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December 25, 2022

The Perfect A

Craig Johnson

September 30, 1972 I hung up the phone and stared at the wall in the windowless office in the converted Carnegie Library that my new boss, Sheriff Lucian Connally, had assigned me, thinking more and more that it might be a converted broom closet. There was a curled and yellowed VFW calendar circa 1967 but were no pictures on the wall because I wasn’t sure I was going to stick with the job long enough to bother with it and, after the phone call I’d just hung up from -- I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stick with being married, either. I’d been a deputy less than a week when Lucian had handed off the payroll expense receipts for the department when the phone had rung. I’d told Martha that I would be home for dinner, but that was looking more and more unlikely, and the conversation with my new wife had kind of deteriorated from there. The phone rang again, and I reached across the expanse of the battered surface of the surplus green metal desk and lifted the receiver with a great deal of relief. “Honey, I’m sorry…” “Excuse me?” I recognized the voice of Isaac Bloomfield, the chief and only resident over at Durant Memorial Hospital. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, Walt Longmire speaking.” There was a pause. “Who?” With one week on the job, I had gotten used to that response. “Walt Longmire, the new deputy, Doctor Bloomfield. We met three days ago in the Emergency Room?” I nestled the receiver in the crook of my neck. “Can I help you?” “Is Lucian there?” I sighed, getting used to that response, too. “No, I’m afraid he’s not -- how can I help you?” “Well, there’s a situation… Um, Salvatore Ibarra was in town at the grocery store earlier today, and one of the cashiers mentioned to me that he’d had a spell while trying to carry his groceries out to his truck.” “Ibarra, one of the shepherds for Extepare -- interestingly enough, I’ve run into him twice this week.” I scribbled down the name on a notepad, I’m not sure why, and then grumbled to myself. “What is he, like a hundred years old?” There was the briefest of pauses. “He’s the same age as me.” I cleared my throat. “Right.” “They helped him get to his truck, but they called and said he was complaining of dizziness, chest pain, and discomfort in one of his arms.” “Where is he now?” “I would assume back at his sheep camp up on the mountain.” “Do you think he got back up there before the ice storm settled in?” “I don’t know -- it was very late in the afternoon when he was at the IGA.” “So, you want me to go look for him?” “I hate to ask with the weather being the way it is, but I’m deeply concerned that he might’ve driven off the road or be lying on the ground somewhere near his camp.” “I’ll go take a look…” “One more thing?” “Yep?” “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you.” I thought about how much assistance the centenarian would be but kept my mouth shut -- one of the many lessons I’d learned in the Marine Corps, one week in law- enforcement, and a month or two of marriage. “I’ll be by to pick you up in a minute.” I eased out of my tiny office and tromped down the steps past the painting of Andrew Carnegie and the photos of all the previous sheriffs of Absaroka County, thinking about the phone call with my wife and wondering if those men had faced the same problems as their newly minted deputy. Probably. Things just hadn’t been going well between us lately, and it seemed as though everything we said or did lead to an argument. We had a baby on the way, money was tight, and neither of us was sure I’d made the right choice in taking the job or returning to Wyoming. Pushing the front door open and then turning and locking it, I started down the steps and was immediately confronted with a world encased in ice. It was one of those invidious storms we all dreaded, a raw day just as September had ended and then a rain that turned into wind and a glaze of ice after the sun had abandoned us. Cranking my hat down and making my way toward the tiny Bronco half-cab I’d been assigned, I slid on the veneer of parking lot ice like Sonja Henie. Grabbing hold of the side of the bed to save my life, I carefully groped my way around the tiny truck, locking the hubs on the front differential and then opening the door. I fastened my seatbelt and started the small V-8, shifting the little truck into four-wheel- drive, figuring to use any advantage I had in getting the thing to go in the direction I pointed it. I thought about the man in question, thinking of the two times I’d seen Ibarra over the last week -- a minor intersection fender-bender, where when I arrived, he’d admitted to not having any insurance for but had nervously pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills the size of a Campbell’s soup can from his pants pocket. He then peeled off bills until the man he’d crashed into was satisfied. When he’d seen me staring wide-eyed at the cash, he’d explained that he didn’t trust banks. The other time was only two nights ago when Salvatore had been put out after the bars had closed and had decided to serenade the City of Durant with the Philip II aria from Don Carlo. I’d gotten out of my vehicle there on Main Street and stood listening as he hung onto a lamppost, the power of his bass voice vibrating the storefront windows. At the end, I’d applauded, and he’d bowed just before sliding down the post and passing out on the sidewalk. I’d loaded him into the bed of my truck like cargo and had driven him back to the office where I’d carried him in and placed him on the bench in the entryway under a blanket, just so he had known that he hadn’t been arrested. In the morning Ibarra was mortified and offered to pay for any damages, but I’d waved him off and told him his performance had actually been pretty good and that I wasn’t sure why anyone would’ve complained. He’d mumbled something about some people perhaps not preferring Verdi and had apologized once again before going out the door -- and that had been forty-eight hours ago. Fortunately, there was no one else on the road to run into on the three blocks to the hospital, where Isaac stood under the portico of the emergency entrance, the picture of ridiculousness wrapped in a long raincoat, a hunter’s cap with flaps up, galoshes, and holding an umbrella. He walked out from the relative refuge of the covered area, opened my door, and climbed in, settling himself in the passenger seat. “Thank you for doing this, Deputy…?” “Longmire.” Pulling out, I drove carefully, but could still feel the tires slipping on the glassy surface of the road as we headed west, gaining altitude. “Any idea where his grazing lease is?” “Hunter Trailhead toward French Creek.” “That’s pretty exact, Doctor. Did you speak with him recently?” “No, but I’ve known him for quite some time.” Turning the first corner of the switchbacks going up the mountain, we felt the glissade as the utility vehicle, ignoring the direction I’d turned the wheel, continued sliding on the other side toward the guardrail and the thousand-foot drop-off. Gently pumping the brakes, I slid to a stop, spun the wheel further, and started off again. “You mind if I ask how the chief resident of the hospital comes to be chummy with a Basque sheep herder?” “We both play the violin.” I glanced at him. “There was a recitation at the high school some years ago, and we sat next to each other and discovered we both played.” His eyes starred through his thick glasses and the windshield into the night. “He plays very well -- better than me, actually.” He smiled to himself. “His occupation allows for a great deal more practice time than mine.” The smile faded. “I received lessons as a child but then gave it up...” “The war?” His turn to glance at me. “I don’t mean to pry, but I saw the tattoo on the inside of your wrist.” He nodded and folded his hands in his lap. “Surprisingly, that’s when I returned to it.” His eyes went back to the windshield. “I was in a Nazi work camp, a slave camp really, where we assembled the components for V2 rockets. Our camp commander took pride in having an ensemble, and when they discovered I could play, I was forced to join...” “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” “No, no. It may have been the music that saved me.” Placing a hand on the dash to brace himself as he turned. “Do you play any instruments?” “I used to play piano but not for some time now.” “The war?” I grinned back at him, shaking my head. “I guess so.” I took the cut off toward Paradise Guest Ranch and was relieved to get off the pavement where we’d get a little more traction. I’d been careful to watch the roadsides, making sure Ibarra hadn’t slid his aged International into the barrow ditch but hadn’t seen anything in the frozen slush that might’ve indicated that he had. “Are you all right, Deputy?” I glanced at him again. “You can call me Walt.” “Walter. I like that name.” He studied me. “I don’t mean to pry, but you seem preoccupied.” “Oh, just some trouble with the wife.” “Ah.” “Ever married, Doc?” “No, I never seemed to find the time.” We rode along in silence, bouncing over the ruts until Isaac’s expression became more wistful as he gazed at the dim light of the gauges recessed in the dash. “Ibarra actually had quite the correspondence with another famous musician.” “Who was that?” “Toscanini.” I cut a glance at Bloomfield. “The conductor? The conductor?” He nodded. “Indeed, the Maestro, himself.” “Arturo Toscanini, as in Music Director of La Scala in Milan, as in the Metropolitan Opera, as in director of the New York Philharmonic -- that Arturo Toscanini?” “Why, Walter, I think you’ve been hiding your light under a bushel.” The Doc also searched the sides of the road for any signs of the shepherd and his truck, finally breaking the silence with a question. “Did you know how he got his start?” I took the turn at North Clear Creek and glanced up at the ice-encased lodgepole pines and laughed. “Toscanini, no -- a little before my time, Doc.” “He was working with the orchestra of an opera company touring in South America, where they had hired a local conductor who proved to be inept. The show was only hours away, and in desperation the company suggested the assistant Chorus Master. Without any conducting experience, he was convinced to take up the baton and led a two-and-a-half-hour performance of Aida entirely from memory. From what I’m to understand, his performance was astounding.” The Doc took off his glasses and took out a handkerchief in order to clean them. “He was nineteen years old.” Following the gravel road, I weaved between the great boulders and rock outcroppings as we drove ever upward. “Wasn’t he beaten up by a bunch of Mussolini’s thugs?” “He was, at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna he refused to play the fascist anthem and was attacked by the Blackshirts. It was shortly thereafter that he left Europe and came to the United States for good.” “Kind of like you?” “Somewhat.” He sighed, guiding the glasses back onto his face. “The maestro was very open in his opposition to the Nazi persecution of my people all the way back in 1933 when he wrote Siegfried Wagner that he would not be conducting in a festival in Germany because the request had been made by an upstart politician -- one Adolph Hitler.” Making the ridge, I turned right and followed Hunter Mesa Road. “Did they ever meet?” “Toscanini and Hitler?” “No, Ibarra and Toscanini.” He adjusted his glasses again, and the smile curled onto his face. “Once, but I’m sure only one of them would have remembered it. It was 1950, and the maestro was touring with his orchestra, and they happened to alight in Sun Valley, Idaho. Ibarra, a young man then, traveled all the way there and waited at the train station for four hours just to get a glimpse of the man.” “Did they get a chance to talk?” “No, Salvatore said he was far too embarrassed to speak to him and simply watched as Toscanini waved to the crowd and then climbed into a motor car and was swept away. He did say that when he waved back, Toscanini made eye-contact with him. He said it was one of the most thrilling moments of his life.” Pulling to a stop where the road ended in a cattle guard, I could see the boxy outline of a battered truck shining with a thick coat of ice, where the door hung open and the headlight and running lights were on but growing dim. “Isn’t that Ibarra’s vehicle?” Isaac peered through the darkness. “…Yes.” I cracked open the door, the ice covering the sheet metal splitting and falling like a cleaving glacier as I climbed out. Walking toward the truck I reached in and turned off the ignition switch and the lights, then glanced at the bags on the floorboard. I looked across the hood at the Doc who had followed me. “…The groceries are still in here.” We both moved toward the front, finding the barbed-wire fence that had stretched over the cattle guard still hooked at the bottom. Stepping over, I pulled out my flashlight and then stuck out a hand to help Bloomfield across the ice-coated pipes as we moved forward in the darkness of the lonely escarpment. Nestled in the tree line, I could see the dim light of one of the sheep wagon’s windows and the smell of a wood fire, probably from the stove inside. Picking our way, we encountered a large number of sheep that parted in front of us only to re-cluster themselves as we passed. Once at the wagon, I placed a boot on the steps and rapped on the door with my glove-covered knuckles. Mister Ibarra?” There was no answer except for the tinny sound of a transistor radio softly buzzing with static. “Salvatore?” With a final look at Isaac, I reached up and pressed the latch, allowing the door to slip open, revealing the soft, golden glow of a few candles and the tiny stove whose fire we’d been smelling. At first, I’d thought the wagon was empty but could now see the aged shepherd lying in his bed, motionless, a motionlessness that I had grown to know from the battlefield. Stepping up, I trailed a hand back and pulled Isaac into the wagon where we both stood for a moment looking at the man. Quietly, the Doc moved forward and retrieved the violin from Ibarra’s one hand and then the bow from the other, ignoring the sheet music lying on the man’s chest. Sitting on the edge of the bunk, he placed a few fingers at the Basquo’s throat. Still holding the violin and bow, he tucked Salvatore’s arms under and then gently pulled the blanket over the man’s peaceful but grizzled face. I took off my hat and reached down, turning off the small transistor radio at the bedside, silencing the static. Out of habit, I glanced at the walls but could only see a small card that had been encased in a cheap, discount frame. Reaching down, Isaac lifted the sheet music and studied it. “What is it?” “Barber’s Adagio for Strings -- it was one of Toscanini’s world premieres and Salvatore’s favorites.” thought it odd that Bloomfield continued to mention the conductor and then watched as he turned the music toward him and did what seemed to be perfectly natural at that moment when he tucked the butt of the violin under his chin, positioning his fingers and carefully sliding the bow across the strings. The sound was one of desperate longing, a sadness so pure with a pathos that hung in the air with an enormity of soul and voice. I’d never heard Ibarra play, but if he was better than Isaac then I doubt I could’ve withstood it. The tears slipped from the Doc’s eyes as he played with lengthened and loving strokes, the composition of passing that caused my breath to cut short. Overcome, I reached out and steadied myself with a hand against the inside of the wagon, accidentally knocking loose an unnoticed piece of paper that had been tucked in the edge of the gilt frame. It fluttered like an autumn leaf, finally settling at the dead man’s blanketed feet. Reaching down, I picked it up and read the scribbled words on the brown paper, which was crumpled and aged. Mr. Conductor: I have only two possessions -- a radio and an old violin. The batteries in my radio are getting low and will soon die. My violin is so out of tune I can’t use it. Please help me. Next Sunday when you begin your radio concert, sound a loud ‘A’ so I can tune my ‘A’ string; then I can tune the others. When my radio batteries are dead, I’ll still have my violin. - Salvatore Ibarra As Isaac continued to play, unable to help myself, I reached over and plucked the frame from the wall to discover a neatly typed response with a spiraling signature on the letterhead of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Carnegie Hall dated June 3, 1935. For a dear friend and listener back in the mountains of Wyoming, the orchestra will sound a perfect ‘A’ at the beginning of our next radio performance. - Arturo Toscanini Isaac continued to play as the deeply buried emotions were dislodged and carried away by the music, and by the time he finished I rubbed a thumb and forefinger across my own eyes. Overcome, I stepped to the door to find the hundred or so sheep now gathered around the doorway of the wagon, their faces uplifted in expectation as if the music had provided something beyond bereavement. As Isaac finished, I watched as he once again took the glasses from his face, taking the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his eyes. He rose, took the frame from my hands, and placed the ragged slip of paper back in the edge of the glass. He then rehung it on the wall and then stood there gazing at it, even going so far as to pat the tarnished frame. He sighed, deeply. “You know, Walter, that’s sometimes the way of things. Left to our own devices, we forget ourselves and fall out of tune, hopefully fearless enough to reach out somewhere to a higher power for that one note that will bring us back to an agreement within ourselves.” I watched as he carefully wrapped the music around the bow and then tucked it and the violin under his long coat, slipping past me and stepping down and out into the night without another word. He slowly walked toward my truck as the sheep made way like wet, wool waves, bleating, and then silently circling back and following him like a wake in a current. Glancing around at the lonely confines of the tiny wagon, I thought of Salvatore Ibarra, the man who didn’t trust banks and who had serenaded me while hanging onto a lamppost. A man who had devoted his life to such a solitary pursuit, spending so much of his life in self-imposed isolation but who had found a concordance all those years ago through the kindness of a temperamental and exacting conductor and a Sunday afternoon radio program from a city far away. I also like to think that it gave him a comfort and harmony in the last moments of his life, because that’s simply the way of perfect notes, a resonance that never falters. Return to Post-Its

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December 25, 2022

The Perfect A

Craig Johnson

September 30, 1972 I hung up the phone and stared at the wall in the windowless office in the converted Carnegie Library that my new boss, Sheriff Lucian Connally, had assigned me, thinking more and more that it might be a converted broom closet. There was a curled and yellowed VFW calendar circa 1967 but were no pictures on the wall because I wasn’t sure I was going to stick with the job long enough to bother with it and, after the phone call I’d just hung up from -- I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stick with being married, either. I’d been a deputy less than a week when Lucian had handed off the payroll expense receipts for the department when the phone had rung. I’d told Martha that I would be home for dinner, but that was looking more and more unlikely, and the conversation with my new wife had kind of deteriorated from there. The phone rang again, and I reached across the expanse of the battered surface of the surplus green metal desk and lifted the receiver with a great deal of relief. “Honey, I’m sorry…” “Excuse me?” I recognized the voice of Isaac Bloomfield, the chief and only resident over at Durant Memorial Hospital. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, Walt Longmire speaking.” There was a pause. “Who?” With one week on the job, I had gotten used to that response. “Walt Longmire, the new deputy, Doctor Bloomfield. We met three days ago in the Emergency Room?” I nestled the receiver in the crook of my neck. “Can I help you?” “Is Lucian there?” I sighed, getting used to that response, too. “No, I’m afraid he’s not -- how can I help you?” “Well, there’s a situation… Um, Salvatore Ibarra was in town at the grocery store earlier today, and one of the cashiers mentioned to me that he’d had a spell while trying to carry his groceries out to his truck.” “Ibarra, one of the shepherds for Extepare -- interestingly enough, I’ve run into him twice this week.” I scribbled down the name on a notepad, I’m not sure why, and then grumbled to myself. “What is he, like a hundred years old?” There was the briefest of pauses. “He’s the same age as me.” I cleared my throat. “Right.” “They helped him get to his truck, but they called and said he was complaining of dizziness, chest pain, and discomfort in one of his arms.” “Where is he now?” “I would assume back at his sheep camp up on the mountain.” “Do you think he got back up there before the ice storm settled in?” “I don’t know -- it was very late in the afternoon when he was at the IGA.” “So, you want me to go look for him?” “I hate to ask with the weather being the way it is, but I’m deeply concerned that he might’ve driven off the road or be lying on the ground somewhere near his camp.” “I’ll go take a look…” “One more thing?” “Yep?” “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you.” I thought about how much assistance the centenarian would be but kept my mouth shut -- one of the many lessons I’d learned in the Marine Corps, one week in law-enforcement, and a month or two of marriage. “I’ll be by to pick you up in a minute.” I eased out of my tiny office and tromped down the steps past the painting of Andrew Carnegie and the photos of all the previous sheriffs of Absaroka County, thinking about the phone call with my wife and wondering if those men had faced the same problems as their newly minted deputy. Probably. Things just hadn’t been going well between us lately, and it seemed as though everything we said or did lead to an argument. We had a baby on the way, money was tight, and neither of us was sure I’d made the right choice in taking the job or returning to Wyoming. Pushing the front door open and then turning and locking it, I started down the steps and was immediately confronted with a world encased in ice. It was one of those invidious storms we all dreaded, a raw day just as September had ended and then a rain that turned into wind and a glaze of ice after the sun had abandoned us. Cranking my hat down and making my way toward the tiny Bronco half-cab I’d been assigned, I slid on the veneer of parking lot ice like Sonja Henie. Grabbing hold of the side of the bed to save my life, I carefully groped my way around the tiny truck, locking the hubs on the front differential and then opening the door. I fastened my seatbelt and started the small V-8, shifting the little truck into four- wheel-drive, figuring to use any advantage I had in getting the thing to go in the direction I pointed it. I thought about the man in question, thinking of the two times I’d seen Ibarra over the last week -- a minor intersection fender-bender, where when I arrived, he’d admitted to not having any insurance for but had nervously pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills the size of a Campbell’s soup can from his pants pocket. He then peeled off bills until the man he’d crashed into was satisfied. When he’d seen me staring wide-eyed at the cash, he’d explained that he didn’t trust banks. The other time was only two nights ago when Salvatore had been put out after the bars had closed and had decided to serenade the City of Durant with the Philip II aria from Don Carlo. I’d gotten out of my vehicle there on Main Street and stood listening as he hung onto a lamppost, the power of his bass voice vibrating the storefront windows. At the end, I’d applauded, and he’d bowed just before sliding down the post and passing out on the sidewalk. I’d loaded him into the bed of my truck like cargo and had driven him back to the office where I’d carried him in and placed him on the bench in the entryway under a blanket, just so he had known that he hadn’t been arrested. In the morning Ibarra was mortified and offered to pay for any damages, but I’d waved him off and told him his performance had actually been pretty good and that I wasn’t sure why anyone would’ve complained. He’d mumbled something about some people perhaps not preferring Verdi and had apologized once again before going out the door -- and that had been forty- eight hours ago. Fortunately, there was no one else on the road to run into on the three blocks to the hospital, where Isaac stood under the portico of the emergency entrance, the picture of ridiculousness wrapped in a long raincoat, a hunter’s cap with flaps up, galoshes, and holding an umbrella. He walked out from the relative refuge of the covered area, opened my door, and climbed in, settling himself in the passenger seat. “Thank you for doing this, Deputy…?” “Longmire.” Pulling out, I drove carefully, but could still feel the tires slipping on the glassy surface of the road as we headed west, gaining altitude. “Any idea where his grazing lease is?” “Hunter Trailhead toward French Creek.” “That’s pretty exact, Doctor. Did you speak with him recently?” “No, but I’ve known him for quite some time.” Turning the first corner of the switchbacks going up the mountain, we felt the glissade as the utility vehicle, ignoring the direction I’d turned the wheel, continued sliding on the other side toward the guardrail and the thousand-foot drop-off. Gently pumping the brakes, I slid to a stop, spun the wheel further, and started off again. “You mind if I ask how the chief resident of the hospital comes to be chummy with a Basque sheep herder?” “We both play the violin.” I glanced at him. “There was a recitation at the high school some years ago, and we sat next to each other and discovered we both played.” His eyes starred through his thick glasses and the windshield into the night. “He plays very well -- better than me, actually.” He smiled to himself. “His occupation allows for a great deal more practice time than mine.” The smile faded. “I received lessons as a child but then gave it up...” “The war?” His turn to glance at me. “I don’t mean to pry, but I saw the tattoo on the inside of your wrist.” He nodded and folded his hands in his lap. “Surprisingly, that’s when I returned to it.” His eyes went back to the windshield. “I was in a Nazi work camp, a slave camp really, where we assembled the components for V2 rockets. Our camp commander took pride in having an ensemble, and when they discovered I could play, I was forced to join...” “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” “No, no. It may have been the music that saved me.” Placing a hand on the dash to brace himself as he turned. “Do you play any instruments?” “I used to play piano but not for some time now.” “The war?” I grinned back at him, shaking my head. “I guess so.” I took the cut off toward Paradise Guest Ranch and was relieved to get off the pavement where we’d get a little more traction. I’d been careful to watch the roadsides, making sure Ibarra hadn’t slid his aged International into the barrow ditch but hadn’t seen anything in the frozen slush that might’ve indicated that he had. “Are you all right, Deputy?” I glanced at him again. “You can call me Walt.” “Walter. I like that name.” He studied me. “I don’t mean to pry, but you seem preoccupied.” “Oh, just some trouble with the wife.” “Ah.” “Ever married, Doc?” “No, I never seemed to find the time.” We rode along in silence, bouncing over the ruts until Isaac’s expression became more wistful as he gazed at the dim light of the gauges recessed in the dash. “Ibarra actually had quite the correspondence with another famous musician.” “Who was that?” “Toscanini.” I cut a glance at Bloomfield. “The conductor? The conductor?” He nodded. “Indeed, the Maestro, himself.” “Arturo Toscanini, as in Music Director of La Scala in Milan, as in the Metropolitan Opera, as in director of the New York Philharmonic -- that Arturo Toscanini?” “Why, Walter, I think you’ve been hiding your light under a bushel.” The Doc also searched the sides of the road for any signs of the shepherd and his truck, finally breaking the silence with a question. “Did you know how he got his start?” I took the turn at North Clear Creek and glanced up at the ice-encased lodgepole pines and laughed. “Toscanini, no -- a little before my time, Doc.” “He was working with the orchestra of an opera company touring in South America, where they had hired a local conductor who proved to be inept. The show was only hours away, and in desperation the company suggested the assistant Chorus Master. Without any conducting experience, he was convinced to take up the baton and led a two-and-a-half-hour performance of Aida entirely from memory. From what I’m to understand, his performance was astounding.” The Doc took off his glasses and took out a handkerchief in order to clean them. “He was nineteen years old.” Following the gravel road, I weaved between the great boulders and rock outcroppings as we drove ever upward. “Wasn’t he beaten up by a bunch of Mussolini’s thugs?” “He was, at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna he refused to play the fascist anthem and was attacked by the Blackshirts. It was shortly thereafter that he left Europe and came to the United States for good.” “Kind of like you?” “Somewhat.” He sighed, guiding the glasses back onto his face. “The maestro was very open in his opposition to the Nazi persecution of my people all the way back in 1933 when he wrote Siegfried Wagner that he would not be conducting in a festival in Germany because the request had been made by an upstart politician -- one Adolph Hitler.” Making the ridge, I turned right and followed Hunter Mesa Road. “Did they ever meet?” “Toscanini and Hitler?” “No, Ibarra and Toscanini.” He adjusted his glasses again, and the smile curled onto his face. “Once, but I’m sure only one of them would have remembered it. It was 1950, and the maestro was touring with his orchestra, and they happened to alight in Sun Valley, Idaho. Ibarra, a young man then, traveled all the way there and waited at the train station for four hours just to get a glimpse of the man.” “Did they get a chance to talk?” “No, Salvatore said he was far too embarrassed to speak to him and simply watched as Toscanini waved to the crowd and then climbed into a motor car and was swept away. He did say that when he waved back, Toscanini made eye-contact with him. He said it was one of the most thrilling moments of his life.” Pulling to a stop where the road ended in a cattle guard, I could see the boxy outline of a battered truck shining with a thick coat of ice, where the door hung open and the headlight and running lights were on but growing dim. “Isn’t that Ibarra’s vehicle?” Isaac peered through the darkness. “…Yes.” I cracked open the door, the ice covering the sheet metal splitting and falling like a cleaving glacier as I climbed out. Walking toward the truck I reached in and turned off the ignition switch and the lights, then glanced at the bags on the floorboard. I looked across the hood at the Doc who had followed me. “…The groceries are still in here.” We both moved toward the front, finding the barbed-wire fence that had stretched over the cattle guard still hooked at the bottom. Stepping over, I pulled out my flashlight and then stuck out a hand to help Bloomfield across the ice-coated pipes as we moved forward in the darkness of the lonely escarpment. Nestled in the tree line, I could see the dim light of one of the sheep wagon’s windows and the smell of a wood fire, probably from the stove inside. Picking our way, we encountered a large number of sheep that parted in front of us only to re-cluster themselves as we passed. Once at the wagon, I placed a boot on the steps and rapped on the door with my glove-covered knuckles. Mister Ibarra?” There was no answer except for the tinny sound of a transistor radio softly buzzing with static. “Salvatore?” With a final look at Isaac, I reached up and pressed the latch, allowing the door to slip open, revealing the soft, golden glow of a few candles and the tiny stove whose fire we’d been smelling. At first, I’d thought the wagon was empty but could now see the aged shepherd lying in his bed, motionless, a motionlessness that I had grown to know from the battlefield. Stepping up, I trailed a hand back and pulled Isaac into the wagon where we both stood for a moment looking at the man. Quietly, the Doc moved forward and retrieved the violin from Ibarra’s one hand and then the bow from the other, ignoring the sheet music lying on the man’s chest. Sitting on the edge of the bunk, he placed a few fingers at the Basquo’s throat. Still holding the violin and bow, he tucked Salvatore’s arms under and then gently pulled the blanket over the man’s peaceful but grizzled face. I took off my hat and reached down, turning off the small transistor radio at the bedside, silencing the static. Out of habit, I glanced at the walls but could only see a small card that had been encased in a cheap, discount frame. Reaching down, Isaac lifted the sheet music and studied it. “What is it?” “Barber’s Adagio for Strings -- it was one of Toscanini’s world premieres and Salvatore’s favorites.” thought it odd that Bloomfield continued to mention the conductor and then watched as he turned the music toward him and did what seemed to be perfectly natural at that moment when he tucked the butt of the violin under his chin, positioning his fingers and carefully sliding the bow across the strings. The sound was one of desperate longing, a sadness so pure with a pathos that hung in the air with an enormity of soul and voice. I’d never heard Ibarra play, but if he was better than Isaac then I doubt I could’ve withstood it. The tears slipped from the Doc’s eyes as he played with lengthened and loving strokes, the composition of passing that caused my breath to cut short. Overcome, I reached out and steadied myself with a hand against the inside of the wagon, accidentally knocking loose an unnoticed piece of paper that had been tucked in the edge of the gilt frame. It fluttered like an autumn leaf, finally settling at the dead man’s blanketed feet. Reaching down, I picked it up and read the scribbled words on the brown paper, which was crumpled and aged. Mr. Conductor: I have only two possessions -- a radio and an old violin. The batteries in my radio are getting low and will soon die. My violin is so out of tune I can’t use it. Please help me. Next Sunday when you begin your radio concert, sound a loud ‘A’ so I can tune my ‘A’ string; then I can tune the others. When my radio batteries are dead, I’ll still have my violin. - Salvatore Ibarra As Isaac continued to play, unable to help myself, I reached over and plucked the frame from the wall to discover a neatly typed response with a spiraling signature on the letterhead of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Carnegie Hall dated June 3, 1935. For a dear friend and listener back in the mountains of Wyoming, the orchestra will sound a perfect ‘A’ at the beginning of our next radio performance. - Arturo Toscanini Isaac continued to play as the deeply buried emotions were dislodged and carried away by the music, and by the time he finished I rubbed a thumb and forefinger across my own eyes. Overcome, I stepped to the door to find the hundred or so sheep now gathered around the doorway of the wagon, their faces uplifted in expectation as if the music had provided something beyond bereavement. As Isaac finished, I watched as he once again took the glasses from his face, taking the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his eyes. He rose, took the frame from my hands, and placed the ragged slip of paper back in the edge of the glass. He then rehung it on the wall and then stood there gazing at it, even going so far as to pat the tarnished frame. He sighed, deeply. “You know, Walter, that’s sometimes the way of things. Left to our own devices, we forget ourselves and fall out of tune, hopefully fearless enough to reach out somewhere to a higher power for that one note that will bring us back to an agreement within ourselves.” I watched as he carefully wrapped the music around the bow and then tucked it and the violin under his long coat, slipping past me and stepping down and out into the night without another word. He slowly walked toward my truck as the sheep made way like wet, wool waves, bleating, and then silently circling back and following him like a wake in a current. Glancing around at the lonely confines of the tiny wagon, I thought of Salvatore Ibarra, the man who didn’t trust banks and who had serenaded me while hanging onto a lamppost. A man who had devoted his life to such a solitary pursuit, spending so much of his life in self-imposed isolation but who had found a concordance all those years ago through the kindness of a temperamental and exacting conductor and a Sunday afternoon radio program from a city far away. I also like to think that it gave him a comfort and harmony in the last moments of his life, because that’s simply the way of perfect notes, a resonance that never falters. Return to Post-Its