From the glass litter strewn about the magic carpet, he deduced that she had consumed three of six bottles of Granville Island lager.
        Dawn arrived. She stood up in her Birkenstocks and touched the solar mirage in silent praise.
       

                                                                                       *


        When she came in he was cooking a vegetarian breakfast.
        "Hello, Da."
        "Bern--"
        He had lit a low fire. Warming herself, she read over what she had written.
        When the huge omelet was ready she got up and they ate.
        Suddenly: "Da, I'd like you to read it."
        "Any good?"
        "Oh, you know it is." She managed a tiny giggle. Then a terrible paroxysm of cough.
        Her death's head terrified him. She was a specter of his own mortality. He averted his eyes. Part of his mind found refuge in the orange and white checkerboard oilcloth covering the table.
         Surfaces, he thought. Everything consists of surfaces. Nothing has depth.


                                                                                      *


        As his anxiety passed he read from her tablet. She interrupted: "I may have to explain it."
        "All right. But let me finish."
        Her handwriting was carefully done, almost a calligraphy. What he used to call Schoolgirl Script.
        Bernice hoisted her weightless self and nearly swooned. Her soul departed from her body for a moment. There was a fading of vision, and then she felt the comfort of her rump solidly seated in her chair.
        "You OK?"
        "Right as rain. I just got up too fast."
        "All right. Just take it easy."
        He resumed reading. She had quoted Chief Seattle: "There is no death, only a change in worlds."


                                                                                          *


        Bernice took a swig of her coffee. "Uhh, I let it grow cold."
        "Here, let me refill you."
        "Nah. S'OK. Tastes different. Not Starbucks."
        "Some kind of Fair Trade stuff your mama brought on her last visit."
        "Second thought. Gimmee a warm-up."
        As he moved away, she thought of her mama. Maxine. A Joe Hill Red from the 60s.


                                                                                       *


          Bernice took the mug with her to the sideboard library. There she found old friends. Most of them Modern Library editions. Other titles were from the Yogi Publication Society. A shaft of golden sunlight fell upon a certain book, The Science Of Psychic Healing by Ramacharaka. She remembered it well, and touched it gingerly, as if it were ET's fingertip.



                                                                                         *


        A storage room on the ground floor had been converted into a place for her CDs, vinyl recordings, books and art. Medicines ranged from homeopathic cures to AZT. She had heard rumors of an experimental wonderdrug able to bring forth a type of remission called the Lazarus Syndrome by bright boys in the media and pharmaceutical flacks. Nevertheless, she was certain that there would be a day when she could not in human form embrace the rosy-fingered dawn.


                                                                                            *


        Hale and hearty at fifty-three, her Da relished his daily hike through the woods. One day upon his return he mentioned to her that he averaged only one mile to the hour because he took care in placing each step. Oh, but she had seen him fleet and nimble and as sure-footed as a faun amid his spruce and fir.
        "So where did your elementals lead you today?"
        Neither wan nor flushed, his face seemed aglow with vitality. The aura about his baldness and bearded mien radiated like the sun's butter. "Oh, I swung by the firewatch to chat with Ranger Joe."
        "You two are on good terms?"
        "Sure--"
        "Isn't he the one who busted you last year?"
        "Yeah. I was tree-sitting. Guilty as hell."


                                                                                          *


        Checkered flannel shirts, blue denim, and laced hightop boots, broken-in and scuffed, gave him the look of an archetypal woodsman. His idea of dressing for town was to don a multipocket khaki vest and a Tilley hat. He maintained a thirty-two inch waistline by hiking three miles a day and laying off all that wonderful beer. He consumed herbs for body, mind and spirit. Gone were the days when he burned his candle at both ends, snorting coke and fucking every faceless cunt he could get a hand into, on a mad careen, trying to forget Maxine's infidelity.
        Folks on the island called him Greendozer. Friends knew him as Hank. Bernice loved him as Da.


                                                                                         *


        Hank closed the tablet with remorse. Bernice's miniature essays on life had set forth the importance of choices, purposes, and sealing wax. He often wondered why, being so close to death, she persisted in writing. Then it struck him. She was Sisyphus and this was her diurnal stone. Each day she began arranging her thoughts anew. Her goal was a final distillation. She would sum up the hours of her life into one statement, finding closure before journey's end. This tragic labor defined her existence and gave her meaning.
        He found her in the alcove that best received the southern sun.
        She was reading from Kenneth Rexroth's "One Hundred Poems From The Chinese." Hank had nothing to say to her that could equal Su Tung Po.


        On a bleak afternoon in autumn she found him in the antler room stoking logs in the fireplace. Each year he suffered a kind of depression known throughout the north. The sky grew heavy and descended to the rooftop. It weighed upon him until he could hardly think. In times past he had relied upon drugs from the Orient. He had now taken to whiskey in the family tradition. The dram became the pint and the pint became the quart. Single malt became the fine blend. His grizzled beard reeked of Scotch. From his unclean mouth blew the wind of corruption.
        "Da?" She called from the door.
        "Oh, please, Honey. Leave me to myself."



       

summerlove

        Otter Creek gathered stars and tucked them into her gentle creel. She had been doing this each night since before the bison roamed her land. Father Lake loved his daughter, and he gave her many fine trout. The man called Mister Zig-Zag also loved her, and he spent many hours seeking her fine trout.
        It was July and the Blood Moon had risen full of treetops.
        Mister Zig-Zag fished like Huckleberry Finn. He had let out a boyant line and wound it around his big toe and then set his reel. He reclined upon the grassy bank and drank the moon like Li Po.
        His dub lifted his thoughts with a fragrance.
        "Oh me oh my."
        Nirvana.


                                                                                         *


        Cherry Blossom tread through the forest in her moccasins of dearskin and beads. Stepping upon nary twig nor leaf. Eyebright and silent. It was a game she played with her man.
        She wore a string bikini and a cloak of cotton gossamer. White with Russian embroidery from Old Sitka.
        After a while she picked up his scent.
        In her deerskin purse she carried a jar of honey. Imported tupelo, her favorite for lovemaking.
        "Ziggy, Hon," she said. "You don't catch trout that way."
        "I know."

       
  

chewbacca

        At the edge of the hamlet named Chewbacca there was a cement block building that resembled an LSD sugarcube, totally inconguent to the cedar grove embracing it. From there radio station COHO (named for an Alaskan salmon popular with Wookies)  broadcasted its warm porridge of jazz and folk music. Today's playlist included Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Dave Van Ronk, Emmylou Harris and The Flatlanders. On weekends listeners heard Prairie Home Companion.
        Tyson Gowain owner and bottlewasher loved her own commentary, if no one else did.
        At the moment she was late to air.
        She had paused at the sheriff's office to glean details of the mysterious incident at the Potlatch. There were none to report. Sid had refused to file a complaint or talk about his injuries. Nobody's damn business.



                                                                                        *


        Artie paid a call. He paused and idled the Indian and gazed at the transmitting tower where little aircraft warning lights blinked like the red eyes of forest vermin. He rode up, cut the engine and dismounted. There was Tyson's Love Bug parked so that it could roll downhill for a jumpstart. He stepped inside the Sugar Shack and found her munching salmon roe on Wellington water crackers. Pre-recorded Pacifica News gave her a five-minute nosh-break.
        "Hi Guy," she merffled with a mouthful.
        "Hey, Good Looking."
        A mountainous human being, Tyson Gowain was burly and hard as a hockey slapshot. She arm-wrestled with forearms like Popeye's. She was also soft inside as a jellyroll. Normally attired like Paul Bunyon, today she wore a Soundgarden teeshirt and some Eddie Veder kneebritches.
        "Gorgeous, if I knew you were coming--"
        They hugged. Artie lost.
        "Heard you were looking for me," Artie said. "Here I am?"
        She wrangled a chair for him and patted the seat. "Tell me about Sid."
        "Somebody beat the daylights out of him. A mysterious man in black. With a jab like Bruce Lee."
        "That's all?"
        "For now. Sorry."



                                                                                      *


        Radio COHO entertained Sid Greenburg enormously. He loved Prairie Home Companion. He loved Velma Frye from Tallahassee. The store was closed and he sat behind the hardwood counter. His radio told stories and sang songs in the late afternoon.
         He wore Hawaiian shirts voluminous as the mainsail on a square-rigger. His belly rolled like that of a Sumo wrestler over the cinch of his khaki Dockers and people tittered behind his back that he probably had not seen his penis since he was twelve. Fat Jewkid.
        Obesity sucked.
        At this moment he fretted. Worried that Hiram Pratt would return and kill him.
        He gazed at golden motes in a particular slant of sunlight while his mind transformed them into hornets.

celestial beings

        When Leah and Cherry Blossom finished with Sid he looked like The Mummy. They had poured hydrogen peroxide upon his partially ruined face until the flesh was clean of blood. They swabbed him with antibacterial gel and then bandaged his entire face. Cutting holes for eyes, nostrils and mouth. Mister Zig-Zag and Artie hauled Sid out to the Skell Van and loaded him inside.
        They locked the Potlatch and hung the Closed sign on the doorknob.
        Sid moaned and groaned until the opiate kicked in.
        "You've got quite a stash, Ziggy," Artie said. "A regular pharmacy."
        Closing the army surplus ammo box, the hippie grinned. "Be prepared, I always say."
        The men sat in the rear with Sid as Cherry Blossom drove to the hamlet called Chewbacca where there was a decent grassroots medical clinic. Open 24-7 because Doc Bainbridge lived there.


                                                                                       *


        "It was him," Leah lamented. "I'm sure of it."
        They were home now, comfortably seated on their new futon bed, donated from the Potlatch by a grateful Sid. Their modest abode resembled a yurt. Warm and cozy when they wanted warm and cozy. There was a victory garden out back, and a screened gazebo. Artie held her hand and nodded.
        He recalled how wonderful she had been when they first met.


        At the apex of his vision quest two golden angels appeared to him. They wore halos. They spoke as  deities in a far away tongue.
        "We are Saints," they told him, and in his starving mind he believed them.
        "I must be dead."
        "What's in your sack, Jane," Leah asked.
        "Let's see. Beenie-Weenies, Cheetos, Fig Newtons and Hershey's Almond."
        "I have Vienna Sausages and Slim Jims, from the Aces and Eights."
        "Beggar's banquet!"
         Artie observed through slitted eyes. Jane was a chesty teen in a snap-button western shirt. Blue and white with Roy Rogers white piping. A blue denim equestrian skirt covered wide hips and knees large as baguettes, which he espied later. Like Tarzan, he said: "Jane good."
        Leah wore a black polo shirt that hinted of pear-shaped breasts, frayed bluejeans and rough-out cowboy boots. Her western hat was rain-specked and floppy. She offered him a porcelain mug of something. "Careful. It's hot."
         Chicken broth from God's private larder.


                                                                                        *


        At dusk the main-spring of the world unwound and stopped. Sunset majesty. Salmon clouds. Aspens cloaked in sepia and crimson. Deliverance was nigh.
        When all was dark Leah lit her Coleman lantern and began reading a book.
        "What are you reading?"
        "The Book of Mormon. The part where Jared's brother beholds the finger of the Lord. A divine finger of  flesh and blood. In all Glory."
        "But God is a thing of spirit."
        "God is the Perfect Man."
        "Far out."
        "Are you a man of faith, Artie?"
        "I am a man of many faiths with no faith at all. Tell me of yours."
       

from the depths 3

        The daytrippers decided to stop at The Potlatch before returning home. Shafts of misted afternoon light lengthened the Skell Van's road-shadow. Leah's world was an amber room.
        "Mighty silent, Gal," Mister Zig-Zag observed.
        "Just thinking of my home in Bountiful."
 

        The Mormons were shouting, drowning out her thoughts. All were looking with horror at the bloody face of Jesus upon her bed. Bishop Carter cried out, "This is witchery!"
        Aine McReady touched the face with a reluctant finger. It came away wet.
        "Blood!"
         A white-haired man dressed entirely in black like Johnny Cash grimaced. He had arrived with Bishop Carter. Had not yet spoken a word, albeit he seemed to be The Decider. With a hiss he ordered
that Leah be handcuffed. "Lock her!"
       "Oh dear Heavenly Father," Leah prayed. "Help me now in this hour of dread."
        From remote Space and Time rushed a mighty wind, filling the room. Healing candles guttered and ceased. Everyone felt a sonic pressure weighing down.
        Then Artie Hoffman shoved his way inside.
        The sweathearts fled. Leah caught a final glimpse of the Man in Black. His face was contorted with hate and he was cursing. "I will hunt you down, Witch. And I will kill you!"


        An eerie silence issued from The Potlatch.
        They sat in the Skell Van and listened. Then they heard a keening voice.  Artie said, "That's Sid."
         As one Artie and Mister Zig-Zag entered the general store. The odor of shit was profound.
         Sid was sitting on the floor beside a cardboard display of Mayfly lures. Both eyes blackened, nose flattened and bleeding.


        

from the depths 2

        Saplings swayed in the west wind. An arrow flitted  into the tossing foliage. Hyram Pratt hissed with delight as the third sapling fell. He imagined himself striking the magical flesh of the Green Man. He loved the stealth and silence of the well-crafted arrow. He used only the best. Archery was expensive. Errant arrows, however, could sometimes be retrieved, unlike spent bullets.
        Quite pleased with himself, he decided to fish a stream not far from the Hoffman homestead, using the lure purchased from The Potlatch. It resembled a Mayfly.


                                                                                     *


        Earlier, during the night, at Tule Lake, Artie and Leah made love in his trusty neophrene igloo.
        As soon as he entered her she sighed with pleasure. Neither were very experienced. Yet each was obsessed with delighting the other, slowly and vigorously. When she cried out she was answered by the screech owl in the woods.
        "Artie!"
        He filled her profusely. Feeling grand, accomplished.
        When he withdrew she was weeping.
        "What's wrong?"
        "Nothing is wrong."
        They lay like Adam and Eve, strong, still innocent.


                                                                                             *


       "So, how was the Petite Mort?" Cherry Blossom quizzed with a rascal's wink. Serving them her helium flapjacks.
       Leah blushed, adding to her morning glow.
       "Pretty good," Artie asnwered, pouring Log Cabin over his stack.
       Mister Zig-Zag was writing in his botanical log book. He announced: "If anyone wants to, I would like to check out some Baker's Cypress near here."
        "Sure," Artie replied, thinking such action would absolve them all of the crime they had perpetrated upon Leah at the Energy Vortex.
        "Great," Mister Zig-Zag smiled beneath his Wyatt Earp moustache. "Also known as Modoc Cypress and Siskiyou Cypress."
         "Ziggy, you went to college. Right?" Leah asked.
         "Yup. Flunked the Math though." Frowning, then adding, "Still gonna be a Horticulturist. Somehow."
         "Tell me the Latin name."
         "Hah! Cupressus bakeri!"



                                                                                       *


         Disgusted, Hiram Pratt chucked the Mayfly lure. His mood was dark as a thunderhead as he climbed into the Yukon. Brazenly he drove within a hundred yards of the site where Artie, Leah, Mister Zig-Zag and Cherry Blossom planned to build a saltbox house. Like a dog, he pissed the territory.
        








       


                                                                  


                                                                                      

from the depths 1

        Roman candles shooshed and puffed. Jellyfish phosphorescence. Tentacles streaming earthward over Tule Lake. Blackwater ripples reflected the myriad colors. Mister Zig-Zag whooped with each new explosion, like a ten-year-old at his first Independence Day barbecue.
        Leah sat alone, nursing her injured psyche. As she had feared, the Energy Vortex was a chaos of insult.
        Fibonacci and Golden Mean, outward and inward, clockwise and counter-clockwise. Female energy, male energy. The sum of it all hurt.
        A waking dream took shape. It was a blood dream.


        The man known as the Avenging Angel parked his mud-spattered Yukon at the hitching post of the Potlatch. Beside him on the seat was an army kit-bag containing the troubles of the world, including a Ruger Redhawk .357 magnum wrapped in guncloth. His skill in Akido allowed him certain restraint in needing the huge revolver. He climbed out of the SUV and strode into the general store.
        Sid saw him right away. A man in black. Daylight reflected from the flashing toe-guards of the ebon cowboy boots. Cold eyes, gray as snowclouds, pupils dark as coal dust.
        "Howdy, stranger. How kin I hep ya?"
        "You can sell me the finest lure you have for local fishing."
        "Glad to--"
        "And some information."
        "What kind of information?"
        "Looking for a New York fellow named Artie Hoffman. Has a Mormon wife named Leah."
        "Don't know them."
        "You sure?"
        "Yessir," Sid replied, crapping his pants.


         A face of Divine Evil. Like a smoke-signal, it billowed above her.
         In the woods an owl shrieked.
       
       

    

the skell van

        Before sunrise it took five minutes before hot water reached the shower nozzle. Cherry Blossom parked her butt on the shaggy commode lid cover and lit a dub. She looked like a fallow brown wood nymph. Lithe and tall.
A purple-blue bruise had begun to show on her inner thigh where she had struck the bannister. At last the water was good enough. First thing she did was to let it sluice between her legs. Ecstacy.
        Mister Zig-Zag could detect maryjane like a bloodhound. He slid the shower curtain aside and invaded her sanctuary.
        "Goddammit, Ziggy!"
        She felt his long bulbous treefrog fingers playing her slick haunches. Softly persistant.
        She turned and scowled in his face. For that she recieved a frontal grope.
        "Arrrrgh!"
        "Knew I could make you giggle."


                                                                            *


        The van that once was dedicated to R. Crumb had a new look. Its mural showed a coppertone Native American with a Dick Tracy nose, wearing a Sioux warbonnet, and descending from the clouds like Commando Cody, toward the summit of  the Karuc's "White Mountain." Cherry Blossom's votive to Mount Shasta and Spirit Chief Skell was an original concept. It took all summer. She browned. Grew crowsfeet and a swath of gray hair.
        This morning she loaded the Skell Van for the trip into California.
        Mister Zig-Zag lugged a small butane cooker out and set it down beside her. She asked, "Are we going to need that?"
        "Maybe."
        "Too much extra weight. Take it back inside."
        "OK."
        

                                                                                  *


        As they tumbled along, into the Black Forest of Siskiyou, Artie picked up a scent. He sniffed, "What IS that?"
        "Probably some incense cedar," Cherry Blossom joked.
        He was enjoying riding shotgun with this marvelous woman. He imagined her driving a stagecoach. And he would be beside her, on the lookout for highwaymen. With the Grateful Dead playing in the background.
       They were planning to camp that night at Tule Lake and he was excited about that. Soon after he met Leah Artie had plunged into Zane Grey, reading about evil Mormons. Then he discovered a minor novel. "Forlorn River." Its description of Tule Lake and the Siskiyou wilderness haunted his imagination. The plot was standard western fare. It did, however, feature one of Zane Grey's most enduring creations. The man called Nevada.


                                                                                           *



        Meanwhile, Leah and Mister Zig-Zag were sitting in the rear and dicussing Guy Ballard and Saint Germaine.
        "I would never argue the validity of your story," Leah said. "My story is pretty colorful too. Being a follower of the Prophet Joseph Smith."
        Her brilliant eyes and smile had won the hippie"s heart.
        He was thinking, Artie Hoffman is a very fortunate man.
        She was unlike any Mormon woman he had ever seen. Sitting sideways to face him, she had crossed her legs like Tiger Lily in Neverland. The summer dress gave her a voluminous lap, wherein lay an unfolded roadmap. Her shoulders were bare, like an Alpine milkmaid. Her golden innocence was breathtaking.
        Mister Zig-Zag loved telling the story of Guy Ballard's meeting with Saint Germaine. In 1930 the two were hiking up Mount Shasta, a stratovolcano whose fumarolies indicated that it was still active.
        The avatar dispensed to the theosophical mining engineer knowledge of the Ascended Masters. Thereupon, Ballard became Saint Germaine's messenger, writing a series of books under the name Godfre Ray King. Mister Zig-Zag owned the complete collection in green-covered paperbacks.
        "We should visit the Energy Vortex," he suggested.
        "By all means."
        "Far out. I tell you the mountain calls me."
        "I believe you."
        "Now let me warn you. The Energy Vortex presents you with your worst traits. I'm sure you will face them down with no problem."
        Upon hearing that, Leah felt mortal fear. Not noticed by Mister Zig-Zag, her brilliant eyes and smile dimmed a little.

       


       
       
        .
       
       











       


     

mount shasta

        Vagabonds, delighting in campfires, bedrolls, whiskey and honey, Artie and Leah journeyed westward, getting married along the way. Passing Elko, Artie turned toward his old abode in Oregon. Memories of true friends and joyful solitude were strong.
         Squatters had ransacked all that was of value and then migrated into darker timberland. Vietnam Vets, LURPS, at home in no place but the bush. Their scent reminded Artie of the skunk-ape.
        "No problem. I expected this."
        "Well, the woods are nice. I'll set up camp."
        "Fine. I'm going to hunt up some old friends. Be back soon."



                                                                                                *


         Cherry Blossom heard the Indian and looked up from her washboard and tub.
          "Landsakes! Artie!" She hollered, and began dancing a jig.
          Artie parked the motorcycle and strode up to his dear friend. He gave her a powerful hug. "Oh, Wise Mama! I've missed you. Where's Mister Zig-Zag?"
          "Down by Otter Creek. Lazy-dayzing."
          "Nothing's changed."
          "Oh, I wouldn't say that. Some evil men moved onto your land. Ruined it all."
          "S'OK. My wife is there now. Setting up camp. We'll rebuild. Make it our little Eden."
          "Wife? Artie!" Cherry Blossom  squealed.
          Together they laughed high as a Lodgepole Pine.
          "Tonight I'll bring her bye. Dinner at eight?"
          "Oh, Honey. You've grown into a true man."
          "Shucks, Cherry--"
          "You haven't told me her name."
          "Leah."
          "Leah. Biblical name. Jewish?"
          "Mormon."
         


                                                                                               *


        Mister Zig-Zag and Cherry Blossom spread a blue-and-white checkered cloth over the redwood picnic table, graced it with sprigs of mountain laurel in a fluted vase. They wore their best duds. Blue denim and buckskin, bellbottoms and fringed vests. Covered dishes included scalloped potatoes, greenbeans, sweetcorn, honeybread and white butter.
         "Wonder what she'll look like."
         "Knowing Artie, very nice."
         They heard the Indian climbing the trail. It emerged from the blue twilight mist like silver mercury.
          "Good God!" Mister Zig-Zag in a stentorian huzza-huzza. "Hon, you didn't tell me he rode a machine."
          "You were expecting a ten-speed?"
          "No. A Volvo."
          "Hmm. I see him in a Volvo too. I like that bandana around his head."
          "My old bro has become a Nomad."
          "Oh, my God. Look at her!" Cherry Blossom warbled, "A Rhine maiden!"



                                                                                      *



        "We were married by a Shoshone Medicine Man," Artie smiled. "All perfectly legal. He was Justice of the Peace."
        "He only charged five dollars for the Honeymoon Tee-pee," Leah added.
        They were seated around a campfire with Mister Zig-Zag and Cherry Blossom. Listening to the wind-walkers above the treetops.
        "Wow, far out," Cherry Blossom purred. "That is so romantic."
        Mister Zig-Zag opened another bottle of Boone's Farm. "Say, Bro, you 'member being invited to visit Mount Shasta?"
        "Sure do, Ziggie."
        "Well, then. I propose a foursome."
        "When?"
        "Any time. Tomorrow?"
        Leah patted Mister Zig-Zag's knee. "That sounds wonderful."





        
    

engagement stone 3

        The smell of beerfart and whiskeybreath squatted like a bullfrog on the floor. Uncle Nathan sat at his desk pecking away on his ancient Royal typewriter. A gooseneck lamp bent like Kokopelli shed forty watts of illumination upon the chaos of manuscripts and the crushed empty can of Olympia.
Leah walked straight to the window and pushed up the smudged panes.
        "What gives, Niece?"
        "Place stinks."
        "Didn't notice. Hey, Artie. How's it going?"
        "We're on the lam."
        "Aw, Christ. What happened?"
        "It was awful, Uncle Nathan," Leah groaned. "They think I'm a witch."
        "Who thinks you're a witch?"
        "The Church."
        "That's fool's talk. Who specifically thinks you're a witch?"
        "Bishop Carter, for one."
        "Shit."



                                                                                         *



        While Leah and Uncle Nathan convened in pow-wow Artie searched the pantry. Typical of a longtime batchelor, he was master of the one-skillet dinner. He fried up some roast beef hash with eggs and picante sauce. He served it on a large oval plate. Then he fried up some potato pancakes as a side dish. Too much food. Just like his Momma.
         "Ok, folks, let's eat!"
         Uncle Nathan appraised the meal, winked, and said, "Leah, you've roped yourself a good lad."
         Leah blushed. Nodded. Handed Artie his leather jacket and stepped behind a dresser screen. She donned a clean denim shirt and shimmied into starched blue jeans. She could wear anything Uncle Nathan owned.
         That rascal was first to belch. "Damned good, Artie."
          "So what's the plan?"
          "You guys get hitched down in Nevada."
          "Then what?"
          "Stay out of crime."



                                                                                            *


         Out on the highway Artie chose the spot. The sun was blood orange above the mesa.
         He led Leah by the hand to a bluff. Painted rock. He placed the engagement stone in her hand and gently squeezed that hand. Bonding him with her and the stone.
         "Leah Cartwright, will you marry me?"

engagement stone 2

        Parked along the curb beneath the street lamp was a black Crown Vic. Artie recognized Bishop Carter's family chariot. And in the driveway behind the landlady's blue Toyota was that Relief Society lady's red Volvo.
He wheeled between them, cut his engine and kicked the stand down. There was Leah's old Schwinn.
       Upstairs, the apartment was ablaze with electric light and loud with excited voices.
       He took the stairs two at a time.
       Her door was ajar. Through the slit he could see the amber room. It was a scene from the Pentacost. Eyes glistened, wild talk, a sonic force. Rushing wind.
        "Leah!"
        "Artie, save me!"


                                                                                        *


        A tumult on the stairs. Artie carried Leah to the Indian. Through her nightgown her belly mashed warmly in
his embrace.  Artie cloaked her in his leather jacket, and they rocketed into the night. She glanced backward and saw the Mormon gang clotted in the driveway, looking on in resignation.
        "Where do we go now?" she shrieked in Artie's ear.
        "First stop, Uncle Nathan's place."
        She began to sob. Hugged him tightly, smelled the detergent in his flannel shirt.
         "I'm so sorry--"
         "Nonsense," he replied, gathering iron from somewhere. "We'll be fine."
         The Indian became a magical monster. Climbing toward heaven.

        
   

engagement stone 1

        Swaddled in humid air, Leah abided her moist bed, up in the studio apartment above the landlady's garage. An aspen branch scraped the shingles like a crone whittling scrimshaw. The glow worm in her belly turned and turned again. She bled. With a lightness of being she drifted toward the window. She saw the driveway below and the street lamp. Beyond and far away the Wasach Mountains stood mute beneath the cold moon. Somehow she felt able to fly.
        A knock on her door.
        "Leah, are you all right?" It was Aine McCready of the Relief Society.
        "Yes, Ma'am. I'm fine. Come in, please."
        The door opened and a Black Irish woman wearing a pleated saffron gown stepped inside. She surveyed the room, with its cream-painted tongue-and-groove walls, all in one green eyeblink.
         Leah turned from the window and motioned with her hand. "Come."
         "Oh, my young dear! Look at your bed!"
         The sheet Leah had been lying on resembled the Shroud of Turin.
   

                                                                              *


         The Indian pounded its way to Bountiful. The lake stink troubled Artie. Marsh bacteria smelled like eggs gone bad. He sped like a ghost rider in the gypsum moonlight. Picturing Leah in his mind.
         Reading the writings of Parley P. Pratt, I'll bet.
         Ever so devoted to the Prophet Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt introduced to the colliers of industrial England the Book of Mormon. Artie loved the Book of Mormon. Ever since she showed him Alma 52:9 and explained why her hometown was named Bountiful.


                                                                                      *


        Artie motored on. Heart full of grace.
        In his leather pocket was the engagement stone.
        Tonight! Tonight! Tonight!