of a Nez Percé arrowhead manufactory. By midafternoon I had gathered 47 flint, chert, and obsidian points and some excellent shards. I traded a spearpoint with the manager of a motel for two nights’ lodging and four home-cooked meals. Tomorrow, I ought to make a week’s wages selling the points in Nampa, Boise, or Burley.
The manager, an amateur collector, told me he’s heard rumblings about new federal regulations that will ban the collecting of artifacts on public lands altogether. My first reaction, like his, was what the hell are so-called public lands for? But then, though I didn’t tell him this, I remembered feeling qualms about digging into that midden today. Seems a hard world where a ranch kid couldn’t pick up an arrowhead without being a crook. But maybe those times are going; maybe there won’t be any more ranch kids. Maybe there will be pothunters swarming all over the public lands, not just a few like me. And maybe such a law is inevitable. All I know is it’s a bloody cold gale out there. The sage is struggling to keep its roots in the ground. Where would I be spending the night without those arrowheads? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
December 15. I made nearly twice what I expected, all from people who have spent their lives in the area and have never found a single point. “Where did you pick these up?” inquires a potential buyer. “Far from here, over by White Swan,” I lie. If he knew they were from his own backyard, he might not buy. Or else he’d say I stole them. But they don’t search. What’s the matter with people who never look beyond their own noses? Or is the matter with me, always a poke-about, sticking my snout here and there, in other people’s backyards and business, always in danger of freezing it off?
End of self-examination. I feel so flush, I might even catch a ’Hound to Jackson instead of hitchhiking across Antarctica. I hate to do it since that last lockout strike. Someday the drivers are really going to bite back. If labor even survives. Teamsters these days, they think Workers World is a theme park. Maybe that’s why an old leftie like me can’t get a job, or keep one . . . I’d rather scrabble for arrowheads in a frigid gale for a decent wage than sell my sore back to the man just to keep it warm a little longer.
Christmas Day. I had two options: spend Yule with the other derelicts in the mission at Pocatello, or drink beer with a Nez Percé/Shoshone friend on the reservation. Since his ancestors were the source of my current largesse, I chose the latter. When I arrived with a turkey and a case of Rainier Ale, my intentions were misunderstood. A tribal official asked if I thought they wanted charity. “Not at all,” I said. “Just looking for a place to spend Christmas out of the cold—I used to have some friends here.” He’d never heard of my old pal.
“You’d better go to the mission in Pocatello with the other paleface bums,” he said. “They’d eat your turkey. In fact, so will we. You can’t take beer there, so you’d best leave that here too. You can keep a couple for the road.” I thanked him and split. Chief Joseph got a little of his own back this Christmas. I spent the winter feast in an all-night Denny’s at a freeway interchange, where three people thought they were cute for asking if I was Santa Claus. The dishwasher said, “Hell no, he’s Jerry Garcia!” which was better. His boss called me a shiftless hippie and invited me to depart into the bleak predawn (“On your way, longhair,” were his actual words). Charged and convicted as a honky and a hippie on the same day—Merry Christmas!
December 26. Am I missing something? All I want for Christmas is a Magdalena. Oh, how I’d like to see my Maggie flying free and high, until I get hold of her. But I’m afraid she’ll be a long time coming. Meanwhile, my heart hurts. This bus is all the home I’ve got, these bus people all the company I need, and a little extra. The mere thought of Magdalena seems surreal in this overheated winter canister. I guess I’ll start the year in Jackson, and see what happens. Do mountain men still rendezvous there? Or mountain women? Can Magdalena be that far behind?
Mead closed the thick weather-beaten diary and rubbed his eyes. “He seems to have been some sort of a gypsy beachcomber,” he said aloud, “or a fly-by-night scavenger, ever ready to turn his little finds into a buck or a burger—or a beer. I think we could get along.” He shuffled his things and prepared to leave, but the reading was still on his mind. “Interesting guy, for sure. Thoughtful, too—maybe a tad cynical, though he seems to care about things. But that last bit”—he went back and reread the final entry—“about wanting a Magdalena—what the heck is that supposed to mean? What is a Magdalena? Maybe he was lonely or horny, and that’s some sort of slang of his for a woman. Or a prostitute—wasn’t Mary Magdalene supposed to be a harlot? Might make sense, after all the time he spent alone on the road. But why would he have to wait till spring to find a hooker?”
Mead liked having the amber spiders there because they were good listeners. He continued his exegesis of Carson’s entries: “But then he also refers to ‘his Maggie, flying high and free’—that hardly sounds like a pickup. Maybe Magdalena is a particular woman—a lost love, a summertime sweetheart? Somehow, I don’t think that’s it either. I wonder . . .” But he didn’t wonder much, as he nodded onto the laboratory table.
He roused himself and put the notebook away with his thoughts. “Well,” he told the patient spiders, “it’s too late to go home. Maybe I’ll mount some butterflies.” But before he had a chance to lift the lid of the relaxing jar, Mead’s head dropped again onto the table and he fell into a deep sleep. All night he slept there as the wind off Long Island Sound pelted the museum tower with snowballs. In his strange, wintry dreams, jolly beachcombers and Hollywood Indians in full Plains regalia rubbed shoulders in a truck stop named Maggie’s, where oysters and crabs held court with the walrus and the carpenter. The carpenter turned into the Cheshire cat, then a waitress in pink, serving little black biscuits like comic-book arrowheads to spiders in amber jars who morphed into hungry humans pawing at the windows and freezing to death outside.
When Mead awoke at seven, he was chilled, cramped, and agitated, and his neck felt like iron. He skipped class, spent the day wandering aimlessly around the snowy town and campus, and finally drifted home. “That journal is getting to me,” he muttered as he unlocked the door, and then and there he resolved to ignore the rest of the diaries.
In his mailbox he found a letter from his mother. He wondered if it would be like the others, factual and antiseptic, about as personal as a Christmas newsletter. He took his time opening it. “Dear Son,” he read.
We are well and hope you’ve avoided the flu they say is so rampant back there. Your brothers are both heavily into basketball and dating, but their grades are OK, so I suppose that’s fine. They promised to write and send scores, but don’t hold your breath. Lance is still over the moon about that game-winning basket he made against Raton. His head’s about as big as the basketball, so I hope that doesn’t set him up for a fall. Roger’s spending a lot of time warming the varsity bench, but he’s happy to be there. You know he’s always been the more even of the two. I’m just glad that neither one seems to be interested in drugs.
Your dad is looking forward to his conference in Maui, his class load has been so heavy. He invited me to come, but I think I won’t. Here are the boys’ school pics. They still look nothing like you. Roger asked was it the milkman or the mailman? Very cute.
James laughed, and wondered if she had too when she wrote it. He didn’t think he’d seen her really laugh since Molly had died. There was more family stuff, but almost nothing about her. And why in the world wouldn’t she go to Maui with his father?
Then a scrawl, crossed out, and this: “James, some days I almost don’t think I can make it. But I do. Will it get better? Dad says yes, but I don’t know whether I believe him—what else is he going to say? Sorry. We’re so proud of you. Write. Love, Your Mom.”
James tried to write back right away. He felt vaguely excited, since this was
