I took passage on the steamer Riordan, bound for San Francisco from Sao Paulo. It was March 13, 1915, my father’s birthday. The Riordan was traveling south around Cape Horn and then north up the Pacific Coast of South America. I had heard the canal through the Isthmus of Panama had opened, but chose to face the nasty weather of the cape rather than the prospect of Yellow Fever in Panama. Generally, given a choice between nature and people, I would choose nature. I was a mining engineer and had spent the last two years working in the copper mines of Southern Brazil, employed by a Dutch company. There were rumblings in Europe, but there were always rumblings in Europe and I seldom paid much heed. My final destination was the silver and gold veins of the East Slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
It was an uneventful trip. The weather around the cape had been mild and the trip up the West Coast had been pleasant, if somewhat monotonous. I had spent some time studying my books about hard rock mining in granite but running shafts in granite was not very challenging after dealing with the messy geological strata of southern Brazil. We arrived in San Francisco on the 16th of April. I was 25 years old when I stepped off the boat and a very lucky young man. I had been born in Howell County, Missouri, in the southern part of the state, very close to the Arkansas line. My family was prosperous, at least in the terms of that day. They were cattle farmers who raised enough to feed us and many who were less fortunate. I had a good education in the basics at the local public schools and when I was seventeen, my grandfather paid for me to attend the School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri. My grandfather was a character. Besides being a farmer, he was a circuit judge who traveled to his court dates in a fine black buggy pulled by two sleek beautiful black mares. He did a good job of keeping my grandmother pregnant as she birthed eleven children that lived. It was rumored that he did a good job of keeping several other women pregnant also, but I never asked what I didn’t want to know. I was 22 years old when I graduated and was offered several jobs with American companies in the states. But I was imbued with the wanderlust that had brought my family from Virginia, through Tennessee into Kentucky and finally into Southern Missouri. I wanted to travel, and the Dutch company offered me the job in Brazil.
San Francisco was the busiest, most prosperous city I had ever seen. I had seen a few automobiles in New Orleans and Brazil, but they were everywhere here. Noisy, black tin boxes on spoked wheels scurrying about everywhere. Everybody had a place to go and they were in a hurry to get there. I only had two nights in San Francisco before setting sail for Sacramento. I spent the time wandering through the city and gazing at the sights. There was still evidence of the 1906 earthquake but the city had done a nice job of rebuilding. In Chinatown, I ate roast duck and bought a few oriental knick-knacks to mail to my parents. On the way back to my hotel I passed the opium dens and the young Chinese girls beckoning me to their cribs. It was a disgusting sight for a young man from the country, but I truly felt sorry for the girls. Many were not much more than half my age, if that. I gave one a silver dollar and kept on walking but that only brought more calls from the girls. A couple of old miners laughed at me as I walked past.
It was noon before the fog lifted and the steamer set sail through Suisun Bay and up the Sacramento River. The Sacramento River is a trickle compared to the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers and the scenery is rather drab but the agriculture along the river is spectacular. Never in my life had I seen such a vast and varied expanse of crops. Orchards and row crops stretched to the limit of my vision. If nothing else, California would never starve. We docked at Front Street in Sacramento. Almost every town in the United States has a Front Street, whether it fronts a river, ocean, railroad or just a plain old road. Front Street in Sacramento was just as busy as San Francisco. People coming and going. Freight and Foodstuffs coming and going. I could have caught the train to Reno and arrived at my destination sooner, but I wrangled a ride on a freight wagon going to Carson City. I wanted to see the Sierra Mountains and Lake Tahoe. My employer had waited quite awhile for me to arrive; he could wait a few more days.
We traveled up the valley of the American River to the summit at the pass and down into the valley on the southern side of the lake. We dined on fresh trout as I marveled at the beautiful timberland. Large stands of Redwood, Douglas Fir and Pine stood in the place they were born threatened only by the lumbermen’s ax. In Carson City I caught the stage south through Nevada along the Carson Valley and then back into California at Bridgeport. A mile out I could hear the pounding of the stamp mill of the Standard Mine Company in Bodie, California, my new employer and my new home.
As we topped the hill and I looked down into the valley, I had to admit it was one of the most desolate towns I had ever seen. No one would have ever chosen this place to live except for the rich lodes of silver and gold underneath it. The bluff above the town was riddled with shafts, active or abandoned. Not a tree in sight and at 8,000 feet in altitude, Bodie had only two seasons, cold and colder. The stamp mill pounded around the clock. People actually woke up at night if the mill stopped for maintenance or repairs. I got off the stage and walked up the hill to the Standard Mine office, the walk loosening some of the stiffness in my body. In the office I asked to see Mr. Harrington, the supervisor of mines and was shown to his office. Alvin Harrington was a big, beefy Irishman with a round face and huge hands as rough as the road I had just traveled down. He did not even look up from his desk. “Who the Hell are you?” he said. “My name is Bachman, the company hired me to be your engineer.” He looked up from his desk and then swore “God Damn it, I need an engineer and they send me a fucking kid who doesn’t even shave yet.” There wasn’t much I could say, I just stood there with my hat in my hand. He looked in my eyes and said. “You are German, aren’t you.” “Yes,” was about all I could say. “At least fucking krautheads know machines. Go find Thompson and have him show you to your office.” It was a typical first meeting in the mining industry so I wasn’t too perturbed.
Despite Mr. Harrington’s temper it really wasn’t much of a job. Hard rock mining in granite with no fissures is not tough unless you are the one blasting or shoveling. Anyone with a bit of common sense could be an engineer in a granite mine. Granite is so stable that it doesn’t even need shoring until you start getting into the quartz. I spent most of my time in my office doing quantity calculations or working on the machinery in the stamp mill. Several times Harrington would walk through the stamp mill and see me up to my elbows in grease and oil and shout, “My God Damn engineer thinks he’s a fucking mechanic.” I had learned by then that his bark was worse than his bite. I usually responded with a smile. A stamp mill crushes quartz ore into a powder and then the gold is amalgamated from the powder with the use of mercury. Thompson, the mine foreman was good at his job and kept the shaft in good shape. I seldom went down in the mine. It was more important that I keep the stamp mill running. I am sure Harrington knew this, he just liked to bellow.
The company provided me with a small residence that fronted Union Street. It wasn’t much, but better than most. It sat at the foot of the bluff on the east side of town with little chance of muffling the sound of the stamp mill. Of course when the mill fell quiet, I was immediately startled from my sleep. I dressed quickly and headed to the mill to see what was wrong. The house had a front room with a metal spring bed, an old desk and a cast iron pot belly stove. I felt fortunate to have a single electric light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The Standard Mine had built their own hydroelectric plant some ten years before and was providing electricity to the mine as well as the town. It was the first time I had ever read by an electric light. A door led to a back room for storage. A door from the back room led to the outdoors and the outhouse some twenty yards distant. The land then fell off into a draw that seemed to be the neighborhood garbage dump. The builders had been kind enough to provide a front porch, half of which I used to store dry wood for the stove, and the other half made a nice place to sit in the evening, smoke my pipe and watch the activity in the town. There was no need for a kitchen. I took my meals at one of the restaurants or chop houses, or just stopped at the market for a tin of sardines, crackers and cheese. At the lofty salary of twenty-three dollars a week, I could also afford to have my laundry done. A pretty nice setup for a 25-year-old man just before the war to end all wars.
What Bodie was lacking, besides having nary a tree, was women. The town’s entire female population consisted of a handful of married women and the prostitutes that inhabited Bonanza Street. Bonanza Street was located on the north side of Bodie Valley, somewhat east of Chinatown. Near the south end of Bonanza Alley was the jail. I am not sure which came first, the ladies and the opium dens and then the jail, or vice-versa. Anyhow, the jail was located in an ideal position. The local newspaper in referring to noteworthy events in Bonanza town derisively referred to the ladies as “The Maidens of Bonanza Alley” or “The Soiled Doves of Virgin Alley.” The ladies were restricted to the area and could not leave. Their food and necessities were delivered from the market. These red light districts that popped up around mining camps were a horrid fact of life, a necessity for the miners and a horrible, short and violent life for the ladies whose fate placed them there. It was not permissible for a man of my status to be caught in the district. Harrington, who was obliged to play the part of the good Christian, would have had little choice but to fire me.
There were few opportunities for entertainment in Bodie unless you were a drinker or gambler and I was neither. There were only so many books one could get in Bodie and I had soon exhausted the supply. I longed for a woman’s companionship, even if it was the type that was artificial. One thing the cold nights did in Bodie was provide for a good disguise. It would not be unusual for a man to be walking down the street at two a.m. bundled up in coat and broadhat, even in July. I waited until several days after the miners had been paid and I knew Bonanza Street would be fairly quiet. I walked down Union Street and turned on Prospect and continued down until I begin to hear the sound of female laughter.
I was correct. There was a distinct lack of men in the alley and most of the ladies were laughing and drinking the night away amongst themselves. When the ladies saw a man walking down the street, several turned their attention to me. There were several Irish and Mexicana girls and then I heard a voice in clear English with a touch of a British accent. I had worked with the British in Brazil and I recognized the accent well. “Hey miner, come into my house. We will have a good time.” The voice came from a small Chinese girl not more than five feet tall. I stood and stared at her a minute and her eyes darted away from me. I had never seen any Chinese people until I had arrived in San Francisco and frankly I thought they were ugly. This girl was not pretty but her eyes were clear and deep. I walked into her shack and began to take my overcoat off. “I heard you speak in clear English, and it was British English,” I said. “No, No, I Chinee. You want fuck and suck. I very good. We have good time. You have money,” she replied. “Yes I have money and I want to have a good time but I heard you clearly and you spoke very good English and it wasn’t American English.” “No, No you make mistake. I Chinee.” “Well, what is your name then.” “My name Savannah. I come from China.” “Do you know what Savannah is.” “It me.” “It also is a city in Georgia.” “You talk much. You be quiet and have good time.” She said as she began to take my clothes off. I lay back naked on the bed and watched her undress. She probably did not weigh ninety pounds with tiny breasts and boyish hips. Her black hair cascaded to the middle of her back and the dark eyes darted. I noticed Chinese characters tattooed on her right shoulder. “How old are you?” I asked. “You still talk much. You need drink more. I twenty three.” She said. “I don’t think you are sixteen,” I said. “No more talk. We fuck and suck then you pay money and leave. You no come back. You talk too much.”
When I was dressed, I laid two dollars on the table beside her bed. It was twice what the miners had told me was the established rate. “Goodbye Savannah. I will come back again,” I said. “By the way, what does the tattoo on your arm mean?” Her eyes looked at me plaintively and then she turned her gaze to her feet. She did not speak as I walked out the door. It was five a.m. when I reached my house. I washed myself and shaved and then walked up the hill to work.
I did not see Savannah until the next week. I waited again until the day before the miner’s payday and walked towards Bonanza Street at two a.m. with my broadhat pulled down over my face. I saw Savannah on the stoop of her shack as I walked down the street. She looked into my eyes and then darted into the door and closed it behind her. “Savannah, let me in,” I said as I knocked at the door. “No, No. You talk too much,” she said. “I Chinee. I bad girl and girl tell me you big man at mine. You get in trouble see with me. Lose job. Bad for you. Go away.” “Savannah, let me in. You know I am not mean.” I could hear her exhale behind the door and then in the British English that I had heard the first night she said “No, you are not. You have the kindest eyes of any man I have ever seen.” I could hear the lock turn in the cylinder and she opened the door for me, but she hid her face from me as I walked in. I laid my hat and coat on a chair and sat on the bed. She sat in the floor with her legs tucked underneath, facing away from me. I sat quietly as the sobs wracked her body. “Why don’t you lay down,” I said. She shook her head yes, but didn’t move. I picked her up and laid her on the bed. “My name is Chu Hua. It means Chrysanthemum in Chinese,” she finally said. “I really didn’t think it was Savannah,” I said. “Why did you come to me? I am a very bad girl and you are a very nice man,” she said. “It is not that simple, Chu Hua.” I lay down on the bed and tucked her tiny body into my arms. The sobs gradually became a rhythmic breathing and I realized she was asleep. When first light began to show, I rose from the bed without waking her, placed two dollars on her nightstand and walked up the hill to my home and work.
A week later I followed the same routine and walked to Bonanza Alley. I did not see Chu Hua on the streets so I walked to her shack. I listened at the door in case she was occupied, but I did not hear anything. I knocked on her door with a bit of timidity. She opened the door and glanced into my eyes for just a minute, then her eyes darted away nervously. But she had a smile on her face. “Please come in and sit down,” she said. I sat in the chair and she sat back on the bed. She had a small oriental chain that she twisted nervously between her hands as she looked in my general direction. “How are you, Chu Hua,” I asked. “I am well. I knew when you would come again and why. I must say I looked forward to it with both fear and delight.” “Why would you be frightened of me Chu Hua?” “ I am frightened because I know you are an inquisitive man and you would ask about my life. I also knew I could not lie to you.” “How old are you really Chu Hua?” “I will be sixteen sometime in the winter. No one knows my exact birth date. I was an orphan and I do not know anything of my early life. A man and his wife who were British Missionaries of the Church of England found me on the streets of Shanghai. Pappy and Helen were the only mother and father I ever knew. They took me into the countryside and raised me as their daughter. I was about two years old when they found me in the winter of 1902. Since they did not know my birth date, we always celebrated my birthday on Jesus’ Birthday, Christmas. They were very kind people. Pappy delighted in carving small wooden toys for me with just a pocketknife and Helen taught my lessons. I learned to speak English before I learned Chinese from the villagers. The village people were very respectful of Pappy and Helen, and as their daughter I was loved by all. I had many mothers and fathers, as well as siblings. I could not have asked for more. But the Chinese Government was in turmoil.” Her eyes became misty as she spoke. “The XinHai Revolution occurred when I was about eleven years old. Guerrilla soldiers came down from the mountains and took control of the village. The soldiers killed many of the men from the village and because of their mistrust of foreigners, both Pappy and Helen were killed. Young girls my age were taken by the soldiers to Shanghai and sold into slavery. Several other young girls and I were bought by a man and taken by ship to Chinatown in San Francisco to work as prostitutes. I can not tell you how horrible it was.” “Yes, I have seen it with my own eyes,” I said. “After I was there about a year, an old Chinese man from Virginia City bought me to be his wife. I had hoped it would be a better life. He was a medicine shopkeeper in Virginia City and made a good income. But he was a very cruel man. I stole money from him a bit at a time. He did not know that I could read or speak good English. He brought home newspapers to wrap the medicines and herbs in. It was in one of these that I read about the prosperous town of Bodie and how I could get there. Because I am so small and slim I could dress and look like a boy or young man. I took the money I had stolen from him and made my way south to Bodie. Far enough away that he would never find me. I am ashamed for you to know what I have done. There is no other way for a young Chinese girl to put food in her mouth in your country.” Her cheeks were wet with tears. “Chu Hua, nothing is ever what it seems,” I said. “What does the tattoo on your arm mean?” She smiled through her tears and said, “It means I have been waiting for you all my life.” I smiled. I knew better than to ask any more. I took her in my arms and we lay on the bed as we had before. When light came, I rose and laid a ten-dollar bill on her nightstand, as I would every week for as long as I knew her. She could live frugally on ten dollars a week without working. Whether she ever did again, I never asked. It is a philosophy I have followed all my life. Don’t ask a question that you don’t want the answer to.
The first snow fell the third week of October. It provided a refreshing change of scenery. Something about the first snow of the season is exhilarating to people but also to animals. Even the livestock are frisky after the first snowfall. I never minded cold weather and I figured if it was going to be cold, we might as well have snow. I continued to visit Chu Hua once a week, always the night before the miners were paid. I probably need not have worried. I treated the miners as equals not underlings and I knew they respected me for this. The few miners that recognized me in Bonanza Alley never spoke a word about it. The other ladies on Bonanza Alley delighted in Chu Hua’s and my love affair. Prostitutes are romantics at heart and beneath a tough exterior there is almost always a broken heart. In November I ordered a book of William Wordsworth’s poems from San Francisco for a birthday gift for Chu Hua. The Standard Mine closed for ten days every year for the Christmas and New Year Holiday. I bought a pair of small trousers, a shirt and hat at the mercantile store and on Christmas Eve Chu Hua and I walked to my house on Union Street. Dressed in men’s clothes, Chu Hua passed quite well for a small man and we were not recognized. We spent ten days living in my house as a couple. It was a delightful time for us and the childish spirit that had been taken away from her returned.
Married women may fantasize about sex with a strange man. Prostitutes fantasize about a family life. Taking care of a husband. Lying in bed in the early morning talking, and the prospect of children. Chu Hua found great pleasure in cooking for me on the top of the potbelly stove, mending my clothes and rubbing my back in the evening. On Christmas Day we celebrated Jesus’ and Chu Hua’s birthday. I presented her with the book of Wordsworth. When she opened the package her eyes grew wide. “Pappy and Helen had this book. I cannot thank you enough,” she said. She presented me with a small package and I opened it to find a pocket watch of fine make, made in England. “My goodness Chu Hua, how could you afford this?” “It was Pappy’s. I have managed to keep it these years since his death,” she said. We went to bed and made love, then afterward lay in each other’s arms. She lay quietly as I stroked her long black hair. Maybe the Christian people of the world would not have approved of our celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but I had to think Jesus himself was smiling upon us on that day. January 4th, 1916 was my 26th birthday and our last day together. The mine would reopen the next day. After dark we walked to Chu Hua’s shack and I built a fire in the stove. I got ready to go home and we stood in the doorway in an embrace. “Would you ever marry me?” she whispered in my ear. “Yes Chu Hua, I would. I cannot here in Bodie, but yes I would.”
1916 was a busy year for me. The mine ran at full capacity and I worked long hours making sure the stamp mill was operating well. I saw Chu Hua as often as the schedule would allow. Sometimes we just walked north of Bonanza Street hand in hand under the moonlight. Laughing and talking. I would always tell her what time I would be there next and if she ever took other customers, she made sure they were not there when I came. She memorized the poems from the Wordsworth book I had given her and it gave me great pleasure to hear her recite the poems and pantomime the scenes from the poem. She had a ballet dancer’s grace and it was beautiful just to watch her body move.
I usually keep good track of the seasons but that year I didn’t. I was in love and the mine kept me too busy to notice much else around me. I do remember it was again the third week in October when the snow came. Chu Hua and I looked forward to Christmas with great anticipation hoping to recreate the time we had spent the year before but by Christmas there was a mood of concern in the town. In the fall and winter of 1916-1917 word began to come of German U-boats sinking U.S. merchant carriers in the North Atlantic. The U.S. had maintained neutrality in the war in Europe but had been supplying Britain and her allies with supplies. The sinking of the American ships set an ominous tone. On Christmas Eve, Chu Hua and I walked again to my house and spent the next ten days as a domestic couple again. Chu Hua was full of gaiety but I was somber and she noticed it. Again on my birthday, January 4, 1917, our last night together, we walked to her shack. We stood in the door in an embrace and again she whispered in my ear,“What is bothering you?” “Chu Hua, I may have to go in the army and go to a war.” She did not say anything. I kissed her on the cheek and walked back to my house very slowly.
In April of 1917 came word by telegram that the United States had declared war on Germany and her allies, the Germany that my ancestors had come from. I knew I really did not have much choice. I could enlist and probably obtain a commission as an officer in the Combat Engineers, or wait a few more months and be drafted as a foot soldier. I sent a letter to the Presidio in San Francisco with an outline of my experience and training. In a matter of two weeks I received a telegram ordering me to Washington, D.C. to be inducted into the army as a captain in the Combat Engineers. It was the end of April and I had to be in Washington by May 15th. I turned in my notice at the Standard Mine and said my farewells, then walked to Bonanza Street. I guess it mattered little what people thought of me now. When Chu Hua opened the door she could see in my eyes that it was bad news. I would be leaving in a week and I did not know when I would return. I tucked her head against my chest as she wept softly. “Will you marry me before you leave?” she asked. “Yes I will,” I responded.
Chu Hua and I could not be married legally. She of course had entered the country illegally, through no fault of her own, but she had no papers. I was not even sure a white man could marry a Chinese woman in this country in 1917. I knew of the Chinese Exclusion Act that had limited the rights of the Chinese in this country to almost nil. I did not know but I also suspected it stipulated rights of intermarriage. But marry we would. I hired a motor car from a gentleman in town. I had never driven one before, but this day would be my first. The man showed me how to start the car and the basics of driving and we were off to Bridgeport. I am sure my driving was terrible but fortunately there was no one else on the road. The car reminded me of a buggy pulled by two stallions anxious to get to a mare. In Bridgeport I drove to a Methodist Church I had seen before. I pulled around to the back near a small residence I presumed to be the Pastor’s house. Nervously, I knocked on the door. A small, kindly looking old man with a shock of thick white hair answered the door. “May I help you,” the gentleman said as he smiled. “I would like to get married,” I said. “Yes, I can do that,” he said. “Please come in.” We sat down in the parlor and I am sure he recognized my nervousness. “Do you have a marriage license?” “No sir, I will be honest with you. The bride is a Chinese woman and she has no papers. I don’t even know if it is legal for a white man to marry a Chinese woman.” He smiled, “I don’t know if it is legal either but I do know that God loves all his people the same. It is not for man to decide who should be allowed to marry. I regret I cannot perform the ceremony in front of my congregation, but my wife will serve as a witness to God that you and Chu Hua were married on this day.” The ceremony was simple and short. The pastor’s wife was as warm and delightful as the Pastor was. They hugged us both as we left. Chu Hua glowed as I wrestled the beast of a car back to Bridgeport.
I had packed my case and left my house and Chu Hua and I spent our last three days together in her shack. The morning I was to leave there was a sense of dread in both of us. I carried my case down to the motorcar that would take me on my way and then walked back to Bonanza Street. Chu Hua and I stood in the doorway as we had so often before. One final embrace. I held her against my chest as she sobbed in grief. She beat her tiny fists against my chest and said, “Please come back to me. Please.” “I will,” I said although I had no idea if I would be able to. I picked her up and sat her on the bed. “Before I leave tell me what the tattoo on your arm means.” She stared into my eyes and said, “It means Trust No One.” I hung my head and stared at the floor. “Good bye Chu Hua, I love you.”
I walked down to Main Street where a motorcar would take myself and five other men to Bridgeport. Then on to Reno where we would catch the train to points east and our induction into the Army. I sat quiet and somber. The other men chatted in a spirit of gaiety as we traveled along. War is an adventure until the dying starts. I thought about Chu Hua as we bumped along the rough roads. Where could we go if I survived the war? We could find someplace in the world that would accept us. It would be difficult for us and certainly for the children that would be born. But it could be done. I felt sadness about our separation but even more compelling was the disappointment in a country, a country that I might lose my life for. A country that would never accept Chu Hua and our children in the society I was forced to live in. I had to leave behind a young woman who loved me and had suffered far more than any one person in the world should. I did not know what her fate would be but I did not expect it would be good if I did not return soon. I sat in a bar in Reno for six hours until my train arrived. I lay in my berth as the train traveled east, staring out the window. It was a full moon and the desolation of the Humboldt Sink matched my mood. Sometime after passing the lights of Winnemucca I fell asleep.
I survived the war if not entirely intact. I saw much killing but did none of my own. Two weeks before the Armistice was signed I stepped on a mine while sweeping a field. I woke up in a field hospital to discover that my right foot and leg to the middle of my shinbone was missing. Fortunately that and a lot of blood was all that was missing. I was taken to a hospital in Paris to recuperate. Chu Hua and I had corresponded all through the war. The mail was not the most reliable but since we both wrote everyday, enough of the letters got through to know that we were both well. About a month before I was wounded, the letters stopped. I was worried but I also knew how unreliable the mail was. When I was well enough to travel, I sailed back to the U.S. and was taken by train to my parent’s home in Missouri to finish my recuperation. When I had regained my strength and was fitted with a prosthetic I rode one of my father’s horses into the town of West Plains to the telegraph office. I wired to Bodie, California asking the telegraph operator if he knew the whereabouts of Savannah of Bonanza Street. In the evening I went back to the office and found a reply from the operator. “No, I do not but will inquire with girls there and respond in morning.” I spent a sleepless night in a hotel room and in the morning walked back to the telegraph office. I hung my head as I read the words “I regret to inform you that Savannah died in the past flu epidemic.”
In 1960 I was 71 years old. I had spent 35 years working in mines around the world until I retired in 1955. I was in reasonably good health. I had never married again or fathered any children. The life I led was not very conducive to a family life. I lived in a nice little cottage by a pond in the town of Rocklin, California about twenty miles northwest of Sacramento. I kept a garden and small orange grove, fished in the summer and hunted pheasant in the fields along the Sacramento River in the fall and winter. I had a good little Brittany Spaniel hunting dog that kept me amused and also kept me company. His name was Bodie. In June of my 71st year I knew that I might not be able to make the trip in the summer of my 72nd year, so I loaded the dog in my old Chevrolet pickup and drove East on Highway 50 to Carson City. I turned south on a new U.S. highway down the Carson Valley to Bridgeport like I had done so many years ago on the old wagon road. South of Bridgeport I turned east on a new all weather gravel road for fifteen miles, came up over the crest of a hill and was looking down into Bodie Valley.
The old Standard Mill that had occupied so much of my time in Bodie still stood on the bluff. Looking not much different than it had when I worked there. Much of Bodie was gone. A fire in the 1930’s had destroyed most of the town and the last person had departed in the 1940’s. I parked the truck at the south end of Main Street and turned the dog loose. There was not much trouble he could get into up here. I walked north down Main Street. The Oddfellows lodge was one of the few buildings still standing that I remembered. I turned east on Union Street and was surprised to find my old house still standing. I stepped up to the porch and looked into the window. It had hardly changed. The potbelly stove, the writing desk and the metal frame bed where Chu Hua and I had lain as lovers some 45 years ago, all still there. I stared up the bluff at the mill but felt no desire to look inside. The dog rejoined me on a slow walk back west on Union Street to the cemetery on the west side of town. Inside of the cemetery fence, most of the grave markers still stood in good shape. North of the cemetery was a potter’s field where the poor and bad of Bodie were buried in unmarked graves. A prostitute could never have been buried inside the cemetery fence and certainly not the Chinese. I did not know for sure, but I suspected that the bones of my wife, Chu Hua, lay beneath my feet in the potter’s field. The dog put his front paws on my hip and whimpered. I noticed the sun sinking low on the horizon and we began a slow walk back to the pickup.
© Kevin D. Burgess 10/20/2008
Kevin D. Burgess was born in Missouri, raised in Arkansas and has made his home base in Northern California for the last 18 years. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1983 with a degree in Engineering. He has written numerous historical and legal articles for Professional Surveyor, a national publication and the California Land Surveyor, a state publication as well as the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. He also has written one technical book titled Land Surveying Field Practice. His poetry and short fiction has been published in the online magazine Sacramento Poetry, Art and Music. He has had two books of poetry published, titled Earth, Sky and Walls and The Queen City. He has traveled to most of the fifty states and has lived and worked in England, France, Germany, Brazil and Russia. He can be reached at kevinburgess62@gmail.com.