Avalon: The Retreat (8 page)

Brother against brother, idealists against realists, and in the course of a few years, a generation of men were removed from the population of the United States. They died on battlefields, mowed down by rifle salvos and the terrible effectiveness of the cannon and its grapeshot, which rendered flesh worthless in a moment of stark terror for those Soldiers who were exposed to it. Legs and arms were seen stacked up in front of the surgeon’s tent as amputations were carried out endlessly.

In the end, the South was mortally wounded and left to dig itself out of a financial hardship formerly unknown to any of them and it took a hundred years to come full circle financially. Regardless, more than 600,000 men died from both sides by the time it ended on April 9, 1865 when General Lee surrendered his sword at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

In the beginning, young men like Eli jumped at the opportunity to “teach those damn Yankees a lesson!” As the war dragged on and hundreds of thousands were laid in their graves, or left where they fell, it became apparent that the might of the industrialized North would prevail against the predominately agrarian South.

Eli came through the war broken in spirit but with one burning resolve. He was going to move from the ravaged South and go West to where the opportunities didn’t include the unscrupulous tactics of a Union bent on punishing the South for its sins of the war.

He was especially wary of the insidious northern outsiders who often appeared out of seemingly nowhere to exploit anyone by whatever means possible. With questionable objectives, and unscrupulous tactics, they often meddled in local politics, manipulating and controlling former Confederate States for their own financial and power gains. Given the name “Carpetbaggers,” which reflected the material from which their luggage was crafted, they often bought up plantations at fire-sale prices and lined their own pockets at the expense of many people Eli knew personally.

Eli was also consumed with a dream of striking it rich.

Wandering from the gold mining areas of California, he eventually saw the large cattle enterprises of Montana and Wyoming. After spending a short time in Alaska, he came back to California with a small stake in his poke. He met a meek and ugly little woman by the name of Eldora Avalon Spears and married her during his late wandering years.

One day, as a prospector in search of a rich claim that had him drifting through those hills for many months, he came upon the area that would become his ranch. Eldora was with child and so he stopped and built a home. The two of them planted their roots and the base for a cattle empire grew that would, in the coming years, make him a very rich man.

In August 1902, while taking down a big fir at the age of sixty four, Eli died when the big tree split up the middle and the shards shot out in every direction, killing both him and his son Jeremiah instantly. Eldora was left to run the ranch, but the death of her son and husband at the same time was too much for her to bear. Being a frail Southern woman and not accustomed to those business decisions usually reserved for men, she wandered off naked one night from the house and was found a few days later dead, propped against the crook of a tree, stiff as a board. The wolves had eaten a large part of her.

Soon thereafter, a relative from back east took over the ranch but he was a gambling man and the ranch quickly became mired in hopeless debt. That was when Slim Rankin came into the picture. He was legally named Aloysius, but no one had the guts to address him as such so they just called him Slim.

When he found out about the old cattle ranch, Slim decided it could be immediately maintained as a working cattle ranch and later as a resort. It was also a wonderful place to raise his two sons away from the city life, so he made the commitment to buy the place at first sight. His wife had died while giving birth to his youngest son and he wanted to honor her memory by raising their children in this wonderful place. It didn’t hurt that the potential was enormous for making a profit, and he was generous with his money in such a way that the sale went forward. He paid off the huge debt of Eli’s relative and gave the gambler more than he deserved.

Cattle in that time fetched tremendous prices from the Eastern city slickers and there was good money to be had selling beef to them. There was also profit in selling coal. Those were the days when mineral rights transferred as a matter of process. He made most of the money back in two years that he had spent on the purchase of Avalon.

Slim was a big man of six foot, six inches in his bare feet and weighed in at three hundred pounds. His parents were from Wales and it was said that when his face got as red as his hair, it was time for a fellow to look out. He was often described as “meaner than a two-headed rattler” when he got riled.

Having struck it rich in Nevada a few years previously, he had money to burn. He had struck gold and silver on his claim just outside of Silver City and he was known to have killed several claim jumpers before the mine began to pay off in a big way. Although Slim could handle darn near anyone, it was always understood that he never killed anyone who didn’t merit killing… he simply accommodated the scurvy skunk.

He was so wealthy, even in those early days, that people who knew him joked that when the government needed money, they came to Slim to get it. The money was simply a means to an end for him, and he eventually tired of the mine and sold it for a healthy profit. He was ready for a change and one day, as the good fortune of a word here or there passes between men, he heard about Avalon and bought it.

Slim was a masterful businessman and with the help of his two sons, his coal, lumber, and beef industry continued to thrive. One son became a silent movie star. He was blessed with good looks and a ready smile and women of the era loved his panache. He was successful in the movie business and lived in a small southern California town called Hollywood, which was nestled among thousands of orange trees and dry canyons.

Slim had sent him away to the university at Stanford to get an education, but his good looks soon had him socializing with a different cut of people who frequented the new Hollywood sets. Slim didn’t find out about it until later, however, and since his boy was doing well for himself, he decided to let it ride and see how it turned out.

The efflorescence industry was beginning to make celebrities from the recent invention of creative genius Thomas Edison, which he called a “moving pictures camera.” While working in Hollywood on pictures, Slim’s good looking son talked up the frontier spirit of his father’s ranch that was located high up in the mountains. Many of his fellow silent movie stars begged to go there to ride horses and just get down to the basics of how their pioneering ancestors had lived. It was all the rage.

Big names like Henry Ford and George Eastman were doing it, as well as old Tom Edison, himself. They all came to the ranch by train, either in groups or as individuals. But they came, and the ranch expanded like never before.

It wasn’t only the stars who were going to Avalon by the trainload, film producers often did, as well, with some young starlet or another under their arm to do a “casting couch” screen test. They were essentially hidden in the mountains, unmolested and out of sight of the newspaper people. They were able to be tucked away in luxurious splendor and out of the main stream media for several days. It was ideal for everyone and the staff at Avalon served their every beckoning need.

Word spread about the Hollywood celebrities who went to Avalon and, before long, politicians, businessmen, and star-struck wannabes flocked to the ranch, as well. An all-out effort was begun to make the place as luxurious and comfortable as possible for these high-rolling guests.

The main lodge was already accommodating, but Slim poured hundreds of thousands of his coal, lumber, and cattle dollars into making improvements to the complex. Every train that came up the mountain brought with it some new machinery to develop the ranch and, of course, accommodate more guests in ever-increasing luxury.

In a year and a half, the main building grew until it stretched out for over four hundred feet from end to end, and it incorporated just about anything the rich and pampered guests could ever need or even conceive. Log cabins came shortly thereafter, spreading out in both directions and eventually giving more important guests their own choice personalizations. These accommodations were eventually named after the various regulars who frequented the premises. Most of the cabins were rented out a year in advance, and Avalon was always abuzz, with each of the seasons bringing its own individual delight to enjoy.

Many of the cast of characters that arrived were wealthy and although some were connected to the new movie industry, not all were. Some simply wanted to rub elbows with that particular crowd and they had the money to spend, which opened that door. They were known as socialites.

Business boomed for about twenty years and Slim even ran for Congress, but lost and never tried again. The back-biting that such an endeavor entailed had Slim in a fury. He was often heard to say,

“In the old days, if a man said that about you, you could shoot the skunk and everyone would understand why you did it.”

Slim’s political days never extended beyond the borders of the world of the Avalon he had created.

One day, and rather suddenly, the coal gave out in the quantities needed to support a commercial venture and the railroad abruptly decided to take out the tracks and ties and use them elsewhere. The only two remaining commodities were lumber and cattle and they were available in other places and were cheaper to bring to market than having to chug way up the steep grades of Avalon’s mountain. Slim and his crew were no longer cut out for arduous cattle drives and the like.

Once the railroad stopped making runs up the mountain, business ended overnight. The tourists stopped coming because there was no easy way to get there without the railroad.

By the time it all happened, Slim was getting on in years and any hope he had to continue Avalon died during the Great War in 1917 against the Germans. His oldest son was killed while leading a charge against the murderous machine guns across the stark battle field on that day against the “Hun.” Slim, embittered and crushed by the loss, refused to leave his cabin. His son’s body was buried somewhere “over there” and that, in itself, was another terribly debilitating blow.

Slim was an “Isolationist” and he didn’t believe the U.S. should be meddling in European affairs. As far as he was concerned, “They started the mess, let them finish it.” He said it often enough, which may have influenced his failed attempt at a political career. There was no doubt as to what he thought; he wrote numerous letters about his feelings to wealthy industrialists and politicians, as well as the many friends and acquaintances he had made over the years. Slim died in 1919, an unrecognized blessing in that he didn’t witness first-hand what happened to his beloved Avalon.

His last remaining son tried, in vain, to sell the place and eventually gave up. He was a movie producer of some note by that time, unimaginably wealthy and no longer acting in films. He certainly didn’t feel like spending his own money to maintain something that was evidently a lost cause and not generating a dime.

Avalon had been his Dad’s dream, not his. It annoyed him greatly that it cost him money to pay the land taxes to the state every year. He wanted to unload it in the worst way but there were no takers, so he formed a trust to reduce the taxes and it simply sat empty and waiting.

As the years passed, the memories of Avalon receded in people’s minds and since there was no revenue being produced, its fate was sealed. Slim’s last son, the movie producer, died of heart failure in 1940 and was given a gala funeral by his peers. With him died all remaining memory of Avalon and it was truly forgotten. Its trust eventually defaulted to the State.

Nearly nine decades later, Mike and Dan went out riding to explore some potential locations to build a retreat. They were keen on the general area because of its ideal location and placement relative to major cities. It was remote enough that it would take a fair amount of time before what was left of civilization found them, if at all, yet they could get to the city in a reasonable amount of time. Prevailing winds blew in such a way that major fallout from any West Coast cities likely wouldn’t affect them and there were no real government targets to speak of for hundreds of miles.