Three Roads to Waitsburg

THREE ROADS TO

WAITSBURG

G.F. Skipworth

Rosslare Press ♦ Rosslare Arts International

Portland, Oregon

Copyright©2009, by G.F. Skipworth, Rosslare Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles, reports and reviews. For information, address Rosslare Press, 7660 SW Oleson Rd., Portland, Oregon 97223

First Edition 2009

Visit the Rosslare Press website at: www.rosslarebooks.com

ISBN-13: 978-09824710-2-9

ISBN-10: 0-9824710-2-5

LCCN: 2009905382

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR THE WAITSBURG CONUNDRUM

Do not worship logic where logic is not useful.

In most arenas of substantial importance, it is an elixir of mediocrity.

Neither Disneyland, love, nor half of the food and wines in France came about through the virtues of logic.

Logic is a step by step guide for surviving physical life on Earth, but has nothing whatsoever to say to its beautification, or even its progress, other than as a system for measuring and marketing it.

Logical thinking sent us to the moon, and will send us to the stars, but it will never provide the impetus to go there.

Never laugh at the ark if you want to make it into the Bible.

Unless you’re buying a used car, skepticism is the art of making life as small and as unspectacular as possible.

Enjoy looking up some of these term found in the story

The Columbia River

Harlequins

Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite

The Texas Rangers

Wexford, Ireland – St. George’s Channel

The Belmont Stakes – The Triple Crown

Michelangelo and da Vinci

Conundrums

Mail Order Brides and the American West

The Northern Pacific Railway

Belgian Plough Horses and Friesian Stallions

Waitsburg, Delta, and Walla Walla, Washington

John Henry

The Legend of Casey Jones

The Comic Strip, "Tumbleweeds

Episodes

The Fable of the Three Roads – I. The Sacrifice

How ya Gonna Keep ‘er Down on the Farm (Now That She’s Shindahee)

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack (I Don’t Know if I’ll Ever Come Back)

Johnny’s So Wrong at the Fair

General Sensitivity

Airna Leila Shatin Annanina Meera Porlansin (Attorney at Law)

The Waitsburg Steeplechase

II. The Masterpiece

Slow Dancing with God

Artiste Extr’odinaire

I Think it Was the Fourth of July

At the Principal’s Office

III. The Bride

When Does the Next Train Leave?

I’m Just Asking

Epilogue

The Fable of the Three Roads

(as first I heard it recounted at the Carpailtin Campfire)

I.

The Sacrifice

We, of The Conundrum, are pleased you have chosen to meet us, here on the outskirts or, more accurately, the northern edge of beautiful Walla Walla, Washington. Although we intend to speak of Waitsburg, one cannot easily speak of one without the other. Why are we here at the end of Clinton Street, where the lonely country road begins its winding way through the wheat fields? There are many others like it, equally beautiful, on the other sides of the town. We did not create the legends of the region, but the region, with its legends, drew us, and we have found a home here. We did not ask you to meet us here because Walla Walla is

attractive, although it is. We are here because it is magical. Sitting as the hub of its surrounding terrain, the great fields lie to the south, the desert and the Columbia River to the west, the Blue Mountains, with their rare light effects, to the east, and a very unique type of agricultural landscape to the north, one that emits an almost cinematic quality, surreal, in part, with elements that appear drawn and deposited here directly from the studios of Disney. The patchwork fields and hillocks do not blend in with one another, but are like visual, powerfully rich flavors of butterscotch, fudge and mint, with sharp borders between. The whole northern area above the town looks edible, especially during the summer, at pre-harvest. There isn’t much that won’t grow here, unless you’re into mangos or pineapple. Wheat, the onion and the strawberry are king. We have said that the place is magical. There is a typical feeling here, shared by many, that when one travels over the last hill outside of Walla Walla, and the pristine community disappears from view, it truly disappears, evaporating into a place of legend to take its place beside Camelot and Brigadoon. Of course, when one returns, it emerges from sleep and primps itself back into prime condition. A place like Walla Walla would never allow one of its own to return to a frumpy, scruffy life. It has far too much self-respect for that.

The town of Waitsburg lies approximately twenty miles away. It is a small, quaint and clean community amid the wheat fields. Ordinarily, one would stand in the midst of that town to tell such a tale, but that is neither possible nor entirely practical, for two reasons. First, no one is allowed there at the moment, unless they already live there. If they live there, chances are that they, at least the elders, have arranged to be elsewhere for the summer. Second, the spot upon which you are standing, where Clinton Street meets the wheat fields, is a starting point for the road to Waitsburg…or, let us say, a central location where one can meet up with all three roads to Waitsburg…Upper Waitsburg Road (which, for some time, has been the main highway), Lower Waitsburg Road…and Middle Waitsburg Road. As you stand here, you may wish to look around and memorize some landmarks. You’re going to be here a few times, even if you don’t expect it. For many people, the Walla Walla Little Theater, just behind and to your left, is such a landmark, a delightful, converted red barn with a varied and active season. That’s another thing about Walla Walla. You couldn’t throw a baseball, anywhere in town, without hitting someone who is rehearsing or writing a play. There is as much theater DNA in Walla Walla as there is in New York, and a good chunk of some New York neighborhoods have come from here. All right, then…it’s a magical place…it’s pretty…theater, onions, strawberries and wheat. It still doesn’t explain why we’ve come. What are these legends? Are they fact or superstition? Are they mythologies constructed by the old to entertain the young…or to keep them off the property? And, who is this we to whom you continually hear us refer?

Well…that’s none of your business…and we say that for your own good. It’s important that we remain unprejudiced, and that we follow the rules. You might meet us in a dark alley, very soon, somewhere in your most fearful dreams. Or, we might come over the hill on white horses to save you from us in that same alley. We’ll grant you this, however. Stand here on the edge of Clinton Street as long as you like, and you’ll be perfectly safe. It’s a beautiful town with many lovely, interesting people. But…take one step, put down one foot, however innocently, on the other side of this street, where the fields and Middle Waitsburg Road begin, and you have signed the contract to meet the Three Conundrums. The moment in which you make that choice and take that step will be the moment in which your powers of time, space, color, motion and mental orientation will be confiscated, to be placed under the ownership of others. What they choose to do with you is up to them, and whatever group you represent must agree to let you go, as God allowed the troubles to test Adam, Eve and Jonah. You are allowed to bring help, but in only one form at a time…no cavalry over the hill, no deus ex machina…no bus ticket out of town.

So, would you like to stand here a while longer and think it over? It’s an important decision. You can die doing this, and many have. Well, no one really knows that for sure. There are many who just never came back, and were never found. Some have been recovered wandering in the fields around Waitsburg with lost memories. Actually, it’s not entirely accurate to say that no one knows for sure. We know…but we’re not talking. Putting your foot down on the other side of that road is all about you, not us… It must be assumed that, since you are here, you had some original interest in it. Why else would you come? And, it’s not that you can make a dry run, or come back next year. It occurs only once, that is, once for each road, at thirty year intervals. So, consider well. Do you want to do it now, while you’re young and strong, or thirty years from now when you’re deliberate and less rash? Or, do you want to live with…I never did it, and I really should have forever? Conundrums, conundrums…whatever will you decide in the end? Whatever it’s to be… it would be best to watch your step.

****

There are two people in the expansive Waitsburg area who have seen the phenomenon four times in their lives, at three, thirty three, sixty three and ninety three years of age. There are so few of them, and they are so elderly that, sadly, no one believes them. Their accounts are ascribed to fondly sentimental mythologies heard in the farmhouse at night, while the men smoked pipes and told stories from their grandparents, and these children listened in from the upper rafters. Beatrice Lattimer kept diaries from childhood to the present, filled with poetry and mystical prose. No one knows whether she is a disappointed writer, or has actually seen something humans should not discuss with other humans...

Footsteps – there again! Do you hear it? I asked my grandmother…is it really what you said…three roads, different each time? Is it true? Is it?

Seems like every thirty years or so…there’s a sound coming far down the road. Folks here swear it comes a different road each time…always the same…always the same. Footsteps, but not the kind you’re used to hearing…booming or rumbling like a thunderstorm, but disappearing quietly, just when it seems that it ought to be here. Papa said that folks were dying from no cause, others going crazy…says they found the preacher wandering the fields, wailing like a ghost who doesn’t know where he is…others, too…just forgot their names and where they lived…and who their kinfolk were.

And then, pages of poetry would follow, in a nervous script as jittery hands plunged the quill pen into the bottle with deteriorating finesse.

"Seasons come, sure as morning on the wheat and mountains – Like the first time they came, not remembering anything of the past.

Never old, never tired from the year before – Always children, always young

The only things that ever die are the things that remember.

Only things that ever cry are the things that can’t go back.

Things that used to run stand like trees and watch.

Things that used to dance sit on porches, rock, and

Tell their tales to no one, wait for the next friend’s funeral,

Pray to God or the Devil, seems like the same things, somehow –

Dead just the same, dirt just the same, gone just the same.

Preachers carry on, curtains close, candles out -

And all you get…is to stop remembering

I’m not saying God and the Devil aren’t real. Every thirty years they come here together, just to have it out, like two young fools who wrestle at the county fair to win the prize plough. They make as much noise as they want to. Other towns are so far away, they think we’re just having thunderstorms – I’ve seen it twice, girl. I tell you it’s so…only you never know what road they choose to come by.

"Forgive me…I’m just a foolish old woman telling stories old women tell.

When times get lonely, stories are all we have to pass the time.

Take me far from the wheat fields, where I can’t remember

Seasons or colors, laughter or dancing or childhood…please now…far away"

Is there any way to stop it? Just one…you’ve got to give them something, like a sacrifice…that’s it, a sacrifice! Something else I noticed…they take a fancy to things set afire – yes, things set afire, like giving it back to God, only making it clean first. Someone’s got to do things that folks can never forget – preacher say that’s been done, but it’s so long ago, nobody remembers.

"People forget, act just the same, need to be told

And all you’ve got to do is show them the way."

Now, you see…the crux of the story, according to these life-long residents is that, every thirty years, God and the Devil meet on the undulating and remote fields between Walla Walla and Waitsburg to, in a phrase, have it out over whatever, in particular, has been bothering them in the last three decades. More than that, as these storytellers claim, they meet to test their faithful, by subjecting them to the influences of their counterpart. They further claim that the two entities meet in this location because, in effect, they make a tremendous amount of noise, and feel free to unbridle themselves fully without toppling large cities, and so forth. To nearby residents, the resulting din approximates a horrid series of lightning and thunderstorms, the worst imaginable, but at least, it all corresponds to a reasonable human’s perception of everyday, standard physics.

And who are the faithful? Followers of either entity can be assigned the task of going through The Conundrums, and peripheral associations are free to use the deadly course as a training ground for their elite, although the price is often very high. Independent individuals, those minding their own business, can be drawn into The Conundrums as well, if their situation seems interesting enough to the two combatants, or if they live within the geographical boundaries. The two celestial combatants have been known to wager extravagantly over the outcomes of such tests, and allow each other a strictly enforced time span in which to work their…magic. As we have said, The Conundrum’s boundary to the south ends on the wheat field side of Walla Walla, where Clinton Street leaves off, and Middle Waitsburg Road begins.

Provided that anyone of sound mind would believe such a ludicrous tale in the first place, least of all one as enlightened as Banjeel, what was Vykelli Sheemlae Vilhjarmurssonsdottir doing at the end of Clinton Street, complete with red cape and double shindie? Of course, no one in Walla Walla would notice that as they drove past the Little Theater. She was probably just doing one of the young princes in…oh, some Shakespeare something or other, or…ah, Viola…Twelfth Night, of course!

Be that as it may, she could smell the different terrains as the wind shifted back and forth…the sage, the pine, and the mixed fragrances from the north. Don’t ask Vykelli why she was there. While a Shindahee never enters the Sisterhood against her will, she is expected to show up once she commits. It was Banjeel’s wish that she do this, and the queen owed her (and gave her) no further explanation. The command ran contrary to Marta’s hope that Vykelli could take time off, to recover from recent horrors and responsibilities. Banjeel is not flip about such things, nor is she impulsive. Chances are that she knew something no one else could detect…that is not an uncommon occurrence for her. If there is, indeed, a phenomenon that occurs here, she would be more likely to know the identities of the major players, and wave off mythologies of the field folk. All Vykelli knew was that her task would be to reach Waitsburg from Walla Walla, or the reverse, three times on foot…no spanning allowed. She could call on one individual at a time for companionship and limited assistance, and for some reason, Marta and Gray were off limits, as was, of course, Banjeel herself.

In defense of Beatrice Lattimer and Jenny Haskins, veterans of this three decade mystery, something epic had been noted at the times suggested by the legends. Animals that strayed too close to the scene of battle were found dead, some crops were damaged, and some people were, indeed, found wandering the fields in a crazed or half-conscious state. Weather events went far beyond the peak of any other time, and the soil took on a grey color where it was heavily trodden. The signal for The Conundrums to begin sounded like faint beats of a bass drum far away, becoming a deafening stroke as the two purported entities moved along the roads, a different one for each visit.

Well, that’s all we know, and that’s all Vykelli knew. Of course, you don’t believe that for a second, do you? You’re learning. We know…but, as we said before, our lips are sealed. Standing on the safe side of the boundary, she heard the drumbeats, and was transported, for a moment, to the war two years ago. She was fourteen now, and those memories, far from fading, grew larger in the fabric of her development, now that she had more tools with which to question them. Added to the distant thumps, she saw brief swirls of air and light in a wind-borne dance across to the Middle Road. They almost took shape…something was there, almost amassing, and then scattering in particles of light. She spoke to them, but nothing answered. Minutes later, a largely sunlit day threatened to disappear as a wall of churning black soot gathered in the sky toward Waitsburg, and rolled southward toward Vykelli’s position. It roared up to the opposite edge of the street from where she stood, and hit the boundary as if it were a brick wall. Ten feet before her was the blackest sky she had ever seen, but on her side, pure idyllic summer. After a time, the wall dissipated…and what, or who remained - a tall, slender figure covered with a black hood - beckoned her to cross, like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Vykelli shook her head, and he…she…it, crumbled to grey ash. Concoctions, she assumed, …but who’s behind them? She looked back behind her. One of the many summer activities was about to commence in Pioneer Park, and families were headed down the sidewalk with folding chairs and picnic baskets…and yet, no one seems to have noticed that sky…the concoction, admittedly a good one, having been intended only for her. She heard a spangled sound like a set of tranquility chimes quickly struck. A flurry of leaves was blown across the road, and congealed into another figure, a harlequin, studded with the standard multi-diamond pattern, and prancing about like a satyr, playing a wooden flute. He stopped, flashed a cynical grin and jerked his body to a halt with arms out in a mock invitation. Again, she shook her head, refusing to cross. She knew that, eventually, she would cross, but only at the moment of her choosing. The harlequin wept, feigned disappointment, and crumbled like his colleague. Vykelli wondered if the fact that they only stayed a few moments suggested that their puppet master had to be careful with his or her energy reserves. That would certainly be a good sign. Still, it was not time to cross, and she waited for more parlor tricks from the varied repertoire of these Conundrums. But, all grew calm…nothing stirred, until a voice called to her from somewhere out in the immense field…Hurry! This is the time to cross, while I can stay…I’m your first companion, but I can’t stay long. Cross while I can be valuable to you! And, there he was, standing near the road, off to the right…Floki, her father…I’m having trouble hanging on, Vykelli. I’m not really supposed to see you until the Second Conundrum. She took one step forward across the street, not believing for a second that her father was really here, but taking it as a sign of the correct moment to enter the struggle. As she stepped onto the pavement, the winds from all directions seemed to gasp at once. Stopping in the middle, she raised her voice, probably louder than she needed to… Who and what are they…you? What is all of this? Floki nodded in understanding… Do you remember all the fuss about the theory of everything? These are the travelers, the summer players, the touring troop…the ‘Theater of Everything’! With that, he began to grow faint and doubled over in pain and weakness. She took another step, and as she neared the other side, she felt a thousand eyes blink. As Floki fell to one knee, Vykelli knew that this was the precise moment, and strode quickly across. As her foot touched the gravel on the other side, a chorus of semi-human voices released a unison Ahh, in a downward inflection that suggested great relief. As she reached for