ROAD TO REDEMPTION

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “AN UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE – The Book of Darwin“

Chapter 11: Road To Redemption

Regardless of what cynics say, place really does provide context. This is why each time Darwin arrives at his high mountain meadow he feels powerful burdens of consequence descend on his soul compelling him to revisit the causal factors behind how he came to live this life. We all wonder whether we have the courage to admit it or not, how our life in its most striped down form would have been different had one critical decision taken an alternate ending. Was going left at the end of a grocery store isle destiny’s fait accompli? Was turning right ever even an option? Was it that one decision or the infinity of other unnoticed choices that caused the cascade of everything that happened in the aftermath? To what world on the other side of fate might another moment have taken us? In the chaos of decisions, why do we have the power to choose and how much does the butterfly effect impact our outcomes?

Was his off-grid life on Marquez Mountain always Darwin’s destiny and walking away from the California life that was so damn hard to set up just one more piece in his precut puzzle? These are the issues providing Darwin context as he increasingly wonders what happens next because lately, ‘next’ seems extra loaded with complexity as he considers all the ‘what’s’ and ‘whys’ of how he intends to atone for the mess he’s made.

Like he has hundreds of times before, Darwin slow-rolls his rust-riddled pickup to just beyond where the rugged road augering up Marquez Mountain transitions to calcium-rich lush meadow grass waking up from its long winter nap. He lingers in his truck cab, contemplating the extent to which his current self-sustaining life is a direct consequence of what began that brutal morning at Berkeley. How what happened there, is directly linked to his decision to pursue a PhD at Purdue rather than Harvard because he wanted something more than just cashing out, he needed to do something meaningful with his life. Likewise, getting a PhD was the direct result of what happened at Adventure Camp and his lesson of the rabbit when forced for the very first time to face the consequences of what he’s capable of creating and why he must be vigilant in adhering to the strict discipline of his self-imposed exile. Which ironically, brings him full circle back to why he’s sitting in his pickup.

Life has a way of consolidating itself into the movement of moments that flow like sheets of ice working their way down Kismet Creek in early spring or the way left over aspen leaves blow about base camp like discarded pieces of a jigsaw puzzle revealing the mystery of just how far fate reaches back when turning random shapes into organized possibilities waiting to be realized. Is Calvin Kincaid’s death on the very spot Darwin builds his base camp simply a matter of coincidence or are cosmic consequences at work that flow from Calvin to Darwin in strands of inevitability? Cynics would scoff at the notion these two souls separated by more than a century could somehow be connected but they would also likely say, what happened at Berkeley had nothing to do with rabbits.

Calvin Kincaid’s tragic death was the result of a principled man standing against corruption and that, was a consequence of him coming down from Colorado to buy mares from Anso Marquez to help build a herd of cattle cutters. From his view out the font window of his pickup Darwin watches the Appaloosa stallion manage his mares around base camp. The stallion pushing his herd up the far side of the Aspen grove to the seclusion of safety, causing Darwin to question the extent he can be tied to what happened on Marquez Mountain the fateful night when the evil Judge Parsons had his men ambush Calvin, his wife Theresa, and their infant son in a devious effort to claim the mountain and its valuable water rights. Darwin wonders if a crime scene connection can be made between what happened at Berkeley and the many tragedies tied to Marquez Mountain. He surmises while gazing down his meadow and across the Rio Grande valley to the mystical Jemez Mountains, that whatever happens on his road to redemption will ripple in similar consequence. Not only for the rest of his life, but for generations to come, just as the consequence of Calvin Kincaid continues to litter Marquez Mountain in tragic melodrama.

The longer Darwin sits in the cab of his pickup, the more he marvels at how the incredibly bitter winter has laid the groundwork for spring’s rebirth. Beauty surrounds his senses with sights of flowers blooming and trees budding. The sounds of birds chirping and squirrels squawking. The smell of grass growing and pinecones spreading. Life moves too fast to allow anyone to linger long in darkness, which is the overriding gift his meadow offers. Murphy agrees, he can’t understand why they drove all the way up here just to sit, so rather than wait for his door to be opened, he hops out the rolled down window to be about the business of chasing whatever’s out there that needs chasing. In no hurry to work his way down to base camp, Darwin continues his thought experiment as he promenades along the edge of the aspen grove. If his logic’s valid, he’s part of Anso and everything that’s happened on Marquez Mountain before and after him. He feels it, even hears whispers of Marquez Mountain ghosts whenever he walks up Kismet Creek tracing it to its source, a place he’s certain is somewhere close to where legend maintains a Free Mason carved his vault into mountain granite so Calvin could secretly stash the fortune he made selling meat and lumber to miners.

As he approaches base camp Darwin considers if it likewise means whatever he does next, the legacy he leaves behind, the progress he makes on his road to redemption, provides the context for whatever fate awaits whoever follows him. The one singular certainty, he reminds himself, one etched in time like an unwritten tombstone, is there will be someone who fate chooses at the designated moment for this predestined deal. “Is that my deal?” Darwin stops to ask the appaloosa who steps out of the aspen grove to render judgment on this trespasser to his kingdom. Darwin named the appaloosa Carmelo, after Anso son who died single-handedly preventing Comancheros from stealing his mustang herd. After six years of constantly coming to the high mountain meadow, Carmelo permits Darwin unencumbered access. In part because Darwin respects his authority but also because he’s learned to accept Murphy as a random fact of life. Some days it even seems Carmelo enjoys, “horsing around,” with the dog who’s way too playful to pose a threat to his herd.

Darwin steps onto the base camp’s plank cut platform setting his beer cooler on the large centuries-old table in the center positioned between two lodge poles holding up the three-sided tent. He studies multiple inscriptions he long ago memorized that were carved into the two-inch thick Ponderosa pine tabletop by Spanish conquistadors and wonders if it matters, he never bothered to learn Spanish. If it does, why would fate not put him on a path to master a language so common in Northern New Mexico he hears it every time he wanders into Red River or Questa. Not so much in Taos, which ironically is New Mexico’s oldest town but as the state’s other trust fund haven the demographic is decidedly different.

As his fingers trace deep grooves of multiple inscriptions, Darwin wonders if the answers to all his questions are contained in the wisdom of the conquistadors and fate is simply waiting for him to get off his lazy ass and learn enough Spanish to decipher their teachings. “Is that how it works?” Darwin asks the old aspen who dares to dangle at the edge of the grove like a flamenco dancer telling stories through movement that doesn’t move. “Did Calvin, Carmelo, his brother Jorge have control over their fate or was it sealed long before they each met their violent demise?” Darwin questions to what extent he’s the master of his redemption or is he merely a passenger on a train rolling along a prepaid track whose destination is not his to decide? It is the quintessential question. It’s why he came to the Northern New Mexico wilderness to live a self-sustaining life. Why no matter how far he’s come, he still has so far to journey.

Darwin worries it’s a question that can’t be answered as he plops into the Adirondack chair, he hauled up the mountain last summer. The chair was made by a Taos craftsman from the trunk of a Ponderosa tree Darwin harvested on the lower part of the mountain after it was split in two by a bolt of lightning during monsoon season. What makes the chair unique is the way intense electrical current followed sap lines through the wood burning crevices like little rivers the carpenter filled with a clear epoxy he mixed with turquoise dust to provide a brilliant blue pattern against the natural white pine that looks like veins running around the chair. Darwin’s convinced that the turquoise pattern holds a meaning he’s thus far been unable to decode but one that nonetheless, provides countless hours of contemplation. If he ever decides to invite someone to his mountain meadow, he’ll let them take a crack at deciphering the blue-vein pattern, who knows, perhaps nature’s captured the wisdom of the conquistadors, or would that necessarily be vice versa?

From base camp’s position along the confluence of Kismet and Claim Jumper Creeks at the lower edge of the aspen grove overlooking the valley below and the mystical Jemez Mountains to the far-off west, Darwin sometimes feels like a mighty king sitting atop his throne surveying the vastness of his kingdom. He’s always humbled by the realization that a good king can’t buy his way to worthiness, it must be earned by acts of courage and valor and thus far his road to redemption lacks both. But rather than jump down that rabbit hole, he opens his soft-sided cooler and pulls out an ice cold can of Old Milwaukee deciding all of that stuff is pretty dang darn deep for a guy who came here drink beer and take in today’s exciting Chicago Cubs baseball game. He flips on his solar powered satellite radio that’s preset to the Cub’s broadcast and listens as the announcer runs through today’s starting lineup.

Darwin quickly realizes he should have planned better because after his beer’s been cracked and the lineup announced he laments not having just stayed home and found something productive to do. The guy on the mound for the Cubs today has an ERA in double digits and only averages four measly innings of work before getting pulled for someone in the marginal bullpen skilled at squandering leads. He thinks back to all the times he and Vincent were at Murphy’s North Shore Bar with other Cubs faithful and how everyone had an opinion as to why the Cubs insist on filling their roster with pitchers who can’t pitch. Justifications as traditional as the ivy growing on Wriggly’s outfield walls. That tells you just how bad Cubs baseball has been this year, but hey, there’s still time before the all-star break and anything can happen, so Darwin decides to stay. The Cubs manager’s been bringing up kids from the Iowa farm team to try out for roster spots and who knows, maybe one or two will stick and then things will likely turn around.

With his first beer in the books Darwin reconsiders going home, he knows once he opens the next beer, he’s committed to the full nine innings because you wouldn’t wanna skim down Marquez Mountain with diminished reflexes. He looks over at Murphy to see if he might care to weigh in and finds him chewing on the ear of a newborn colt who’s trying to roll in a small mud puddle left over from last night’s rain. The colt enjoys Murphy’s attention, and mom is okay with their playing even though she keeps a watchful eye in case she needs to step in. Murphy has good rapport with the mustangs, sure he chases them around from time to time, but what he doesn’t know is that they’re screwing with him. They’ll run fast enough with him in pursuit so he thinks he has a chance. Each time he closes in on a pony though, the teasing mustang darts into the heart of the herd where Murphy loses track of which horse is his. The game restarts with a fresh pony and continues until Murphy just tires out.

Darwin settles in for the full nine, who knows, maybe today’s the day pitching’s gonna surprise him. It’s been a while since he’s been to Wriggly and with Vincent and Ilene coming in October, he needs to get up to Chicago at least once this summer to spend some quality time with little Issac who’s finally old enough to start his Wriggly apprenticeship. He’s probably not old enough to appreciate baseball but starting his indoctrination into the frustrating fraternity of being a die-hard Cub’s fan is something that is best started before the age of reason. With the announcer going on as only he can about who knows what and Murphy content to play with the mustang colt, Darwin allows his mind to drift over other off-ramps on his road to redemption that he’s been purposefully avoiding, like technology’s incessant temptation. Even though he’s no longer a technologist, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t pay attention to trends, innovations, and breakthroughs, and lately there’s been increasing chatter about the two areas of research he planned to delve into after his Parkinson’s deal; virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

The lure of going back to technology is difficult for Darwin to defeat, sometimes the desire’s so strong he’s not sure he can resist. Like a recovering addict he knows he must, some people just can’t be trusted with that kind of power and responsibility. That doesn’t mean he can’t ponder what would be waiting for him back in California or what he could do if he returned to the boiler room world of developing capabilities so fast, they can’t be reviewed. So innovative few can see the implications. So replete with unintended consequence they can’t be constrained. He sees the implications though, from start to finish he’s considered all the unintended consequences, not because he’s some sort of savant on the spectrum but because he’s had several years to travel his road of redemption and he’s learned from his mistakes. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make more if he got back in the game but from the sidelines, he can see what he now sees his former colleagues missing and that causes him considerable consternation. It sometimes makes him mad at God for gifting him with the burden of brilliance and commingling it with the ability to see cause and effect, then holstering his ambitions in penance and reconciliation.

It’s hard to turn away from technology’s “whats, whys, and what-ifs.” It’s analogous to forcing a sea turtle to live on land; yes, they can do it but it’s not in their nature. His soul was made to live in technology’s next event horizon, every fiber of how he thinks, how he filters life, how he looks at the future, is made for defining a world of tomorrow that looks nothing like the world of today. That’s why he came to the Northern New Mexico wilderness, to live in a world removed from such temptations, to wake up each day able to resist his nature, able to conscientiously decide today is not the day he stumbles.

The other distraction on his road to redemption is way more outside his logical mind’s comfort zone. Anna’s been spending more and more time in Darwin’s life, it’s not that he minds, he just doesn’t know what it means and how he’s supposed to respond. While he never took a vow of abstinence when he left California, he did sort of decide he shouldn’t be involved with anyone. Not because of his journey but because he’s not sure he’s really over Becky. He hasn’t seen her since he left California and yet because he never formally closed that door to his heart, he never really stopped loving her; and before Anna, never had a reason to stop. Darwin knows things with Becky are over but it’s a long way from things being over and things being forever over and he hasn’t crossed the forever barrier. Not because he thinks he shouldn’t but because he hasn’t been forced to. Call it a perk of off grid living, a necessary part of wilderness survival where you get used to dealing only with the things that need immediate looking after, and there is no end to the things that need immediate resolution.

It wouldn’t be accurate to say he pines for Becky, not really. Okay, maybe a little and certainly if things could go back to how they were he’d give it a go, but it’s a long way from he’d give it a go if he could and thinking that’s ever gonna really happen. And yet, he hasn’t closed that door because there hasn’t been another door he cares to walk through; until Anna that is. He’s not saying Anna is the one or that he’s ready to re-embrace what it means to be in a relationship because it’s a long way from wanting to spend time with a wonderful woman and being ready to accept the drama, demands, and difficulties of being in a relationship.

He enjoys spending time with Addison and even Skyler before he made the mistake of introducing her to Mateo, in part because they’re both fascinating and beautiful women but, gun to his head, the real reason is that they never pressure him into starting a relationship. They never say they need more. Never ambush him with commitment. Addison calls what they share a ‘dynamic’. Darwin isn’t sure what that means, other than she has no expectations he must worry about meeting and as far as he’s concerned at this stage of redemption, that’s about as perfect as what they share can be.

Darwin invited Anna to his annual remembrance dinner that he holds on his mom’s birthday. He didn’t mean to and it’s the first time he’s ever had a “special” guest for this event. He spent the evening thinking about how, if his mom was still here, she’d approve of Anna. In the interest of full disclosure, he told her about the purpose of his special dinner and was pleased when she understood. She even said she tries to do something special like that on her mom’s birthday. They shared a most pleasant evening, and he didn’t even mind that she questioned him about virtually every aspect of his life. The only question he didn’t fully disclose is the one about why he came to New Mexico. After all, as even Anna herself points out, a man of his means can live anywhere, and the Northern New Mexico wilderness seems a bit out of character from the way she perceives him. She did caveat that by adding the way he came to her rescue that afternoon in Red River certainly has convinced everyone in the valley that he could of been a native New Mexican if God had favored him more.

While Darwin has many faults, being naive is usually not one of them. He appreciates Anna assessment but knows the way valley locals talk about him. He sees it in the hushed whispers of wait-staff when eating, the way baristas tentatively hand him coffee at cafés with an odd mix of fascination and fear. Who can blame them, a strange looking outsider living alone as a wilderness hermit is bound to seem unsettling, especially since he’s the antithesis of everything Taos and Red River Anglos present. What bothers locals most about who they call “the mystery man of Marquez Mountain,” is that while they toil endlessly just to have a few coins to rub together in the hope of occasionally allowing themselves morsels of luxury, here sits this eccentric millionaire shunning all the comforts and conveniences they can only dream of, and for what, to haul water in a rust-riddled truck with his only companion an over-anxious dog that never leaves his side. How is that supposed to be something to aspire to?

Escaping valley judgment is partly why Darwin prefers to grocery shop in Red River. Texas tourists in the former gold mining town don’t notice him and when they do see him sitting on a park bench eating ice cream, they write him off as some sort of out of luck prospector who’s foolishly wasting his life trying to find his fortune along Claim Jumper Creek. If he’s being honest though, the real reason he shops in Red River is Anna. Even before they formally meet during the incident with the three Texans, he knows her from his trips to the grocery store where she works. He could tell right away Anna doesn’t judge him and he’s confident she never gossips about him. She never wonders out loud what secrets are so severe they drive him to such an unworthy existence.

Anna doesn’t wonder because Anna doesn’t need to know. She sees him. Sees past his unkempt exterior, not to the person he’s become, because she can see that he’s not the person he’s in the process of becoming. Anna can already see the man who’ll someday reach the end of the road he’s traveling. In Darwin, she sees a man confronting some sort of tremendously unspeakable demon unafraid to take it on despite the odds. Someone willing to poke the dragon everyone else is afraid to wake and for that, Anna sees a man she most certainly does admire.

Darwin foolishly believes he successfully hides the part of his soul burdened by consequence. He actually thinks he presents himself to the world as a normal Joe who just likes being alone and is unaware that everything about him, from the clothes he wears, to truck he drives, to how he chooses to live, presents just the opposite without room for any kind of nuance. He’s convinced himself that he’s sold that persona to Addison, Skyler, Victor, Mateo, and most of all to Anna. The reality though, is he’s fooling no one even though he fools some more than others and each in different ways. Anna sees most clearly through his facade, she sees the pain he keeps buried deep inside. A pain that when exposed to Gwen that first New Mexico Thanksgiving in Chicago, causes her to draw back in fear. Not Anna though, the more she peels back each of Darwin’s complex layers, the more she comes to cherish the man who bravely came to her defense. There’s an uncensored gallantry in how men like Darwin go about slaying their dragons that sends shiny shimmers of hopeful light into the world. It’s the courageous chivalry of Sir Galahad mixed with the unabashed idealism of Don Quixote that marks this man as noble.

Maybe because she grew up with art and an artist dad skilled at peeling back the layers of protection people paint themselves with in a vain attempt to escape from having to see who they are and the truths coloring their world. Isn’t that the purpose of art? To show people what lives on the other side of darkness so they can see a wonder without having to suffer the journey? Anna’s drawn to men like Darwin because they forgo the splendor of art for the barely navigable necessity of the journey. Men who can stare into their darkness while knowing there’s light.

Anna sees in Darwin someone willing to confront his demons and there’s a clarity in that few have the courage to face. It’s not the false flag of a tormented rebel most women admire who write poor poetry and pretend to be driven by passion. It’s the humble willingness of a man who owns his mistakes and accepts the suffering he must endure to right wrongs he knows he must. Men who strive to embrace being a Quixotic romantic jailed in a personal prison that lies unseen below the surface of life. The part men like Darwin shelter to protect others. Anna sees the war Darwin wages with himself in silence, one whose outcome is far from certain yet she’s certain he’ll emerge triumphantly on the other side, and that endears her deeper.

For Anna, Darwin’s a complete man but one that can’t exist because men like Darwin don’t really exist. How can they when the burdens of his world cruelly crush the soul of anyone daring to decide everything doesn’t have to be as everything is forced to be. And that is why Anna knows Darwin needs her. Why she also knows, he will push her away. She knows men like him foolish believe the dragons they must slay, they must slay alone. And Anna knows, she must let him.