Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Wylie first hired Big Candy to cook for him on a river dredging project in Mississippi. There the locals pulled out survey stakes and the mules had to be guarded around the clock or they’d be blinded or crippled.

After he counted and recounted Candy’s receipts and counted out his share, Wylie liked to open a fresh bottle of brandy and talk. Candy’s job was to listen and to keep a fresh pot of coffee brewed for the brandy. Wylie was generous with his brandy, and some nights, even with the black coffee, Candy caught himself falling asleep. If he noticed, Wylie never complained; he was a strange one all right. But he took to Candy’s cooking at once, and claimed he could detect whether someone was trustworthy after the person had cooked him one meal. Before he hired Candy, he said, he had four good cooks in his life: the cook who was with his parents for sixty years, and three others who cooked for him one after the other. It was annoying that each cook lasted only five years, but not surprising because of the amount of liquor they drank. Why were the best cooks such drunks?

Candy shook his head; he wasn’t a drinker — he preferred to keep busy, making money. Not by stealing the boss’s money — Candy laughed at his own joke.

“Let me cook you a meal so you can decide.”

Wylie gave him the run of his tent kitchen and supplies, but they were miles up the Mississippi River in the middle of nowhere. It had been quite a test of his cooking skills, all right. What did Candy do? He went walking with a shotgun and a knapsack and two hours later returned with all he needed except for brown sugar, cream, and butter, which Wylie, at great expense, kept on hand. Wylie ate the baked pheasant basted in raspberry preserves, the baby peas in butter cream sauce, and told Candy he was hired even before he tasted the thick cream custard sprinkled with caramelized sugar.

How that white man could eat so much and never get fat! Must have been something wrong inside Wylie for him to eat all the time and stay skinny. Candy began to try to fatten him up — it was a challenge; but over the years Wylie never gained a pound. Candy wanted to keep the boss healthy because he paid Candy so well, but more important, he understood fine cooking and showed great appreciation for Candy’s cooking no matter what new concoctions Candy devised.

Until the wee hours of the morning and sometimes until dawn, Wylie did the talking. Generally he talked about food and cooking, and his recollection of the hundred best meals he ever ate. Candy was proud that high on Wylie’s best hundred list were meals cooked by him: deep-fried clam croquettes, venison filets marinated in wild cranberry sauce, baked catfish in wild plums.

Candy thought maybe all the food Wylie ate was the reason Wylie didn’t need more than four hours’ sleep a night. Candy liked to sleep more than that and returned to his own tent for a few hours before he had to cook breakfast for Wylie. Over the years, they had developed an arrangement that gave Candy the business opportunities that someday would finance his own hotel and restaurant in Denver. At the rate they were clearing profits here, they’d both be able to retire after this job, although the big profits brought troubles of their own. Prescott and Needles businessmen who wanted to make money off the construction workers too were angered at the fees charged by Wylie to permit the wagonloads of whiskey and women onto the project site.

Tonight something was up; in addition to the two sawed-off shotguns, Candy saw twelve-gauge shotguns propped in each corner of the tent. Tonight the boss didn’t talk about recipes; there was trouble between the state of California and the Arizona Territory over the diversion of the river to Los Angeles. Arizona farmers below the dam site were outraged to see water diverted to farms in California, and gathered in Yuma to burn down the federal courthouse. Rumors had the California state militia on alert, and the Arizona territorial militia preparing for a possible engagement with the California troops on their borderline, which was the Colorado River. Of course, Wylie knew it was all politics and money; lately he didn’t trust his two white bodyguards; to be rid of them, he sent them to guard the construction equipment day and night.

Candy never thought those bodyguards were worth a damn anyway. What Wylie needed were some good dogs. Bodyguards could be bribed and bought off; good dogs would lay down their lives. Dogs could sniff out assassins and these Arizona bushwhackers a mile away. He didn’t want anything to happen to Wylie. Candy wrote “dogs” on the top of his list of items to get the next time he went to Yuma.

Big Candy had never been friends with a white man before — only Indians and Mexicans and a few Asians. But he liked Wylie at once as he watched him eat the first meal Candy cooked for him. He liked the way Wylie’s eyes widened when he saw a special dish or dessert on the table; out here in the middle of nowhere, Candy was hard pressed to find even the most basic ingredients, but on other job sites in populated areas Candy took pride in finding local delicacies — fresh berries, mushrooms, or fresh oysters or clams. In hot weather Candy packed blocks of ice in sawdust under layers of damp burlap to surprise Wylie with thick sweet cream for butter and ice cream. For fifteen years now, they’d worked together, and their happiest times were the special meals — succulent rich delicacies Candy served him at the remote locations, construction sites miles from civilization, as they were here. So far here, Candy surprised Wylie with ice cream in June — he later joked it took a one-ton wagon of ice blocks from Prescott to make one big bowl of lemon ice cream. The lemons were off trees in Yuma, and the heavy sweet cream was from a Mormon farmer in Needles.

To show his continued appreciation for Candy’s cooking, Wylie didn’t hesitate to let Candy make beer and run dice games and cards on the side; now they both were ready to retire after this project. Wylie was going to Long Beach to live a gentleman’s life and he wanted Candy to come along — he only had to cook one fancy meal a week, and he could bring the Indian girl; Wylie didn’t care as long as Candy was there to cook.

Candy only smiled and shook his head; before he went to Denver, he’d come to Los Angeles to help Wylie find a cook far better than he was. Candy’s dream was to own a hotel and restaurant in Denver near the Rocky Mountains, which he’d only seen in paintings and photographs.

As soon as it was daylight, Wylie wanted Candy to find a hiding place — somewhere down along the riverbank — and rebury the floor safe. If there was trouble, the first place looters would look was under the floor of the tent. Wylie wouldn’t put any deed past the Prescott businessmen or the army, and Candy had to agree; during Candy’s hitch with the army he had seen drunken troops turn to looters while their officers looked on.

Wylie was philosophical about the changes: they’d done very well here and already had the money they needed to retire. If the state militias clashed at the dam site and the army got involved, Wylie would continue to oversee the actual construction, but his control over the premises and his licenses to conduct business would be taken over by the military. After that, the outlook for Candy’s casino and brewery was not good; the military men were bound to favor the Arizona businessman with political connections in Washington.

Candy told Sister Salt one evening after he cooked eggs and bacon for her they might not be here on the river for as long he first thought. He told her what Wylie said about the water feud and the troops taking over. He wanted to make their baby strong and happy, and though they did not discuss it, he knew their baby complained about the place and the food. Once the troops took over, he and she would go straight to California to the Indian school in Riverside and track down her little sister that way. Otherwise, they might wait in Parker forever before any letters ever came back from Washington.