Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

Henry Tomtree was so bashed up, he had to be buried in a closed coffin.

Thornton did not weep at the wake or funeral. He did not hear or have a remembrance of Darnell’s entreaties. The numbing pain of his first great loss plunged him deeper into himself where he worked ‘round the clock, hunched over his maze of wires. After a month he allowed himself a single groan of pain.

Like new, he showed up at the yard to go over the accounts with Moses.

“The books are a mess, Mo,” Thornton said.

“Those ain’t the books. The books are up here,” Mo answered, pointing a forefinger at his forehead.

“Well, I’ve got to get them in some kind of order. We’re in probate. I don’t just inherit. I inherit what is left. Mo, I’m scared of losing the yard.”

Mo rubbed Thornton’s hair. “You won’t lose the yard, son. Henry was very good to me. I’ve put away a creditable sum for just such an occasion.”

A month later, a very lonely Moses Jefferson took a last look around the kingdom of tortured metal. He stood by the basketball court. “Catch the ball! Throw it to the open man!”

The light was burning in Thornton’s shack. Seemed like it was always burning. Mo felt he was waiting around these days, just waiting around. He knew he’d be going off to sleep soon.

* *

TROUBLESOME MESA, 2008

Quinn, I told myself, keep it simple. Literature is not appreciated these days. Say your piece and get off the stage. What is this!

Only

2:14 A.M.

What would Rita and I and the kids do after the election? If we were defeated on the campaign issues, we’d suck it up and go on with life. To have come within touching distance of the White House and have the door slammed in your face, rejected, is another matter. I could take some solace in the fact that it was Alexander Horowitz who was defeated and not Quinn O’Connell. Reality says this will go with us to our graves and largely dictate the lives of our children.

I scan the speech. Well, it needs some more touching up, but not now.

I feel a glow. Rita is near. I’d know her presence from a half mile away. Driving up to the ranch house, I can tell by the feel of it if she is home or not.

She floated in from the bedroom without me hearing, but I knew she was there, behind me. Her fingers are at my temples. Nobody groans like I groan.

“How does it look?” she asked.

“No matter how I put it to the American people tomorrow, it doesn’t

sound real. Winning the Democratic nomination didn’t seem real, either. But this, it’s unabashed madness. Want to wake up Greer, honey? She’s got to set up the press conference.”

“Greer is in la-la land. I turned it over to Kohlmeyer before I hit the bed.”

Quinn phoned out.

“Kohlmeyer speaking.”

“Pete, it’s Quinn. How are we looking for tomorrow?”

“The saints are marching into Troublesome Mesa, boss. They’re buzzing around like sunset gnats hunting for a piece of dead skin. Quinn, if I can push this into the noon spot in Denver, we’ll break at eleven on the coast right before their noon news and at three in the afternoon on the East Coast, giving us a flying start on the evening news.”

“It will make no difference this time, Pete,” Quinn said.

Peter Kohlmeyer, as everyone else on the staff, wanted to know what Quinn was up to. Pete held his tongue with a gnarl between his teeth.

“Pete, this is largely in the hands of President Tomtree. His reaction could change the entire election.”

“Sonofabitch is too smart to shoot himself now,” Pete said.

Give up, Quinn. Surrender to Rita. She offers everything to comfort you. Lord, I no sooner hit the pillow than I’m streaking through space. Rita knows what is lovely to me. I feel the warmth of protection, and relief in knowing I’ll still have her when all of this is over.

Christ, I can’t sleep, but at least the atmosphere is comfortable.

The details of my birth have eluded me all my life and never fail to grate on me.

I try to remember back, some tiny connection with my infant life, but everything I recall began in Troublesome Mesa.

Dan and Siobhan had gone through a half dozen winters of discontent when I came onto the scene.

TROUBLESOME MESA, 1953

Dan was a Marine, the most tender and loving of men but faced with the most sorrowful of circumtances. Siobhan, equally comfortable in jeans or behind the controls of the Cessna, found Dan’s faith and understanding giving them the power of many.

In the springtime the snowpack in the high mountains melted and let go its cargo, the journey turning it into great, gushing rivers. The roar of it created quivers in the ranch house.

As water poured into the valley, it left little lakes and tiny beaches filled with hungry but wise mountain trout in the high country.

The ranchers read the winds, predicted the rains, knew the value of crop by touch.

In came the hummingbirds, skinny and exhausted from their flight north. Consuelo put up several pieces of red glass to attract them and tell them they had a free handout at the O’Connell ranch. Feeders of sugar water and red dye were set out, and by twilight hundreds of hummers had arrived. A bully, the rufous, larger than the “ruby throats,” spent hours near the feeder chasing off the little ones. They went into WWII dogfights and battled to get to the food.

With little light finding its way up from town at night, the O’Connell ranch sat in darkness, allowing a star-gazing extravaganza. And one would have to wonder if the earth was truly the center of the universe.

Now came the ballet dancers: showers of yellow, red, and purple columbines, each mass filling its own hill or meadow or cliff side to radiate its vibrance and then leave, far too soon. Dan and Siobhan chose their own magic meadow and made love in the grass. And he laughed at the white-capped demigods hovering above them.

Dan did whatever a good man had to do to ease the heartache of their

life. With Pedro Martinez firmly in control of the operation and Siobhan doing the books, Dan was able to win a seat as state senator.

From Pedro, Dan learned to hunt and fish and canoe, how to survive if lost in the mountains, how to mend fences, drive and buy and sell cattle, read the fast-moving weather fronts roaring down their valley.

The fine warm weather didn’t last long enough, though. It didn’t have to, because stands of millions of aspen trees, propagated through their roots, covered the slopes on both sides of the valley. Their translucent pale green leaves trembled at the slightest breeze. The Mexicans called them “money for the pope.”

In the second or third week of September came the announcement that winter was not far behind as the leaves turned solid gold with the occasional dark green spike of a conifer piquing the stand.

Spring and autumn were muddy and sloppy from snowflakes holding too much water. Around Thanksgiving, as the real cold snapped in, the flakes became so light you could blow them off a branch with the slightest breath.

Father Scan was coming!

For three years he had been in one of those godawful places in Africa where only a Catholic missionary would go. Ravaged by ailments, he had been recalled to the States. The three years in Africa had earned him the respect due a full and sacrificing priest in the eyes of Paul Cardinal Watts, archbishop of Brooklyn. The cardinal sequestered Sean.

The priest needed healing. A light course of duty was set up in which he could spend part of his time at nearby St. John’s in study and teaching.

Cardinal Watts agreed that a month off in Colorado would put some roses

back in his cheeks. Father Sean was picked up at the Denver airport

and whisked to the small aircraft side of the field. He nearly fainted