Gloryland (20 page)

S
ergeant Yancy,” said Second Lieutenant Rubottom, “get the stock ready, and inform the men that we’re heading out.”

“Beg your pardon, sir, but headin where?” I asked.

He swiveled his head away toward the east. “Troop K has been ordered to Yosemite, Sergeant Yancy, and we’re going to make the best of a bad assignment.”

I thought a minute and then asked, “What’s Yosemite?”

“
Yo-sem-i-te
,” began Rubottom wearily, stretching out the word till each syllable stood by itself, “is a thing called a national park, bout two hundred miles from here, up in the Sierra Nevada.”

Every time Rubottom answered a question, he had a habit of making new ones. It wasn’t easy talking to the man. I had no idea what a national park was, but the train that brought us to the Presidio from Florida had taken us through California’s Sierra Nevada, a range of big mountains to the east that even now, in May, were all buried in snow.

Rubottom seemed in a hurry, as usual. Being around him made me anxious cause it felt like something was about to happen, even though nothing usually did. Now he looked like he wanted to be gone, but I had another question.

“Lieutenant Rubottom, sir. What’s a national park?”

“Yancy,” said Rubottom, “a national park is a problem for the United States Army created by the secretary of the Interior. At least that’s how General MacArthur sees it, and I agree with the general, but unfortunately the secretary of war feels that Troops I, K, L, and M will provide a suitable solution. Now do you understand?”

“Yes sir!” I said. I didn’t, but it seemed best to pretend I did, or I’d just hear more questions dressed up as answers.

“Good,” Rubottom continued. “Now, in two hours I will have prepared detailed instructions regarding our departure from the Presidio, and I expect that you will carry out these instructions with your usual zeal. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir!” I said again. Responding with a “no sir!” when an officer’s expecting a “yes sir!” usually just led to misery.

“That’s fine, Sergeant,” said Rubottom, sounding like a mule with colic. “Well, those are our orders, but we must hope that someone like MacArthur can conceive a way to countermand this ridiculous assignment, so we can get to the real work of the military.” He walked away muttering what might have been curses. Rubottom had always been short-tempered, with a very low opinion of anything or anyone other than Rubottom.

I still didn’t know what a national park was or what I would be doing with the rest of Troop K in Yosemite, but claiming ignorance was not a bad strategy when things went to hell and Rubottom was looking for someone to blame.

In less than two days we were on the move, equipped for extended duty in a place few of us had ever heard of. A farrier at the Presidio told me the army had been in Yosemite since 1891, protecting the park during the summer months. He said this national park wasn’t like something you’d find in San Francisco. Apparently Yosemite was more than a grassy area with fountains and shade trees, so I thought it was strange they called it a park. Folks went all that distance just to take in the scenery, but I guess some took a little more than that, like timber or deer, and others had been grazing livestock there illegally. That’s why the park needed protecting. I guess winter took over that duty once the soldiers left.

I still didn’t know enough to look forward to the destination, but I looked forward to the change. Being away from a garrison with its endless drills and inspections would be a relief, even if Yosemite was, according to Rubottom, “a waste of military time.”

I’ve forgotten most of that farewell day in San Francisco, but I do remember the slow ride out from the Presidio, up the winding road from the stables in columns of two, the hard clatter of hooves on harder ground, the creaking of caissons and wagons as the mules strained to pull them along, and the band playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” What I can’t forget, though, is a short conversation with some sentries when we finally got to the Lombard Gate of the Presidio. As we rode through, a couple of mules ahead of us got into an altercation, so we had to stop while the teamsters calmed them down. I heard the sentries talking.

“How come these niggers get to go to Yosemite?” one asked.

“Yeah,” commented the other, “that’s a plum duty and it’s going to niggers instead of white soldiers. There are days I just don’t understand the army.”

It was right about then that my opinion of Yosemite began to improve.

“Hey, boys,” I shouted to the soldiers, “I hear the fishin is pretty good up in the Sierra. If you’re nice, maybe I’ll bring you back some catfish or bass or maybe trout. I can’t say which cause I just don’t know what-all’s up there in those mountains, but I figure we’ll have plenty of time to find out!”

Some of the boys riding behind me started laughing, but not those sentries. I couldn’t hear their comments once we started up again, cause the noise drowned out their voices, but I could see the meaning plainly written on their faces. It was a sight to make you smile.

It felt real nice to be starting the trip with the warm regard of my comrades. I was feeling pretty good bout myself till I turned in the saddle and looked straight into the glare of Second Lieutenant Rubottom, who was looking back at me with contempt.
Contempt
is a word the lieutenant likes using and demonstrating, particularly in regard to me. In this case the translation roughly meant, “Yancy, I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born!”

That’s what’s so wonderful bout military life. After a while, officers get to know you so well they don’t even have to talk anymore,
they can just hit you over the head with a look. Must be special training cadets get at West Point, to get their faces to communicate so clearly what ain’t proper to say. The second lieutenant must’ve scored high on that drill.

San Francisco was cold, but the coldness coming off Rubottom was going to give me frostbite if it lasted much longer. Still, it was worth it just to see those sentries choke.

Maybe Yosemite wouldn’t be so bad after all.

H
orses and mules, heads rising and falling, clatter of hooves, wagons rolling along, creaking. The wind blows dust and grit into you till you can’t tell where you’ve been from where you’re going: Lombard Gate, San Bruno, Mayfield, Santa Clara, Madrone, Wilson’s Ranch, Mountain House, Los Banos, Firebaugh, Madera, Raymond, Crooks Ranch, Wawona, Camp A. E. Wood. Just names on a map and signposts in my mind, marking out miles of rolling hills, the Central Valley, foothills, and finally the Sierra Nevada.

There were campfires at night, a bugler putting you to sleep and waking you up, telling you to go to mess and eat, and then “Boots and Saddles.” So get the horses ready and assemble in some field you’ve never seen before, probably won’t see again, and a long ride through the heat of the valley, the sun riding high, till the watering call played, like that bugle knew the horses were thirsty and the men parched. We stop, too short, then ride on through the country between sunrise and sunset, but late in the day something’s bothering the first sergeant, and the bugle tells us we got to stop so a private from Troop L can help a teamster fix the wheel that came off a Dougherty wagon, and we got to listen to Leo Frye, the cook from Troop I, curse and swear at the mule who did it.

On and on till finally we’re in our blankets staring up at the stars. And the next day’s the same, the next night, and the day after, a routine of things you do or don’t do, the second lieutenant watching the enlisted men but not looking like he’s watching, Captain Young breaking from the column to adjust his saddle but then watching us as we ride by, an inspection, no warning, and you hope you get by
him without hearing a shout to stop, and when you do you realize there’s a God after all. And it all happens without a break in your mind, like water in a creek flowing, until after eleven days we reach the foothills, which ain’t the right word for a sea of flowers blooming wherever the ground’s never known a plow.

So much color hurts the eyes after the gray fog of the Presidio, but sometimes pain is good when it’s a rainbow or the sun going down or your back and legs hurting from being in the saddle, cause that’s what it means to be a cavalryman. A Ninth Cavalryman, the sight surprising to a little white boy we passed in a field near Wilson’s Ranch, from the look on his face, him pointing at Bingham, who’s black as burnt wood, a color the boy wasn’t expecting, pointing at him with his mouth open, not expecting Bingham to point back with his mouth open too, and there was laughter on Bingham’s face but not the face of the boy who had never seen colored soldiers. I thought it was odd for him to be surprised, in a field of flowers that had so much color you’d think God had swiped that rainbow from the sky to paint the grasses round the boy’s feet, cause a boy playing in a field needs more than the color green to get through the day. Growing up in South Carolina, I sure did, but there was probably a law in Spartanburg about having too much of the wrong kind of color when there’s work to be done.

I’m working now at trying to remember the ride from and to, and I can’t help that it all gets mixed up in my mind so it sounds like this, cause remembering is whiskey with no food in your gut, setting your belly and your mind on fire.

I could handle Firebaugh, just a town, and Madera was no problem at all, just a town, but that sequoia they called the Grizzly Giant, that wasn’t just a tree. It had outgrown the word
tree
the way I had outgrown the word
boy
, and busted out in every direction with branches the color of sunset, branches that were trees, busted into my mind so I started wondering, If this was
tree
in Yosemite then what was
mountain
in Yosemite, or
waterfall
?

Nothing here seemed to fit the word they used to describe it,
especially the word
park
. Resnick told me there were bears, lions, mule deer, bobcats, wolverines, and coyotes wandering around in what they called a park. If this is what
park
meant, then what did
cliff
mean here or
canyon
or
river
? Yeah, it was pretty all right, the prettiest place I’d ever seen. A knife can be pretty too, but that don’t make it any less sharp.

 

I learned about beauty those early months in Yosemite, and I also learned how death can hide in beauty.

There I was, on patrol in the shadow of mountains like none I’d ever imagined, riding under trees I’d never touched before, looking out into distances I’d never taken in before, and I had so few words to describe not just what I saw but how it made me feel. At those times death is the last thing you’d think of, but it was round every bend in the trail if you forgot for a moment where you were.