Her name was Vendla. Vendla Kiviajo. Try saying it: Ven-d-la Kee-vee-ah-ho. The Vendla has a little lift to it, and the Kiviaho rolls off the tongue. Vendla Kiviajo! What a pleasure to speak it. It's not just a name, it's a picture. We all have words we like to pronounce and this is one for me, for it also brings back memories and events I would probably have forgotten, and faces I still can imagine. Another I have is "cronartium ribicola": white pine blister rust. It is a disease that travels between the wild gooseberry and the pines. I like to say it for it makes me sound knowledgeable, but, in truth, it is the only thing I remember from the Forestry class I took at Cal. But I do remember the delicious red fat prickly gooseberries, and someday I'll write a story about them.
Oh, yes, Vendla: she is the girl who led me to lion hunting.
Our favorite picnic spot near the logging camps was the road crossing of Little Silver Creek. It was our favorite, but really because it was the only water area nearby that was usable. Most of the streams in the area were in a deep ravine or canyon, fast flowing over a rocky bed, and sheltered by tall trees and brush. This creek, which eventually flowed into Big Silver (and Big Silver into the South Fork of the American River), wandered through a flat, somewhat level area, sandy on each side and scattered tall Pines around. Our site was just upstream from the ford crossing, and though the water was only 2 feet deep, it was ideal for cooling off prior to lying on sand in the sun, with a beer or soft drink and friends to talk and sing with.
 |
 |
 |
This particular Sunday might have highlighted a particular celebration, for it seemed there were more of us there this time. From Georgetown came Freddy with a girl. Freddy, a husky young man in his late 20s, had been a "cat skinner" for several years in the camps. He had now become a California State Highway Patrolman, and I suspect, cut a fine figure in his uniform. His guest was Vendla, a pretty, black haired young girl of Finnish parentage, just graduated from high school. It seems she and I found something in common, for the two of us wandered down stream, discussing the problems of the world (what problems?), and what fortunes the future held for us. She invited me to visit her in Georgetown the next Sunday to have dinner with her parents, and we strolled back to the partying group.
The next Sunday's dinner was delightful, as were her parents. Both small sinewy persons, her father was the manager of the gold mine nearby, and had I not been invited for that day, the family would have gone to Rocklin, a small town a short way down from Auburn for a sauna. Rocklin had a large population of Finns, who enjoyed their masochistic practice of sweating over hot rocks, then jumping into icy water. I'm glad they didn't suggest I join them some time. They might even have added switches on my back for further cleansing.
That afternoon Vendla took me for a ride in their family car on one of the back roads. And as I parted that evening for the camp, we arranged to go to the "barn" dance outside Georgetown the next Saturday night.
The following Saturday, ready for some fun, I appeared at her house around seven, but found to my disappointment, that she was ill. She was lying on a cot on their screened-in front porch, in no mood or condition for dancing and insisted I go alone to the dance. Some of us from camp had been to these Saturday night dances before, but none had come down this evening. Nevertheless, I found partners to dance with, and before the 12:00 o'clock ritual of passing the hat to get the band to play another hour, I made friends with another lone lad.
I'll call him John for I have no recollection of his real name, however when he told me of his summer job with Jay Bruce, the Lion Hunter, it took me back 10 years to a matinee at the Varsity theater in Palo Alto where Jay Bruce appeared on stage prior to a lion movie.
California had 2 official lion hunters, one for Southern California, and one for Northern California.
When a lion or you could call them pumas or cougars, posed a problem for domestic animals or humans, the hunter was called to action, tracking with dogs to dispose of the cat. John told me he and Jay were camped in a deserted house along the road I would be taking back to camp. I don't know how he got to the dance, but he asked if I would drop him off on my way home. When we arrived at this shack, set back away from the road, he suggested I spend the night with them. Since my family in camp had expected me to stay all night in Georgetown, I accepted.
We silently entered the dark and bare cabin, but nevertheless awakened Jay. I was given a dirty stinking sleeping bag, which not even a dog would use, but I growled softly and immediately went to sleep.
The next morning Jay prepared us a hearty breakfast with his camping equipment, took us out back, where his dogs were tethered, and into his pick-up truck where we took off on a dusty narrow road into the back-country, that is, even more back than the country we were in already. The dogs were left behind and surprisingly quiet, probably very content to spend the Sabbath in rest.
First, the 3 of us rode in the cab, Jay calling out the name of the tracks he could see through the windshield; tracks I could not even see, let alone identify. Then he rode on a front fender, where he got a better look, and after a while, signaled us to stop. John and I got out and he showed us the tracks of a large cat, which, he said, he would pursue tomorrow with his dogs. We traveled a bit farther on this road for he wanted to check a steel trap he had set. There, in the trap, one leg crushed, I saw the ugliest bird in the world, the turkey buzzard. It was not only ugly, but difficult to kill, for it took him some time, pounding its head with a large stick. Kill it, he must, for, being injured; it would not have survived if released. We returned to his bivouac, said our goodbyes and I returned to camp. I heard, sometime later, that he had bagged a lion in that area; a lion I helped him find.
