Jo-Ann Mapson - Solomons Oak: A Novel

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Owl & Moon Caf

The Wilder Sisters

Loving Chloe

Shadow Ranch

Blue Rodeo

Hank & Chloe

Fault Line (stories)

The Bad Girl Creek trilogy:

Bad Girl Creek

Along Came Mary

Goodbye, Earl

S O L O M O NS O A K

A Novel

Jo - Ann Mapson

Copyright 2010 by Jo-Ann Mapson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Mapson, Jo-Ann.

Solomons oak : a novel / Jo-Ann Mapson. 1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-60819-330-1

1. Loss (Psychology)Fiction. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3563.A62S65 2010

813.54dc22

2010009792

First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2010

This e-book edition published in 2010

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-408-7

www.bloomsburyusa.com

In memory of Jason Wenger:

Murdered December 2, 2007, an unforgettable human being who left behind many broken hearts. To honor Jasons writing ambitions, a percentage of the proceeds from this book will benefit the Jason Wenger Award for Excellence in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Jason, I hope heaven is everything you dreamed and more.
You are missed every day.

And to Earlene Fowler:

For your abiding, generous friendship.

Womens hearts are like old china,
none the worse for a break or two.

S OMERSET M AUGHAM
Lady Frederick , 1907

P R O L O G U E

I N 1898, IN Jolon, California, not far from the Mission San Antonio de Padua, Pennsylvanian Michael Halloran set out to cross the Nacimiento River during spring thaw. Like everyone heading west, he thought California was the land of plenty: the Pacific Ocean full of abalone, citrus groves and artichokes growing year-round, everything necessary to raise a family and prosper.

According to Salinan Indian storytellers, his horses refused to enter the water until Halloran whipped them. On the other side of the river lay his newly purchased land. Everyone begged him to wait until spring runoff was complete. Stay in the hotel for free, the owner said. Halloran refused, believing it was a trick to steal his land. As soon as he entered the river in his horse-drawn wagon, his wife, Alice, and baby daughter, Clara, aboard, he lost control. Michael Halloran was thrown free, but Alice became caught in the reins as the panicked horses tried to free themselves. The wagon flipped over and over in the swift current. Horrified, Michael could only watch from the riverbank while the reins he had used to punish the horses twisted and turned, decapitating his wife. Her body washed ashore days later. Baby Clara was never found.

After Mrs. Hallorans burial, the Salinan shaman predicted her ghost would never rest, because a body without all its parts has trouble finding its way to the spirit world. In the 1950s, Alice appeared to two soldiers on watch at an ammunition bunker on the Fort Hunter Liggett military base. One died of a heart attack; the other never recovered from the trauma. The army denied the reports, but closed the bunker. In addition to the Salinan story The Headless Lady of Jolon, several Central Valley, California, ghost stories feature a headless horsewoman: The Lady in Lace, Guardian Spirit, and Ghost of a Murdered Wife.

Stories, passed down from generation to generation, can take two forks: factual history, or legend/lore. The word history came into English from Latin via Greek and originally meant finding out, and in some dictionaries wise man. In modern dictionaries, history is defined as a continuous, typically chronological record of important events. You can make history , and that can be a good or bad thing. Sometimes people say and the rest is history , which leaves out the most interesting parts. Or you can be history , which means youre gone. Disappeared. Dust in the wind, which is the title of the rock band Kansass only hit song.

The word legend has its roots in Middle English, French, and Latin. Legenda translates to things to be learned. Lore , from the German and Dutch lehre , translates to learn.

You would think that between the two wed get the whole story.

To this day, it is said that on a moonless night in Jolon headless Alice can be seen floating above the Nacimiento River, searching for her lost daughter. She also frequents the old cemetery on the military base. Locals say if you catch sight of Alice, quickly put your ear to the earth and you will hear the baby girl crying for her mother.

Part I

G L O R Y S O L O M O N

A Pirate Handfasting Menu

Roast tom turkey

Apple, date, and onion stuffing

Mashed Yukon Gold potatoes

Peasant bread

Crudits

McIntosh apples

California navel oranges

Mead

Grog

Lemon bumble

Pirate-ship devils food wedding cake

Part II

J O S E P H V I G I L

I didnt want to tell the tree or weed what it was.
I wanted it to tell me something and through me
express its meaning in nature.

W YNN B ULLOCK

Welcome to the Butterfly Creek General Store!

Your one-stop shop for the comforts of home
away from home

Voted Best Darn Pizza in Central California since 1988
(& we deliver)

Official meeting place for The Butterfly Creek
Intellectual Society

Bicyclists and Bikers welcome

Open MondayThursday from eight A.M. to nine P.M.

FridaySaturday until two A.M.

CLOSED on Sunday, no matter what!

Sundays are for visiting with the grandbabies.

Juan and Lorna Candelaria, owners

FOR SALE BY OWNER: Inquire Within

Part III

J U N I P E R T. M C G U I R E

A dog will never forget the crumb thou gavest him,
though thou mayst afterward throw
a hundred stones at his head.

S A D , Gulistan , A.C.E. 1258

Chapter 1

THANKSGIVING, THURSDAY,
NOVEMBER 27, 2003

O NE YEAR AGO to the day, Glory Solomon had spent hours cooking the traditional Thanksgiving dinner for her husband, Dan: turkey with bread-crumb stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, and Dans favorite, the yam casserole with the miniature-marshmallow topping she always managed to scorch. Why he liked it she never understood. Her pumpkin pie was a work of art, with a homemade crust so flaky it rivaled her grandmothers, but for Dan it didnt get any better than blackened yams. Glory had set the table with the china Dans mother had left them, Franciscan Desert Rose. She ironed and folded linen napkins. She whipped heavy cream to tall peaks. While Dan said grace, she took a slug of wine because religion made her nervous. They feasted and laughed, and when they could move again, they took the horses out for a long ride on their oak-filled property that was ten minutes as the crow flies from the Mission San Antonio de Padua. After that, Glory called her mother in Salinas to wish her a happy holiday, and they both said how much they missed Daddy, gone twenty-two years now. Glory and her sister, Halle, had been teenagers when he died. Next Glory called Halle and interrupted her appletini party because she could never get Halles schedule right.

This year Glory was roasting three twenty-five-pound turkeys, mashing thirty pounds of potatoes, baking a dozen loaves of baguette bread, and heaping local apples and oranges in bushel baskets borrowed from her friend Lorna, who ran the Butterfly Creek General Store. Not a yam in sight. If Dan were still alive, Glory would gladly have made yams the main course, paid attention to his grace, put her wineglass down, and waited for him to say Amen.