A Meadow I Know

 Once upon a time there was a man named William Ferris Prichett. What we know is that he arrived in Arizona in 1900 as well as having appeared on the Utah census of that year. He was 15 years old and accompanied by his brother of a year younger. The story goes that their family, which had come out with William's grandfather in the wagon trains of the Latter Day Saints, had become apostate which, if the history of that time and place was known, was worse than being one never in the faith. It has come down that William and his brother were being physically tormented for their family's sin of heresy. While the ultimate outcome of what happened has not survived, it is known that one man was shot and another stabbed before the two brothers fled to Arizona with their parents following shortly after.

They settled in the Valley of the Sun, primarily and awkwardly enough on the edges of the center of that faith they left. In Phoenix, it is known that William earned his arms as a blacksmith before the blood of his ancestors, Welsh coal miners...and that is what his father was doing in Nevada and Utah...called and he returned to the earth. In the deserts north of Wickenberg he held a few claims, lonely places that reek of desperation. In 1919, he traveled with his small family up the plateau to Prescott in time for his only daughter to be born. He had a young son as well at the time with him and his young wife.

In this region he stayed, though the bright lights of Prescott were not for him. Instead, he went into the mountains and took up his spade. Claims all over these mountains he worked, at times a solitary man digging and at others with a crew complete at hire. This is where William would live the rest of his days, digging deep into the earth for the fruit he sought.

An occurrence that has always puzzled me truly reveals character we do not associate with those of days we romanticize in social myth. Williams' wife Ina and he got a divorce. William wed a woman named Alma and produced an absolute herd of sons. Ina married a man named Lyman Case. A photo of that wedding shows Ina and William's son and daughter standing with Ina, William standing nearby to bless his ex-wife's union. Apparently this remained the rest of their days the good nature between them.

There was tragedy attendant as well for William up there in those mountains. His son, 21 years old in 1938, was supposed to go down the mountain to Prescott to see his girl one Friday night, take her dancing in the halls where once Doc Holiday coughed over cards. He did not show up and was found later buried in the Combination mine. It had collapsed within while he was walking above.

As for Ina and her husband, well, he made an investment and bought some land in 1940, a mining claim named for one of the brothers whom these mountains are named after. That land passed on to Ina's daughter and from there, to her three children. This land is bisected by the creek that flows, this creek upon which gold was found in 1863 spurring both the United States and the seditious Confederate States to lay claim to it. The names of the peaks reflect this very contention. It encompasses both rising mountain cut with deep rills on one side of the creek, and a short, squat meadow on the other. Or at least once it did.

Long ago, the northern end of this little meadow abutted the town of Howells, a locality that once boasted about 250-350 permanent residents before the smelter froze over in 1885. The field became a Civilian Conservation Corp camp in the 1930s. Remains of each of these exist, as do flat spots where the wise eyed can spot the absence of where a house once stood or broken bricks beneath decades of pine needles. The meadow was where the miners of the Sheldon Mine outside of Walker, the larger town a mile south, would come to play baseball, apparently at times on horseback. Now that meadow is a tight pine forest planted by William's daughter, an orchard planted by her son, a small horse corral and a woodpile where his son spends an awful lot of meditative time.

This meadow has always been here and I can see it expanded, lengthened to suit a purpose of descriptive design. Broaden it and make that grass lush and full. Make it a sward and strip the trees grown now throughout. Line them thick along the edges, pine, juniper, oak, walnut and more while along the creek, multiply those cottonwood and bury the remains of the CCC camp in grass rather than lying bare in dry dirt. Make the meadow what it needs to be and then steal it, whisk it away into those dreams processed as one round is split after another and the wood pile vanishes to forgetful actions.

This meadow plays a central role in the Tales of the Bajazid. I have named this meadow which now rests a mile or two below the town of Baird's Holler along that accursed creek, the Bajazid. That name appears now in certain stories, passed over briefly and never lingered on. Why? Because I want it to be forgotten. I want that ephemeral name applied in vanity by those men who first came upon it to vanish so that those who find these tales themselves have trouble recalling it.

This meadow inspired first appeared in 2016 with the fourth story I began. It was titled "The Little Metal Man" and I am very proud of it. Its primary problem is that it is 16,272 words long, an awkward length. This was not the fourth finished but the fifth. It took most of the year to do, finishing in October of that year. In June, finishing at a very particular time in a very particular place, the 4th piece was finished but that is a tale for another time, mainly 'cause I went mad and did something really messed up... I decided to write it as a Sonnets Redouble titled "Shadows in the Afternoon".

It is this meadow that I celebrate in thought tonight, a place that has seen so much of what has become and what will be. With "The Little Metal Man", I ensured its existence and solidified my commitment to this adventure begun. That November, I sat in a McDonalds chewing up as much wifi as I could. When I'd worn out my welcome, I packed my bag and walked across the parking lot to the Starbucks. When the day was done, I had "In A Meadow", a 4,600 word interpretation of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's legendary classic "In A Grove", interpreting that tale, as is the literary tradition now with that story, to fit a time and place specific. This is another story that I will dive deep into a discussion of, but again, that is another date.

What is important is that with "In A Meadow", a short tale ripped out in a day, showed me that the months of struggle I put in on "The Little Metal Man" need not be so arduous. There at the end of 2016, I weighed those two interpretations of the same meadow and came up with a plan. With one story the first year, two the next and the third producing three, I realized it would take forever to fill even a chapbook.Thus I, who am not one for setting goals, set such a trap for myself. In 2017, I dedicated myself to completing 12 stories, one a month.

I don't think things through always...