A Free Man of the West –Bill Fisher

Ten Interconnected Essays – Centering on Bill Fisher / 1937-1976 /1-Brothers, 2-Trains, 3-Anecdotes, 4-Poetry, 5-Mike Moulton, 6-Dan & Mary, 7-Cheryl Denham, 8-The Memorial, 9-Freedom, 10-Sharing Lives

Certainly he was the brother of the brother who: “was the genuine article, a free man of the West.” ¹ That free man has been a dying breed now for at least a couple of centuries, but brothers keep up the rear guard action.

The brothers were Chuck and Mike Moulton, and their brother was Bill Fisher. These three and a few others made up a band of brothers. This is their story. I was a junior brother, a Johnny-come-lately – but I was there.

A tree; a truck; a deer; and a load of wood – these are the elements of an end, and a beginning. It was winter – early 76. The tree didn’t budge. The pick-up truck slammed into it. The load of wood shot forward. Bill Fisher and the deer died.

Bill died in 1976 and Chuck died in 1996 – they were the poets and poets die young. Mike and I are older now but live to tell the story. The quote above was written by another poet of some note – Philip Levine – it was written about Chuck when he died. A couple of other brothers – junior or otherwise – were Doug Gross and Les Pacheco. Four of us spoke at Bill’s service, but none of us were poets.

Let’s go back a few months and then we’ll go back further still. September 15th 1975. Mike Moulton moves up to The Whispering Pines, just out of Oakhurst in the Sierra Nevada. Within days – I don’t know the exact date but it was in the same September – I too move up to the mountains. I move in just a little higher – the White Chief Lodge in Fish Camp. It is a tiny burg at 5,000 feet – Les and Doug and Bill are already residents. The train is starting – all the characters are on board.

Next see: Trains / Free Man 2

September 20, 2009 / Brothers / Free Man 1 / A Free Man of the West – Bill Fisher / YP 58/3 / AFW pg 108 © 2009 / CIP # 783, Orig. Nov 14, 2009, Now: AUB Pg 1, Sept 1, 2010 / BIO, BTR

Our train picks up speed going downhill. Strangely enough our little Fish Camp actually does have a train. I’m not sure if I know of any other tiny town whose population in the winter hovers around a dozen or so – ballooning all the way up to a couple of hundred in the summer – that had, and still has its very own train. Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, a true blue logging railroad that actually operated till 1931. In the mid 60’s it was reopened by Max Stauffer as a scenic steam train for Yosemite bound tourists. It’s complete with a Vintage Shay locomotive, old number 10 if this memory of mine serves, that chugs an 8 mile loop through our Sierras.

I mention all this mostly because our Bill Fisher was a wood cutter when he wasn’t being a poet. He wasn’t a real logger, but many of them still existed up here in the 70’s. The old mill still operated in Oakhurst, and another one in North Fork. While Bill was a woodcutter mostly for local firewood, he was big enough and tough enough to be a logger. He could drink like one too. So while our band of brothers couldn’t go all the way up and down the mountain on that train they could get looped.

Whatever mode of locomotion it was, it was picking up steam and headed downhill. Sadly to say I was serving them drinks. That’s how I met Bill. On my very first night as a bartender – at the time I didn’t even know how to make any drinks beyond my own bourbon and seven. I remember my very first customer – it wasn’t Bill – asked me for a boilermaker and I had to ask him what it was. Bill may have been my third or fourth customer and he only wanted a beer. I had mastered that. We became friends.

Next see: Anecdotes / Free Man 3

November 5, 2009 / Trains / Free Man 2 / A Free Man of the West (2) – Bill Fisher / AFW pg 115 © 2009 / CIP # 786, Orig. Nov 14, 2009, Now AUB: Pg 2, Sept 1, 2010 / BIO, BTR

It’s anecdotal but it tells a story central to our central character. Our friend Doug Gross tells the story on Bill. Every December he recounts: Bill would grab both a bottle of Kessler and a joint along with his backpack and settle on the floor of his cabin. Bill would then gather all his belongings together on the floor and then empty the backpack into the pile. Imbibing all along he would spend the next couple of hours packing and repacking that backpack. In the end what wouldn’t fit he threw away. He was set for another year.

That cabin – I call it Bill’s but of course it really was the Zeifert’s – tells another tale. At different times both Bill and I rented it. Bill only lived there for a short while before the end. Thereafter I rented it for about three years. It was the perfect rustic hideaway for a mountain man. In the winter it was occasionally a bit tough to reach through the snowdrifts. I remember once – this was a couple of years later – waking up one morning to a surprise. Everything seemed normal though even quieter than usual – quieter almost always meant snow. In the winter I would keep the storm shutters closed so I wasn’t immediately aware of the situation. When I went to open the front door I couldn’t. There was over 5 ft of snow on the front porch. Luckily the back door opened in, it had no screen and it had no porch. There I only had to dig through about four feet to get out. Snow didn’t bother Bill and he loved snow shoeing. I think it amused him that I was so inept at it.

In fact, at 5,000 feet in the Sierra you learn to deal with snow and all the elements simply because they are a frequent fact of life. Perhaps it encourages brotherhood. That first winter we had one particularly strong storm and it managed to knock out the power for 10 days. The surrounding areas came back on variously in three, four or five days – perhaps seven in Wawona – but Fish Camp was completely out for 10 straight days. It didn’t faze Bill, nor anyone else for that matter, so I learned it wasn’t supposed to faze me. As it happened, in the following 33 years I never saw an outage that lasted longer than four days. It was a baptism for me – but just an occurrence for Bill.

Next see: Poetry / Free Man 4

November 21, 2009 / Anecdotes / Free Man 3 /A Free Man of the West (3) / Bill Fisher / AFW pg 119 © 2009 / CIP # 788, Orig. Dec 1, 2009, Now AUB: Pg 3, Sept 1, 2010 / BIO, BTR

The months rolled on – sadly not many. The train picked up speed but in the meantime I learned to love the mountains. Bill shared them with me, told me about their ways and means, and instilled a reverence for hawks. He showed me a poem or two and laughed at the tender feet of an Englishman. Once we hiked up to Chafee House on the Mountain Ranch in snow shoes. Okay he hiked, I dragged. He was kind enough to slow his pace a little on occasion, but not by much. When he got too, too far ahead he would just sit on a stump and dash off a line or two. Luckily for me snow shoes leave tracks. Otherwise I would have never found him and they would have never found me. It was on just such occasions that I found a lucid mind in the mountains.

That of course was his shining light – his luminescence – his lucid mind. His friend Ron Schofner wrote about him “I was in such awe of his acute presence.” He was not alone. You listened to Bill because he had something to say that was worth listening to – consistently. He taught patience – let it happen, and it did. His was the patience and wisdom of a mountain. In the glow of golden locks and flaming beard this mountain of a man just let it be – and you were in awe. Thirty five years later those who knew him still comment first on his presence. Almost like a mantra – these comments come from his surviving brothers and also from just simple acquaintances.

Bill almost never knew he never knew his father. It was a theme in some of his poetry. “I found his birth in a nervous letter.” I am quoting from his Birth of a Stranger. Or then we find: “And in the unsure twilight said, “Bye, son.” That can be found in his Picture From an Attic Trunk. Still this was not a major theme. At least for me, his Death of a Hawk was much more representative:

We startled each other in a dry creek
He the hawk could only stare
From the green bile of his sickness
It lay in pools around his head and
Beak that once ripped through rodents
Quivered open without sound
I would have killed him
But my friend brought bits of Spam and water
In a tin foil cup. But the hawk
Would only scream his silent scream
Protesting this benevolence
That seemed to me a cruelty,
And invasion of a private time
I would have finished him
Not out of mercy, but selfishness.
Next day we found him near the trail
Covered with ants
I didn’t care about the carcass
Poking it with a knife
I do not mourn for feathers
Bones or meat; the hawk was gone
And I was glad. I knew that with his dying
He could live in my imagination
Catching the rising spiral
Of the thermal alone and free
As I am when I become hawk

Next see: Mike Moulton / Free Man 5

August 09, 2010 / Poetry / Free Man 4 / A Free Man of the West (4) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 4 © 2010 / CIP # 958 / BIO, BTR

Let’s pay a little extra attention to Mike Moulton because he alone of that original core band of brothers has continuously resided right here in Bill’s mountains. I was only a junior brother, and even I was gone for 8 years (split between Colorado and Paris). Doug is in Fresno now, and Les is down in Madera. Mike was steadfast. I believe Bill and Chuck would still be here if they were alive. Probably they still are here – somewhere nearby soaring with the thermals.

Mike is a fount of knowledge about Bill. There is however something of a stream of consciousness to his discourse as he flits around from state to state and mixed events. On occasion there is no period, sometimes not even a comma, between one and another; so my notes ended up looking like a mixed mélange. The flavor is undoubtedly true even if the punctuation and juxtaposition is scrambled. Certainly Texas, Montana, and California are prominent. Fishing trips and camping are all over. There was a trip to Mexico. Monument Valley, Utah; and Miles City, Montana are mentioned more than once. Sports – basketball, football and track early on, is a theme in his life. Fresno state and poetry a little later is another thread. There were some major friends like Jerry Ells and Ron Schofner who are now deceased but still deserve mention half a life later. A quilt or a cloud – this is Mike covering and remembering Bill.

I spoke to Mike again today regarding a possible meeting with Cheryl Denham tomorrow. All of the above was from a talk we had nearly a year ago now. Today he added one tidbit about Ron Schofner that I thought was well worth mentioning. I knew that he had been strong friend of Bill’s, but I personally didn’t know Ron. I knew he was now passed as I mentioned above. I also knew that either he or Jerry Ells had originally met Bill in connection with the Navy Weather Department at China Lake. I didn’t know which, but it didn’t seem worth pursuing at the time for clarification. Now I know it was Jerry, Ron was the photographer who went galivanting all over the Southwest with Bill, but that still isn’t the significant tidbit. It seems that a few days after the accident Ron visited the scene. He found a little piece of the truck. Ron carried that piece with him for years and years afterwards. Bill had that kind of effect on people. That is significant.

Next see: Dan and Mary / Free Man 6

August 11, 2010 / Mike Moulton / Free Man 5 / A Free Man of the West (5) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 6 © 2010 / CIP # 959 / BIO, BTR

I recognized the man but I did not know him well. He came up to me quietly and said even more quietly “I would like to talk to you outside.” I was surprised but I agreed – I knew the family fairly well. When we got outside I remember it as a little cooler than normal for May with a touch of overcast, but I am never sure of details like that. Certainly he was still quiet and a little fidgety. His first words were almost inaudible, and Wow! Was I shocked! “I want to talk about Bill. I was there. I was the first one on the scene of the accident”.

Now, thirty three years later, and this man came up to me and tells he was there. He recounted the story – short on detail but long on emotion. Another man, he told me that he didn’t know the man, had flagged him down just over Cheapo Saddle. They went down to the wreck together and Dan told him there was absolutely nothing to do – it was all over, the load had shifted. I saw pictures of the truck afterwards. To recount that scene took courage, to relive it fortitude, he did it with grace. I was, and am, very appreciative that he overcame his silence and gave me an almost eye witness account.

A month before this incident I was standing in line at the drugstore. It is CVC now but it had been Longs for a long time. At the time of the accident it was the open ground of a Sawmill. Anyway I was just standing there next in line not paying any attention to anything, we all do that nowadays. Back in 76 I would have been aware of almost everyone in the store. I hadn’t even looked at her. She spoke to the cashier. I froze. I knew that voice from back in 76. It was Mary, Doug Gross’s wife back then. I hadn’t seen her in over a decade, maybe closer to two. We hugged, finished our purchases and hurried out to the parking lot to jabber. Eventually the conversation got around to Bill as she knew I was planning to write about him. It was then that she said “his bones saved my life.” It seems that way back in 1982 Mary had been driving an old beat up Econoline Van just over the crest of Deadwood when something, right out of the blue, bumped into her shoulder. She slowed, became alert and realized there had been an accident down 41 and traffic was backed up to just dead ahead. Now she slammed on the brakes and barely, by inches, avoided a catastrophe. If you know Deadwood you know exactly what I mean.

A few inches behind Mary’s shoulder there was this ancient bleached out leather pouch with a drawstring hanging from one of those little hooks screwed into the walls of Econolines. She and Doug had bought the sack down in Mexico years before. Somehow it had managed to swing forward and bump into Mary. Inside that old pouch were Bill’s ashes. She affectionately called them Bill’s Bones. Who knows? Maybe eight years after his own accident cresting Cheapo, Bill was keeping an eye out on the summit of Deadwood.

One more coincidence – Dan in the first story and Mary in the second – they’re brother and sister.

Next see: Cheryl Denham / Free Man 7

May 23, April 15, 2009 / Dan and Mary / Free Man 6 / A Free Man of the West (6) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 7 © 2010 / CIP # 960 / BIO, BTR

We have never been formally introduced – even till today – but of course we were both at the Memorial Service and, some weeks later, at Chafee Peak with the ashes. I suppose to some degree it was the fog of chaos and nervousness at those times, but neither of us specifically remember the other there. Of course I had heard Bill speak her name on a number of occasions. Cheryl Denham was the woman in Bill’s life. For 10 years, off and on, they had been a number. Since I started this project we have talked at least 3 or 4 times totaling a number of hours. Two quotes during those conversations stand out in my mind – the first very near the beginning and the second very near the end.

The first quote: “Bill was the Love of my Life and will be in my heart forever!” She said it with strength, fervor, certainty and clarity. She said it within scant minutes of me introducing myself and the purpose of my call. She said it 33 years after Bill had died. She spoke of the eternal love that a few of us are lucky enough to find. Of course there were other men, some even long term and serious, but only one true love forever!

Cheryl had a black lab named, presumably after the wind, Mariah. Certainly they needed a strong wind with Mariah. It seems she did not travel well. The first time Mariah met Bill she hopped in the truck, they set of, and almost immediately she vomited in the gear boot sock. This actually happened multiple times. After awhile they just laughed and were glad when there was a wind to clear the air. Other than that idiosyncrasy, Mariah was a beautiful dog. Cheryl and Bill built her a fantastic cedar dog house with shingles and all the trimmings at the ranch. Cheryl still has that dog house and a great picture of Mariah and Bill.

As with everyone else there are stories of camping. Cheryl met Bill at the Olympic Tavern but soon they were off to the great outdoors. One particularly memorable trip included Doug and Doris along with Bill and Cheryl in a VW Bus. It started at Mexican Hat, Utah and included Sedona, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon and Lake Powell. On this trip Cheryl had to check repeatedly by phone on her friend Walt who had recently been seriously injured. Bill was just a tad jealous. It was probably good for him.

A word or two should be said regarding Cheryl – Post Bill. The mountains and the Flatlands are worlds apart. Cheryl returned to Fresno but consequently lost touch with most of us up in the mountains. At the time she was with Duncan Ceramics but soon went to AT&T and its successor companies for 28 years. There she was an Organized Grasshopper. She was also caregiver to assorted nieces and nephews and, in a major way, to Dana till she succumbed two years ago at age 42. Very importantly she also cared for her lifelong sister/friend Jane.

“Bill made me want to be a better person and a better woman.” This was the second quote that came very close to the end of our talks. I think she lived it. I think Bill would have been very proud. Yes, there were some fairly substantial difficulties along the way – life throws those things at you. Cheryl got through them all and took care of those she loved. Bravo to Bill & Cheryl & Love Forever.

Next see: Memorial / Free Man 8

August 12, 2010 / Cheryl Denham / Free Man 7 / A Free Man of the West (7) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 9 © 2010 / CIP # 961 / BIO, BTR

The train finally stopped – okay, the truck crashed – on Friday the Thirteenth, February, 1976. A Memorial Service was held for Billy J. Fisher at Oakhurst Community Church on the 17th. Mike Moulton, Doug Gross, Les Pacheco and I spoke at the service. I said:

I did not know Bill Fisher as long as most of you, nor as well as some of his close friends, like Doug, or Les, or Mike, or of course his family; but I knew him well enough to feel a terrible emptiness and sadness at his passing. And I knew him well enough to want to share a thought or two about him. Bill Fisher was a Free Man. He lived as a Free Man and he died as a Free Man. He came and went as he pleased. He did and said what he wanted. He spoke the truth as he saw it without the pretensions of society but with the honesty of a good and decent man.

I liked the man very much. I think he knew it. But I never told him so. I am sorry that I never told him. But he was free and I was not. I think having known him will make me freer in the future. I thank Bill Fisher for that Freedom.

I have another thing to thank Bill Fisher for. I walked these mountains with him and I drove the back roads with him. And everywhere we went he pointed out this tree, that mountain, this river, that blade of grass. This was his home and he shared it with enthusiasm. After 33 years of looking I thank Bill Fisher for a place I can feel is home.

Thank you all for allowing me to share these thoughts with you.

Many people attended the Memorial Service but to be honest I don’t remember very much about it. It was the first time I had ever spoken at such a gathering. I was quite nervous. His Mother, Brother and family from Texas were there. Afterwards many went up to the Mountain Ranch to celebrate his life. Some months later a few of us went up and released some of his ashes on Chafee Peak. I’m fairly sure some of those particles still guard our mountains.

Next see: Freedom / Free Man 9

August 11, 2010 / Memorial / Free Man 8 / A Free Man of the West (8) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 10 © 2010 / CIP # 962 / BIO, BTR

Let’s turn to the concept of “A Free Man”. There is no question that it is dwindling to almost nothingness now. Over a beer Bill would howl and rage against this. Though Nash was in another context than Bill, he would, with Nash, “rage, rage against the dying of the light”. But then he would do it quietly. He would simply do it his way. And then he would write a poem. He could have his cake and eat it too. That is freedom of another sort. Withdraw to the mountains and ignore them all. They and the world would eventually encroach, but there is always another mountain, a smaller stage, almost till you reach infinity.

Let’s speak of the frontier of old. Before there were mountains to go to, there was the West. When you stood at Jamestown it was a continent wide. Most of this is Frederick Jackson Turner stuff. He was an American historian who wrote in 1893 The Significance of Frontier in American History. Gradually the West, the frontier line, moved west. With the 1890 Census the frontier line was declared gone. All that was left were pockets of frontier, mostly in what we now consider the West. I am not absolutely certain, but I think Bill and I discussed this concept once or twice, late at night, in an otherwise empty White Chief Lodge. I had written my major paper at UCLA on Turner about 10 years before.

Anyway it was the frontier that essentially gave us Americans our freedom. Always you could move on and reinvent yourself just a little further west. Always there was free land and free dreams of freedom just down the road. This was the transformative influence of the American wilderness. The frontier shaped the American character at the juncture between civilization and wilderness. It was a forge of strength. Ever since 1890 that freedom and that character have shrunk, sometimes without even a fight.

The rear guard action of the multitude of remnants slows the process. Incorporation was defeated right here in Oakhurst in the last election. Good people can still strive to lead a good life – a bit simpler with still some pretenses of freedom. What is most interesting is that in this endeavor the old line locals are being joined by expatriates from the city. Maybe the outcome is inexorable, but we will continue Bill’s fight till we blast off with Steven Hawking and start anew somewhere out in the cosmos.

Next see: Sharing Lives / Free Man 10

August 11, 2010 / Freedom / Free Man 9 / A Free Man of the West (9) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 12 © 2010 / CIP # 963 / BIO, BTR

It was a gradual process, almost imperceptible in the beginning. Part of it must have been happenstance. The fact that I moved into his old cabin obviously would have contributed. That I spoke at his Memorial Service would have kept me thinking. When I started a journal and the first thing I wrote in it was his Death of a Hawk – that spoke volumes. Our ages – he was 39 and I was 33 – that probably had some relevance. Somewhere down the road – I do not know when – it dawned on me I was de facto living his life.

To be sure I was neither a woodcutter nor a poet. I did become a tiny bit adept at splitting wood, but he would have been amused if I ever deigned to call myself a wood splitter. I did play at poetry in the journal that I mentioned. In reality it was treacle and garbage, with a very occasional half way decent line. One good thing about owning a bookstore for 22 years is that eventually you know you can’t write when you can’t. For a minimum of 22 years you have been exposed to some good writing. It is a clue. But I must admit that when I was opening D-Pit I did think once or twice ‘Bill could have done this’. Maybe that too was part of the genesis.

There was never a time that it became a daily occurrence to think about living Bill’s life. It wasn’t even a regular weekly or monthly consciousness. More a very occasional ethical dilemma and wondering: What would Bill do? And then a voice would say “do what you think is right.” Once in awhile there was a skipped drink or a little more cautious driving. Often though there was just a consciousness that his mountains were becoming mine. It was impossible to utter the word Chafee Peak without thinking of his poem The Summit. It was a merging.

I was not alone in emulating and identifying with Bill. Shana Michelle Moulton was born very close to his passing. Her father was Mike Moulton, the brother of Chuck and both of them, brothers to Bill. Somehow, perhaps it was osmosis she grew up similar in spirit and idiosyncrasies. The ambiance couldn’t have been stronger at home. She grew up with his mind, spirit and independence permeating her existence. Still I like to think it was a tiny bit due to the Australian Connection. As a School Board Member – I think it was around 1984, but I am never sure of dates – I had the pleasure of voting to approve the first Australian Connection student sent to Australia in an exchange program. It was Shana. Perhaps she learned something about free men in Australia. Over there they still value things like that, just as we sometimes do here in the West. They always valued freedom in the Moulton home.

So after all is said and done, what do we have? We have a man, a presence, a spirit who died too young. And we have a younger man willing to share his life so Bill could continue to exist and be remembered even till today. There is even a bonus. Bill would have been 75 and he is only 67. The Fountain of Youth found! We could all carry someone forward. Why not take someone with your own ideals and let them live a little longer when they die too young? It gives to you, and it gives to your friend. A win-win: aren’t we are all looking for that? We only live once, or twice, or thrice in slowly fading memory.

August 11, 2010 / Sharing Lives / Free Man 10 / A Free Man of the West (10) / Bill Fisher / AUB pg 13 © 2010 / CIP # 964 / BIO, BTR