Читать книгу My City Different - Betty E. Bauer - Страница 10

Some friends of mine, Bill and Josie, and I decided we’d do a little spying on the I AMs, a mysterious religious cult which had been kicked out of California to resettle in Santa Fe. It was known that their big meeting day was Wednesday and their temple was, we thought, easily accessible, lying as it was just off the road at the foot of the old Taos Highway. There were many stories about Mrs. Ballard, the head hancho, and her cult. They worshipped St. Germaine and were very sensitive to colors—purple was the best, but all pastels were in—red and black were the devil’s colors and to be avoided at all costs. They were vegetarians—absolutely no meat, and spirits were verboten. It was rumored that they could only mate during the month of April but, if some woman was just beside herself during some other month, she could go to the big mucky-muck, Mrs. Ballard’s right hand man, and be serviced. What men with a like problem did is anybody’s guess.

We parked the car up the hill away from the temple and crept down the side of the road, keeping close to the ditch. When we arrived at a good vantage point where we thought we’d be able to see the goings-on through the windows, we lay in the ditch, concealed by some tumbleweeds. Music started and we eagerly awaited action to begin. Just as there was movement inside, there was movement just inches from our hiding place. Oh, my God—it was a uniformed guard patrolling the grounds carrying a very menacing-looking shotgun. “Yipes, let me outta here,” I thought, but didn’t dare say a word. Shortly after, he moved off toward the other end of the grounds and you never saw three people skedaddle any faster than we did—up the hill, in the car and away.

I never had any further interest in the I AMers except one evening to note Mrs. Ballard’s son in La Fonda enjoying a big steak and a bottle of wine.

Another time, Bill and Josie and I went to Taos. One of the famous early Taos painters, Bert Phillips, was Bill’s great uncle, and I was to meet him. Taos was settled at the foot of the mountains which rose straight up perpendicular to the land. I found them harsh and unrelenting, not at all like Santa Fe’s Sangre de Cristos which were comforting and embracing. Some thought the people of Taos felt threatened by those mountains, and that was why they were such a cliquish, churlish bunch. Whatever its cause, it seemed to me there was an undercurrent—an ill wind that permeated the town. It was really not a town at all, more a village—at that time, mid-fifties, there were probably no more than 2500 people who lived there.

Bert Phillips was an elderly gentleman, very gracious with courtly, old-fashioned manners. He was still a fine painter and I was honored to meet him. While there, I also met Lady Dorothy Brett, a titled English woman who was a part of the D. H. Lawrence saga. She was amusing, with light blue twinkling eyes and unruly white hair that was forever escaping its bondage. She, too, was a painter of some renown. I saw her many times thereafter lunching in Santa Fe at La Fonda, regaling her companions with tales of Taos goings-on.

We visited Taos Pueblo which was a sophisticatedly-constructed tri-level apartment complex built by the Indians centuries before. The Taos Indians are a handsome breed, more closely related, it is believed, to the Plains Indians, than to those of New Mexico’s other Pueblos. It was there I met Jerry Mirabel. He was a canny, engaging middle-aged Indian who gave me a hard-luck story which I thought was worth the dollar he wheedled out of me. It intrigued me to have a real Indian acquaintance—that is, until about his third visit to the New Mexican to hit me up each time for another dollar.