Yreka, California, 1941
The weather felt unseasonably warm for November on Highway 99 heading north toward the Oregon and California border. Men with rifles blocked all lanes on the north-south route of the two-lane highway and a long line of cars at least a half mile deep waited to be let through the barricade. Each driver was handed a pamphlet reading:
Proclamation of Independence
You are now entering Jefferson, the 49th State of the Union. Jefferson is now in patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon. This State has seceded from California and Oregon this Thursday, November 27, 1941.
Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice.
For the next hundred miles as you drive along Highway 99, you are travelling parallel to the greatest copper belt in the far West, seventy-five miles west of here.
The United States government needs this vital mineral. But gross neglect by California and Oregon deprives us of necessary roads to bring out the copper ore. If you don’t believe this, drive down the Klamath River highway and see for yourself. Take your chains, shovel, and dynamite.
Until California and Oregon build a road into the copper country, Jefferson, as a defense-minded state, will be forced to rebel each Thursday and act as a separate State. (Please carry this proclamation with you and pass them out on your way.)
State of Jefferson Citizens Committee Temporary State Capitol, Yreka
The late fall sun baked down on the crowds. Eyebrows were lifted. Leather seats stuck to the skin. People started getting out of their cars and wandering up and down the grass shoulder, pacing confusedly with the pamphlets just handed to them by the state of Jefferson secessionists crumpled in their hands. Insults flew through the air between stuck motorists and the Jeffersonians blockading traffic.
Some two acres away from the stopped traffic across a fallow field, an old man sat on his front porch smoking a tobacco pipe and reading the newspaper. “Damn secessionists,” he muttered to himself. “It’s just greed for greed’s sake.” The acreage between the man and the now crowded highway included a field with two old horses and a young border collie trying to get the horses to let him chase them around, the horses blatantly ignoring his pleas to play. All three animals seemed particularly excitable, pawing the ground and shimmying their manes. The man looked up and listened to the string of muffled car horns across the field and stroked his clavicle-length white beard with only a thin streak left of the dark black it once had been. He sorted his mustache hairs evenly on either side of his nose before sighing, then rising from his chair. Struggling up the front porch steps, he went inside to repack his tobacco laid conveniently on the mantle above the fireplace.
Next to the tobacco pouch sat a Victorian egg collection. The man wiped the five beveled sides with care every time he laid eyes on it. His wife Olive used to call the oval windows “portals to the unknown.” He peered in one of the windows and saw the blue-green speckled murre egg and sighed. The collection was the last earthly vessel that embodied any concrete representation of her, the singular being he’d loved most in the world. A small lock of her hair tied with a ribbon sat at the front of the egg collection, mingling its fine protein forms among the cotton and silk of the smooth pink velvet.
A worm of darkness rimmed in light ripped through his mind and the man tried to remember why he had come into the living room in the first place. Where was Olive? Was she tending to the hens? He couldn’t remember. He looked down at the collection and slowly recalled as he wiped away the nonexistent dust, pausing to think about his wife’s hair. The brown lock was hers. Was it true that she wasn’t outside in the yard brushing the horses? Was she not about to come up the front steps in her clodhoppers to fix dinner? It seemed hardly possible that she was gone. Another worm of light traced its way through his brain, and he remembered that reality was cruel and it was up to him alone to feed the dog. He ran his finger along the brown lock of hair, as it held within its chemical makeup traces of meals and drinks they’d eaten together, laughing and toasting, long after they’d retired from raising bovids on their small farm. They had never had children, but had instead collected a group of animals on their farm that would make Noah green with envy. They had everything from llamas to emus, rabbits to rehabilitated wrens.
He stroked the hair with his forefinger. Perhaps what he was feeling was the residue of the pasta primavera he’d prepared for her the Valentine’s Day before she died. They’d spent a romantic evening delivering a pair of baby goats together in the bitter cold. They named them Valentin and Valentina and collapsed exhausted and full of life into their two chairs before the fireplace, devouring the simple pasta and opening a well-deserved bottle of Sauterne, clinking glasses to a day well spent. He missed the way she laughed before she’d fully produced a punch line, always “ruining the joke” as she liked to say. He remembered it clear as a bell, and then, as if in imitation of one, the memory faded like sound waves into air.
As he looked at the collection and lost himself in half memory, a collection of shooting stars ripped through his mind and the entire house began to shake. The glass rattled in its silver frame, the eggs inside bouncing on the velvet. The vines on the filigree legs of the collection were alive as the earth moved below. The house swayed a bit—the dance every object unable to move of its own accord waits in silence for. The trees outside shed clouds of golden and brown leaves into the air. He thought he could hear faint cries and gasps from the crowds down on the highway as their cars must have bumped and jumped out of their neat rows. And then, as abruptly as the quaking had started, it was quiet again.
On the mantle, the silver filigree box settled out of its wild dance. The largest of the eggs, the common murre’s masterpiece sixty-some years old, revealed a crack the size of a thumbnail splitting the past from the present. The man stared at the egg in a sort of disbelief before going outside to check on the horses, an animal that never seemed to do well in an earthquake. That was an earthquake, right? He couldn’t trust himself anymore to know what was happening at any given point in time, and it made him angry with himself. The horses trotted a circle around the field and neighed in mild discomfort but otherwise seemed unfazed. The border collie was nowhere to be seen. Was there really a dog to feed or was that a lifetime ago, too? The man stroked the neck of the mare and whispered calming nothings to her when he noticed a figure with a very large knapsack on his shoulders walking up the drive.
As the figure approached, the old man noticed how young he was. Could hardly call him a man, really. He couldn’t be more than seventeen. He had the air of a wanderer, with stains on either legs of his jeans and greasy hair tamped down under a Greek fisherman’s cap and tucked behind his ears. The sight of the cap made him smile with memories of days spent with actual Greek fishermen. He remembered a story of sirens told by an old Greek, the way they had devoured men after dashing them on the rocks, blood from the sad, simple men roaring down their lovely necks. As the boy approached, he shook his head to unearth the memory and try and settle the lightning worms in his brain. Behave, he hissed at the half thoughts inside his head. The boy looked tired but approached him with a friendly smile, dark wavy hair, and earnest clear blue eyes, a color that had been burned brighter yet by long exposure to sun. The old man swore he smelled salt on the air for a moment as the boy approached. What a strange thing, the man thought, to smell a memory like that.
“Hello, sir,” the wanderer said, putting his hand out for a shake.
“Well that’s a fine start, son, but you can drop the ‘sir.’” The old man returned the handshake. “What brings you up my drive? You’re not a secessionist, are ya? Because if you, are you can just turn around right now and march back out.”
“No, sir.” The boy shook his head. “Unless you count seceding from my old life and hitting the road, then, yes. I am.”
The old man laughed, and the surprise of the sound inside his ribcage rattled him. He hadn’t laughed out loud in months. At least, if he had, he couldn’t remember doing so.
“I’m glad you think that’s funny,” the boy’s blue eyes crinkled at the edges, lines baked into his skin beyond his years by the unkind sun. “Coulda gone either way.”
“Name’s Warren,” the old man said. “Why don’t you come take a load off and have some water. Sorry I don’t have anything else to offer you.”
“Thank you kindly,” the boy said, avoiding speaking his own name, as the sound of it had come to make him uncomfortable. The two lumbered up the steps with matching creaky joints and tired movements.
The old man walked carefully through the front door and went inside for water. The boy set his heavy pack down on the porch and sat down in an actual chair for the first time in days. In the kitchen, the old man turned on the faucet and immediately a flash in his brain erased all memory of the boy. He opened himself a can of beer and stood staring out the kitchen window into the backyard where someone’s dog, a border collie, was running wildly around in a circle. Who did that damn dog belong to again? Probably a secessionist. On the front porch, the boy put his feet up on a footrest and waited for his water, his mouth parched and dry. He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but he closed his eyes and listened to the rustle of leaves overhead. Before he got any water, with the car horns blaring down on the highway and the sun beginning to set, he fell fast asleep.
An hour later, Warren came outside to get the newspaper and was surprised to find the boy sitting on the porch, a flash of recognition reminding him of the situation. He went back in to get a glass of water, muttering admonishment to himself, and let the old screen door slam into its frame. When he returned with water, the boy was sitting upright, his arms stretched upward, yawning.
“Must have dozed off,” he said. “Mr. Warren, can I ask you…”
“Just Warren,” the old man interrupted.
“Warren. Can I ask you a favor? Please feel free to say no.”
“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”
“Can I stay the night on your front porch? I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in quite some time, and it’s fixing to rain tonight.” The warm afternoon had led into an overcast and increasingly cold evening.
“How about I do you one better and you stay on the couch instead?”
“I won’t argue with that.”
“Do you know how to boil pasta?”
“I do indeed.”
“Then we better get started on dinner.”
Warren felt a sort of desperation to stay in the moment because as long as he was exchanging pleasantries with the kid, he felt he might be able to stay conscious of where, who, and what was going on around him. He wanted to tether time and keep it right there tied up on the porch like an obedient dog. The dog! He hasn’t eaten! he thought, quite pleased for the moment with the idea that the dog was his. He knew just what to feed him and where it was kept, but when he went to the cupboard to find the food, all he found was an empty bag with big shredded holes at the base and rodent signs littering the cupboard floor. The sight of the torn-up bag empty as the day made him want to cry, but he gathered himself up and looked in the fridge. He found an old bone with some chicken still on it and some old hard rice, which he put in a bowl with a little milk to soften it, and asked the kid to take it out to the backyard. From the kitchen window, he watched the boy enter the yard and the dog bark in tight circles as he approached, until it realized he was bringing him dinner, at which point the dog reversed the direction of his circles and licked and licked his hands and ankles as though he were the best friend he’d ever had.
Warren took out a pen and paper and began a letter, putting it in an envelope with all the money he owned. The bank would be coming to take his house soon, he figured, as he hadn’t paid a dime on it in almost a year. So those bills in the envelope, they were the rest of what he knew as wealth on this earth. Better pass them along before the bank came to claim them for their own.
Over pasta with butter and pepper, ancient Parmesan from the back of the fridge grated over the top, the men split the last two beers in the house. The wanderer tried to mind his manners, but the taste of a warm meal urged him to gulp and slurp beyond the reign of his control. After subsisting on rationed beef jerky and cold cans of soup, the simple flavor of pepper and cheese on warm pasta made his head spin.
“So, where are you headed?” Warren asked.
“Not sure. East toward the desert seems wise for the winter. The wetness of these western forests is getting to me.”
“Seems wise. I’ve never been to any desert besides the Great Basin.” Warren pointed out the window to the desert side of the house and paused to wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I hear there are lots of snakes.”
“I would imagine so,” the wanderer said, wiping the grease from his mouth onto his sleeve in imitation, something he’d had drilled out of him by at an early age by his well-to-do parents. He adjusted the napkin in his lap nervously. “But there are snakes wherever you go.”
“I s’pose so.”
The two ate in silence for a few, the clinking of forks on china a sort of conversation in itself.
“Did you feel that earthquake earlier today?” Warren asked. “Just before you arrived, if I remember correctly.”
“Strange.” He wiped the last traces of delicious peppered oil from his plate with an old, hard crust of bread. “I can’t say that I did.”
“Well,” Warren sighed. “Don’t always trust the sensations of an old man. Might have been my stomach growling for all I know.”
“No earthquake, no. But those secessionists were sure causing a ruckus out there on the highway. What can you tell me about them?”
“Don’t get me started,” Warren said, getting up and opening the fridge for a beer, forgetting that the last two had already been consumed. “Thieves, the lot of them.”
“What’s your experience with the movement?” asked the kid.
“Well, we’re in the heart of the matter, right here.” Warren said. “All’s these men want is to get at the copper in the hills. It’s not about anything but yet another gold rush by selfish men.”
“Have you seen the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator?” the wanderer asked.
“’Fraid not,” Warren said, but he couldn’t really be sure if he had or hadn’t.
“Did you notice that the double cross symbol the Jeffersonians use is the same as the one the parodied Hitler, the leader of Tomania, used?” The boy’s eyes sparkled as he theorized and conspired, waving the pamphlet he’d been given earlier. “What do you suppose that means?”
“I don’t suppose I know,” Warren said.
“Well, I don’t think it very wise to align themselves with Adolf Hitler in any way. Even a parody. Not with what’s brewing in the world and this country on the brink of war.”
“Absolutely right you are,” Warren sighed. He was suddenly feeling exhausted. “Boy. I’m too old to live through another war. I just don’t think I can do it.”
“There’s a paragraph at the end of Chaplain’s long monologue I’ve memorized,” the wanderer said, ignoring the old man’s flagging interest. “I think it has to do with what you were talking about earlier, about the greed of man. Would you like to hear it?”
“Sure,” Warren said, easing himself back down into the chair with a sigh.
“‘Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!’” began the wanderer, sitting up straight in his chair and closing his eyes. “‘Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world—to do away with national barriers—to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!’”
“Sounds like sense to me,” Warren said.
“I think at the core of your argument, you feel the same way. As if the secessionists are just impeding the progress of man toward a more tolerant world and are simply concerned for their own pocketbooks’ well-being. Theirs is a clear greed for goods in these parts. I can tell just from the conversations I’ve had hitching into the ‘state of Jefferson.’ They just want riches, not the betterment of mankind like they say they do. Isn’t that what’s ultimately wrong with our country? We propagate greed for greed’s sake.”
“I do believe you are the single most reasonable fellow I’ve spoken to in a long time. I admire your energy for the subject. And I hope you keep up the good fight.”
Warren stood up with some difficulty and went into a room in the back of the old drafty house and returned with an envelope.
“Here’s a little something for your travels.” Warren paused. “Please don’t open it until you are on the road. No need to thank me.”
That night, as the young wanderer did the dishes, Warren played back the earthquake as best he could in his mind. It had rattled him, and he remembered the egg breaking. But when he went to fill his pipe with tobacco and peered into the portal of the collection, there sat the murre egg perfectly intact. If I’m imagining earthquakes, this must be the end of it, he thought to himself. Surely I will be joining my Olive soon. The very idea sent a shiver of anticipation through his whole body. He took the case down and opened it one last time, touching the lock of hair gently before closing the lid again. He withdrew the lock of hair and placed the strands on his tongue and moved it around, swallowing with difficulty the little gnarled nest of all that was left of the woman he loved. Perhaps he would be able to find her more easily in the great beyond if a part of her was inside him. He closed the lid and took the collection into the kitchen.
“I’d like you to hold onto this.” He pushed the collection carefully across the kitchen counter toward the wanderer as he dried his hands on a towel.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It was my wife’s. Her mother gave it to her. It’s a very old collection of bird eggs.”
“It’s real nice,” Victor said. “But I’m not the gentlest on items that get thrown into my rucksack. Isn’t there maybe someone else who should have it?”
“I don’t believe so. We never had any kids.” Warren organized his beard nervously. “I’m nearing the end of my days and really this collection deserves to continue on until it’s been completed.”
“How will it be complete?” the wanderer asked, skeptical of the whole scenario.
“You’ll know, I suppose,” Warren said, sighing at the boy’s lack of understanding. He grew impatient and stood up. “Just keep it safe. It’s not to be bought or sold. When the right person comes to pass it along to, you’ll know.”
“What bird is this from?” The wanderer put his finger near a lightly speckled taupe egg.
“Ah. The hermit warbler,” the old man sighed. “I collected that one just after my wife died, when I became a hermit myself.”
“I see,” the wanderer said. “I appreciate the symbol.”
“Well, I hear the bed calling me.”
The old man went up to bed, laboring with each step up the creaking stairs. The wanderer stood alone in the kitchen and opened the lid to the collection. One of the eggs rolled up and out of its divot and then settled back—the largest, a perfect blue-green brown-speckled egg with a sharp point on one end. He wrapped up the collection tight in an old T-shirt and placed it at the bottom of his rucksack, padded by his few, threadbare items of clothing. He moved the sealed envelope back and forth between his hands, holding it up to the light to try and see what was inside. He suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t even told Warren his name—Victor. And here this man had been generous as a mother to an unnamed, dirty kid. He placed the letter back in the rucksack and forgot all about it as he lay down on the couch and slept the slumber of a stone.