"The Traveler" Glendale Community College Literary Magazine, 1997

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Untitled, Michael Garrity, Third Place - Drawing
Table of Contents
LITERARY CONTENTS
Fiction
In the Wake of the Moon. Joshua Ivanov 3
VISUAL CONTENTS continued
Computer Art
Nightlife, Sue McCluskey
Second Place
9
A Clear Conscience, Jill Mitchell
Second Place
The Reckoning, Theresa S. Franks
First Place
16
33
Can You Smell the Flowers?, Holly Painter
Third Place
Gas Inhalation/Genesis/Steel Grate ver.O,
Jarom Wilcken - First Place
12
35
Diamond Cave. Christopher W. Lowe
Third Place
Non-Fiction
The Quicksilver Dowry, Debra Krol
First Place
Call Me Roy, David A. Gudzinas
Second Place
Diminishing Jenny, Lisa Marie Warren
Third Place
Poetry
Let the River Run. Janet L. Martynotte
First Place
37
13
22
28
2
Drawing
Untitled, Michael Garrity
Third Place
Untitled, Michael Garrity
Honorable Mention
Blake, Raye Hamblen
First Place
Music and Light, Edna Pitman
Honorable Mention
Root. Rie Kitamura
Honorable Mention
Sleepy Face, Rie Kitamura
Honorable Mention
inside front cover
7
8
14
15
20
AJ's, Avren Snader
Second Place
The Boy's Hope, Rie Kitamura
Second Place
PiII's Boy Meets New Friend. Rie Kitamura
Honorable Mention
Painting &Watercolor
Water Lilies, Mary Bean
Third Place
12
32
39
25
37
cover
inside back cover
The Snake and I and the Butterfly,
Pam Sabbia - First Place
Photoaraphy
Jeremy, .Jennifer Smith
Untitled, Felix Avina
Honorable Mention
12
20
21
23
25
26
27
7
8
10
Haiku II, Lucy Coombs
Fruits and Vegetables, Andrew Fish
Time Takes You, Jill Mitchell
EI Camino to Salvation, Silverio E. Rodriguez
Second Place
Repetitive, Billie J. Dominick
The Dress. Jill Mitchell
Captive Moon, Christopher W. Lowe
Third Place
To Mr. Stuart, Lisa Marie Warren
Success Comes in All Flavors,
Janet L. Martynotte
Remember Last Summer, Kevin Stoltz
The Wait, Joshua Ivanov
Sully Plantation. Christopher W. Lowe
Duality. Michael Senft
Hair Shirt, Joshua Ivanov
Untitled, Shana Looney Harvey
30
30
31
32
40
Tree, Paul Dameron
Honorable Mention
Amanecer de las Canastes. James R. Haas
Honorable Mention
Frankie With Shadows. Jennifer Smith
Honorable Mention
Paso del Campesino. James R. Haas
First Place
11
18
21
24
VISUAL CONTENTS
Ceramics/Three Dimensional Art
Euphoria Seeps, Jarom Wilcken
Third Place
2
Winter Grass. Paul Dameron
Second Place
Black Bear #5. William Witzigman
Third Place
Watermaiden. Nina M. Rogers
Honorable Mention
26
27
29
Hell, Meghan Thompson
Second Place
5 Untitled. Felix Avina
Third Place
30
Cosmic, Kevin Ve
First Place
30
EI Primero Paso. James R. Haas
Honorable Mention
31
TRAVELER
2
First Place - Poetry
Let the River Run
Janet L. Martynotte
Walking by the river's edge
lost in thought and sound,
stumbled on a lonely man
cross-legged on the ground.
Head thrown back, eyes shut tight,
see what pain had done,
broken heart had burst the dam;
Let the river run.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes cruel
rocky river flows,
sometimes carries secret things
only river knows.
Pounding onward, rushing forward,
purpose always one,
imitating life's confusion;
Let the river run.
Offered hand to grieving man,
brushed hair back from his brow,
while longing for some word to say
though nothing soothing now.
Left teardrop hanging on his cheek,
conclusions-there were none,
continued on my way that day;
Let the river run.
Euphoria Seeps, Jarom Wilcken, Third Place - Three Dimensional Art
TRAVELER
Fiction
In the Wake of the Moon
Joshua Ivanov
There's blood. Blood
creeping along the floor, reach­ing
ou t wi th dark lifeless pseudo­pods,
blood on the walls running
down the new wallpaper in
rivulets. Blood. The moon peeks
through the window passively,
watching the pool spread along
the oaken floor boards without
comment. Its reflection distorted
in the crimson pool reminds me
of a silver halo crowning the
head of the ... the thing I can't
see. I try to avert my eyes, but
they won't move. There's some­thing
fascinating about running
blood. In the shadows I can make
out a faint wheezing. It's a hol­low
sound, not one of life but of
mechanical respiration. My
hands clench into a knot of bones
and skin as my fingernails dig
into my palm and draw blood.
Somewhere in the back of my
throat a sound is echoing out of
the empty pit in my stomach and
rushing to freedom from between
clenched teeth. Somehow I force
the aching muscles in my neck to
shift the unbearable load my
head has become to the right a
few centimeters, and I see what
I've been avoiding.
With a gasp I sit up in
bed, reeling from the vividness
of the dream. My fists are filled
with handfuls of sheet, and when
I release the linen, traces of red
tell me I've reopened the wounds
in my palms. This is why I don't
go into the bedroom anymore.
The nightmares, the tension. It
just isn't worth it. I tried to go
back in and get some clothes
after the first night, but as soon
as I touched the door knob, a
wave of nausea washed over me
and sent me gagging to my
knees. Now, I just wear the same
old sweat-stained undershirt I've
had on for a week. Nothing is
worth going back into that room
and facing the memories and
nightmares. But then again, I
have to face it, don't I? That's
why I stay here, in this house
where it all happened. I'm just
not ready to take it all in at once
yet. Maybe I never will.
I turn to look out the
window and squint at the pitiful
light the moon gives off as it
bathes the city with an unnatural
glow. What an awesome sight.
This huge glowing sphere forever
circles us, changing the tides,
playing such an integral role in
life on this one, dismal planet.
So far away it might as well not
exist but still having such an
enormous effect. Everyone's so
busy toiling and keeping their
eyes down in fear that they won't
look up, not even for you. Well,
Lady Luna, I see you and you are
beautiful. And seeing the moon,
and seeing that she is good, I
unscrew the bottle in front of me
and raise it in salute before I
drain the last few ounces down
my parched throat.
Today is grocery day. It
used to be an easy thing to do.
I'd get in the car, drive to the
store, debate on which of the
junk foods was the healthiest,
and buy it. It's more complex
now. I throw a musty smelling
jacket over the second skin that
my undershirt has become and
grab my keys and wallet off the
coffee table. As soon as I open
the door, I have second thoughts
about the necessity of suste-
TRAVELER
nance. I leave the car in the dri­veway
and set off at a loping gait
toward the local convenience
store that bestows me with right­eous
gifts of food and liquer
these days. It's not until my
lungs seize up and I start wheez­ing
that I realize how out of
shape I am. Sweat forms on my
brow and I have to make an
effort not to turn and head back.
It's then that my legs start to
ache and after another thirty feet
I'm sitting on a bench rubbing
my calves furiously and grimac­ing.
I knew it would be like this.
Across the street a little
girl plays with a bright ball, toss­ing
it up in the air and then
catching it with a joyful expul­sion
of furious giggling. How
oblivious and beautiful she is.
The ball encompasses her entire
world; it goes up and down, but
it always lands in her hands. I
traded that simplicity for cyni­cism
and the freedom to frequent
hazy bars and lose myself in glo­rious
libation. How unwavering
she is compared to me. She wants
the ball more than anything, toss­ing
it up and always knowing that
it will come back down again.
And if she misses it? Then she
follows it with her eyes and runs
after it and catching it up in her
arms, she tosses it again. She's
unafraid of loss. She probably
hasn't even learned the word per­manent
yet. I wonder what would
happen if one day she threw that
ball up and it never came back
down. I ignore the obvious
answer. After that I can't seem to
get up the will to continue my
journey so I leave the bench and
the little girl behind and run to
3
4
the shelter of my house like a
child hiding behind his mother's
apron.
As soon as I open the
front door, I realize something is
wrong. Everything is in the same
place that I left it, but some­thing's
changed. Something in
the underlying form, a certain
scent in the air maybe. A cursory
investigation proves futi Ie and
it's then that I realize where this
feeling is emanating from. My
feet move as if I were sliding
down a sharp incline. Trying to
control my descent, I lean back­wards
and lock my legs but to no
avail. I stop inches in front of
the bedroom door, my lips pulled
back in a grimace of terror. I
will not go into that room again.
Something rattles behind the
door and my hands contort into
painful claws of bone and mus­cle.
The last time I did this I lost
everything. My world shattered,
something inside of me died. A
part of me is laughing. A voice
echoes out of the inky depths of
my consciousness and it's say­ing,
"What have you got to lose
this time around?" The answer is
nothing. I've got nothing to lose.
My hand starts the journey
toward the door knob and I
watch it like a removed specta­tor.
Slowly, it's moving so slow­ly.
My fingers wrap around its
cool exterior like a throat, my
knuckles white, my fingers
aching with effort. I stand for a
minute wringing the life out of
it, hating it for the last time,
wishing it was my throat. When
it doesn't die, I turn the knob
and let the momentum of my
actions carry the door open.
The room looks as I
remember, the same but irre­versibly
different. The bed that
used to comfort me makes me
ache now. The darkness that
used to provide sleep is lonely
and disconcerting. The plant in
the window was her idea. It's
dead now, another victim of my
neglect. A figure steps forward
to my right but I ignore it. This
is my shame. My burden. My
eyes lower to the floor and my
mind goes numb. Not the artifi­cial
numb of an alcohol-induced
stupor but the bone chilling
numb of human mortification
and remorse. The rug was her
idea, too, such a little thing, but
it made her smile when she
bought it. The patterns had
attracted her. The multi-colored
triangles and circles interlocking
into an intricate series of shapes
had been aesthetically pleasing
if nothing else. Now half of the
rug was obscured by a crimson
stain that seemed to run off onto
the floor and deep into the
ground underneath. It was the
same stain on my hands, the
same vermilion that had sur��rounded
my heart and strangled
it.
"This is where it hap­pened,"
the figure declares.
It was a man's voice, or
nearly a man's voice. I let my
eyes shift to the shadowy figure
before me though I have no real
desire to acknowledge his pres­ence.
"This," he repeats "is
where it happened."
"Yes," I hiss. I want to
leap on this figure and bombard
him with my fists, to smash his
face into pulp and kick him to
the ground. The anger arises not
from a territorial need to defend
my property from an unknown
trespasser but because the man's
words have admitted my guilt.
He knows. I wasn't here when
she needed me most.
The young man steps
from the protection of darkness
and into a stray beam of light
that falls across the floor. His
TRAVELER
eyes are cold and empty, almost
haunted. The dark circles below
them betray many nights of
unrest. His clothes hang on his
thin frame as if supported by one
long mast that stretches from
shoulder to shoulder.
"What do you want?" I
drawl, my voice filled with pri­mal
malice.
He looks at me once and
seeing the fury in my eyes, pulls
aside his shirt, exposing the
firearm tucked into his pants.
The part of me that had laughed
earlier was cackling again. My
lips twist into a mockery of a
smile, and I leap forward taking
the man's shirt in both hands and
knocking him into the wall. With
all my strength I throw him to
the floor and kick at his ribs and
face, snarling in furious glee. At
last I back away ready for what
comes next. His hand wraps
around the pistol and with one
pull it's out. His hand shaking,
he levels the gun at my chest and
when it becomes too heavy he
uses both hands to support its
weight. Still no expression
moves his face. I walk forward
and slowly put my hand on the
barrel of the gun. Kneeling in
front of the youth, I raise the
dark maw of the pistol until it
rests on my forehead and then let
my guiding hands drop away.
The scene is frozen in
time, me in a position of ultimate
supplication and my
benefactor/executioner holding
the means of my release in his
shaking hands. I close my eyes in
anticipation and allow myself a
forlorn smile of satisfaction.
Suddenly the heavy pressure on
my forehead is removed, and I
open my eyes to see the young
man leaning against the wall
with a tired look on his face. He
toys with the gun and then lets it
drop to the floor beside him. His
Hell, Meghan Thompson, Second Place - Three Dimensional Art
mouth opens and words come
out, but they don't seem to make
any sense. He repeats himself.
"It was me. I did it. I
killed your wife," he says.
The only thing I can
think of is blood. Blood every­where.
My eyes creep towards
the gun and he lets a weak smile
slide from the corner of his
mouth.
"It's not for you," he
says, his shoulders sagging.
"Why did you come
back? Why are you dragging me
through all of this again?" I ask.
He sits there for a
minute, looking out the window,
staring into nowhere, and when
he turns back, tears are running
down the side of his face.
"I didn't mean to kill
her. I wanted you to know that.
I've been thinking about it so
much, just turning it around in
my head, seeing how it looks
from every angle. My mind keeps
asking my body, 'How could you
do a thing like that?' and my
body just shrugs," he says.
"How did it happen?" I
ask, trying to wrestle with my
conflicting emotions. It's like a
huge python wrapping itself
around my entire body, and just
when I think I've got it under
control, a new part starts squeez­ing
the breath out of me until
TRAVELER
I'm hyperventilating with arms
crushed to my sides.
He shakes his head and
looks up at the ceiling with a
distant expression.
"Oh God, it was so stu­pid.
That's the worse part. I was
walking down the street one day
and suddenly I looked up and
saw your house and I stopped
dead in the street. I was thinking
about how easy it would be to go
in and grab something electronic
and then sell it. I tried to pretend
I needed the money, that I was
starving, but it wasn't the truth.
It was the thought of just walk­ing
in like it was my own house
and taking something valuable
5
6
and leaving. Like I was ten years
old again and scoping out the
gum at the candy store. I didn't
think anyone was home when I
crawled through the window. I
didn't see her come in. We were
in the same room together and I
didn't even know. The door shut
and I turned and jumped back­ward
and my finger grazed the
trigger. It was a twitch. And just
like that I'd destroyed someone.
With a twitch."
"What does this all have
to do with me?" I ask, still strug­gling
to deal with the situation at
hand.
"I've done something so
horrible. Something that you
could never comprehend in a
thousand years. I've come to set­tle
up. I took something from you
and it's time that I paid. I don't
want the cops to tell me what I
should do to make amends. I
don't want to make amends. I
want you to know that your
wife's killer was right in front of
you and justice was in your
hands. This isn't between me and
the cops, or me and a judge. It's
between you, me, and your wife.
It's your choice," he says push­ing
the gun in front of me.
I want to pick up the gun.
I really do. My mind is racing for
a quick solution but everything it
touches turns to dust and blows
away. I've thought about this
moment for months and months
but I never expected it to happen.
I wanted the man who killed my
wife to be a slathering psychotic,
not some nervous kid who broke
into my house as a joke. I want
to do something though, teach
some invaluable lesson about
life, but I don't have the faintest
idea what I'd say. My wife is
dead, and that's all I know.
"I can't make that deci­sion.
I wanted to kill you at first
and maybe if I had been there I
would have done it. It would
have been justified. You've
placed your life in my hands, but
I don't want it. What do you
think you should do?" I ask
wearily.
"Well, I wanted to give
you the chance. I swallowed a
cabinet full of pills before I
came here, just in case. It
shouldn't be long now." He nods.
After a few seconds he
starts speaking again.
"It's funny. When I came
in here, I sawall the bottles and
the mess in the living room and I
wondered if you were a lush
before your wife died. I don't
think you were. We're both
reacting to this the same way,
but you don't have to live like
this. Whatever you think you did
or didn't do, this isn't your bur­den.
Let it die with me."
We sit for a while, each
of us lost in the darkness. I don't
try to dissuade him or call the
cops. I don't debate the morality
of suicide or ask him what's
going on in his mind. At one
point he starts to cringe and his
hand comes up to his stomach.
He closes his eyes and smiles
and when he opens them again he
looks happy. Pretty soon he's
panting and groaning in pain. He
keeps saying he's sorry, over and
over again like a child who's
broken the cookie jar, and I can't
believe I'm watching someone
die. Near the end I take his hand
and nod to him. He says, "Thank
you" and then it's over.
The trucks start coming
at eight in the morning, and from
that moment on, I'm a blur of
superhuman movement. Over and
over again I trace and re-trace
the steps of a perfectly choreo­graphed
dance routine that takes
me from my house to the moving
TRAVELER
truck and back again. I'm getting
out. I didn't think there was any­thing
left of my wife or our life
together but she's still playing a
role in what I do and what I
think. She's still out there some­where,
like the moon, drifting by
in a sea of stars affecting a per­son
who can't even see her any­more.
I'm getting out of here and
getting on with things. I had a
lot of wonderful years with my
wife, but I don't want to spend
the rest of my life thinking about
what could have been. My wife
is dead and so is her killer.
There's nothing left to fight but
myself. And that's one thing we
all have to face. I still miss my
wife and her passing has left a
deep scar that runs right through
me like the rings of a tree but I
know that no matter where I go,
I'll always have the moon to
remind of those things that are
here yet not here. The things that
move without touching. The
invisible things that tear at your
heart and fill your mind every
hour of the day. And maybe I
won't be so alone after all.
Repetitive
Billie J. Dominick
Reading your poems at nineteen
I noticed how they stuttered off pages
small, white, conforming rooms
where nothing was ever reliable
Just as you
altering the state of fingers
moving from three nameless cities
all blue in Daddy's yellow atlas
where love was accidental
a geographic error
as miles stretched letters into a thousand words
enveloped all their sticky kisses
until steam separated us at seams
Weight-shifting
land and asphalt
piling up
crushing down roads of your great nemesis
as wheels spun without the skill to steer
Who will drive you crazy now
into those throes of passion?
Insanity and love
strange attractions of archaic art
From these, you draw your own conclusions
dip pens in deep, nostalgic ink
f'll be here
reading your poems
when they stutter
Untitled, Michael Garrity
Honorable Mention - Drawing
The Dress
Jill Mitchell
I held tightly to the dress she'd wear.
It hung from the top of the guest room door,
long, powder blue, synthetic.
It was all we had-her
effects were still in transit.
I squeezed it
as if she were in it,
hoping she would feel my hug
when they dressed her.
But she was gone.
I touched the sleeves,
clenched the hem,
but gently.
Stared at it.
Imagined.
Blinked hard.
The bustle in the house:
people in black,
food,
flowers,
phone calls.
And then it was gone, too.
8
Blake, Raye Hamblen, First Place - Drawing
----------- TRAVELER
Second Place - Computer Art
Nightlife
Sue McCluskey
----- TRAVELER
9
Third Place - Poetry Captive Moon
Christopher W. Lowe
When I was a child once I saw the moon
full and lambent in the autumn sky.
I vowed to trap it in the air
and pull it down to Earth.
Tie it, perhaps, to the big old tree.
Encircle it, maybe, with my arms.
The giant old oak, in fact, had arms
strong enough to hold the moon­leaf-
bare branches that helped the tree
hold up the heavy velvet sky.
Deep roots through soft, damp earth
held trunk and branches in the air.
10
And, as the moon moved through that air
toward the old oak's open arms,
shadow-branches crept quietly over the earth,
hiding from the luminous moon
whose beaming face slid silently across the sky
to meet the tree.
Waiting, silent, stood the tree,
its branches motionless in air,
black and flat against the starry sky.
the ancient oak held up its arms
to grab the moon
and planted its feet deeper into earth.
As I stood watching from the earth
beneath the outstretched boughs of the tree,
I watched the slowly sliding moon,
its bright halo in autumn's air,
TRAVELER ---
catch in the old tree's mighty arms and stop
against the hlack-ink sky.
Breathless, I climhed up into the sky.
My sneakers left the safe warm earth.
The rough, scaly hark scraped my arms
as I c1amhered into the hig old tree,
high into the air,
toward the glowing orh of the capti1'e moon.
But at the tree top, I saw the moon
had slipped from the arms, free of the earth,
hack into the air on its course across the sky.
Tree, Paul Dameron
Honorable Mention - Photograph
To Mr. Stuart
Lisa Marie Warren
To Mr. Stuart
I simply wonder why
when you took the "for sale" sign down
you thought the house was yours,
the wall that hid my brother and me
after we broke the neighbor's window.
The heavy door
that caught my three-year-old fingers
(I still have the scars)
The tree the whining kitten always got stuck
up...
felled.
Hidden now is the bi-yearly paint
my Dad applied,
that showed up squashed bugs so well.
Do I want to see inside?
Not a chance.
Those memories I mean to keep.
Can You Smell the Flowers? Holly Painter
Third Place - Computer Art
12
Water Lilies. Mary Bean. Third Place - Painting & Watercolor
TRAVELER ---- --
First Place - Non-Fiction
The Quicksilver Dowry
Debra Krol
Across the coastal ranges
and plains of California runs the
fabled EI Camino Real, the
King's Highway. Franciscan
padres with their message of
Christ, Spanish padrons riding
their grand horses, and humble
yet quietly proud Indians all
made their way on the famous
road. In the spring of 1903, the
hills that guarded the stretch
between Paso Robles and
Mission San Antonio de Padua
were still clothed in lush green
grass and brilliantly hued wild
flowers. Soon, the summer sun
would rise to dominate the San
Antonio Valley sky and burn the
grass to tinder-dry brown brush.
Along this route a young
man walked the forty-mile
stretch. It took him a day and a
half, as the road was but a sim­ple,
rutted track winding its way
along the Nacimiento and San
Antonio Rivers. He didn't mind,
though, as he was traveling to
the Sunday enchilada dinner and
dance at the Dutton Hotel, which
was reputed to be the best of its
type in the Santa Lucias.
George Larson was eigh­teen,
a strapping orwegian lad
who had been born on board a
ship inside the three-mile limit
of the United States. The Larson
clan migrated to Missouri where
they bough t a farm and settled
down.
But George wanted more
than a drab farmer's existence.
Besotted with the accounts of the
"Forty-Niners," the young man
left to seek his fortune in the
golden hills of California. He
soon discovered just how much
hard work it took to get rich
quick.
In the spring of 1903,
George found himself working in
a quicksilver mine, delving the
dark pits of Mother Earth for the
valuable ore. This excursion to
the famed stage-stop and dance
hall would be the first diversion
from work for the young miner.
The young man's goal was to
become wealthy-or at least,
comfortable enough to hire
somebody else to do the dirty
work associated with mining!
Saturday morning,
George set out with his best
clothes in his carpetbag on the
long dusty trip to Jolon, a few
dollars in his pocket to pay for
bath, bed, and enchiladas. All
day he walked; when the sun set,
he bunked in a rancher's barn.
Sunday morning, George paid a
few coins for rice and beans
wrapped in a tortilla for break­fast
and continued his journey.
About midday, he round­ed
the bend and saw the sturdy,
two-story adobe, with its large
hall that could be used for dining
or dancing, its generous porches
suitable for sitting or courting,
and its large stable of fresh hors­es
that was the Dutton in its hey­day.
Pleased with his progress,
George paid the owner, Mrs.
Dutton, for a hot bath. After
scrubbing off the road dirt and
dressing in his best, a dapper­looking
George sauntered into
the hall, ready for dining, danc­ing,
and perhaps a bit of romanc­Ing.
When he turned to the
end of the hall set up for the din-
TRAVELER
ers, he fastened his eyes upon the
young woman standing at the
punch bowl. Mary Garcia was
sixteen, in the bloom of young
womanhood. Long, lustrous black
hair cascaded down in a thick,
intricately woven braid; flawless
sienna skin covered a trim figure.
Warm brown eyes looked into his
own blue ones, piercing through
and into his heart with that age­old
look that young women have
been giving young men since the
dawn of time.
George was struck down
by Cupid's arrow within seconds.
All thoughts of enchiladas were
dashed from his mind; all he
could think of was how to win
the heart of the perfect lady he
beheld, how to approach her? His
Spanish was limited to homilies
and ordering at local eating and
drinking establishments. The
vision he beheld was obviously
of the Spanish-speaking persua­sion.
Well, nothing ventured,
nothing gained, George mused to
himself.
So he squared his shoul­ders,
pushed his hat to one side
(believing it made him look more
dashing), and moseyed over to
the punch table where the god­dess
stood. "Buen-nos tar-dis,
senorita," he intoned in broken
Spanish. "Hello, sir. May I get
you some punch?" Mary asked in
perfect English. After all, the
Garcias did work at an inn.
After this not-so-auspi­cious
start, affairs between the
big Norwegian and the petite
Mary could only go forward.
George got to dance with Mary
under the watchful eye of her
13
Music and Light, Edna Pitman, Honorable Mention - Drawing
14
parents and even managed to
make conversation. During the
wagon ride back to Paso Robles,
that he hitched with other merry­makers,
George made this
solemn vow: "I'm going to
marry that beautiful Indian girl!"
For you see, George had
learned that Mary and her family
were not rancheros, as he had
originally assumed, but Salinan
Indians who had escaped the
slaughter of their cousins some
fifty years earlier by assuming
their Spanish names and quietly
slipping into nearby King City.
"After all," Mary had told him
with a twinkle, "the white men
figured all those Mexicans
looked alike!" Everybody
thought the local Indians had
died in the massacres and
plagues. but Mary gave their
secret to George for safekeeping.
Over the nex t year or so,
young George made many jour­neys
to Jolon to court his maid­en.
He acquired a slightly sway­backed
mare to save time on
trips although it meant spending
some of his carefully hoarded
money. George knew the only
man to whom Senor Garcia
would offer his comely daughter
would be a wealthy man-and
quicksilver miners were decided­ly
not in that category!
But quicksilver figured
prominently in the Norwegian's
mind as a way to gain the money
it would take to convince the
innkeeper to consent to the mar­riage.
George was determined to
get his woman-even if it meant
stealing.
So steal he did, small
amounts of liquid gold in the
form of refined quicksilver.
There were many places a big
man could secrete small globules
of mercury. and George discov­ered
them all. Slowly and care­fully,
his cache of the valuable
metal grew. Over time, he had
managed to filch four pint flasks
of quicksilver, which he buried
one by one under a large Valley
oak.
Every day during the
week, he performed the back­breaking
labor of extracting the
quicksilver ore; every night, he
would fall into his bunk with his
TRAVELER
picture of Mary clutched to his
breast. Every weekend, the love­struck
orwegian would ride the
old sway-back to Jolon to see his
Indian lady. Over time, he wooed
and won Mary's heart and con­vinced
the Garcia clan that not
all white men were bad, that at
least one could be deserving of
the beautiful Mary and a worthy
addition to the family. It took
two years, but Senor Garcia gave
his permission for George
Theodore Larson to marry Mary
Pearl Garcia in the shiny new
Catholic church in King City
(since the old Mission church
was being restored after years of
neglect).
Shortly before the cere­mony
was to take place in May
1905, George went to the big oak
tree to dig up his dowry. He had
only to get the quicksilver to the
assayer's office in Paso Robles,
and he would be a wealthy
man-well, moderately wealthy.
Combined with the modest funds
he had saved from his miner's
salary (for George always was a
frugal man!), he would have
enough money to build a grand
house for his Mary. He imagined
a home with gingerbread gables,
lacy curtains in the windows,
and furniture mail-ordered from
San Francisco instead of the
locally-made benches and tables
found in poor Indian and Spanish
dwellings in the Santa Lucias.
Such was George's dream.
But sad to say, that rosy
picture never materialized. For
try as he may, poor George dug
under dozens of oak trees in the
vicinity only to come up dry.
Thinking he had marked the
wrong tree, he frantically dug
under pine, juniper, scrub oak,
and sycamore trees in his
doomed quest for his Mary's
dowry. For three days he roamed
the hillside searching for the
quicksilver. Some of the local
rancheros made the sign of the
cross, whispering about the loco
gringo digging holes under trees
for no apparent reason.
Poor George finally gave
up hope of finding his hoard and
crawled 10 1010n with his visions
of wealth lying in shards along
the dusty EI Camino Real. For
the final time, he rounded the
bend to the Dutton and plodded
up the steps to the veranda where
Mary had been waiting.
"My dear Mary," he
stammered, "I love you so
much ... but I can't marry you!"
"Why ever not?" Mary
asked, her heart suddenly stuck
in her throat.
"I don't have enough
money to build you the big house
I promised!" George cried. He
then related his sad story, right
up to the last trip he would ever
make to the Dutton Hotel. He
had decided on the long, dusty
journey that he would go back to
Missouri and take up the plow.
just as his father had begged
him.
Mary regarded the big
blond man for a long moment;
then, unexpectedly, she started
giggling, which soon turned into
the enchanting laughter that
George loved to evoke. "You
stole quicksilver so we could be
rich! And then you lost it?"
She then grew serious,
even grim. "Did you really think
that money is the only thing that
wi II make us happy? You forget
that my family had everything
stolen from us-we even had to
lie about who we were to stay
alive! How could you think that
taking quicksilver would make
that right?" she demanded, tears
welling in her warm brown eyes.
"Hasn't there been enough steal­ing
going on in the mountains
already?" With that, Mary put
her arms around her big dumb
Norwegian and banished all
doubt in his heart.
Well, George Larson
never found the quicksilver, but
he still married his lady. He took
his hoarded miner's pay and
built Marya modest home in San
Lucas, to which he brought her
after their marriage.
Being a hard-working as
well as a resourceful man,
George did manage to make a
comfortable living for Mary and
their three children. He discov­ered
the new horseless carriages
made for a better means of cattle
transportation than the old time­honored
methods and so estab­lished
the first cattle trucking
enterprise in the Salinas Valley.
He later branched out into veg­etable
and grain trucking; with
the aid of his son, and several
years later, his granddaughter
Mary, he built Larson Trucking
into a small but lucrative busi­ness.
In the Depression era,
George found a new use for his
trucks: delivering crews of men
to plant rows of mammoth euca­lyptus
trees for use as huge
windbreaks. Some are still stand­ing
in the Valley. While he never
got to build his mansion for
Mary, the Larsons lived quite
well in their tidy, well-furnished
home in San Lucas for some
sixty-five years.
The story of the missing
quicksilver dowry became a fam­ily
legend. Over the years, other
family members tried their luck
searching for the flasks but with­out
success. The most recent the­ory
of the fate of the missing
q uicksi Iver is that, somehow,
Mary herself discovered
George's plan and got rid of it.
Root. Rie Kitamura
Honorable Mention - Drawing
Some of us think she did it to
show him that money was not
the true road to her heart, others
that she could not enter into a
marriage where theft was
involved. The only clue I have to
the mystery is that, while
Grandpa Larson recounted the
tale of the missing dowry, a sly
twinkle would appear in
Grandma Larson's eye, and a
faint smile would light her face.
One time she even gave me a
"knowing" wink!
If you ever make the trip
along U.S. Highway 101 as it
runs between King City and
Greenfield, take a good look at
the eucalyptus trees that line the
road like silent giants. Perhaps
one of these mighty sentries
guards the secret to the lost
quicksilver dowry of the
Norwegian who won the heart of
the Indian lady of the Santa
Lucias.
Second Place - Fiction
AClear Conscience
Jill Mitchell
16
I was stuck there until
something changed. And nothing
ever changed in Meadowfield.
Meadowfield. About fifty years
earlier, the area was cut off like
a melanoma from Hamilton City.
The new town council couldn't
decide what to name the stinking
place so they had a bright idea
for a contest and the most origi­nal
entry won. The name was not
only dull; it was less than appro­priate
for a town built on sand
and limestone. I had been there
since before I was born.
Something had to change soon
because I wouldn't have been
caught dead dying there.
My name wasn't always
ina. I legally changed it from
Noranell when I turned eighteen,
soon after Dad left us. Most peo­ple
never knew my real name
anyway, because when I was a
kid, we got this Mexican handy­man,
Mariano, who started call­ing
me "nina," and it stuck. Dad
always insisted on calling me
Noranell. He thought Mariano
and Mom were having an affair.
At least that's what I heard
around town years later. I think
Dad just resented Mariano in
general. We hired him because
after Dad lost his leg in Viet
am, he wasn't able to do the
things most dads did, like fix the
car or mow the lawn or play
catch or take us fishing. But he
always had plenty of strength to
beat mom up and slap us kids
around late at night, when he
thought no one could see what
was going on. He used the Viet
Nam thing as an excuse to be
lazy and feel sorry for himself
and get drunk. Anyway, it was a
big relief the day we woke up to
find him gone. No one ever
reported him missing. We just
found the car at the bus station
and brought it back home. I still
can't figure out how he drove
the stick-shift with only his left
leg. Life got better for us after
that. Mom was like a new per­son,
but the damage Dad did to
her-and the fear of his return­kept
creeping back and trying to
take her over.
"Nina! Where's the
remote, hon? It's time for
Whee!!" Mom had to watch
Wheel of For/une every damn
night.
"You know, Mom, you
could win that game if you'd
ever get the courage to be a con­testant."
I meant it. She spent
her days smoking generic ciga­rettes,
doing crossword puzzles,
and reading books I brought
home from the library. For
almost ten years, she had kept a
carton of expensive cigarettes in
the refrigerator for smoking in
public. It was the same unopened
carton. She hadn't left the house
since Dad took off.
"Why do they always
buy a G.D. vowel when they
already know the answer?" mom
complained
"Mother, don't you think
God knows what 'G.D.' stands
for?" I muttered. When she start­ed
religiously watching this hair­sprayed
TV evangelist, she trad­ed
in her virtually unlimited
vocabulary of curse words for
the words' initials. She never
stopped smoking or drinking,
though. I guess she thought her
mail-order vials of supposed
holy water and tiny bags of
"Holy Land" sand would protect
her from an afterlife of eternal
torment.
"Well, Nina, if you'd fix
yourself up a little and put on
some make-up like your sister,
maybe you'd get a date!" Mom
was notorious for such random
utterances about my lacking
social life. I usually tuned her
out.
My little sister, Francie,
had left town to follow the
pageant circuit. She had won
every beauty pageant in the
county by the time she was eigh­teen,
and was encouraged by
some shiny-suited, cigar­mouthed,
fat guy to move on to
the big city. Her old trophies
decorated the orange shag carpet
in her empty room. I made up my
own names for her awards­Little
Miss Priss, Miss Teen
Cosmetics Queen, Miss Blanky
Noodle Dandy, Miss Pumpkin
Snatch, Miss Meadblowfield,
Miss Hamiltits County-not only
because I thought beauty
pageants were degrading to
women, but also because r might
have been a little jealous of my
sister's looks and her success at
advertising them. She hadn't
achieved anything better than
fifth runner-up since she left. I
kept telling her that eventually,
she was going to have to come
up with a talent.
Mom would say to me:
"Then you might finally find a
husband and give me a grand­child.
I've 'bout given up on
your brother to give me one.
'Course, it's probably best that
he not reproduce."
--------- TRAVELER
-- -------------
My little brother, Hal,
left soon after Francie did. He
was in graduate school some­where
in Ohio studying philoso­phy.
He was twenty-five and on
his second marriage. He was
what you might call a social
retard. A genius otherwise. My
brother's first wife was an inbred
Bible-thumper from Louisiana
who turned out to be a slut, and
an indiscriminate one at that. His
second wife was from some
Eastern European country. Hal
said it was love. Yeah, I would
think, she loved him for gelling
her a green card. She had a
mutant B.O. and a tendency to be
ingratiating and manipulative.
She had convinced Mom that she
was for real. I never bought it.
Like my sister and broth­er,
most of my friends took off
on graduation day and never
came back. Sometimes I'd get
postcards from one or two of my
few real friends telling me that
they had a life. And, sometimes,
if I was really lucky, I'd get a
note typed on letterhead with an
attached business card from one
or two of the others who got
their kicks tying to impress
townies like me.
I would have left after
graduation, too, but I stayed
because of Mom. About a year
before Dad left, Mariano disap­peared.
Curiously, the disappear­ance
coincided with one of Dad's
old Nam buddies getting a job
with the border patrol. Mom's
depression and agoraphobia
started around that time.
Sometimes, she seemed to be
getting better, but I always
dreaded the thought of one day
having to wipe her ass. I tried
not to resent her, but as the years
went by, my patience wore thin­ner.
And I stayed because of
Robert. I was in love. He was a
year behind me in school. We
had one of those restless, breath-less,
passionate, groin-throbbing
first loves that make you either
cringe with nausea or cry with
nostalgia years after they end.
He stayed in Meadowfield a few
years flipping burgers at the
Dairy Barn to make money for
college. He looked oh-so-dreamy
in that red and yellow paper hat.
He went off to college promising
me his undying devotion. I was
planning to join him the next
semester, but his devotion
petered out as soon as he discov­ered
sorority girls We never had
anything like what they call "clo­sure."
We just drifted apart.
Something had to
change.
Same shit, different day
(5.5.0.0. as mom would say.) or
so I thought until late that after­noon
when I saw a familiar face
in the library. It looked like
Robert. I had made that mistake
before-hoping he'd come back
and sweep me off my feet like he
did when I was seventeen. Even
in my daydreams he wore that
silly paper hat. I rushed to the
restroom, shaking and sweating,
to primp-just in case. How T
wished I had some of my sister's
make-up. I cupped my hand over
my mouth and nose to check my
breath. I never trusted that. Then
Tchecked my armpits. The cruel
mirror reminded me that I was a
foolish, grown woman. My
mousy brown hair was having a
bad day and was in dire need of
an up-to-date cut. My crow-foot­ed
green eyes begged for more
mascara while my nose and
mouth could only scrunch them­selves
up into a hopeless gri­mace.
At least my teeth looked
good.
Deep breath. It's not him,
you dumb jerk. It can't be. No
one ever comes back. Just pre­tend
you didn't notice him. I
took my seat behind the refer­ence
desk counter and did my
best impression of a nonchalant
TRAVELER
person. It's him'!! T could hear
my heart pumping as the pit of
my stomach fluttered and fell.
He finally approached me.
"Nina?" he whispered
"You're still here? You look
great. "
I hated for him to find
out I had gone nowhere and done
nothing in all that time, but I
was too nervous to make up a
good story. After an awkward
exchange of pleasantries, he
explained he was in town doing
research on a linguistics project.
He was studying siblings who
had their own forms of commu­nication
and wanted to interview
the Ramsey twins who years
before had been treated like the
village idiots because no one
could understand them. The
twins brought some sideshow­type
entertainment to our town.
Before the adults caught on, the
twins' older brother would sell
tickets to the neighborhood kids.
We would pay a quarter each to
spy on them as they gaacked and
wheehawed and clickclicked. We
would laugh hysterically and
mock them mercilessly until the
school principal called a special
assembly and made us all feel
like we were going to go straight
to hell (or at least to detention)
for making fun of them.
"So, how long will you
be in town?" I regretted the
question as the words exited my
mouth. I knew I sounded too
anxious. How pathetic is my life?
I thought.
"At least a few months.
Hey, when do you get off work?
Let's go have a drink and do
some catching up." When he
stopped speaking, I realized I
had been studying the wavy
blue-black hair I used to run my
fingers through, the gray-green
eyes I used to stare into, the soft
mouth I used to kiss so hard, and
the big, basketball player's
hands that used to hold me so
17
tightly. He looked the same as he
did several years ago, but better.
I could have left work at
any time, but in my lame attempt
at being coy and appearing much
more important than I was, I
said, "Well, I've got a lot of
business to take care of here
before I leave."
Suddenly, the periodicals
clerk, Jean, had the courtesy to
emerge from the background and
pop off with, "What are you talk­ing
about, Nina? We watch that
clock every afternoon and high­tail
it outta here before we get
stuck with reshelving duty." She
laughed. "Hell, I'll go have a
drink with him if you won't!"
She winked at Robert with a
bright frosty blue eyelid as she
nudged me with her bony elbow.
My faced burned red. I
rolled my eyes at her, looked at
Robert whose boyish smile beck­oned
me. I grabbed my purse and
sighed, "Fine. I'll finish my
work in the morning." As we
walked toward the library's glass
doors, I said, "Robert, I need to
go by the house first. Can you
pick me up around seven?"
"You bet," he smiled.
"You want to make it dinner?"
I wasn't sure whether he
was asking me if I wanted to
have a dinner date with him, or if
he was asking me if I was sug­gesting
that we have a dinner
date. "Uh, sure, that'd be great.
I'll see you later, then."
I watched him walk to
his car. I always loved the way
he carried himself. So tall and
confident. I stood there in the
parking lot like a moron for a
moment, forgetting where I was,
caught up in the nostalgia that I
had allowed to become a guilty
pleasure.
I checked our mailbox at
the road before pulling onto the
gravel driveway. Empty. That
usually meant that Mom had had
a pretty good day. On her good
days, she would venture out to
the mailbox.
"Mom, guess who came
into the library today?" I asked
as I headed to my room to
change clothes.
She was sitting at the
kitchen table smoking a cigarette
and sorting junk mail from bills.
"Mariano?" she shouted with sur��prise.
"Yeah, right. Guess
again." I yelled.
"Nina! It's a letter from
Mariano!" she screamed.
[ ran to the kitchen to see
it for myself. Mom's trembling
hands carefully opened the small
envelope and unfolded the single
sheet of paper. The letter was
written in pencil with handwrit­ing
resembling that of a sixth­grader.
Erasures revealed that it
had been painstakingly proof­read.
I read it over Mom's shoul­der:
My dearest Claire,
I just found out that your
husband left. So many
times, I wanted to get in
touch with you, but I was
always afraid of what your
husband would do if he
found out. [ hope you have
not forgotten me. [ have
never stopped thinking
about you since the day
they picked me up and sent
me back to Mexico. I have
my citizenship now, and my
English is much better.
How are the kids? I have
missed them, too. I want to
see you, Claire. I don't
want to spend another day
18
Amanecer de las Canastes, James R. Haas, Honorable Mention - Photograph
TRAVELER
without you. I will be in
Meadowfield by the time
you get this letter. If you
want to see me, call me at
the Cactus Flower Motel.
If you do not want to see
me, please remember that I
will always love you.
Love,
Mariano
I sat across from Mom
and smiled at her tear-soaked
face. She looked so fragile and
shaken. "Mom, th isis wonderful!
Call him!" I urged. She stared at
the letter and stroked it like a
cherished heirloom. She looked
at the telephone.
After several silent min­utes,
she shrieked, "I can't call
him looking like this!" and she
bounded off to her room to get
dressed.
Robert was a few min­utes
late. Not that I let on that I
noticed. "Where's your mom? I'd
like to see her. How is she?" He
craned his neck through the front
doorway as I tried to step out
onto the porch.
"She's in the shower.
She got a letter from Mariano
today. He's supposed to be in
town, so she's goi ng to try to
call him," I said.
"Wow, she showers for a
phone call?" he laughed. "He is
here. I ran into him at the motel.
I was going to tell you earlier,
but he made me promise not to."
Robert opened the car
door for me just like he used to.
The initial awkwardness of the
date soon gave way to our old,
comfortable patterns. I felt as if
no time or distance had passed.
Without a word about it, Robert
took me to our favorite restau­rant-
or, to be more accurate, to
the building that once housed our
favorite restaurant. I didn't have
the heart to mention that the can­dlelit
Italian bistro where we
used to share chianti was now
one of those obnoxious, chil­dren's
pizza places. I could see
Robert's dismay and subsequent
momentary quandary. With a red
face, he asked, "Pizza okay?" I
had hoped we'd go someplace
else but didn't want to have to
suggest anything and thereby
remind him of my painful famil­iarity
with the town.
After dinner, we went to
the motel's bar for drinks. I was
sober enough to real ize that I
was starting to fall in love with
the idea of love again. So I drank
some more. We laughed and
shared memories for hours. Our
conversation about the years
since he left was like Swiss
cheese. We both left obvious
holes in our stories. His were
probably real omissions. Mine
were more for the sake of
appearing mysterious and inter­esting.
Robert never mentioned
any girlfriends, and I certainly
didn't ask. My only disappoint­ment
was that I had dreamed up
a couple of marvelous fictional
boyfriends who never got the
chance to come to life. It seemed
we made a mutual decision to
keep our conversation on the
comfortable and familiar.
"Nina, 1 am so glad 1 saw
you today. For years, 1 couldn't
get you off my mind, but I was
afraid you were angry with me
for letting our relationship end. I
want to move back here and stay
with you. No one else makes me
feel like you do."
"Robert, you're drunk.
You're doing the same thing I'm
doing-holding onto the past,
remembering only the good
parts ... "
"Speaking of good
parts," he intoned with a sly
smile. "1 seem to recall some of
your good parts."
1 rolled my eyes. But my
body defied my better judgment
as I began to ache to feel him
TRAVELER
touch me, and to touch him,
It was almost midnight
when we went upstairs to his
room and made love like sex­starved
animals. Like the hor­mone-
crazed teenagers we used
to be. I wasn't sure if it felt so
good because it was him or just
because I was drunk and hadn't
had sex in quite a long time. The
on ly difference between the sex
we had that night and the sex we
had always had several years ear­lier
was that we only did it once
this time. He held his arm around
me gently as I rested my head on
his shoulder. We didn't speak.
After he fell asleep, I went
downstairs to get a taxi.
Before I reached the bot­tom
of the stairs, I saw Mariano
in the lobby. "Mariano!" I
screamed. I almost fell as I ran
to hug him.
"Oh my God, it's my lit­tle
Nina!" he shouted with a
hearty laugh. His bear hug lifted
me off the floor. As he spun me
around, 1 saw my mother. Right
there in the motel lobby.
Smoking one of her expensive
cigarettes.
"Mom? Is it really you?"
I hardly recognized her. She
looked stunning.
"Yes, dear, it's me. Out
in public all dressed up and
everything." She was beaming.
"Hey," she whispered. "Do you
mind if Mariano moves in with
us for a while?" She didn't wait
for an answer. She knew I
wouldn't mind.
I kissed them both good
night and took a taxi home.
Before I went to bed, I
set my alarm for five a.m. It
would be a long drive to the bus
station.
19
20
Success Comes in all Flavors
Janet Martynotte
I exist
in anticipation
of taking a bite
of my apple,
red, succulent apple,
chewing till
the tears flow
and the men in
white jackets
come 'round
to take me away,
juice dripping
from my chin,
my face split in
the widest of grins,
and eyes closed in
complete satisfaction
while I swallow chunks,
seeds and all.
/'
Sleepy Face, Rie Kitamura, Honorable Mention - Drawing
TRAVELER
- TRAVELER
Remember Last Summer
Kevin Stoltz
Remember
last summer
when we sold the mobile home.
The owners had not moved in
and the days longed for a change
of weather as the sun burned
the lantana leaves,
their green edges crumpled up
/ike paper bags.
The jasmine and the camellias died.
Only the yellow oleander grew,
grew like a weed.
All the while we stayed inside
on top of the bed sheets
together with the heat
unable to keep cool in the other's
embrace. Together, naked
the world did not malter.
I drove by yesterday to leave the key
before the owners arrived.
Everything was still the same
except,
back by our bedroom window
the sage had /?rown high and deep,
and the clay pot that once contained
my prized pencil tree-was
cracked wide open
from bottom
to top.
Frankie With Shadows, Jennifer Smith, Honorable Mention - Photograph
21
Second Place - Non-Fiction
Call Me Roy
David A. Gudzinas
22
One of the most signifi­cant
people in my life is my
grandfather, James R. Bortmas.
Although his given first name is
James, ever since he was a
young man he has used the
"R." ... Roy. As the story goes,
Grandpa's father died when
"James" was young, in about
fifth or sixth grade. In the first
half of this century, family was
often considered more important
than education. So with five
brothers and one sister to help
support, my Grandpa left school
and went to work. One of the
jobs he held as a young man was
at a saw mill. In the late 1920's
many industries still used animal
power: horses, mules, etc. The
saw mill my Grandfather worked
at was typical in this way; in
fact, young "James" frequently
worked near a mule which hap­pened
to be named Jim. As one
might imagine, there was a situ­ation
which arose from this
coincidence. When someone at
the saw mill called out, "Hey,
Jim!" and Grandpa responded,
the caller would then reply, "No,
not you, the other jackass!" You
can be sure that this didn't have
to happen more than a few times
before Grandpa stopped answer­ing
to Jim and started saying,
"M' name's Roy, call me Roy."
It has been ever since.
Grandpa was a tall, pow­erful
man for the time he was
born into (about six feet tall,
and 210 pounds in his prime).
Although there is a story about
him once throwing a man over
the bar at some night-spot for
making a pass at Grandma, he is
a kind and gentle man. Because
of his kindness, Grandpa has
some form of respect for every­one
he meets. My father also
received Grandpa's respect,
although he didn't usually
deserve it. My father, an abusive
alcoholic, was still my father,
and Grandpa would never tell
another man how to raise his
sons.
Things eventually
changed. My parents divorced
when I was ten years old, and by
the time I was twelve, my father
had abandoned his responsibili­ties
by fleei ng to another state.
When my father left town, it was
the worst thing he could have
done to me and, yet, the best
thing that could have happened
to me. At twelve years old I
needed a father. A man who
could teach me how to become a
man. Someone to answer, by
example, all those questions I
had inside that [ didn't know
how to ask. The questions I did­n't
even know were there. I
instinctively adopted Grandpa as
my father figure, and could not
have made a better choice.
Over the years I learned
many things from Grandpa:
house painting, carpentry, car
repair, plumbing; the list is long.
But most important to me are the
other survival skills, the tangible
ones. I learned to do a job just
for the sake of doing the job.
TRAVELER
And that anything worth doing
at all, is worth doing well.
"Don't worry about the 'tricks
of the trade," I can still hear him
saying, "learn the trade." 1
learned the importance of having
patience with others and, more
importantly, myself. Grandpa
was, and still is, one of the most
influential people in my life.
I had always spent time
at Grandma and Grandpa's house
whenever I had a chance. When
school was in session, I would
frequently spend the weekend,
and over the summer, up to a
week at a time. While I was
there, Grandpa would always
have some kind of project for me
to help with. Mowing the lawn
was standard. And let me tell
you, to a twelve-year-old boy
there are few greater thrills than
being handed the keys to a big,
red, shiny, almost new lawn
tractor. A real vehicle. Wow!
The first time I used the tractor,
I was scared nearly to death.
Grandpa seemed to sense this
(maybe it was the look of sheer
terror in my eyes), and said,
"Just keep it in first gear. If it
gets away from ya' just shut the
key off. If it starts to go over the
bank or something, don't try to
stop it; just jump off the back,
and let the damned thing go." I
thought driving the tractor was
going to be thrilling, but the
biggest thrill was being talked to
as an adult, being instructed as
if I were a coworker, and not
just some dumb kid. Grandpa's
TRAVELER
Lucy Coombs
Haiku II
23
in awe of the concept that any­one
could be "on speaking
terms" with death. At seventeen
years old, mortality just didn't
exist in my world. But to know
that Grandpa had come to terms
with the idea of his own death
was somehow comforting.
Grandpa is now in his
middle eighties and nearing the
end of his life. Decades of steel
mill labor have taken a toll on
his body. It greatly saddens me
to see this once tall, powerful
man walking with the slow,
deliberate, hunched-over steps of
the aged. In my eyes, however,
he'll always be ten feet tall. I
can't imagine a world without
Grandpa, yet I know that some­day,
maybe soon, maybe years
from now, he'll be gone. I take
some comfort in knowing he'll
be ready for it when it comes.
He told me so himself. As for
me? It'll hurt...a lot. .. but it
won't knock me off the ladder.
The monsoon thunder
growls from the distant clouds,
unleashing its bite.
pened when I was about seven­teen
years old. I was helping
Grandpa with one of the many
projects we had worked on
together when, totally unexpect­edly,
he said, "Your grandmoth­er
and I don't have any big piles
of money stashed away any­where.
0 secret bank accounts
or anything like that. When we
go, about the only thing that'll
be worth fighting over is this old
housc. I figure we just do what
we can for those around us while
we're still here, and hope we're
remembered after we're gone."
The statement stunned me. Old
people shouldn't talk about
death. This isn't right. Then the
realization came to me. This was
Grandpa's way of telling me not
to worry; he knew that someday
he was going to die, and he
accepted that. He was at peace
with himself and the world.
Even though thinking about that
inevitable condition in reference
to Grandpa saddened me, I was
confidence in me gave me confi­dence
in me. I had always
respected Grandpa, but in my
eyes, on that day, he became ten
feet tall. I even grew a few inch­es
myself.
A few years later, my
dog, Blackjack, was hit by a car
and killed while I was away on a
camping trip. My stepfather
buried him before I got home, so
I didn't even get to say good­bye.
The day after I found this
out was the day I was supposed
to help Grandpa paint his house.
Even though I was still very
upset by my dog's death, [ went
to help as promised. When I
arrived at Grandpa's house the
next morning, I poured myself a
cup of coffee, and sat down
across from him at the dining
room table. Grandpa, in his
usual, deliberate manner said,
"Heeey, you look like some­thing's
bothering ya'." I told
him that I was upset by my
dog's death. "Yea, well, it's sup­posed
to upset ya'. Just don't let
it knock you off the ladder when
you're up there paintin' today."
The full impact of that statement
did n' t hit me until later that day
when I was perched thirty feet
off the ground on an old, wob­bly,
extension ladder. The state­ment
itself was not only caution��ary,
but also a metaphor for life
in general. "In life, things will
come along and upset you, but
you can't let them destroy you."
I may never know if Grandpa
intended what he said to be
taken in that manner, but the
point is that whether he knows it
or not, on that day, he had
passed along to me at least a
small portion of his inherent
wisdom.
My final example hap-
First Place - Photograph
Paso del Campesino
James R. Haas
24
AC s .A.DEC.V
e[S·645·04y 641·07 Suc.9..onaeOltrllr
------- TRAVELER
AJ's, Avren Snader, Second Place - Painting and Watercolor
Fruits and Vegetables
Andrew Fish
Ten out of ten doctors will say
copious amounts of fruits and vegetables
will put you in a healthy l'vay
(f'm not so sure los campesinas
would agree.
Aching backs perpetually stooped
fingers cracked and bleeding
pesticides creeping into veins
Sun rain and freezing mud
they work aLI the same
Insects crawling up nostrils
caked with dirt and sweat.
This Agri-Culture has
a workday that never ends.)
Ten out of ten doctors will say
copious amounts offruits and vegetables
will put you in a healthy way.
TRAVELER
25
Time Takes You
Jill Mitchell
Time takes you far away
and distance farther still
Like leaves on a maple tree
green to brown, they dry, they fall
and are lifted on the wind-to
someone else's hack yard
Like a song from ages past
warped record crackles, screeches
recorded better in the minds of the old ones
music rises and fades in our modern air-and
floats to someone else's memory
Like a sparrow on the sidewalk
for a moment within reach
then in a blink-flown
away to someone else's sky
Like a child's helium balloon
with time, the anti-gravity gas gives in
or takes the plastic pleasure deep into the clouds-to
someone else's playground
Time takes you far away
and distance farther still,
Like coins in a pocket
jingling semi-heal'ily waiting to he spent
old ones with bright new ones
metal money smell
by day's end, all dispersed-into
someone else's pocket
Like an old car, comfort without luxury
engine knocking, whining, growling
as the years go hy, the machine runs down
as the miles pile up, the machine runs down­and
rests in someone else's garage
\\
26
Winter Grass, Paul Dameron, Second Place - Photograph
TRAVELER
£1 camino to salvation
i, donde flle el caliente?
why doesn't it feel hot anymore?
the caliente sol no longer hurts,
it feels so ...
the blue is verde, and the earth es amarillo
my eyes only see the 1'0.10 and yellow
on this plain yellow-brown tierra
the dirt here is so hard, hot,
not like my farm, with maiz y ji'ijol
so full of life and so empty of money,
this place I walk is like me, tired and dry
I hear el sol in my burnt ears,
swelling red and dry with my lips and tongue
I want some agua, a good job,
ipara la familia!
lowering my eyes, I dream of el Norte,
but walking slowly and sin Dios.
I see the bones and piles of stone
the white sticks that held amigos y amigas
going to the north.
Second Place - Poetry
EI Camino to Salvation
Silverio E. Rodriguez
and think of my niiios y niiias
their hambre makes me run
down el camino to salvation,
weaving now over a day or weeks in this oven,
I feel so light without agua, las piernas move on their own
but my mind is on the family, I left behind
y ya mis 0.10.'1 hang low, and the mllertos walk conmigo
I run like the viento for a long time
and find no one here, except myself and sin Dios
I will walk or crawl, reaching el Norte
pero el sol me tllmbo y no plledo slIbir
My God! Mother!, I am so hot,
los mllertos will burn me
leaving behind white match sticks
my last act, la mano stretches
for my family, please disclJlpame
for not reaching
el Norte.
Black Bear #5. William Witzigman
Third Place - Photograph
TRAVELER
27
Third Place - Fiction
Diminishing Jenny
Lisa Marie Warren
28
Nobody knows exactly
when it happened. Many calen­dar
pictures of breathtaking
beauty may have been turned in
quiet succession. Perhaps even
the leaves have fluttered to the
ground with uniform ones bud­ding
forth from the same spot.
The summer sun may have tem­porari
Iy darkened uncovered ski n
to a light brown hue that has
long since faded. Sometimes
changes that are continuous can
be so subtle. I scarcely noticed
her change. Then came the
dreaded day I looked past what I
was accustomed to seeing her
like, to what she actually looked
like. I discovered she was dying
of starvation
I knew Jenny once, but
the Jenny I knew was filled with
joy and energy. It spilled from
her smile, her laughter, her eyes.
I was not the only one who want­ed
to be around her in hope of
catching a piece of her "alive­ness"
and claim it as my own.
The girl in this hospital bed is
not she. I do not recognize this
emaciated figure who lies there,
edging closer to dealh even as I
write. The skin her flesh once
filled hangs loosely over sharp
protruding bones, as her body, in
an attempt to surv i ve, feeds of
itself. Her face is ashen, sunken
eyes and baggy skin, gaunt save
sharp protruding cheekbones.
Her breathing is ragged and shal­low;
each rise and fall of her
chest shows a perfectly formed
rib cage-all twelve pairs with
two ever floating. I do not want
to look, yet I cannot remove my
eyes. To look is to feel, and what
I feel is a torrent of distressing
emotions.
I want to take her in my
arms and shake her till her bones
and teeth rattle and sense returns
to her brain, till this sickness
that has taken over her mind is
replaced by a desire to live. Can
she not see what she is doing? I
long to scream out "Stop it, Stop
it. Where is Jenny? I want her
back!" On the other hand, I want
to reach inside, reach down
inside this wounded girl who lies
here dying a slow death, a victim
of her own hand. I long to take
her in my anTIS, stroke her thin­ning
hair, and tell her it will be
alright. ..Make it all right.
Her eyes won't let me
near. The eyes that look at me
identify me as a stranger. They
inspect me with hostility and
anger, warning not to approach.
Gazing into their frozen depths, I
see only anger, so I'm afraid to
approach, afraid to touch. I fear I
will break her like a china doll
or that my very breathing will
shatter her frame. Then she will
crumble into a pile of dust and
disappear.
Jenny knew herself once.
She does not know this stranger
who occupies her body, the
starving ugly body she reflects in
the mirror-surely not her! This
stranger wishes to kill and
destroy her, laking over her life.
It has stolen her reason, so she
knows not what's real. Food has
been identified as the enemy who
must never pass her lips, down
her throat, into her stomach and
from there to her body. Because
of this, she cannot take control
of her dying body. She cannot
pick up her hands and force food
down her unwilling throat. The
worst part is the stranger has
now become her; she is no longer
separate from it. Th is stranger
must be destroyed which means
she must also die. Her own life
seems a small sacrifice.
It had started long ago. A
person's body just doesn't lose
half its body weight over night,
yet no one detected what was
happening. Family mealtimes
were easily avoided-they rarely
occurred. If by chance they did,
TRAVELER
the reason drawing the family
together was some TV program
rather than interest in the hap­penings
of the lives of one
another. Baggy clothes covered a
multitude of sins-even sins of a
different nature. Her eating
habits formed a lifestyle that was
one of deceit and lies. The lies
remained hidden until eyes con­tradicted
what ears were hearing.
A few lies became a few hun­dred,
and then they stopped
being lies because lies said often
enough seem to become the con­trary-
the truth. Jenny's con­science
no longer even twinged.
Of course, she always ate!
They tried to under­stand-
we all did. The man with
his yellow legal pad and intense
gaze questioned her. Why did he
demand explanation after expla­nation?
What did he need to
know? He pried and dug-dis­secting
Jenny into tiny pieces to
be held up to light for scrutiny.
Did he think she would sleep
more fitfully by knowing? She
did not want to know what was
inside, what she was running
frolll. The sessions always ended
with Jenny sitting there feeling
empty and alone, emotionally
raped by a stranger and his end­less
note taking. "Making good
progress," he carefully wrote.
Jenny continued to waste away.
There were many reasons
why Jenny did what she did. It
was a combination of all the rea­sons
and yet even more, far too
many to list, buried too deeply to
discover, much too painful to
know.
She had always liked
everyth ing perfect. "A perfec­tionist,"
her 2nd grade teacher
had noted on her report card in
the comments' section. A perfec­tionist
has to be in control. The
exodus from childhood brought
disillusionment. She discovered
the impossibility of control in an
uncontrollable universe, exceed­ingly
far from perfect. Reeling,
Jenny struggled to regain con­trol.
She failed. One single thing
she could control was her body
and more explicitly her food.
Food became the reward, and the
denial became punishment.
Jenny sought attention
from her parents. They never
seemed to notice. Their eyes
seemed blind to her existence,
their ears deaf to her voice.
Could they not see her? Would
they not acknowledge her? Why
was she not allowed to need
them? So she cried out passively.
Eventually her body spoke loud­er
than words ever could.
Jenny had concluded
never to grow up. To a child, the
world seemed almost perfect. As
a child, no one cared how she
looked. As her weight dropped,
her body changed again to the
thin waif-like body of a child.
By physically reversing the
process of growing up, she could
be a child forever. .. or so she
thought.
She did it because she
was a victim of a compulsive
addictive behavior which had
taken over her life. She became
powerless against it.
Her parents visited some­times
but each always alone.
They were no longer together;
neither were at fault, but both
were to blame. Their marriage
could no longer take the pressure
and strain. Her mother sits and
holds her crying silent tears.
This is the child she carried for
nine months, six days and seven­teen
hours in her womb. This is
the child whose diaper she
changed. This is the child she
spoon-fed before she could feed
herself. Jenny may be gone, but
this was still her daughter. She
held her in her arms but felt only
bones digging into her chest. As
she felt Jenny's irregular heart
beat, her own heart broke.
Her dad always chose the
farthest chair to sit on. He could
not cope. He must have been a
terrible dad. What did he do
wrong? Why is she punishing
him? He loves his daughter so
much it hurts. He cannot under­stand
why she would choose to
die. He cannot watch his daugh­ter
fade before his eyes. He has
long since buried all feeling.
Gone are all emotions. To feel is
pain, and pain is an emotion he
cannot afford, which is why he
sits at a distance.
She hates the nurse who
brings her meals. She hates them
all-trying to tempt her with the
smell and sight of food. Each
morsel begs her to try, to taste,
to eat. An invitation? Ha! But
they underestimate her. She will
not give in because she is in con­trol.
This is the queen of self
control who can deny one of the
body's greatest desires. She is
infallible and without human
limitations. But control is an
illusion. She is not the master
but the slave, and food is her
god. She worships this god on its
throne forever, and it asks of
her-her life.
They had tried to stop
her. After all it was a hospital
and their job. They are in the
business of saving lives, not
allowing them to slip away. The
decision was made; no one asked
her. The tube was inserted up her
nose, down her throat into her
stomach. But her body couldn't
recognize the white cloudy fluid.
Her mind couldn't cope with the
thoughts of food being pumped
into her body. Alarm bells alert­ed
them to its removal. The
white semi-liquid continued to
discharge allover the floor. She
had not asked for it anyway.
They cOilldn' t keep forc­ing
her. It didn't make sense to
strap down arms that were too
weak to lift themselves, to tie up
legs that could no longer carry
around even a weightless frame.
She had a heart beat so weak it
was hardly audible, a body tem­perature
so low that it barely
skimmed freezing, she lay there
awaiting death.
The door opened and a
nurse entered. Her hands carried
a food tray that she placed in
front of Jenny. It was just rou­tine
at this stage. In an inaudible
voice, I did what I never had
done before. I begged her to eat.
I begged her not to die of starva­tion
when a tray of food was
placed in front of her three times
a day. If she would not taste the
food, she would never again
taste life. I write so I will
remember Jenny and life she will
miss.
Watermaiden. Nina M. Rogers
Honorable Mention - Photograph
29
Untit/ed, Felix Avina, Third Place - Photograph
The Wait
Joshua Ivanov
Chicago takes a breath and exhales
to the tune of four hundred
asthmatic automobiles running in place.
They whee:e and strain like
bronchial dogs, sweating out petrol musk
in the throes of bumper copulation.
Their tired expectation runs kinetic
through spinal fields of neural heather,
into the worn leather of a sun-baked seat and
under the hood of this industrial heart where
it sits and hums like the synapse that triggered
this memory, all in the energetic suspended
animation of the wait
Cosmic, Kevin Ye
First Place - Three Dimensional Design
Sully Plantation
Christopher W, Lowe
30
Watching with eternal patience,
leaf-dappled in fall morning sun,
one lonely rocking-horse eye at the window.
Into warped glass,
1803
scratched by little hands
now long grown, long gone.
------ -- -- --- TRAVELER ----------
Duality
Michael Senft
Where do heart and mind meet?
Is there a crossroads?
Streaked with ancient tears
.Ii·om those 'vvho walked hefore
U nahle to choose
which path to follow.
Where do heart and mind meet?
On a hattlefield?
Where the hlood
of those fought hefore
stains the ground,
Marking the casualties eternally.
Where do heart and mind meet?
In the setting sun
Or the rising of the moon?
Where light and dark emhraced hefore
Yet never quite joined
and canceled each other out.
Where do heart and mind meet?
Is it possibly a river?
A joining of trihutaries
flowing towards a common destiny,
Intermingling along the way,
united at their final destination.
EI Primero Paso. James R. Ha,a!, , Honorable Mention - Photograph
TRAVELER
31
32
Hair Shirt
Joshua Ivanov
My mother wove a hair shirt
the day my lungs drew air.
With such love and care she crafted
a most uncomfortable reminder that
I am the thorn in paw,
The stone in eye,
The slow poison.
If creativity is a birth
and the mind its place of conception,
Then I was the product of an empty womb
and a cold heart.
I will wear this shirt.
I will wear this shirt till skin bleeds
like wallpaper sweating yellow
streaks of visible humidity
in lonely roadside motels.
My mother made two things in life
This shirt and me,
And she can be proud that
At least one of her efforts
Lil'ed up
To its fullest potential.
The Snake and I and the Butterflv. Pamela Sabbia
First Place - Painting and Watercolor
TRAVELER
First Place - Fiction
The Reckoning
Theresa S. Franks
The weather was beginning to
warm, and the street leading to
the church was thick with mud
from the thaw. It wasn't Sunday
meetin' day, but it was a
meetin', nonetheless. Today, the
house of God would serve as a
house of judgment.
The townspeople crowd­ed
into the small church, filling
the rough-sawn oak pews, leav­ing
only standing room for the
unlucky latecomers. The crowd
pressed against me from both
sides as I awaited her entrance.
The crack of the ga vel
signaled the crowd that the pro­ceeding
was about to begin. The
church door opened wide. Two
deputy sheriffs led in a young,
Mexican woman. They nudged
her forward and pushed her into
a chair before the altar. Her
hands were tightly bound. Her
ankles shackled with rough, rust­ed
iron. The cotton skirt she
wore was torn and frayed and her
once crisp calico blouse, blood­stained
and ripped at the shoul­der.
Sheriff Floyd Dunaway
strode through the church door,
followed by the feared and
respected Judge Kirkby
Benedict. The Judge was a hard
man. His lust for drinking and
gambling was a spot of con­tention
for many. It was well
known throughout the New
Mexico territory that he was
mean and ruthless in his tactics.
He offered swift and certain pun-ishment
to those who dared break
the law he was entrusted to
uphold. He made his trip to this
territory twice a year and, twice
a year, everyone would gather to
witness the Judge's iron hand.
As they approached the altar, a
man in the crowd shouted, "Hang
her! Hang the murdering whore!"
The crowd cheered in agreement.
"Order! Order!" Judge
Benedict shouted.
The crowd hushed once
again. The Judge seated himself
behind the communion table that
would serve as his bench. Sheriff
Dunaway and his deputies quick­ly
cleared a few grumbling spec­tators
from the front pew.
Twelve jurymen stepped
through the doorway and made
their way, single file, to their
seats. The young woman they
would judge sat straight and tall.
The sun's sharp rays lanced
through the window, catching the
shine in her black hair. Her dark,
almond shaped eyes slowly sur­veyed
the assembly. As her eyes
swept past mine, I caught her
look of anguish, and I shuddered.
"This Court is now in
session, the Honorable Kirkby
Benedict presiding," Sheriff
Dunaway announced.
No witnesses were called
on the woman's behalf. The evi­dence:
a dead man and a bloody
knife would bear out her guilt.
The crowd was silent as Sheriff
Dunaway addressed the jury:
"Gentlemen of the jury,
TRAVELER
the facts are these. In the early
evening hours of 28 March, 18
and 62, Lieutenant Juan Miguel
Martin, at the hand of one,
Pablita Sandoval, was brutally
and senselessly murdered.
Pablita Sandoval did purposeful­ly
and intentionally carry out
this crime by repeatedly stabbing
Lieutenant Martin with his own
knife. It is, therefore, your God­given
duty to find this woman
guilty of murder." With a cheer
from the crowd, the proceeding
commenced.
The trial was brief.
Pablita's attorney had little to
say, telling the jury only that she
was innocent and acted in self
defense. Pablita never uttered a
word.
The twelve men who
were to decide Pablita's fate
were excused from the church to
deliberate. They were gone long
enough to roll a tobacco stick
and smoke it. The crowd hushed
as the jurors returned their delib­eration,
and the jury foreman
handed the verdict to the Sheriff.
"We, the jury, find Pablita
Sandoval guilty of murder," he
read. The crowd's spiteful cheers
showed their approval.
Never hesitating, Judge
Benedict commanded: "Pablita
Sandoval, stand and face your
accusers."
I noticed the lawyer
whisper in Pablita's ear.
Afterward, he stood and pled,
"Your honor, my client is not
33
Twenty-six April, 18 and
62, the crowd [ joined at the
entrance of town was much larg-ciated
with your hanging and
buriaL" Finished, the Judge
threw down the gavel, startling
Pablita. Her eyes welled, but not
a tear fell, at least that I could
see. She began to falter as her
knees gave way, her lawyer
catching her arm before she wilt­ed
to the floor.
"Do you have anything
to say on your behalf?" Judge
Benedict curtly questioned. He
did not expect an answer; it was
clear from his demeanor that he
did not care to hear anything she
had to say.
"Only that I am inno­cent,"
she whispered. Her words
filled with the conviction of
truth.
"Then cou rt shall be
adjourned and the sentence shall
be carried out as ordered.
Sheriff, make certain that the
prisoner is secured within the
jail until the commencement of
her execution." The gavel broke
the silence for the last time as
the Judge stood and made his
way to the door.
The Sheriff yanked his
prisoner from her chair and led
her through the crowd. Pablita's
lawyer stood helplessly and
made no attempt to follow her.
She glanced back, and my gut
wrenched with pity.
The crowd fi led out of
the church, chattering of the
hanging to come. Ironically,
these same people will gather
Sunday to hear the word of God.
Their tongues will wag with talk
of chari ty and forgi veness,
where only days ago they thirst­ed
for innocent blood.
34
guilty. In self-defense she fought
for her life. I move for an appeal
of this woman's conviction!"
Some of the crowd rose
to shout in protest. Pablita sat
quietly and watched us, her eyes
penetrating our very souls.
Judge Benedict stood
from his chair, "That will be
enough! Enough, I said! This is a
court of law, and I demand
order," his voice bellowed.
Once again, silence fell.
"Counselor, you have
represented your client zealous­ly.
You have given more than
most would have. I find no basis
for this woman's appeal.
Notwithstanding, if it would ease
your conscience, you may submit
a written appeal to me before I
leave town. I shall rule upon it
sixty days hence. However, the
sentence I am about to render
will not be stayed."
The attorney glanced at
Pablita, but she offered him no
show of emotion. She knew he
was powerless to stop the fate
that awaited her.
"Pablita Sandoval, stand
so that I may render your sen­tence,"
the Judge demanded.
The lawyer reached for
his client's arm and slowly
helped her to her feet. With her
head held high, Pablita looked
directly into the Judge's eyes.
"Pablita Sandoval, you
have been found guilty of the
murder of Lieutenant Juan
Miguel Martin. For this act of
savagery, you shall be taken to
the edge of town, and you shall
be hanged there by the neck until
dead. Your death sentence shall
be commenced on 26 April, 18
and 62, between the hours of 10
o'clock and 4 o'clock. Further,
you shall pay all expenses asso-
* * *
er than at the trial. There were
people I did not recognize. The
news had spread quickly;
reporters from newspapers every­where
were in attendance. They
had come from miles around to
see the first woman in the west­ern
territory hanged.
Majestic cottonwood
trees lined each side of the nar­row,
boggy road leading into our
town. The tree trunks were as
large as oak barrels, the branches
thick and sturdy. It was a place
of beauty but also of punish­ment.
We had come early in the
forenoon, careful not to miss a
moment of the fate that awaited
Pablita Sandoval. As the morn­ing
turned to afternoon, the men
talked of the crops they would
harvest. Women prattled about
the latest fashions from Paris at
McGuffrey's store. The children
ran and played hide-and-seek
behind the gigantic trees.
Blankets had been stretched
under the canopy of every tree,
save one. The women set out
their picnic baskets filled with
fried chicken, sandwiches,
cheese and fruit.
It was a gorgeous spring
day. The sun was bright and
warm. The ai r smelled sweet.
The sky was blue and cloudless.
The canyon walls in the distance
were richly red, and the rolling
hill s that led to them were green
with the new life of spring. A
thick hemp rope hung from the
branch of a lonely cottonwood.
The gentle canyon breeze eeri ly
clutched the rope and let it go
again. It swayed slowly, fore­shadowing
things to come.
It was nearly one o'clock
and still no sight of her. Lunch
eaten, the crowd was growing
TRAVELER
Gas Inhalation/Genesis/Steel Grate ver. O. Jarom Wilcken. First Place - Computer Art
restless.
"Here they come!" an
excited reporter shouted.
As the wagon neared, I
pushed my way to the front of
the crowd so I was nearest to the
noose. The wagon creaked as
Sheriff Dunaway halted the hors­es'
gallop and advanced them
slowly toward the tree. A hush
fell over the crowd as men,
women, and children gazed upon
Pablita quietly seated upon a
crude, pine-wood coffin in the
rear of the wagon.
The Sheriff carefully
maneuvered the wagon under the
noose as he brought it to a rest.
She was so close I could have
reached up and touched her. Her
confinement had surely been a
suffering. Her face was pale and
thin. Her hair, once silken, was
now matted and dull. She was
clothed in the same skirt and
blouse she wore at trial.
Everyone knew what pleasure
Sheriff Dunaway took in tor­menting
his prisoners. I won­dered
how much more he tor­mented
this young woman.
The enormous crowd
shoved, eager to place them­sel
ves strategically for the exe­cution.
I defended my ground,
elbowing two young men who
thought to push me from my
place.
The Sheriff set the wag­on's
brake and rose from his
TRAVELER
seat, stepping onto the buck­board.
He grabbed Pablita's hair
at the back of her skull and
yanked hard. She winced as she
was forced to stand and meet the
noose. He pushed her head
through the loop and cinched it
tight around her delicate neck.
He took his seat again, picked up
the reins, and waited for the
crowd to clear a wide path.
Then, as if in slow motion,
Sheriff Dunaway freed the wag­on's
brake, lifted the reins with
both of his arms, and came down
hard against the horses' back­sides.
"YAAHHHH!" he cried.
The horses lunged forward.
Pablita was dragged to the end of
the buckboard, her side smashing
35
36
hard against the back of the
wagon. Her tattered skirt caught
on a jagged sliver of wood, rip­ping
it from her body; leaving
only a thinly, soiled muslin slip
to cover her.
In horror, I watched as
the air was cut from her. It
seemed that every vein in her
neck and temple would burst.
She reached over her head and
grabbed the rope, lifting her
body up, sucking in every pre­cious
breath she could manage,
on Iy to lose her strength and
come down again, gagging and
choking.
The Sheriff turned to
look at his handiwork and saw
Pablita working to save herself.
With a look of disgust, he quick­ly
drove the wagon back, jumped
from it and ran toward her,
scolding his deputy for failing to
bind her arms. Mortified, the
Sheriff threw his arms around
Pablita's thrashing legs and
began to pull down hard on her
body, stretching her neck, hoping
she would die quickly, the noose
cutting her throat.
Sudden Iy, someone in
the crowd shouted, "Help her!
Won't anyone help her? She's
been hung; the sentence is
done." Heed ing the person's cry
a man in the crowd pushed his
way forward and shoved the
Sheriff back. He jumped up on
the wagon, reached above
Pablita's head, and severed the
rope with his knife. She fell
heavily to the ground in front of
me, gasping and gulping for air.
Her neck was bloody and
bruised.
The Sheriff condemned
the man that cut her down and
ordered his deputy arrest him.
The local townsfolk turned on
the Sheriff and demanded that
the woman be freed; the visiting
crowd threatened to hang Pablita
themselves if the Sheriff did not
follow through with the death
sentence. I stooped to Pablita's
side. She was too weak to lift her
head. Out of the crowd, a cup of
water was handed to me. I low­ered
it to her cracked, dry lips,
and she slowly took a sip.
During the confusion, the
town's school teacher, Mr.
Baker, made his way to the
wagon and jumped onto the cof­fin.
He took the death warrant
from the Sheriff and began to
read it aloud. He implored that
Pablita was to be hanged until
dead between the hours of 10
o'clock and 4 o'clock. "Clearly,
my friends, it is not yet 4
o'clock, and she is not yet dead,
as you can rightly see," he said
pointing to Pablita. The crowd's
roar leveled to a murmur, Mr.
Baker pleased with their
response.
"Please, please," Mr.
Baker continued, "we cannot
allow this murderer to go unpun­ished.
There will be no justice in
this town if this woman's sen­tence
is not carried out." The
well respected and revered Mr.
Baker managed to extinguish the
townspeople's uncertainty. The
execution would be consummat­ed.
The crowd subdued.
Sheriff Dunaway triumphantly
walked from the front of the
wagon to where Pablita lay help­lessly.
Once again, taking hold
of her hair, he forced her to her
feet only to have her bow weakly
at the knees.
The wagon was brought
TRAVELER
around once again. Another
noose was tied, hung, and placed
around its target. The Sheriff
dragged the weak and defense­less
Pablita back onto the wagon
and made her stand upon her cof­fin;
this time, he gave her an
additional two feet farther to fall
when the wagon was forced from
under her. This time, the Sheriff
did not neglect to bind her
wrists.
Like before, the wagon
ripped from beneath her. As she
fell before me, our eyes met for
an instant, and I feared she saw
my weakness. I heard the snap of
her neck as her feet stepped
lightly in the air and her body
convulsed. Her eyes bulged, and
then she was quiet; The crowd
watched in silence. The children
clung to their mothers, and the
men held their wives as they
turned from the gruesome scene
to collect their blankets and bas­kets
and make their way home.
The rope continued to
swing, creaking from her weight.
Her body hung lifeless, twisting
and turning like a child's empty
swing in the wind. As the Sheriff
and his deputy headed back to
town, I heard Sheriff Dunaway
order his deputy to cut the whore
down at nightfall and bury her
with the other nameless crimi­nals
outside town. I was left
alone with her. I reached to
touch her still warm hand. Tears
of gratitude ran down my cheeks
as I said to her, "I am Senora
Juan Miguel Martin. I prayed
that God would end my misery. I
did not have the courage to act,
for a wife is forced to bear what
a mistress is not."
Third Place - Fiction
Diamond Cave
Christopher W, Lowe
Pilf's Boy Meets New Friend, Rie Kitamura, Honorable Mention - Drawing
TRAVELER
"Dad, can we stop? I'm
hungry!"
Josh stood motionless,
tilting his head and squinting up
the trail at his dad who had
paused at the sound of his voice
to look back at him. His father.
tall in his denim shirt, a canvas
knapsack slung over his shoul­der,
looked right at home amid
the skinny trees. This was Josh's
first trip to the country, though.
and he felt out of place wearing
a Ninja Turtle T-shirt tucked
neatly into his nice shorts,
which, his mother had warned
him, were not to get dirty. His
father smiled.
"Just a little bit farther,
son," he replied. He glanced at
his watch and then up at the sky,
which was bluer than Josh had
ever seen. "We need to get to the
cave in time for the diamonds."
"But, Dad," Josh protest­ed,
dropping his shoulders and
moving up the path, "I'm getting
really hungry." He felt the pangs
in his belly. Trudging up the
trail, he shuffled his brand-new
hiking boots through the thick
carpet of pine needles and
leaves. His boots were allowed
to get dirty, and he watched the
dusty clouds swirl around his
feet.
"Tell you what," his
father offered, gesturing up the
hill they were climbing to the
closest outcropping of smooth
boulders. "Let's rest over on
those rocks and have a power
bar."
Power bars are boring,
Josh thought. "Can I have a
Snickers?"
"Didn't pack a Snickers,
pal."
37
38
Josh dangled his feet
nex t to h is dad's over the edge of
the granite boulder and took a
bite from the chocolate and
peanut butter snack. Chewier
than a Snickers, and not as good,
at least it eased his hunger. He
looked at the trees grow ing
around them-pine trees and
trees his grandfather had called
aspens. They were tall, and when
he looked up, he thought they
leaned in toward him, forming a
circular window of tree tops
where fluffy clouds sailed past.
There was a weird smell
out here, Josh thought. He pic­tured
the city park down the
street from their house, the one
he crossed on the way to play
Nintendo at his friend Jimmy's.
The park smelled like cars and
barbecues, but occasionally, he
could catch the scent of tree
leaves and grass blades on the
summer wind. That was what this
forest smelled like, Josh decided,
only stronger. He was glad it
didn't take him as long to get to
Jimmy's as it had taken them to
get here.
"Wow, you and Uncle
Tim had to go a long way to play
outside, huh? J bet we're fifty
miles away from Grandpa's," he
ventured, moving the last bite of
power bar around in his mouth.
His dad looked at him and
smiled.
"We're actually only half
a mile away. Uncle Tim and I
would come here every day after
school."
Josh's school was only
half a mile from their house, but
it seemed much closer than this.
"But we've been walking
forel'er!" he remarked. He could­n't
imagine coming all this way,
every day, after school. For one
thing, he would miss watching
the Micronauts cartoon.
"Do you think cartoons
will be on when we get back?"
he asked.
"Maybe, but we need to
get going to see the diamonds in
the cave."
"I wonder if Grandpa
gets the Power Rangers show up
here. J want to see the Power
Rangers."
"Let's get going, then,"
his dad urged, standing up and
helping his son off the rock.
When they reached the
bare top of the hill, they looked
down the other side into a wide
ravine, lined with more trees and
strewn with boulders and old,
dead trunks. The trail continued
down the hillside, through a
creek bed at the bottom, and then
up the rocky slope of a mountain
on the other side.
"Look," Josh's father
exclaimed, pointing down into
the ravine, "the pirate ship!"
"Where?" Josh asked, his
interest piqued. Pirates of the
Carihhean was his favorite ride
at Disneyland, especially the
ships. All he could see in the
ravine, though, was a bunch of
trees.
"There," his dad replied.
He moved behind the boy and
stretched his arm over Josh's
shoulder. Josh could smell his
aftershave. "Look where I'm
pointing. That's the pirate ship
Uncle Tim and I used to have."
Josh sighted along his
dad's arm-it pointed to a huge
oak that had almost fallen over
one day but had kept growing,
almost horizontally, out of the
hillside.
"That's just a weird tree,
Dad," Josh countered, "It's
growing sideways."
"Well, J know," his dad
responded, his voice losing some
enthusiasm. "But can't you see
how it looks like a pirate ship?"
He traced the branches with his
pointing finger. "See, the branch­es
stick up in the air like masts
- TRAVELER
and crow' s nests. Uncle Tim and
J used to be the captains, and
we'd sail into the harbor and
fight with the other pirates and
take their treasure."
"What other pirates?"
Josh asked. He knew there were
for-real pirates a long time ago,
but he wasn't sure if his dad was
around then.
"Our friends, a bunch of
us that played pirates."
"Oh," Josh replied. His
father took his hand, and they
walked slowly down into the
ravine and past the deformed
tree. As they passed its gnarled
trunk, his dad stopped to look up
into the vertical branches and run
his finger along a sticky trail of
sap. He closed his eyes and
smiled briefly when he smelled
the amber bead on his fingertip.
Josh touched a lower sap trail
but didn't like the way his fin­gers
stuck together and tried to
wipe it off on the bark.
"That's a weird tree," he
said. "Why does it grow like
that?"
"Don't know, partner,"
his father replied, still smiling
up at the tree. Then he looked
back down at him. "But we're
almost to the diamond cave."
They reached the bottom
of the ravine where the small
creek tumbled over smooth­grapefruit
and pumpkin-sized
rocks. His dad stepped carefully
on the bigger stones, helping
Josh who had to jump from rock
to rock.
"If J get my feet wet,"
Josh warned, "Mom will be
mad." That would not be good,
Josh thought, but he didn't say
it.
"Don't worry, Josh," his
father replied, "we'll get you
home nice and dry."
Safely on the opposite
shoulder, they paused on the
sandy edge, and his father point-
ed thirty yards ahead.
"See that big bunch of
boulders?" he asked. The out­cropping,
as big as a house, was
slightly above them, where the
trail turned steeply up the rugged
mountainside. "That's where it
is. I hope we still have time."
Josh didn't like seeing
the trail was heading back uphill.
He thought about the chocolate­chip
cookies Grandma was mak­ing
when they left and got hun­gry
again. He wished he hadn't
told his dad he'd come out to see
the diamond cave. He wondered
if Grandpa's TV got all the chan­nels.
"I hope there are still
cartoons on," he answered, exas­peration
creeping into his voice.
A hank of hair had fallen into his
face, and he pushed it back with
his hand.
Together, they walked to
the base of the rock pile, the
huge granite monoliths towering
above them like cliffs. His father
paused, looking from one rock to
the other, rubbing his chin with
his forefinger. Then, he moved
up to one of the boulders and
around it, Josh in tow. And
there, on the other side, was the
roughly triangular entrance to the
cave. But it only seemed to Josh
to be as big as a regular door­way.
He was expecting some��thing
much bigger.
"That's not a cave," he
protested. "Just a hole in a bunch
of piled up rocks."
"Sometimes that's what a
cave is, Josh," his dad replied.
"Carlsbad Caverns is
huge," the boy responded. They
had gone the year before on
vacation and Josh had been
amazed. "This is just a hole."
"Let's go in and see."
His dad ducked into the
opening and pushed inside.
Watching him squeeze into the
small space was funny. His dad
turned and motioned for him to
follow into the dark, so he swal­lowed
and stepped forward.
Inside, he couldn't see much,
just the glow from the opening
behind him.
"It's dark in here," Josh
said. His voice echoed off the
walls.
"I know," his father
replied. "Just look in, away from
the light, so your eyes will
adjust." Josh moved further into
the dark, relieved to bump into
his dad.
"It's smelly," Josh
remarked, wrinkling his nose. "It
smells wet." It smelled, he
thought, like the time their base­ment
flooded and everything got
soggy.
"There's a spring on the
mountain above us," his dad
answered. "It flows down the
side and into the creek. On its
way, some of it drips into here."
"Oh," replied Josh. He
The Boy's Hope. Rie Kitamura
Second Place - Drawing
39
Shana Looney Harvey
A dream lS an
impossible reality
interrupted by Life.
40
was seeing a bit better in the
dark now, and he sensed a faint
glow ahead. "Where are the dia­monds?"
There was movement
ahead of him, and he felt his
father's big, warm hand take his
and heard him say, "Right this
way."
Their boots crunched on
gravel as they slowly walked
over the narrow passage's
uneven stone floor, toward the
light. Suddenly, the tunnel
opened into a chamber the size
of Josh's bedroom. Between the
boulders that made up the walls
and ceiling, there was a gap
through which he could see blue
sky and the tops of the trees
across the ravine. And he could
see water falling in big drops,
past the little window in the
rock. He heard a drop of water
hit the floor behind him, and he
saw his father wipe something
from his cheek. Then he looked
up and saw patches of moss
hanging down, murky gray in the
shadow, but rich, dark green
where the light hit. It looked, he
thought, like spinach, and he
could see more drops of water
hanging from the ceiling, waiting
their turn to fall.
"Look at the stuff grow­ing,"
he whispered. He looked
down at the floor where water
collected in puddles, surrounded
by small stands of bright green,
clover-like little plants bending
on slender stems toward the
opening in the wall. For an
instant, he thought again of
Pirates of the Caribbean, but
that was fake, he realized. This
was real.
"Look," his dad said,
pointing toward the gap. The sky
was getting brighter and paler,
and suddenly diamonds were
falling into the cave, bright dol­lops
of captured sunlight that
landed with hard little smacks
into the pools on the flat stone
floor and vanished.
"Diamonds," Josh whis­pered
softly. He moved past his
dad and looked out the gap. A
diamond hit him on the forehead,
exploding into cool fragments
that melted and ran down his
face. Another fell into his hair,
and another, and then he moved
back and thrust out his hand to
catch the diamonds in his palm,
only to see them flatten and
splatter and drip down his arm.
He expected to see the diamonds
form icy piles around his boots,
but they didn't, and he decided
they must be magic diamonds.
"Dad," he said, "this
cave is cool."
"I thought you would
like it here," his dad replied, a
smile in his voice. "When I was
your age, this was my favorite
place. "
His father moved behind
him and reached out a strong arm
to catch some diamonds of his
own. But Josh was looking out
the window, down into the har­bor,
and he could see that a ship
had anchored there and that the
crew were lowering the long­boats.
At the top of the tallest,
spindly mast, snapping in the
salty wind, was the Jolly Roger.
They were coming, he knew, for
the diamonds.
"Oh 110, " he exclaimed,
pointing down at the bent form
of the pirate-ship tree, "Pirates!"
[3AJG
TRAVELER
CREDITS
Literary Judges
Freddie Anttila, Carmela Arnoldt.
Dave Grant. Pat Haas,
Marilyn Hofts, Phil Mateer,
Mary Jane Onnen, Marilyn Schiedat. Laura Schuett
Art Jurors
R.J. Merrill and K. Andrea Rusnock
Literary Staff
Joshua Ivanov, Christopher W. Lowe,
and Kim Purcel
Untitled. Felix Avina, Honorable Mention - Photograph
Literary Editor
Kari Schukei
Literary Sponsors
Jan Boerner, Betty Hufford,
and Joy Wingersky
Data Entry
Dawn Meyer
Production Staff
Connie Greenwell and
Carolyn Van Driel
Editorial Staff
Connie Greenwell and
Chenette Wangen
Cover Design
Connie Greenwell
Photographer
Chenette Wangen
Art Director/Designer
Connie Greenwell
Photography Director
Dean Terasaki
Art Dept. Faculty Advisors
Mirta Hamilton, R.J. Merrill,
and Dean Terasaki
Printing
Bieri Printing
Special Thanks
Paul Dameron
John Griggs
Glendale Community College
and the Maricopa County
Community College District do not
discriminate on the basis of race,
color, national origin, sex, handicap,
or age in application, admission,
participation, access, and treatment
of persons and programs and
activities.
Glendale Community College will
take steps to insure that the lack of
English language will not be a barrier
to admission and participation in
vocational education programs.
Glendale Community College
Y el Maricopa County Community
College District no discriminan a base
de raza, color, nacionaldad, sexo,
edad, ni invalidez, en cuanto a la
solicit, admision, participation,
acceso y trato de las personas y
actividades con los programas de
instruccion 0 empleo.
Glendale Community College hara 10
posible para asegurar que la falta de
domino en el ingles no sera
unbarrera a la admision y
participacion en los programas de
estudios vocacionales.
iA MARICOPA
COMMUNITY
COLLEGES
GLENDALE
COMMUNITY
COLLEGE