Music and Magic

1

'Old Steve' is how most folks referred to him. He was a story teller, a home-grown oral historian with a prodigious memory. People of all ages listened to him.

He was 12 years old when he arrived in town on a September day in 1906 and joined the crowd celebrating the completion of the railroad. The town was finally connected to the outer world by something that didn't involve horses.

Orpahed at age five, he was passed between families. He never got past the eighth grade. An adventurous kid, he had hitched a ride as a brakeman on a supply wagon from a railhead over in Utah.

He worked ranches and mines and raised a family. After his wife died, he lived in a three-room cabin alongside a road that led up a canyon and on down to the mines at Tonopah.

He held forth from a worn wicker chair on the cabin porch. There were a porch swing and a couple of benches for listeners. Kids sat on cracker barrels hauled from over by the creek behind the cabin.

His rimless eye-glasses hung from a string around his neck. He peered through them at any listener with a question. He had thick white hair and his shaved cheeks were rosy. His voice was low and pleasant and clear.

His stories stopped when the resource ran out and the copper company closed down. It was the fate of every mining community. The socio-economic pall took the steam out of him.

He was in his nineties when I was in town on a writing project. I had called to ask if he would talk with me. He laced our coffees with a whiskey he liked. We sat relaxed on the porch. The creek was running loud.

"Did you ever wonder why we have so much music in such small towns?" he asked. "The grade schools in all three towns have excellent bands, music teachers, and swell uniforms."

He had a point. When I was in the highschool band it had over 100 musicians, doulble the size of bands in the closest cities. We marched in parades and gave concerts all around the state, and even over in California.

"Steve," I said, "it was quite remarkable. Nearly every kid I grew up with played an instrument, or the piano, or sang. Music was every where."

"Yes, so now I'll tell you a music story. Some of it I've never told because they'd a thought I was bonkers. It's about a little man name of Seamus McPhee."

This is Steve's story in his words:

2

I was just old enough to have a beer when most things I'm telling you took place. They was mostly told to me by Frankie Gomez.

Frankie opened his saloon a month after the railroad reached town. The main stage-line went by his place and on up the canyon to the mines.

He found a bar and a pool table in a run-down joint over in Austin and had 'em wagoned over here. The bar had been shipped from Frisco to Reno in the 1880s.

The footrail under the bar had broke off, so Frankie made one out of lead pipes. He ordered some shiny spittoons from Salt Lake. He said a saloon ain't a saloon without a spittoon.

He painted part of the floor so's people could dance and covered the rest with sawdust. The place smelled like tobacco and stale beer if the sawdust wasn't changed out now and again.

He found an old upright piano that had been painted red and gold. It had a clangy saloon-sound Frankie liked. He figured the thing had once graced a hurdy-gurdy in some long-gone mining town.

His saloon was the most popular place inthe county when he had them dime-a-dance girls come in on Saturdays. He took two cents from each dime a girl made from a dusty miner or a cowboy in town lookin' for love.

The music was by a local couple. Hildy played the piano. Jerry could only strum a fews chords on a rickety guiter with his arthritic fingers. The oldies they played were just fine for a crowd looking for a night of booze and fun.

Occasionally an older gent would sit in with his dented trombone. Seems he had once been in a dance band in Frisco.

The felt on the pool table had a few scratches and some slightly raised folds. Many a stranger lost bet to a local who knew the quirks of the table.

That's what happened to a slick-dressed musician traveling from Reno to Salt Lake. He showed up at Frankie's carrying a satchel and a violin case. He fancied himself a fine pool player amongst a bunch of yokels. He announced with an air that he'd play any man in the house. "Just name the bet," he said.

A Serbian miner name of Nick took the bet. He pointed at the pool table and told the stranger to rack 'em up. He had just finished a shift up at the Alpha mine and hadn't washed up yet. Two whiskeys with a beer back had set him loose and easy.

The boys at the bar figured this would be no contest. They were right.

After five games of 8-ball the musician had lost four dollars, his silver belt buckle, and his black Stetson. It was fine headgear for a young man just a year from the wheat fields north of Belgrade.

The musician insisted on a double or nothing game. If he won he would get everthing back; if he lost, Nick would keep what he won plus the violin.

In the last shot of the contest, Nick eased the cue ball into the 8-ball, which rolled along a slight old in the felt and into a side pocket.

The musician slammed the violin on the pool table. He said he'd only got the damn thing in a pawn shop anyway. He waved off a beer Frankie offered and slunk out the door, one hand carrying his satchel, the other holding up his pants.

Nick bought a round for the bar but had no idea what to do with the violin. Nobody was interested. Frankie put it behind the bar under a shelf of whiskey bottles. It became an object of curiosity. It was a dang sure thing nobody in our county could play it. Frankie finally put a jar on the bar for drinkers to put coins in. A note said anybody who could play the thing half decent would get the money.

One Saturday a stranger showed up and sat on a bar stool close to the violin. Frankie didn't notice him until he asked for a pint.

He was small and skinny. His beard covered both cheeks, but his chin was bare. A cumpled green, pork-pie sat on a mop of jet-black hair. His piercing eyes had a bright glimmer that Frankie noticed even in the dimness. He looked maybe fifty years old.

He told Frankie his name was Seamus McPhee. He was from Ireland and had spent a few months poking around over in California. He didn't answer when Frankie asked what he was looking for.

He asked Frankie if he could look at the violin behind the bar. When he opened the case Frankie said his shoulders rose and his eyes fired even brighter. He stared at the instrument, hands together under his chin like he was praying.

Frankie said years later that Seamus said some muffled words in a deep brogue. Words Frankie never forgot.

"I knew I'd find you someday," Seamus said. "Looked for you all over the land."

"Say what?" Frankie said.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself."

Seamus went outside to tune the instrument. Frankie said he heard him talking to himself again. When he returned he wore a big grin.

The episode gave Frankie a weird feeling.

Seamus sat on a box by the pot-bellied stove and began to play the violin. The sad strains of Danny Boy rolled over the crowd like a soft wind on the moor. The music ended with a slow draw of the bow. There wasn't a sound or dry eye in the place. It was like folks had been transported to another place, another time.

I was one of the listeners. In retrospect, that was a moment of change in our town.

Hildy and Jerry began to play an old favorite called Lil Liza Jane.

Seamus up and sat by Hildy, synced in, and improvised on the fiddle. Soon he was dancing a bow-legged jig, fiddling away, smiling wide. The crowd came to tappin' toes and strummin' fingers, and the place rung out like a bar in a Dublin alley.

Seamus lined up four of them dime-a-dance gals and stood three drunk miners and Frankie to facing them. He taught them a sqaure dance he called a quadrille. The only music was a rhythmic reel from his fiddle. Another square formed from the crowd. Finally, there were't enough ladies, so the final square was Hildy and me and six dancing cowboys.

Frankie cleared out the place at three in the morning. Seamus was gone and the violin was behind the bar.

Saturday night became Frankie's gold mine. The jigs and reels Seamus taught Hildy and Jerry and the sometimes trombone man could be heard down the block.

The proper folks in town who wouldn't enter a saloon with "those loose women" put chairs on the boardwalk and listened to the music through the open door. They hung lanterns and dancers soon cluttered the dusty street.

The night would close when a solo violin sounded. Soldiers had their Taps. We had our Danny Boy. Seamus always put the violin in its case behind the bar and left without word.

Kids who were at the street dances started asking about Seamus and his fiddle. He was invited to play in churches and schools. The kids got their parents fired up and pianos began to appear in town. He taught folks how to read music and gave piano lessons. He told the schools how to order used musical instruments from the cities. He could play the whole lot of 'em.

The school board took notice because they all had kids. Next thing you know the schools had music teachers. Raffles raised money for uniforms. Adults took notice and soon there were band concerts and picnics in the parks.

Music had come to our town in a big way. It all started with Seamus and his violin. Yet, he seemed to have to firends and no one knew where he lived. He just showed up occasionally to play and teach and have a pint with Frankie.

He and Frankie got to chatting over a pint one evening. It was one of those conversations Frankie only remembered years later.

"Were you in one of those Irish clans?" Frankie asked.

"I guess you could say that," Seamus said.

"All the Irishmen I ever met had names that began with'Mc' something," Frankie said, "and you're one of 'em."

"I use 'McPhee' because I like the sound, but my real clan is the pookas," Seamus said.

"Never heard the name. What part of Ireland?"

"Oh," Seamus said, "we're pretty much everywhere."

A few days later Seamus told Frankie he'd be leaving town soon. Frankie offered him the violin, but he declined.

"It has a nice home here. But you can bet I'll return to play it again someday."

The music rang out the next Saturday and Frankie jokingly told me Seamus was in 'fine fiddle.' After a final Danny Boy, Seamus walked out the back door and Frankie never saw him again.

For years Frankie expected Seamus back. He built a glass case for the violin and kept it behind the bar. At closing time two days before he passed away, he noticed the violin was gone. A green pork-pie hat was in the glass case along with a note that said 'Rest easy my dear friend.'

Frankie knew Seamus had returned as he had promised, and that he was off again to spread the joy of music.

3

Steve paused and poured us healthy shots of whiskey.

"That's how music came to our town," he said. "It was magical."

He paused and thought again. "But there was something missing in what Frankie told me."

"There's more to the story?" I asked.

"Yes. It's the part that I worried people would think I was bonkers if I told it."

"Can you tell me now?"

Steve sipped his whiskey and continued with the story:

4

Remember Frankie asked Seamus if 'pooka' was the name of an Irish clan. Seamus said he guessed you could call it that. Frankie just took it for granted. But I kind of wondered what this meant.

After Frankie died I started telling folks how Seamus brought music to town. I decided to research the pooka clan so I could add to the story.

First thing I learned was pookas ain't no clan. Far from it. The name is from the old Norse word 'pook,' meaning a spirit of nature.

Beings sometimes called pookas are throughout Celtic, Gaelic, and Norse mythology. They're shape-shifters that often appear as fierce animals. A common form was a black horse with fiery eyes. All pookas have fiery eyes. Irish lore has it that the only person who was ever able to ride a pooka was the High King of Ireland.

Some appear in human form. They chat with people, tell stories, give advice. People who talk to them rarely recall the conversations. Now I'm no believer in the occult, but I thought it odd that Frankie couldn't remember the details of his chats with Seamus until years later.

Puck, the mischievous sprite in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is based on pookas of ancient English and Celtic mythology. Puck narrates the play and is desreibed in Act II as a hobgoblin, a term for a pookas.

The Norse trickster god Loki is a pooka.

The Grimm brothers and others told of evil pookas: trolls under bridges, wolves who eat grandmothers, the witch who lured Hansel and Gretel to her ginderbread house to fatten up and eat them. They caused crop disasters, financial ruin, disease, and other catastrophes.

And there are good pookas. The Easter bunny is based on the pooka legend. What we call Easter began as an ancient pagan celebration of the spring equinox. A figure associated with it was a pooka who came in the form of a huge white rabbit and left chocolates for youngsters.

Leprechauns are mischievous but friendly pookas, like Harvey.

The writers of the movie 'Harvey' knew of pookas. James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a frequent imbiber whose best pal is an invisible six-foot three-inch white rabbit he calls Harvey. Folks around town think Elwood is nuts as he keeps talking to the unseen rabbit, who we learn is a pooka.

As the old-timers died off, our town largely forgot about Seamus. Many folks were surprised when I told the story. I was often asked if Seamus really existed or it was just a story. My answer was that I was there and knew him.

I don't know how he played that violin so beutifully. Or why he was such a good teacher. Most of all, I can't tell you how he managed to bring the sprit of musc to an entire community.

It was magic to me and all who knew him.

5

"That's the rest of the story," Steve said.

"Who do you think Seamus may have been?" I asked.

"I assume you're asking me do I think Seamus was a pooka," Steve said. "Well, I don't believe in hobgoblins or creatures who patrol the night. Yet he sure fit the pooka legend. I've thought about it for years, especially when I'm sitting over there listening to the creek. It'll always be a mystery to me."

He poured us a final whiskey and talked as we toasted. "Perhaps Seamus was just a wandering soul whose wisdom and life's experiences guided him and his music to our little town. People can decide for themselves who or what he was. I can only tell the story.

Steve died the next year. I never saw him again, nor will I ever forget him.