VISITING BURIED BODIES
Leaving the reservation was one of the hardest things Charles ever had to do. Its remote qualities had allowed Charles to turn off the rest of the world, with its time, art, and money. It was a foreign concept for one who made his living in retail.
Since it was already nearing mid-April, he went back to Santa Fe first. He was intent on organizing the gallery for another departure, this time for the East Coast. He felt he had lost his retail edge and was without his old drive to succeed in business. Bloom’s had been hanging on by a thin margin anyway. The current art recession had already taken down some very good galleries. It was interesting to him that his main concern was not the loss of his potential income nor seeing his name on the gallery, but what it would mean to the artists who depended on him to help support their lives. Most of his artists relied on his summer sales to help keep them afloat. It’s a hard road being a Native artist, creating objects people don’t have to own, as art is not a necessity of living for most. One needs allies to survive in this landscape of creativity, and Bloom was one of their best.
He headed to the East Coast in early May. Bloom had plenty time to develop a plan of action during his long solo drive. His concerns about whether he could handle a retail environment anymore could be a moot point, depending on this trip’s outcome. If the New York City auction of the Yellowhorse piece went off as scheduled and he made a huge commotion attempting to stop the sale, he was toast. At best he would get sued and at worst he would get sued and be blackballed by the contemporary art dealers in New York City, spearheaded by Phillips. There would be many unflattering articles written about the art dealer who went Native.
Then there was Hastiin Sherman and his visionary predictions. Those four days at the sheep hogan seemed very real at the time, but now, weeks later, driving cross-country in his old Mercedes, they felt surreal. Almost comical. He tried to keep in his head Rachael’s words: “Listen to what he says. He is a powerful medicine man.”
Rachael was a smart 21st-century woman, and yet she truly believed what her grandfather had told him. Bloom believed as well. He had decided to drive to the East so there would be no issues with airport security and no chance he would be separated from the flint knife’s power. He had a small bundle of herbs of some unknown source with no doctor’s prescription and what appeared to be a very sharp, long, ritualistic black-stone knife. To try to explain these to any airport guard in this day and age was asking for federal time. So, a 2,200-mile road trip was on the agenda. The blade stayed near.
The first stop was not New York but Boston, to visit Willard’s grave. Hastiin Sherman wanted him to bring his grandson home, so Charles would have to see where Willard was buried and what his options were as far as removing a body.
Discovering where Willard’s body was buried had taken some good old detective work. There was nothing on the Internet about the location of Yellowhorse’s grave. Charles found this strange. He could Google almost any famous artist and generally find where they were buried in a couple of searches, but not Yellowhorse, and even more disconcerting, not Lendskip. It was as if these two artists were lost to mankind. The obituaries on both men read as if they had come from the same hand: information about their art and tragic early deaths, nothing about where they were buried. Regarding services it read: “Private, family only.”
The reality was none of the Yellowhorse family had gone to the funeral and none of them were invited. A certified letter came from Willard’s attorney saying the executor of his estate, Bernard Phillips, per Mr.Yellowhorse’s wishes, wanted no services and his body had been cremated. The Navajo tribal lawyer looked into the validity of the letter and determined there was nothing the family could do. The coroner’s autopsy had determined death as a suicide, no foul play. No further investigation was needed and the body was turned over to the executor of the estate, per Yellowhorse’s wishes.
It occurred to Bloom to just call Phillips and ask him outright about the body’s ashes. But if Phillips were involved in Yellowhorse’s faked suicide, then he would be tipped off. Bloom didn’t want this, nor did he trust Phillips.
Charles and Rachael had decided to review the wording of the death certificate, as it would have the most information. To get a copy required Rachael to submit a request on behalf of Preston, Willard’s son, for a copy. The copy would take eight weeks to get there by regular mail. Time was of the essence so she paid a $35 dollar fee plus $15 dollars Internet charge, and five days later a copy was sent to Rachael at her school email account. The answer to the body’s location was finally discovered and it was not what they had expected. Willard Yellowhorse had not been cremated and his remains had been sent to Boston, of all places.
Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston was listed on the death certificate. This made no sense to Charles or Rachael. Why would Willard want his final resting place to be in a city that as far as they knew, he had never visited? So, Bloom was on his way to Boston, Massachusetts, to find Willard’s grave and see if anything would help with the ever-growing mystery of his death. At least he was uncovering new information.
The trees were just starting to fully bud out at the 150-year-old cemetery when Bloom arrived, two days before the May 7th Sotheby’s auction. Pollen was in the air. Charles was glad not to be in Santa Fe as this was also when the juniper bellowed out their toxic pollen. The last freeze date in Santa Fe is May 17th, the day Bloom normally planted his gallery’s tomato plants. He hoped he would be alive and back in Santa Fe this year for his annual spring/summer passage.
How easy would it be to find the grave? Why was Willard buried in Boston? These were questions he had asked himself a hundred times on the three-day trip from New Mexico. At each gas stop, Bloom noticed the red mud of the rez still visible under the end of his Mercedes bumper. The color, a blood-tinged shade, looked similar to the red sand that Hastiin Sherman had poured over his right hand in copious amounts. The symbolism of the dirt seeping off his body was unclear to Charles but the red color still present on the car was a reminder to be careful. Everything now had some kind of hidden meaning to Bloom. He didn’t know if he had just become super sensitive to his environment or if the old medicine man had somehow changed his five senses and added a sixth one, supernatural. Either way it was freaky when he thought of the sand and reflexively touched his little pouch of herbal medicine that now hung on a leather cord around his neck. Feeling the tiny pouch eased Bloom’s anxiety, and triggered faint memories of being calm and focused.
The old Boston cemetery was a beautiful place. Its charm was not lost on Bloom’s aesthetics. He could see why somebody might want to have their final resting place in such a grand setting, much more like a park or sculpture garden than a place of the dead. Maybe Willard had thought the landscape here somehow reminiscent of his ancestral burial grounds in some Eastern way?
It turned out to be rather easy to find the grave. Bloom simply told the young woman that his best friend from whom he had become estranged was supposed to be buried at the cemetery, and he was unsure how the grave would be marked or located. It turned out it was not under the full name but under the inscription name of “W.Y.” and was on the farthest seventh hill in one of the more remote areas of the cemetery. It took nearly a 45-minute walk before Charles found the marker. It was on a small knoll with a plain gray granite stone, which read, “W.Y. with all my respect, F.M.”
Seeing Willard’s initials and knowing his friend’s body was under his feet opened a floodgate of memories. Bloom was transported in time to 18 years earlier at his gallery, reminding Willard to please put W.Y. on his drawings as collectors like things signed. Then he was back on the rez, seeing a photograph of Rachael and Willard next to their grandmother on top of Rachael’s dresser. Bloom’s heart started to race, suspecting he could be standing next to a crime scene and he might be next. His hands were noticeably trembling. He steadied himself on the adjacent headstone across from Willard’s. Trying to focus and slow his breathing, he saw the initials C.L. and the same inscription, “With all my respect, F.M.”
Bloom tried to decipher the meaning. Thoughts streamed through his head: “Who is F.M.? Respect, what respect? Oh my God, C.L. must be Craig Lendskip. Why is he buried next to Willard’s grave? The dates of death are the same year, it has to be Craig.”
The oddity of what he was seeing was almost surreal. As Bloom paced around the graves, he thought about the fact that both dead artists from the same gallery were buried next to each other. He wondered who else was buried nearby, and were there other famous artists? Under a large old oak with no other graves around, he found a slightly larger headstone with a name chiseled in larger bold letters: “Fredrick Marsh.” There was an apparent birth date, but no death date.
Who was Fredrick Marsh? The name seemed vaguely familiar. The initials would be F.M. It had to be tied in, but who was he? What was the connection? Overloaded with mental images, Bloom said out loud, “Who is Fredrick Marsh?”
Then a voice talked back….
“Mr. Marsh is the owner of this site.” The deep, gravelly voice startled Charles, causing him to stop in mid-step and look to the sky. Bloom’s brain was having an auditory hallucination. He had heard it clear as day. The old medicine man must have damaged his mind. Not knowing what else to do, he answered the voice, cupping his hands as to amplify his voice.
“Marsh owns the grave site?” Bloom said, looking still at the heavens.
Then from behind the old oak tree, an elderly black man appeared from the tree he had been sitting under. Charles was relieved to see a real human was the source of the voice and he wasn’t going crazy. He was surprised he wasn’t embarrassed by his actions, but Charles’s sense of what was possible had changed permanently out in Navajoland.
“Fredrick Marsh used to work here a long time ago,” the man explained. “He worked for me, in fact. It seems like a very long time indeed. I ain’t seen the man in 20-plus years, but I know he does own this here plot. That boy was a weird duck, but he sure loved this place and you got to respect that in a man. I don’t know who these two graves belong to, but I assume it must be relatives of his ‘cause they are buried on his plot. That man bought the whole damn hill, if you can believe that, one of the last big plots left. That was years ago. None available now.”
Charles got goose bumps. He asked, “Any way to get ahold of Mr. Marsh that you might know? I would love to talk with him.”
“‘Fraid I couldn’t help you there. Last time I talked to him he said he was heading to New York City. Going to be a famous artist, people was going to respect him—that’s what he told me.”
“An artist! He was an artist?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” the man answered. “He said he was. Never quite figured that one out. He worked here cleaning graves, then bought one of the most expensive pieces of land in the cemetery, maybe even in all of Boston, and was an artist. I guess he must have been one hell of a painter. Hell, his plot’s better than that there Winslow Homer painter, and I know for a fact he was damn good.”
“Interesting, Mr.…?”
“Name’s Day, no problem. If you ever see Mr. Marsh, tell him old Levin Day from Mount Auburn says hi. Hope I don’t have to ever clean his grave. I would think I should go first. Matter of fact, ask him if you don’t mind, if he got room on his plot of land for me? Sure like this here oak tree. It’d make a great place for eternity.”
“I will, Mr. Day,” Bloom agreed. “I’ll pass on your message.”
That evening in his hotel, using a laptop and very expensive Ethernet connection, Charles got the answer and it was a disturbing one. Fredrick Marsh was indeed an artist and, best that Charles could determine, a very demented one, judging from his paintings. He had had only two galleries in his career: the first was Proof in Boston, and the second was The Cutting Edge in New York. Marsh had been there since it opened.
The Boston gallery Proof was gone, but its owner still had a listing in Boston. One phone call and Charles got more than he was prepared to hear. The gallery owner, who now owned a series of shoe outlets, remembered Marsh more clearly than he would like.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “I won’t ever forget that nut job. I’ve never been so happy as I was to send his last piece of perverted art to New York to his so-called gallery there. The shit he painted used to really creep me out. Images of dead people making love. Very disturbing. He had these visions of grandeur about his work. I actually encouraged him to move to New York so I wouldn’t have to deal with him any more. If it weren’t for the fact that he paid part of my rent, I would have never let him into the gallery.”
“He actually paid to show in your gallery?”
“Yeah. I know as a gallery owner this sounds queer, but hey I needed the dough and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t paint. It was just the totally bizarre subject matter and his graphic imagery that no one could possible relate to, at least no one sane. So he helped supplement my income. He probably kept me in business longer than I should have been.”
“You think he did the same for The Cutting Edge?” Bloom wondered.
“You bet. I never heard of that gallery until he showed up, then poof, he’s in some very successful gallery which came out of nowhere. I remember thinking how in the hell would a guy like Marsh be in a gallery that also had Warhol and later, Yellowhorse and Lendskip? The answer has to be cash. Big bucks and lots of it. The only possible way. He paid to play. Marsh was one of these rich trust-funders is my guess. They’re the worst. They aren’t hungry so they never give you any work and they bitch about every detail of their career. Yep, he was a trust-fund artist. I still see an ad for his work every so often in some offbeat contemporary art magazine, always well done and always full-page. The current work is even more obscene. If there wasn’t a recession, I’m not sure the magazines would publish the ads. His personality was weird 20 years ago. I can only imagine what he’s like now. In fact, if you talk to him please keep my name out of it. I don’t want to ever hear from the guy again, even if he wants to buy a hundred pairs of shoes!”
“No problem,” Bloom assured, a chill running through his spine. “I never talked to you. Thanks for the heads up.”
The plot was getting deeper and darker, but at least Bloom was making progress. An art dealer who’s afraid of an old artist. An artist who bought his way into The Cutting Edge. That might explain Bernard’s deep pockets. This Marsh sounded twisted and his paintings reflected a troubled individual. Bloom had assumed all along that somehow Phillips was to blame for Yellowhorse’s death, but maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was Marsh.
Bloom muttered, “Is Marsh a killer of artists? Is he the bad coyote spirit? I have to be careful of him, it’s clear. And what about Phillips? He’s a dick, no doubt, I’ll never forget how he screwed me in Santa Fe. Still, he didn’t seem like a killer. Marsh, his paintings have psychopath written all them.”
It was time to visit to The Cutting Edge, even if with extreme trepidation. Charles was going to have to outwit more than one devious New Yorker, and the last time the Southwesterner had gone up against a New Yorker he’d failed miserably. This time the stakes would be even higher.