Blackman's Coffin (14 page)
“Those are the smallest golden arches I’ve ever seen.” I pointed to a wooden sign where the McDonald’s logo had been carved into a background of rusty red. The roughly four-by-five-foot sign stood beside the entrance to the fast-food restaurant whose understated exterior made it unique among the thousands of McDonald’s franchises I’d seen in my life.
Nakayla eased her car forward as traffic trickled through the main intersection in Biltmore Village. “There’re even marble counters in the restrooms. The town’s restrictions dictate all buildings comply with architectural standards compatible with those used when Vanderbilt constructed All Souls Church and other village property.”
“So what’s their burger called, the Big George?”
Nakayla slipped through the yellow light and we approached a mammoth brick archway towering over our lane. “No. Since McDonald’s swallowed the building code, the public gets to swallow the Big Mac.”
We passed underneath the arch of Biltmore as one in the procession of cars slowly flowing beside a rippling stream. The lush vegetation of the landscape contained a variety of plants: tall hardwoods and pines, islands of rhododendron and ferns dotting a sea of moss and wildflowers, and patches of bamboo that appeared and disappeared like Chinese screens masking the sparkling whitewater. The morning sun, high enough to clear the mountain ridges, sent shafts of light through the leafy canopy. The richness of gold and green made me feel like I was traveling through an Old Master’s painting.
“Is this the entrance that your great-great grandfather helped build?”
“Yes. The stream was diverted at several places to accompany the road. Before Vanderbilt bought the land, loggers and farmers had clear-cut and decimated the forest. Everything you see now was specifically planted by Olmsted. Hundreds of thousands of plants were grown in the Biltmore nursery or transplanted from elsewhere.”
“It doesn’t look landscaped.”
Nakayla laughed. “That’s the point, Sam. To show off Mother Nature at her natural best.”
The scenic lane continued for several miles before crossing into a valley of open pastures. We reached a crossroads where a security officer waved some of the cars straight ahead and others up a left-hand lane to a large brick and stucco building.
“Passholders can just enter,” Nakayla said, “but I need to get you a guest ticket.”
She parked the car and we went into the Visitor Center. I followed her past a scale-model displaying the locations of the house, winery, hotel, and stables. Then we hit a crowd of people vying for the shortest line in front of at least ten ticket windows.
“Quite a business,” I said.
“This is nothing. Sometimes you have to buy a timed admission. You can only enter the house on the quarter hour stated on your ticket.”
“How much is it?”
Nakayla waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll get a discount with my pass. You can buy me lunch.”
We waited about ten minutes until the woman behind the window said, “Next please,” and we stepped forward. Nakayla showed her pass and asked for a guest ticket and two audio tours. Nakayla handed her a credit card as the woman rang up the total. I owed Nakayla a very nice lunch.
When we returned to the car, Nakayla said, “Let’s tour the house first. That takes a couple hours. We’ll use the audio headsets because you’ll get a crash course in Biltmore history that way.”
The road meandered between woods and pasture for a few more miles until a parking attendant waved us into a lot. All I saw were trees bordering it.
“Where’s the house?” I asked.
“We’ll take a shuttle.”
“You don’t think I can walk?” An edge crept into my voice.
Nakayla opened her door. “I wasn’t thinking about you. The road is so steep that I prefer to use the shuttle. I’ll meet you at the entrance, Daniel Boone.”
Chagrined, I followed her to the pickup point.
The shuttle bus held around twenty-five and the ride was long enough to prove Nakayla correct. We drove through another gate, immediately turned right, and before me lay the largest house I’d ever seen.
A long esplanade stretched more than several football fields in front of it. The house ran perpendicular, and its central entrance aligned with a wide circular fountain spouting in the middle of the manicured lawn. Alongside the grand doorway rose a spiral of windows that must have enclosed a huge stairway ascending four or five stories to the roof. The exterior of the house appeared to be grayish yellow stone with ornate carvings around the windows and eaves. The steep roof had a bluish tinge broken by countless chimneys. Behind the house and blending with the roof lay a wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains, hazy in the summer’s morning air. I was struck that I saw no other manmade edifice between this French castle and the Appalachians.
As we rode along the esplanade, Nakayla said, “What do you think?”
“I think I’d hate to heat this place.”
As we entered the grand foyer, an attendant handed us each a brochure, took our audio tour tickets, and directed us to a cart where headsets and players were being distributed. A quick lesson showed me how to follow the room map on the brochure and dial up the accompanying narration. Nakayla and I proceeded to the first room, the Winter Garden, and I began a journey into a world of art and luxury that was overwhelming. Occasionally, Nakayla and I would exchange a few words, but most of the time, I was mesmerized by what I saw and heard. I wasn’t alone. Often I stepped around people frozen in the rooms and halls, their eyes focused on some painting or piece of furniture, their hands clutching their audio devices, and their mouths hanging open.
One woman in the enormous banquet hall stood like a traffic cop, her arm pointing here and there. I realized she was reenacting what the narrator was saying, repeating his words to herself. Her finger went to the carvings over the mantel above the huge fireplace, swung to the flags of the original thirteen colonies displayed along the length of the walls, and then swept to the loft opposite the fireplace where a pipe organ was playing. A man who had to be her husband stepped beside her, pulled one of the earpieces off her head, and said above the notes of the pipe organ, “Winnie, they built the house faster than you’re taking the tour.” She nodded, put the earpiece in place, and started pointing again.
Two things made a strong impression on me. The chess set and table owned by Napoleon Bonaparte was fascinating enough, but when the narrator said the table had held Napoleon’s heart for three days before his burial, I really took a closer look. The music room, finished later than other rooms on the first floor, caught my attention because the narrator said priceless art from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. had been stored there during World War II. An enemy bomber certainly would have had trouble navigating through the mountains in search of a target.
Off the music room, Nakayla and I stepped onto a wide stone terrace. The view of the mountains was spectacular.
“See the tallest peak to the left.” Nakayla pointed out the distant summit. “That’s Mt. Pisgah, the heart of Pisgah National Forest.”
“Nice to have a national forest next door,” I said.
She turned to me. “George Vanderbilt owned that mountain. When he stepped out on this terrace, he wasn’t looking next door.”
“Impressive. So he gave it to the government?”
“His wife Edith sold the land after his death to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She knew protection of the forest would have been her husband’s goal anyway, and she chose the best way to make that happen.”
We walked back inside, and I noticed from the brochure that our tour continued on the second floor. As I’d thought, a wide, suspended staircase rose just off the main foyer. I stood in the middle of the spiral, looking up at an ornate wrought-iron chandelier held in place by a single bolt in the ceiling four stories above my head. Not only did I get dizzy, I got nervous thinking about all the weight that could come crashing down on me. I saw the multitude of tourists going up the stone steps that had no underneath support but simply stuck out at right angles from the wall. Yet, these architectural designs that defied gravity paled in comparison to the effort it would take me climb the staircase.
Nakayla watched from the foot of the banister. Her smile was warm and understanding.
“Is there an elevator?” I asked.
“Yes. Mind if I tag along?”
The rest of the tour covered a series of bedrooms, servant quarters, salons, and sitting rooms. Then we took the elevator to the basement. The windowless stone hallway led us to a strange open space called the Halloween Room. The story goes that one Halloween the Vanderbilts threw a party and everybody came down to this basement room to draw on the walls. The floor to ceiling canvas must have brought out the child in everyone, for the drawings were plentiful and some were actually quite good. Many appeared to represent some narrative story that might have developed on the spot. Sort of like cave paintings by the rich and famous.
Although the walls were interesting, attention soon became focused on the old photographs displayed in cases interspersed through the room. They documented the clearing of the property and construction of the house until its opening on Christmas, 1895. Nakayla motioned me over to one photograph. The caption identified George Vanderbilt and Frederick Olmsted standing on a dirt road in front of a crew of what must have been nearly fifty men. Black men and white men not separated by race. The workers wore rugged clothes and shoes. Some looked uncomfortable posing for the camera.
“Tikima and I always stop here,” Nakayla said. “We wondered which of the men is our Elijah.”
“You don’t have a family picture?”
“No. I suspect Elijah didn’t have money for such things. Besides, any photographs would have been taken in Chicago with his wife, and he must have left them there.”
I stepped closer to the picture, peering into the faces of the black men, trying to read some sign that would show me who was Olmsted’s favorite, the one whose body would be found over twenty-five years later floating in the French Broad River. Tikima had stood where I did, asking the same question, and heading for the same fate.
***
“Want another glass of wine?” I opened the leather-bound list and scanned the Biltmore Estate whites. “Maybe a Sauvignon Blanc?”
“No. The Pinot Grigio was fine.” Nakayla took the last bite of her shrimp salad and dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “The quality of the label has certainly improved over the past few years.”
Nakayla and I had eaten at the bistro right beside the winery and selected our entrees based upon the wine we wanted to drink. I’d polished off two beef medallions, grateful for anything not prepared by a hospital.
I drained the last of my Merlot and caught the eye of our waitress. “I’m no connoisseur,” I told Nakayla, “but I could get into sampling the entire list. Do my part to support the local economy.”
The waitress appeared at my right elbow. “Would you care for dessert?”
I winked at Nakayla. “You’ve still got my lunch money to burn. Try something.”
Nakayla shook her head. “I’m too full. There’s ice cream down at the stable. We can walk there later. Tikima and I always took a calorie-filled trip down memory lane.”
“Because of the stable?”
“No. The ice cream. When we had good report cards, our parents would treat us to the Biltmore Dairy Bar. It used to be in the village right outside the estate.”
“If a good report card was the requirement, I’d have never been in the place.”
The waitress returned with the check, I left a generous tip, and Nakayla and I walked to the end of the winery parking lot. A flat expanse of pasture lay before us. A river ran along its far border with a thick wall of trees lining the opposite shore.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The French Broad. Farther downstream it merges with the Swannanoa.”
Farther downstream was where Tikima’s body had been found. On this side of the river, the pasture seemed to go right to the water’s edge. Easy enough to access with a four-wheel-drive vehicle. There were probably service roads a regular car could navigate. Nakayla had driven her car from the shuttle parking lot to the winery. I wanted to get closer to the river.
“The stables are down to the right,” she said. “It’s not a bad walk.”
“Let’s drive. But not to the stables. We need to find a way to the river.”
“You’re looking for the place where they—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Right now I’m just looking. I’d like to see how fast the current flows and whether there are some sandy banks that could match the traces on Tikima’s Avalon.”
“All right.” She started for the car. “We’ll backtrack toward the house. I think I saw a service road on our way here.”
The sign EMPLOYEES ONLY by the single lane blacktop served as encouragement, not a deterrent. The smooth pavement led across the field and must have been a farm road for getting agricultural equipment to various sections of the cultivated bottom land. Not being a farmer, I had no idea if the plants around me were for people, livestock, or soil retention. No one seemed to be working the field, probably because it was Saturday.
“So, this really is a working farm,” I said.
“Yes.” Nakayla slowed the Hyundai as the asphalt suddenly turned to gravel. “Friends have asked me why I like to come here. How can I stand to be around such obscene wealth?”
“What do you tell them?”
“That the Biltmore House is both a national treasure and a business. George Vanderbilt always saw it as a working estate. His grandson Bill Cecil and the younger generation have never taken any federal money so I’m not watching my tax dollars at work.”
I looked out over the field and saw the winery in the distance. “I’ve seen enough of my tax dollars at work, thank you. This would be an improvement.”
The road arced right and brought us to within twenty yards of the river. Looking ahead, I could see we wouldn’t get any closer.
“Stop the car. I want to walk to the bank.”
Nakayla parked in the middle of the road. I got out and stepped carefully over the uneven ground. The strip of land between the river and the road was uncultivated, but the wild grass didn’t grow higher than my ankle. The terrain sloped down to the water’s edge where the vegetation changed to reeds. Between the stalks, the ground became cracked mud rather than loose soil. Some of the reeds were bent, pointing downstream.