his pulled and now his jaw is swelled up pretty bad. If somebody has the time could you send me that extra quilt after all? These blankets are thin and it would save me having to go buy another one in Fort Worth. How’s Poco? Ben.”
The other postcards were equally brief and chatty. He enjoyed working in the pit on the rifle range, he was getting pretty tired of hearing the Top’s whistle all day long, he finally could manage “right shoulder arms” without knocking his hat off, everybody in his squad had gotten tested for hookworm and passed with flying colors.
And that was all, except for a telegram at the bottom of the box from the Adjutant General’s Office deeply regretting to inform Mr. Lamar Clayton that his son Private Benjamin Clayton of the 36th Division, 142nd Infantry Regiment, had been officially reported killed in action near the village of Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes. The telegram was followed by an apologetic letter from the chief of the Graves Registration Service, pledging to inform families as soon as possible “as to the present resting places of their noble dead who glorify the nation’s roll of honor.”
Lamar Clayton had directed Gil to the shirt box, saying that’s where his son’s letters were stored. But was this all? Surely the boy had written home from France. Perhaps he had even kept a diary. But Gil could find nothing else. The traces of Ben Clayton’s life in this room were sorrowfully palpable, but as a sculptor Gil needed more. He needed to know who this young man had been, and that key knowledge did not seem to be on offer, either in the artifacts surrounding him in this room or in the terse testimony of his father.
Gil wanted his subject to be visible, and it troubled him in an obscure way that an emotional portrait of Ben Clayton had not yet begun to present itself to him. Except, of course, for the profound emotion of loss, the death of promise, which would be the unstated theme of his statue.
From the moment he first stood on top of that mesa he knew that this piece was what he had been searching for. It had the potential to turn his life in Texas from one of artistic exile to one of liberation. Sixteen thousand or twenty thousand dollars didn’t matter. This was a theme that had the power to bring forth the greatness he knew was still within his grasp. He was irritated with himself that he had not traveled with a few of his sculpting tools and a block of plastilina, so that he could make a proper three-dimensional sketch. A drawing would have to do for now. He took out his pencils and a pad of paper from his valise and went to work at Ben Clayton’s boyhood desk under the imperfect light of the lamp. The statue would be, more than anything, calm. As calm in its way as the beautifully eerie memorial Saint-Gaudens had done for Henry Adams’ wife. As a younger man, Gil had once stood in front of Saint-Gaudens’ hooded female figure, nearly weeping at its plangent mystery, and at the shivering inspiration that underlay its artistry. He sensed a similar opportunity here, an opportunity for something glorious and enduring.
He sketched rapidly; it was the work of ten minutes. Lamar Clayton’s idea of the statue was of Ben on horseback, but Gil swiftly rejected the father’s vision and supplanted it with his own: a young man, dismounted in death, standing beside a beloved horse, looking out across the landscape of his childhood. When he was finished, Gil held the drawing closer to the light. It was enough. Not a pencil stroke more. And the finished statue, he knew, would be similarly spare. The challenges were all in the proportions, in the posture of man and horse, in the fidelity and detail of the face.
It was after midnight before he finally turned off the lamp and climbed into the narrow bed upon which Ben Clayton had slept for most of his short life. Moonlight flowed in through the small window and even from the two shooting holes, helping to endow the saddle on the
The other postcards were equally brief and chatty. He enjoyed working in the pit on the rifle range, he was getting pretty tired of hearing the Top’s whistle all day long, he finally could manage “right shoulder arms” without knocking his hat off, everybody in his squad had gotten tested for hookworm and passed with flying colors.
And that was all, except for a telegram at the bottom of the box from the Adjutant General’s Office deeply regretting to inform Mr. Lamar Clayton that his son Private Benjamin Clayton of the 36th Division, 142nd Infantry Regiment, had been officially reported killed in action near the village of Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes. The telegram was followed by an apologetic letter from the chief of the Graves Registration Service, pledging to inform families as soon as possible “as to the present resting places of their noble dead who glorify the nation’s roll of honor.”
Lamar Clayton had directed Gil to the shirt box, saying that’s where his son’s letters were stored. But was this all? Surely the boy had written home from France. Perhaps he had even kept a diary. But Gil could find nothing else. The traces of Ben Clayton’s life in this room were sorrowfully palpable, but as a sculptor Gil needed more. He needed to know who this young man had been, and that key knowledge did not seem to be on offer, either in the artifacts surrounding him in this room or in the terse testimony of his father.
Gil wanted his subject to be visible, and it troubled him in an obscure way that an emotional portrait of Ben Clayton had not yet begun to present itself to him. Except, of course, for the profound emotion of loss, the death of promise, which would be the unstated theme of his statue.
From the moment he first stood on top of that mesa he knew that this piece was what he had been searching for. It had the potential to turn his life in Texas from one of artistic exile to one of liberation. Sixteen thousand or twenty thousand dollars didn’t matter. This was a theme that had the power to bring forth the greatness he knew was still within his grasp. He was irritated with himself that he had not traveled with a few of his sculpting tools and a block of plastilina, so that he could make a proper three-dimensional sketch. A drawing would have to do for now. He took out his pencils and a pad of paper from his valise and went to work at Ben Clayton’s boyhood desk under the imperfect light of the lamp. The statue would be, more than anything, calm. As calm in its way as the beautifully eerie memorial Saint-Gaudens had done for Henry Adams’ wife. As a younger man, Gil had once stood in front of Saint-Gaudens’ hooded female figure, nearly weeping at its plangent mystery, and at the shivering inspiration that underlay its artistry. He sensed a similar opportunity here, an opportunity for something glorious and enduring.
He sketched rapidly; it was the work of ten minutes. Lamar Clayton’s idea of the statue was of Ben on horseback, but Gil swiftly rejected the father’s vision and supplanted it with his own: a young man, dismounted in death, standing beside a beloved horse, looking out across the landscape of his childhood. When he was finished, Gil held the drawing closer to the light. It was enough. Not a pencil stroke more. And the finished statue, he knew, would be similarly spare. The challenges were all in the proportions, in the posture of man and horse, in the fidelity and detail of the face.
It was after midnight before he finally turned off the lamp and climbed into the narrow bed upon which Ben Clayton had slept for most of his short life. Moonlight flowed in through the small window and even from the two shooting holes, helping to endow the saddle on the
Similar Books
