3 poems
Six Weeks
Six weeks, come to take “the cure”, break the marriage knot. High desert air.
Clear the mind. Short time, small price. For freedom. Of a sort.
Six weeks, wedding rings in the Truckee, divorcées on the prowl. Disillusioned
bride clichés for celluloid and vinyl. Reno, the shorthand. Reno, the punchline.
Six weeks, white women-in-waiting transform into waitresses and ranch hands,
card dealers and clerks. Sample Virginia Street. Roulette lessons, risqué shows.
Six weeks, Blacks barred from the Mapes and the Riverside, dude ranches
and motor lodges. Bills but few work options. Hunger but few eating options.
One Chinese restaurant, Club Harlem, Woolworth’s, Bethel AME church socials.
Biggest Little City becomes smallest little East Side. Douglas Alley.
Six weeks, Emma Allen, 23, from Richmond, California, rents $8-a-week boardinghouse room,
referred by Bethel AME. Ebony Magazine photographs her throwing dice, walking Virginia.
Caption notes Harold’s Club has no locks, doors always open. Does not mention
Emma could not enter. Casinos hang signs “No Indians, Negroes, or Dogs.”
Six weeks, Emma hires white lawyer. Shops for groceries. Meets local NAACP leader. Says,
Reno in the Dark Ages. Says it will be pleasant when she gets back home. Waits. For freedom.
The People’s Champion
September 14, 1911. 12,000 people witnessed saddle bronc final and
history in small eastern Oregon ranch town. West’s best riders.
Three men. Three biographies. Brown, White, and Black.
Jackson Sundown, middle-aged nephew of Nez Pierce Chief Joseph.
John A. Spain, Oregon son of white “pioneers.”
George Fletcher, African-American, came to Oregon as a child.
Sundown born Waaya-Tonah-Toesits-Kahn, Blanket of the Sun, Nez Perce and Salish cowboy.
At 14, forced north with tribe. Joined exiled Sitting Bull and Sioux in Canada,
became breeder and breaker of horses. Adopted new name for rodeos.
Sundown knew the power of spectacle. At 48, six-foot, long braids tied under chin,
wide brim hat wrapped with silk scarf, beaded gauntlets, spotted wooly chaps.
Rodeo circuit legend. Scared competition from entering.
John A. Spain, Oregonian son of Nebraska farmers. Fled abusive father.
Saw Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, vowed to become showman. Earned enough bucking broncs
to buy ranch, create pageant. Four-horse chariots, hippodrome races.
“Last of the Real Wild West Shows.” By 1910, Umatilla County Sheriff Tillman Taylor
founded competition. Pendleton Round-Up. Wanted Spain’s bucking stock.
Invited John to compete.
Fletcher, Kansas-born, as young boy came to a state that did not want him,
that taxed and exiled Blacks for the crime of being in Oregon. Pendleton public school,
slurs and attacks. Moved to mission school, Umatilla Reservation. Learned language,
customs and horsemanship. Practiced bucking on barrels. First rodeo at 12. Bulls and
buffalo. He and another rider on same horse, same saddle, opposite directions.
Third place at District Fair. Only African-American in first Pendleton Round-Up.
In 1911. Three men. Four horses. No eight-second rule. Sundown first.
Rode Lightfoot. 25 seconds. Horse tried to bite his leg, ran into judges’ mount,
threw Sundown to ground. Knocked unconscious. Disqualified. No re-ride.
Spain rode Long Tom. Broke through fence. Showman stuck.
But some cried foul. Said he grabbed leather, touched horse
with free hand.
Fletcher first rode Del. Horse refused to buck. Crowd demanded new horse.
Loose and limber, “like rubber band,” Fletcher stayed on. Clean.
But Spain crowned champion, awarded silver-trimmed saddle.
Crowd cried foul again. Sheriff Til grabbed own hat, cut it into pieces,
sold each scrap for $5, turned $700 over to Fletcher. Double the saddle’s worth.
Declared him the “People’s Champion.”
Allensworth
When you reimagine landscapes and liberties, you must remember
who controls the drip and drought controls the dream.
Allen Allensworth, born a slave, became seaman, minister, Kentucky delegate
to Republican National Conventions.
1908 Owens Valley farmers were cast aside for aqueduct to slake Los Angeles.
1908 Allensworth left the City of Angels to build a new Eden—
Central Valley railroad depot, fertile soil, access to water. Founded, financed,
and governed by Blacks. Free of racism. Able to blossom and thrive.
Four years later, 100 residents welcomed Alwortha Hall, the first baby born.
Two general stores, post office, school, library. Bakery, drug store, hotel.
Poultry and sugar beet farms, plaster and carpentry shops.
Girl’s Glee Club, Children’s Savings Association, Debating Society.
But Railroad built a spur to avoid town, refused to hire Blacks as depot’s
manager or ticket agent. Pacific Farming never delivered enough water.
And as James Meredith was shot trying to march across Mississippi Delta,
arsenic was found in Allensworth water. Town was scheduled for demolition.
In the Golden State, all roads begin and end with water.
At town’s dedication, Allensworth, the man, had said, “We must do as they did—
settle upon the bare desert, cause it to bloom like a rose.” (But Adam and Eve
had Pishon, Gihon, Chidekel, and Phirat pouring forth from a single source.)
In 1908, Tulare Basin fed artesian wells, alfalfa, corn, and livestock.
Men harvested fish with buckets. Twenty years later, Tulare Lake had been drained dry.
Heather Bourbeau’s fiction and poetry have been published in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Short Édition, The Cardiff Review, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she is the winner of La Piccioletta Barca’s inaugural competition and the Chapman University Flash Fiction winner. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia.