The Journal of Secrets

The Journal of Secrets
By Ian De Shils (Ernest Shields)

Chapter 4

The Luck of the Draw

"That's all it is, Danny, the luck of the draw." Phil said, as we drove toward Shafter. It was an awfully short trip for all the things I wanted to talk about, but Phil had a habit of coming right to the point. "Some things in life you choose, some you don't, In this case either 'you is or you ain't', and nothing much that happens in between can change it. Look at us, Kiddo. You and I aren't exactly strangers to certain things, but, you're headed for the freeway, kid, and I'll never get off this side road."

I saw his eyes glisten for a moment, then he smiled and said,

"Carla must really be something special, just don't let old man Falcon find out. He wouldn't take kindly to you teaching his little girl new things."

I laughed, "It's more like the other way around." I said, then, the thought of her filled me with such longing I burst out, "Carla's so wonderful, sometimes I think I'll die if I can't be with her."

Phil just smiled sadly. My brother was the only one I could truly trust. Maybe it was because we shared a secret of our own, but even if we hadn't, Phil would've understood. We were so much alike in so many ways. Our folks died in a train accident and shortly after, we were sent to Bakersfield to live with Grandpa Harris. California was a world away from the Illinois we were used to and for a long time I hated it. Grandma had been dead for many years and Grandpa had little patience with me. I was doing lousy in school and three months after Mom and Dad were buried, I was still crying in the night and trying to crawl in bed with him. Finally in exasperation, he put me in the big room upstairs with Phil.

I was nine, and Phil, fourteen, but he must have suffered just as much as I did those first lonely months. Phil gave me comfort, he showed me things that calmed me, that took my mind off my loss and for the first time since our folks died I slept through an entire night. Phil had always been more caring than Grandpa. He had tried to interest me in sports, in movies, in books and rock and roll, but nothing helped until I started sleeping in his bed. Phil never once coerced me into anything nor did he ever tell me to be silent about what we did. I just knew it was our secret and as far as I could see, it was no one's business but our own.

When I was twelve, Phil told me about his best friend, Jim, a kid we both knew back in Illinois. Jim was a year or two older than Phil, a next door neighbor and a boy who spent a lot of time at our house. I remembered him as being quiet, never saying much. Mom and Dad seemed to like Jim better than any of Phil's other friends. He didn't smoke, do drugs or get in trouble like so many kids in the neighborhood. Phil told me sadly that Jim killed himself a year after we moved to Bakersfield and I think the thought of that happening to me scared him. He hugged me and told me fiercely never to hold anything back, to bring all my problems to him and we'd discuss them. Before all else, he said, we're brothers, and nothing could ever come between us.

And nothing did until almost four years later when I met Carla. She was intense, beautiful and I was drawn to her from the day she entered school. Her father was the new minister at Grandpa's church, one of those fire and brimstone preachers that Grandpa so admired. Carla and I began making love the week after we met and for the next three months I lived only for those few minutes after school. We'd sneak in and go up to my room and for awhile I'd find myself in heaven. The smell of her, that mass of black lustrous hair cascading across the pillow, those little moans she made. It all became more real to me than anything I'd ever experienced before. Carla was like a flame, she made me burn.

What I shared with Phil was a closeness and spontaneity we both enjoyed, yet I think much more intense for Phil than it ever was for me. I'd never known real passion until I met Carla and everything that came before paled in comparison. Phil was enrolled at UCSB then, but he came home every weekend. He loved Santa Barbara and wanted me to choose that collage when the time came, he said I'd enjoy the ocean there, it was like looking out across Lake Michigan from our old summer cottage on the bluffs.

When I didn't respond to his playfulness in the same way I used to, Phil knew something was wrong. His hands had always aroused me instantly before. Now the only way I could get into the mood was by thinking of Carla.

"What's the matter, Danny?" he asked, raising up on one elbow to look down at me. The dim light made his face a contrast of highlights and shadow that seemed to flow and change as I told him about Carla. I think Phil took the news much harder than I ever realized. A kind of sadness settled over him that night that never completely disappeared.

"I'm so sorry, Danny." he said, "You and I were always so much alike I never thought it possible we might be different in this way. Oh, God." He cried, "If I had only known, I never would have. . . "

Phil lay down and began to sob. I put my arm around him, pulling him close. At that moment I didn't know why he was crying, I just felt I had somehow betrayed him and it was my fault he was hurting so. The next day on the road to Shafter he seemed his old self again, cheerful and funny, full of jokes, but he stopped using those teasing little gestures that we'd built up between us over the years. He talked about being straight, being gay, and my confusion about it all.

"You can't make someone gay any more than you can make someone straight." Phil said. "It's the luck of the draw and no matter what you want, you'll end up being what you were born to be. I'm sorry I didn't see you and I weren't cut from the same cloth, I guess I just wanted it that way. My dream was we could always keep things just as they were. I knew it was only a dream and someday you'd meet someone and leave, only. ." he laughed ruefully, "This isn't exactly how I envisioned it."

Phil was trying to tell me everything was fine between us, but I still couldn't shake the feeling I was deserting him. I told him nothing had to change for us. He just shook his head.

"Danny, I'm happy for you! Really I am. You're my brother, I love you and want what's best for you, and that means following your own heart. Just think of what we did as sex games, the kind of fun kids have and nothing more. Don't dwell on it Danny and in few years from now it will all simply fade away."

I tried to take his advice, yet always in my mind lay those memories of the closeness we once shared and from that grew an understanding of what Phil searched for his entire life.

The next six months became a miserable time for me. My ecstasy with Carla turned to aching pain when Reverend Falcon found out what we'd been doing and sent Carla back east to Alabama. It left me lost and heartbroken. I tried to reestablish the old patterns with Phil, but he rebuffed me, saying it was only habit and one that must to be broken. We used those weekends just talking or hiking in the mountains, then Phil spent that entire summer doing all he could to guide me back from where I followed him so long ago.

That fall, Phil told Grandpa he was gay and the intolerant old bastard threw him out. He called Phil depraved, disowned him and said he never wanted to see him again. Grandpa read the bible by the hour and never missed a church service yet he didn't have the slightest bit of love or compassion in his soul. It was my brother, my only confidant he discarded and called worthless, and I never forgave him for it. Ten years later Phil was dead. It might have happened anyway, things being what they were, but somehow I felt responsible.

Philip was a fine man, a good and loving brother who suffered needlessly over being fourteen and gay. He meant no harm and none was done, not to me at least, but perhaps there was to Phil. To the end Phil remained my staunch and loyal backer, deftly giving sound advice, while he himself chose friends and lovers of the lowest type. Was he punishing himself? I can't say for sure, but I've never forgotten his tears that night or the shadow of sadness that seemed to follow him forever after. Damn it all,--- I miss you, Philip.

* * * * * * *

Notes to myself:

I still kick myself for being so arrogant. I made my judgments on what I saw of the Harris' here at Soledad, but everyone knows sorrow, why should they be any different? I wonder if it isn't a universal trait to blame ourselves for things we have no control over. We all do it I guess, but it doesn't lead anywhere. Dan couldn't save his brother any more than he could follow in his footsteps. It wasn't his destiny. I'm thinking more and more along those lines. I believe the quietness of Soledad and all I have learned here is giving me a more spiritual outlook on life. I remember back when we first met, Jake claimed it was fate that brought us together. That was before either of us really understood how well we meshed. Later, it seemed we complimented each other in everything we did, not only in business, but in life as well. In rough times or smooth, we remained above all else, best friends.

The same fate that treated me so well, has dealt some mighty heavy blows to the Harris family. In the orient they believe life is a balance between good and evil but everything eventually evens out. I hope so for Dan and Lonnie's sake. I find it difficult enough to read some of what those two have written. I can't imagine living it. The next excerpt speaks of Sara Harris, Dan's first wife. There is a tautness in the way Dan writes of Sara as though after all these years he still has not reconciled that loss. Later in his journal is a more extensive section on Sara, but I chose this one because it, too, mentioned Carla, if only briefly,---

* * * * * * *

Sara's Song

She chose the song "People" and had the perfect voice for it. I stood enraptured as she wove her way through the lyrics, never moving, hardly breathing, just watching her. She was beautiful with golden hair and willowy figure yet so unconscious of her beauty that she bothered not at all with makeup. It was that about her, I think, that first caught my attention. Sara was so different from all the would be starlets that roamed the high school campus. She stood out like a delphinium blooming in a field of plastic roses. Music was her passion, mine was track, yet we had a communality of interest. I used music to set the rhythm for my runs and she found a beat in the syncopation of the hurdles.

I stalked her for a month before she noticed me, bumping into her, being there to open doors, but we never really spoke until one day after practice.

"Nice run," she said, "you beat the others by a mile."

I mumbled something about just being average, but she shook her head.

"There's nothing average in the way you run, Dan Harris, you're good! Besides," she added, with a mischievous little smile, "You look kind of cute in those shorts."

"I'm even cuter without them." I replied inanely, and she laughed.

We started dating that fall of our senior year, casually at first, because she wanted it that way, then steady after Halloween. By Christmas we were in love, or thought we were and trying to find quiet places to be alone. Sara's house was always filled with relatives, and mine was now full of great aunt Amilia. Grandpa was getting more confused every day, and even though aunt Amilia had not spoken to him in several years she came up from Pasadena to help look after him. It was Grandpa's next door neighbor who gave us the very thing we needed when he asked me to watch his house for a few months. He went off searching for his roots in Scotland, while Sara and I discovered paradise right there in Bakersfield.

Carla came back to school after Christmas. I hadn't seen her in almost two years but she acted as though no time had passed at all. I think she expected me to take her home, but when Sara came over, slipped an arm around my waist and hugged me, Carla walked away. She avoided me after that, would hardly speak to me, and after graduation I didn't see her again for several years.

In March, Sara told me she was pregnant and after graduation we married. We lived with Grandpa, in the same upstairs room that Phil and I once shared. Aunt Amilia loved Sara like a daughter and I think she was as proud of Lonnie as any grandmother could be. Aunt Amilia never had children of her own, but she had a heart as big as the world for everyone but Grandpa. I remember her storming up from Pasadena when she found out about Phil.

"George, you're just like dad!" she yelled, "Not a lick of sense between the two of you. That boy is your flesh and blood and he deserves better than what you've done to him." And she never spoke to grandpa again until I called and told her how sick he was.

After Lonnie was born, Sara continued with her music, aunt Amilia insisted on it. She knew a coach in Pasadena and once a week she and Sara drove down for the day. I was in collage half days, working construction afternoons and taking extra courses evenings, sneaking up, as it were, on a degree in Civil Engineering. Those were wonderful years, the joy I felt with Sara made all the hard work seem effortless. Even grandpa in his aged fogginess seemed more human than he ever had. He gave up quoting scripture at every turn and I think I was seeing him more like he was as a boy, not the hard and bitter man he'd grown into.

One thing didn't change, Phil never came to visit. Sara, Lonnie and I spent many weekends with him in Santa Barbara and aunt Amilia saw him regularly, but for four long years he never came to Bakersfield. I told him Granddad wouldn't remember, but Phil was bitter and I didn't blame him. When grandpa died he didn't even attend the funeral; although, afterwards he told me he was sorry. He said he guessed he was more like grandpa than he thought.

For many months, Sara's coach was showing her off in concerts and festivals and people were beginning to take notice of her talent. She made several demo tapes, one of which caught the interest of a small recording studio who quickly signed her to a one album deal. Sara was going places, I could see it, and I kidded her, in five years she'd be so rich, I'd never have to work again. It was our joke. 'Young man of modest means marries wealthy singer.' Like some headline in the tabloids. After that, all our snapshots carried subtitles: 'Famous singing star drowns only child in soap suds.', 'Songbird's husband forced to mow lawn for room and board.'

That summer Sara began working on the album, spending long hours in LA. and staying nights with Aunt Amilia in Pasadena. I had some time off so I took Lonnie to Phil's place in Santa Barbara and on the weekends we drove down to pick up Sara. Four weeks was all the album took; although, Sara told me some of those weeks were pure hell. She said by the time they finished, she was thoroughly sick of every bit of music on the record, but I could see she was pleased with the results.

Sara never lived to hear her music played on the radio. Some bastard with a gun took her life for no other reason than being on the freeway at the wrong time. Three bullets passed through Aunt Amilia's car. She lost control and rolled over on the off ramp. Sara was dead the instant the one bullet hit her and Aunt Amilia died ten days later from the injuries received in the accident.

Even now, after all these years I sometimes hear Sara on the radio and occasionally a DJ mentions that her death was a tragic loss for music. And it was, yet to me those recordings are only shadows. Just pale reflections of the true song, the song that was my Sara.

* * * * * * *

More notes:

Dan has been through some truly terrible times. When I read this I was ashamed of my own self pity over Jake's condition. He is after all, alive and healthy, even happy. If he never gets any better I still have my best friend and that's more than Dan was left with.

The final excerpt I chose is actually a continuation of Dan's reunion with his son, yet it seemed more appropriate to tell Jake of Lonnie's harrowing experiences first and let him learn more of Sara and Phil before bringing this to an end. Jake seems to be tying the stories together. It's remarkable. The questions he's asking now are quite direct, not the meanderings he usually comes up with.

In this selection I find hope, not only for Dan and his son, but for Jake as well. If Dan is right about Rancho Soledad, than perhaps this quiet place will help Jake, too. I do feel he is improving. He acts more alert now, less childish, and there have been little instances when his reactions were almost normal.

* * * * * * *

Rancho Soledad

So much had happened to Lonnie in Grandpa's old house that he couldn't stand the place. The same upstairs bedroom that for me held so many wonderful memories, was for him a horror chamber filled with dread. We didn't stay the night. Some friends had a small efficiency vacant so I rented it and for the next few days we stayed there, searching to find the truth hidden in all his confusion and mixed emotions. I found he barely remembered his mother. She was just a vague part of that time before the pain began, erased by all the torment Carla heaped upon him.

The same went for Aunt Amilia and Grandpa George. The were gone from his life as though they never existed. He did remember Phil, but only when he was so sick and wasted away. Carla told Lonnie she put a curse on Phil and for a long time he believed her. I dug out old family photos, found Sara's demo tapes and the album she recorded and with these tried to restore his early childhood. Maybe someday he'll remember he was loved by those strangers in the pictures, but right then they were unimportant to him.

His main purpose in coming was to see if I ever cared about him and that broke my heart. What could I say? What could I tell him? I didn't know? Why didn't I know? My child, my Son, was being tortured by an insane woman; yet, I didn't have a clue? Lonnie suffered terribly because of my neglect. The lame truth of the matter was, I didn't know what was going on, but then I never looked, I never saw what was plainly before me. What Carla did was unforgivable, but what I hadn't done was worse. By burying myself in work, I allowed her to get away with it. Where the hell was I all those years? He had a right to know. He had a right to ask that question of me. He never did.

Lonnie cried at night, quietly, trying not to bring attention to it, but it was something that couldn't be hidden in that small apartment. He was grieving. I didn't say anything at first, hoping he would tell me in his own time, but when he didn't, I finally questioned him about it. Defiantly, he told about Charlie St. Pierre and at times was crudely graphic. I think he was testing my reaction, yet the love he'd held for Charlie shown clearly through everything he said. I all ready knew a bit about St. Pierre, having hired a private detective agency to make inquiries about the man.

St. Pierre went to Craig as a boy to work for Carl Salcomb, the owner of the ranch and when Salcomb died he left the ranch to Charlie. Although only nineteen or twenty at the time, he ran the place single handed for several years before hiring a man named Steve Wells. The report stated Wells was an alcoholic and a trouble maker who the locals didn't like, but they did like St. Pierre. It was said he was an honest, hard working individual, a big man who never threw his weight around, a quiet man who kept his own counsel and a person who could be trusted to his word. I'm sure he was all those things, but when I found Lonnie lied about St. Pierre being an old man in his sixties, I suspected there was something else about Charlie never touched on in that report. It was no great shock when Lonnie told me, I think I all ready knew.

"Are you ashamed of me?" he asked almost as a challenge.

"Now why would I be ashamed of you for loving Charlie? I'm sure he was a wonderful man, I'm only sorry I never got to meet him. I'm sorry I never got to thank the man for saving you from my insane, bitch of a wife. God, Lonnie,--- how I missed you,--- but if I was too damn stupid or dumb to see what was happing to my son,--- I thank God, Charlie found you and took you to safety. If he didn't, I might not have you in my life right now."

Those words finally broke through the wall of his reserve. I saw the tension leave, the drawn look fade from his face, and for the first time since he returned, Lonnie smiled. I think he forgave me then, which was more than I can ever do for myself. A few days later, Lonnie received a letter from a law firm saying it was urgent he come to Denver to complete the ranch business for the year. I suppose we could've flown, or taken Amtrak, but we drove. Lonnie said he wanted to see the ranch one last time; although, mostly I think, he wanted me to see the place where he found happiness. I'll admit I was curious. He made Rancho Soledad sound like a bit of paradise hidden in the mountains.

A cold wind blew among the ridges as we wound our way up to the ranch. At first I thought there was nothing to the place but some old sheds and corrals, then Lonnie pointed out the house. It was a hovel. Sturdily built from native stone and logs, but a hovel nonetheless. Then, I realized I wasn't seeing what Lonnie saw. This had been his home for six years and it held, at least, as many memories for him as grandpa's old house did for me. Inside, it was warm, neat and clean, crowded with books and souvenirs and a very different place from the cheerless November mountainside on which it stood. This little house, this pile of stone and wood seemed to welcome Lonnie home.

Above the door was carved a date and two names, Edwin Ellis, Thomas Street, July 12, 1866. Below that bold carving, the uprights contained other names and dates, a history of the ranch, I thought, carefully preserved in wood. Some names spanned many decades, joining with others along the way, while some were etched there only once. Just one date was carved for each set of names and when I finally saw Charlie St. Pierre and Lonnie Harris, I realized that the date was nearly a year after Lonnie disappeared. What then was the importance of it? And why were there no references to anyone's death, just a single date with each pair of names. Did that imply the beginning of something that was more important than the end?

Lonnie led me through the house and I was amazed at the things I found. Tucked away in corners and on shelves were objects of great beauty and value, ancient stuff and modern trinkets all thrown together in a way that become a feast for the eye and made you want to slowly search for the next surprise. I discovered glass paperweights, the likes of which can be found only in museums and three silver mugs that I am sure were as old as the Union itself. Souvenirs from Disneyland huddled around a candlestick carved from solid jade and beside a small vase by Tiffany, lay a few old Spanish coins. Along the walls sat simple Indian pottery, the flagstone floors covered with Navajo rugs so old they were worn to a silky smoothness, and the whole of it giving the place a warm, homey feeling.

The house was larger than I first supposed, containing four rooms in all, the innermost opened onto an upward sloping cave in which flowed a spring that provided water for the house and corrals. The house was rustic, but except for lighting, modern in it's conveniences. Lonnie told me that LP gas provided all the fuel needed, then shocked me by going out to turn the gas on to cook our supper. Outside the air was cold and mountain dry yet inside it was as warm and soft as a summer day. My engineering instincts took over and I began searching for some miracle of solar heating or insulation, yet I found nothing but plain stone and wood.

"I don't know, dad, it's always like this." It was all Lonnie could tell me, but I saw him smile at my perplexity with the house.

We dallied there for a few days, putting off the inevitable, I decided the warmth must come from some subterranean source, possibly a buried hot spring transferring heat up through the stone floors, but I couldn't prove it. I hated leaving without an answer to the mystery and I could see Lonnie was sad about leaving his memories behind. In Denver, the aged lawyer Silas O'Conner gave us the news that Lonnie was now the owner of Rancho Soledad.

"The ranch is held in trust and can't be disposed of," he explained. "but you can work it or not as you please. There is some two million dollars in securities that's included in this trust but again you can't touch the principle, but the dividends are yours." He then gave Lonnie a package and a letter.

"Mr. St. Pierre ask me to give you this Lonnie, in case something happened to him. I fulfill this obligation with great sadness. I knew Charles since he was just a lad. Carl Salcomb was a friend of mine and Charles was about your age when he inherited the ranch. Charlie had some lonely times, and a pile of trouble with that drunken Steve Wells, yet I could see he was truly happy these last few years. I guess the legend of Soledad is true."

Lonnie was stunned by it all and wanted to be alone while he read Charlie's letter so O'Conner and I stepped to an adjoining office.

"The legend you spoke of, what's it about?" I asked.

"Ah," he said, "It's just a saying about that wonderful old place. It seems to hold up, I suppose, because every owner of the ranch believes it and made it come true." 'Here you will find peace, and love that lasts as long as life.' It's a very old place, that ranch, and old places gather up stories about them."

"Yes, I've seen the date, 1866," I replied, "but you make it sound ancient."

"Rancho Soledad is much older than that, it was originally a Spanish land grant." he answered, "And goes back to around 1690. The house in front of the cave was built 1866, but the cave itself was occupied for a century and a half before that. It's very strange up there. Otherworldly. Did you notice the antiques? No owner has ever gotten rid of anything. The last time I was there, I saw old Navajo rugs worth thousands, scattered about the floor; yet, nobody even locks the door when they leave." He just shook his head.

"The strangest thing about Soledad Is how it affects certain individuals. Personally I enjoy visiting, but I've taken people with me who can't abide the place, and if they react that way once, you can't drag them back. I had one promising young associate quit rather than return to Soledad. It wouldn't have taken him more than fifteen minutes to have those papers signed, but he flatly refused to go." O'Conner chuckled, "Maybe it was for the best. He later tangled himself in politics and got into an awful mess. Did some time in jail as I recall."

When I questioned him further on the ranch and the strange bequest he told me it was that way through every owner on record.

"In some ways," he said, "An owner is more a caretaker than anything else. Your son will have full responsibility for managing the ranch, including taxes, and as long as he lives, it will take his signature to make binding contracts for anything pertaining to ranch business, but he doesn't have to live there or even maintain the place. There is only one strict proviso he must follow: He can add or repair anything he wishes, but he cannot demolish a thing without the approval of the trust."

He went on to say the securities provided enough cash to pay for everything. It originally came from a small silver deposit on the ranch that was invested by owners years ago. The silver was long gone, but the fund had been faithfully increased by each new owner. I told him it was the strangest arrangement I'd ever heard of, and he smiled.

"Sixty years ago I said the same thing," he replied, "but after seeing Soledad smoothly change hands several times, who can say? You wouldn't believe the problems that can crop up under an ordinary inheritance. Whole families have been torn apart over a piece of land no one wanted in the first place."

"There must have been some original natural heirs," I said, "someone who would place a claim against the ranch."

"Quite a number of them, in fact, but the trust is unbreakable. An owner can provide for dependents in anyway they choose, after all, the dividends and profits belong to them, the claims however can go no further than the actual income and when the owner dies the income stops."

"In that case," I said, "Lonnie doesn't really own the ranch at all, does he? He's just the holder of a life lease."

"Not true. You're son can do anything he wishes with that property, short of selling it or demolishing what's all ready there. If Lonnie wants to abandon the place for his entire tenure, fine. If he decides to turn the Soledad into a winter ski resort, that's his prerogative. He can do a thousand things, or nothing, but most importantly, it is Lonnie and only Lonnie who can select an heir, and that makes him the owner." Lawyer O'Conner concluded by saying that most owners let the trust pay the property tax from the dividends and then either invest or use the remainder.

"There's quite a sum of money involved. Under Charlie's ownership, his personal after tax income was over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, thirty percent of which he returned to the trust and ten thousand dollars yearly went into a savings account for your son. I don't think Charlie ever spent more than the thirty-five thousand a year he set aside for his own needs, all the rest went into savings. Of course, all of that now belongs to Lonnie, Charlie left him everything. It's a bit over one million in cash"

I was shocked, then completely stunned, when,--- except for his own savings account,--- Lonnie turned all of it back to the trust.

"What would I do with it, dad? The ranch is mine now, and I have to make sure it survives. Some day costs may be so high the present dividend won't pay the taxes. The fund must grow. I owe it to Charlie and all those who came before him."

I must admit I was impressed with my son's maturity and foresight. Would I have done that at his age? How could any nineteen year old look toward a future where he no longer exists and plan ahead for someone he might never know? Perhaps Silas O'Conner was right, maybe there was something strangely wonderful about Rancho Soledad.

We left Denver too late in the season to return to the ranch, snow lay deep in the passes and Rancho Soledad would have to wait until spring. Lonnie didn't want to go back to Bakersfield and I didn't want to go to LA., so we settled on Santa Barbara. It's nice along that piece of coast even in the winter and I like it there because things don't change so quickly. I took Lonnie to see Phil's old house on Grand Avenue. Still standing out front was the American elm tree we used to laugh about. In spring it leafed out in a fascinating pattern of one limb at a time. The poor thing was as out of place in this warm climate, as we had been those first years in Bakersfield. It survived, but it never really adjusted properly.

Leisurely we visited the sights of the city, spending time at Hendry's beach, tasting wine in the El Paseo, touring the mission and the courthouse. Finally I took him over the San Marcos pass to Cold Springs tavern, where once when he was four, he'd been so delighted with the trout swimming behind the glass that he didn't want to leave. He remembered it. The fireplace with the iron pot of steaming chili, a man behind the bar who had given him a stick of gum. Little things, but still memories of the carefree time of childhood, something I thought he had lost forever.

That winter I sold the house in Bakersfield. Lonnie wouldn't go there anyway, so why keep it? I didn't need the place to remember Sara, or Phil, Aunt Amilia or Grandpa. It was time to look toward the future not the past. We talked the winter through and I decided to herd sheep that coming summer, I was only thirty-nine and could go back to building bridges any time. Right then my son needed me and this might be our only chance to become a family once again.

It's been three years now and of all the bridges I have built, the one most gratifying now connects me to my son. We have bridged the gap to become a family once again. The ranch has changed as well, the house has been rebuilt, it demanded it. The swaybacked roof that once concealed the beauty of these stone walls is gone, replaced by a timbered second story that now stands proud against the mountain and towers over the corrals. During the rebuilding I expected to locate the source of the unnatural summer climate the house enjoys, but what I found never fully explained it. Some warmth and humidity issues from the cave and it's spring, that I know for sure, and as I guessed, a recordable amount of heat does come from beneath the house, but combined, it doesn't seem nearly enough. After all this time I really don't know anymore than I did that first day, but I've stopped worrying about it. The house now has eight rooms, yet for all the added space, it is still as warm and comfortable as ever.

During the work I handled every object in the house many times, packing and moving them to the cave, then back again, and I seemed to feel the previous occupants watching me with approval. It was almost like being part of a group of men and women all working toward the same goal, yet I'm not certain what that goal truly is, only that it's worth the effort. Silas O'Conner was wrong. It's not the owners belief in the legend that makes it come true, it is Rancho Soledad itself that performs that feat. This place is all the things the legend speaks of, I've read the records left by other owners and know the truth of it.

Carl Salcomb lived on this ranch with his beloved wife Alice for thirty-five years. After she died, he then took in Charlie St.Pierre, a fifteen year old orphan as a helper and companion. Carl's journal plainly shows his consternation at finding himself, a man of over sixty being drawn to the boy, yet evidently it was something needed by both of them. Later he speaks of Charlie in terms of love and pride in the fine person he has become and never again is there another mention of guilt.

I have always believed what Phil told me so long ago. You can't make someone gay unless it's inherent in them, but in reading those journals, I've come to understand here at Rancho Soledad at least, you can care for someone so deeply gender simply doesn't matter. I can't say that all the relationships I read about in the journals were sexual, some obviously were, some were non-specific, but one thing was very clear. Here at Soledad, they truly did find love that lasted as long as life.

Lonnie thinks we should travel this winter, and I feel he is right. An expectation is growing. Something is about to happen here. I think when spring arrives, love may bloom once more at Soledad. I've watched my son these past three years and can find nothing in him of my brother except perhaps for Phil's intelligence and kindness. Somehow I feel Lonnie's needs and those of Charlie's were met by Soledad at a time most desperate for them both, but did it end there for Lonnie? I almost think so. Still, I don't know for sure, any more than I know what the future holds for him. Perhaps this winter would be a good time to tell him the story of two brothers and how things were not what they assumed. And if I'm wrong in my assessment of my son, so be it. I've lived long enough to know love is at least as hard to find as truth and in whatever form it presents itself, only fools deny it.

* * * * * * *

Notes:

Jake absorbed the excerpts almost as fast as I printed them. My fear he might be upset by them seems ungrounded, instead, he has focused intently on the writing. He's so excited about it he insisted I rework my earlier jottings into a real journal that starts from the time we left California. He even wrote two short paragraphs of his own and told me emphatically to "Put 'em right in front" which I did and that contribution pleased him very much.

Now comes the hard part: Our own story, and this is much more difficult than I imagined. I've taken a cue from the other journals and have decided to write it entirely on a personal level. I can't ask Jake for his interpretation of the events, he remembers none of it, so this will be my own personal odyssey, written, hopefully from the same point of view I held at that time we lived it. And yet, I still find stumbling blocks. So much has happened in the past twenty-four years, can I keep it all straight in my mind? Will the little details come back?

As I look down at my list of notable events I find I've entered an anniversary celebration as happening before the kids were born. Also, did Jake's first marriage last for a full year or was it less? I can't remember and the records, if they still exist are back in Brentwood, so I'm afraid Jake will just have to accept my memories of how things were, accurate or not.

I think I'll stick with the story like format I used with the Harris excerpts. Jake seems to like it and I do feel it makes it easier for him to zero in on certain events. Where to start? Well, I guess the logical place is where it all began for him and me. Out on the desert, nearly a quarter century ago.

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