I write history the way some people read horoscopes. What is history, after all, but prophecy in reverse? The following story is true both root and branch. Like O. Henry’s leaf painter (and at P.’s request), I have camouflaged in its undergrowth of strange names and places a vine of living history more or less as P. recounted it to me on Christmas Sunday 1986.
The first Christmas it was down to just the three of us, Dad was in no spirit to decorate. Instead, he drove J. and me over to Pony, an obscure dot on a crooked line between Butte and Bozeman where the river came down from Hollowtop Mountain. Gramps left Pony for Grange in the 1920’s, a dozen years before the gold ran dry. When Dad was old enough to pound a nail, Gramps began dragging him and his little brother to the old homestead to exorcise the evils of ‘theirism’ and to see firsthand what becomes of a soul after losing its footing. So there it was. Our first of a dozen Christmases to come in Pony, Montana. Looking back, I didn’t need a truckful of lumber and the coldest winter on record to drive home what I now know about most things in life, including whatever theirism might have been. I brought to Pony enough of my own foolishness for that.
Christmas week 1964 reached thirty-five below sans windchill, a redundant technicality that would not factor into Montana’s weather forecast for another decade. The pickup heater was the warmest refuge beyond the two-foot radius of Gramp’s fireplace, so whenever Dad made the supply run to Shifflers that trip, J. and I tagged along for the heat in truck and general store. As Dad sorted fresh produce, the precise box of nails, and the odd ball of string, J. mined a sketchpad from an avalanche of impossible shelving, while I beelined it to the rag and bone table where kids too small to wield a hammer could find a cornucopia of mostly junk mingled with never-popular comic books and vintage baseball cards. The banner behind the table promised ‘Salvation,’ but only because, as often happened in rural towns like Pony in the sixties, its ‘Army’ suffix had been hastily overpainted in protest. On our last trip, I unearthed from Salvation’s pile an unexploded hand grenade that, when I brought it home, my mom let me throw into the lake behind our house. (Sadly, It didn’t explode there either.) My current brush with Salvation brought me … us … our lonely, happy trio … a curious relic. Sleeping inside what might have been its original box, I fell in love with a gold-rimmed, white-faced, vintage wristwatch with the single number 12 announcing true north and betraying no visible method for coaxing it to life. The opposite of new–nothing in Salvation was ever new—the old wristwatch, like the entire ghost town englufing it, possessed an otherworldliness rendered even stranger by three tiny clocks on its face where the 3, 6, and 9 should have been. Heavy for its size, the first time I strapped the little machine to my wrist, it gave off a kind of electric hum and the sensation that if I didn’t immediately return it to its cradle, it would soon electrocute me.
“It’s not a snake, P.,” came a wrinkly voice just beyond my shoulder. “it’s a magic clock.”
Perry Shiffler was a bent-over C-shape of a man not much taller than me and twice as old as my dad. He walked with a kind of double limp that must have radiated to the chronic wince brimming with some arcane secret he could never wait to share.
“It’s from Switzerland where they make clocks that run forever. Long as you never take it off your wrist, it will keep perfect time until the end of days.
“But how–?”
“Winds itself. Gravity. Perpetuish motion. Spinning wheels. Swiss squirrels, maybe? When you move, it moves. Take it off and time stops. Fella brought it in last week on account he didn’t want to live no longer. Figured someone else ought to know the time after he was gone.
“It’s heavy.”
“That’s the squirrels. Probably bigger than your watch.”
“I don’t have a watch. I’m waiting for J.”
“Oh yeah. That silly Bible rule. Did your daddy ever read you about all the misery in the world on account of that tradition?”
He hadn’t. But I braced myself for what I knew was coming.
“There was Abraham nearly killed his own kin before an angel swapped out Isaac for a goat,” he began where he always he did. “And Isaac’s twins who kicked and shoved and pulled hair to see which one popped first out of his momma.”
Here comes the mess of pottage.
“Esau won the first round but then Jacob could swaps him the kingdom for a bowl of potatoes. And here’s the miserable bit. When Jacob’s all growed and falls in love, Esau kidnaps his bride and in the morning Jacob wakes up married to the wrong sister. All on account of the wrong brother popping out first. Makes no sense your daddy’s rule.
“Yeah, well him that,” I grumble, not for the first time. J. always got things first. The heavy watch I’ve strapped back on my wrist will probably be his Christmas morning.
“Did I ever tell you about my granddad?”
He had. A dozen times.
“A hundred years ago, a little man rides his pony up Hollowtop Canyon and when that sorry beast kicks up a shiny stone, ‘Eureka,’ my granddad says to hisself. Like the Greek. But he’s got a brother. And just like you, that big brother gets everything first. But not this time, Perry says to hissself. His name was Perry. Like me. He figures the gold comes from the river so he works it at night. Takes out every ounce of gold before his brother finds out. Know why this town is called ‘Pony?'”
“After his horse!” I blurted. “The one that kicked up the gold.”
“So they say, but it ain’t true. They called my granddad Pony on account he was the little brother what got all the gold.”
“I never heard that part,” I said, absently unstrapping the wristwatch. It’s weight was tiring out my arm.
“It’s cuz little brothers never get anything. We have to take it.” And at the word ‘take,’ Shiffler snatched the watch out of my hand.
“You want this watch for Christmas? Leave it to me. But there’s also something you need to do.”
And with that he double-shuffled over to the counter where my dad and J. were waiting to pay the bill. I watched as Shiffler pulled my dad aside. They had their backs turned so I couldn’t make out any words. When Shiffler limped back to Salvation, his wince sharper, his smile broader.
“It’s all arranged,” he whispered after leading me back to the Salvation. “Your daddy has the watch. Never mind how. If I had to guess, he’s going to give to J. for Christmas. Because you know that, you have the advantage. Know what I mean?”
I didn’t. Something had changed but I had no idea what it was.
“Remember how Esau swapped Jacob’s bride in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah, but what’s that go to do—?”
“You’ll figure it out. Not run along, your daddy’s waitin’.”
And without another word, Shiffler turned back to the Salvation table and placed marble placard where the watch had been.
‘The Life You Change May Be Your Own.’
The next day, Dad announced that with Mom gone, it was time we started in on some new family traditions.
“For starters, it’s too cold out there to cut a tree so, when Santa comes down the chimney and doesn’t find a place to put anything, he’ll come straight to your bed looking for something like this.”
He then held up two gray stockings like he had just won them in a raffle.
“They belonged to Gramps and they’ve just been sitting here so we put them to work. See what they catch. I’ve tied this little string at the top so can hang it on your footposts when you go to bed.”
That night, as I listened for Santa to come into the room, I couldn’t stop my stomach churning over how hard it must have been for Perry to keep his secret all those years. After Dad came and went, I still wasn’t sure I could go through with it. But what about those wars in the Bible? All all that horse-trading? And the unfairness. If Dad could make a new start, why couldn’t I?
In the morning, when J. first pulled the watch out of his elongated gray stocking, the triple shock swept from father to sons like the news of a gold strike.
- J.: No way! It’s that Swiss watch from Salvation. Dad! How did you know? Thank you so so much!! Look, P., You don’t even have to wind it.
- P.: Wait. That’s was in your stocking? But the ru–
- Dad: Eyes locked straight on mine. “Whatever it was you did,” they were bellowing, “Do. Not. Say. A. Word.”
- J.: What’s going on?
And then it all poured out.
“I’m so sorry, you guys. But I married the wrong sister? Do you hear me? I married the wrong sister.”
Then I ran to the toilet to be sick.
On our way out of town, as we drove past Shiffler’s and the makeshift ‘Thank You For Visiting Pony–Come Back Soon,’ sign, Dad asked,
“Did I ever you tell you how Pony got its name?”
“Only ever time we come and go,” groaned J.
“Can I tell It this time? Perry told me how it really happened.”
“Long as you don’t go on about marrying your sister or whatever made you so sick yesterday,” teased J.
P. wound down his Christmas Day serrmon with these words.
“From that day to this, my beloved brother, who has not taken that silly watch from his wrist for even a minute, still does not know which sister he nearly married. I hope he lives forever.”