Mystics of the Tuolumne

Acknowledgement #

"Oh my no, Abuela, I cannot use any of my gifts."  Alarm and fear spread through her body. Dahlia felt sick to her stomach and light headed.  Tears just began to creep in her eyes.

"Calmate hija.  Your gifts are in your capita.  In your thinking.  You must calm all the poco loco thoughts.  Just one big thought.  Think of what you need to do and why."  Abuela was so calm and loving in her teaching that Dahlia relaxed immediately.

Dahlia relaxed and concentrated on one of Abuel's hens.  The bird became upset ruffling its feathers squawking and running around in circles.  

"I see now Abuela."  She jumped up and clapped her hands.  They both giggled with mirth.  Again, Dahlia worked on another hen, then the rooster, and the poor sleeping pig.  "Thank you..thank you Abuela.  It works...it really works.  I feel a little tired suddenly.  I am going home to rest."  

"Ten cuidado muchachita.  These gifts are very powerful.  You must do no harm."  Abuela looked sternly at Dahlia.

Dahlia kissed her grandmother and started up the road to home.  Her mind was clear.  She took not of that.  It must have been the love and humor that made her mind so sharp and focused she thought.

"Dahlia look at me,"  Joel yelled out as she walked into the yard.  He was balancing as he walked atop the highest fence rail. "Oh nooo..." Joel fell from his perch  he floated softly to the ground.  "What happened I thought that was going to hurt but, it didn't?"  

Dahlia smiled at her little jester and continued into the house.  "Mamma I'm home.  Do you need help?"  Dahlia wanted to do something for her Momma.

"Yes, can you climb up there on top of the cabinet and bring down the tamale steamer?"  Ericia was not a good climber anymore.

"Close your eyes and stand beside the table,"  Dahlia said.

"I don't have time to play.  Fetch it for me , por favor."  Ericia was losing patience.

"Alright, Mamma.  I told you."  Dahlia floated the large cast iron pot from atop them kitchen cabinet to the table top.

"Jesus, Maria, y Jose!  You scared me.  I thought it was an earthquake."  Ericia was trying to catch her breath.  

"I told you to close your eyes.  From now on things will get scarier."  Dahlia was good-naturedly scolding.  "Do you want to see some more?"

"God forbid, no.  Help me make tamales.  I have the masa and filling already made."  Ericia enjoyed sharing these tidbits of heritage with her daughter.  Tamales were Indio and Mestizo, not Spanish.

"They won't be ready for supper,"  Dahlia noted.

"They will slow steam all night and be ready in the morning for everyone's' lunch.  Get to work and for once in your life stop talking back."  Ericia was firm but, not angry.

The following morning Ericia was preparing lunch pails.  "Dahlia, how many extra tamales for Albert?"

"None, Mamma.  Albert and I are no longer friends."  Dahlia spoke in her assertive voice.

"Que lastima, forever?"  Ericia questioned with a good deal of concern for Dahlia.

"Si! Mamma, forever, or until I turn into a white Yankee.  Whichever is first."  Dahlia had a natural sense of the acerbic.

"His Mother?" Ericia gingerly asked.

"No, his sow grizzly."  Dahlia was at her finest.

"DAHLIA!, that was disrespectful."  Ericia was shocked by Dahlia's response.

"I know.  I am not a child.  I am a digger squaw."  It was pure acid dripping from Dahlia's tongue.

"Madre de Dios!  When do you stop?"  Ericia was so prim and proper and this was an affront to her sensibilities.  "Here is your pail.  Go to school."

All day at school she would look at Albert and when he looked she would turn away.  She made every effort to pay attention to her teachers and not allow Albert admittance to her thoughts.  

She went directly to BJ's blacksmith shop after school.  Her bird dog followed her as usual.  "BJ, what can I do to help you?"

"Don't you have a pig to feed and brush?"  Bj was an excellent father.  He wanted to make sure Dahlia continued on her path of responsibility by caring for her animals.  

"I can help you a few minutes before it is time to feed tham."  She just wanted to be by him she felt so safe and loved.  She was still emotionally reeling from the abrupt rupture of her relationship with Albert.

BJ knew  why she wanted to be around him. "You can pick up some of the scraps of iron on the floor around the shop and put them in the scrap bin before you go."  Dahlia almost always made him smile and chuckle to himself.  "Do you want to talk to me about you and Albert?"

'No...yes I am so hurt that his mother treated me like I was less that a human being.  Albert must have known how hateful she was.  Why did he invite me?  Why wasn't I warned?"  She expressed her hurt in her soft voice, her melancholic face, and downcast bearing.  

"Maybe he just wasn't the boy for you.  It's better to know now than later when it might be too late.  When I lived in Minnesota, I had a wife for a few months.  We got along just fine.  I thought she loved me."   He drew his breath and had a faraway look in his eyes.

"One day I came home from the iron mine where I was the smith.  She was gone.  There was a note saying she went to visit a relative in Wisconsin."

"What did you do?  Did you go look for her?"  Dahlia was feeling so badly for him.  He looked so sad.

" I thought she would be back.  One of my friends came to my house.  I told him what happened."

"Did she take her shoes?"  My friend asked.

"I opened her wardrobe cabinet.  All her shoes were gone.  Only her work dress hung there."  I told my friend.

"She is gone.  She ain't never coming back.  She took her shoes...she's gone forever."  My friend pulled out a hip flask and offered me a stiff swallow.  I thought I would never get over it.  Then I met your mother."   He was beaming now.

"Thank you.  That makes me feel a little better.  There is hope.  I am overjoyed that you met my mother."  She was so happy she had tears of joy.