Aside from the temporary military structures dotting its grounds, the Grove Park Inn looked as if it had been forcefully extracted from the rocky earth by some red-gloved god. The base of the main structure mimicked the stone-formed mountain landscape. Succeeding generations of stonemasons must have labored to jigsaw the fragments together. It splayed across the hillside, dipping down and rising with the ridgeline. With its bright red terracotta tile cottage sag, the roofline was anything but natural. Nothing camouflaged this edifice among the blue-gray mountains; it set the Smokies ablaze. Even though I knew the buildings were older than me, I reminded myself that they were not older than the land on which they amassed. I felt as if I was arriving at some sort of sacred site. Not sacred to my people, but to the people of Asheville—or, more accurately, to the wealthy whites of Asheville. I approached with a sense of reverence and fear of the inn’s inherent power. I was a caretaker of a phenomenon. I wondered if Essie would feel the same impulse to say a prayer. Dear Father, dear Lord, dear God!
To the south, the grandiose Biltmore House pierced the horizon. To the west, Thomas Wolfe lay in rest at Riverside Cemetery, home again at last. To the east, Black Mountain College’s artist community woke the dead. To the north, Governor Vance’s old homeplace held fast to the landscape of stagnant time. There seemed to be many secrets in this town, far more than I considered the Boundary to have. But, of course, Asheville townies likely felt quite the same about Cherokee. So, during our time in Asheville, we would pass one another with both curiosity and secret-keeper confidence in our eyes.
“We have to check in at the gate first,” I explained to Essie, pretending that I knew what I was doing. She nodded. I slowed the car to stop at the makeshift gatehouse, a small white box of a structure much more recent than the rest of the property, and cranked the window down. “We’re here to work. I’m Cowney Sequoyah and this is Essie Stamper.”
The M.P. scanned his clipboard. “Yes. You’re right here. I was wondering how you pronounced your name. See-coy-ya. Good to know. Just a moment.” He walked behind my vehicle and wrote down my license plate number. “Take this pass and put it inside your windshield so it can be seen from the outside.” He seemed nice enough, even smiled as he waved us through the gate.
That was the last smile I saw for the remainder of the day.
Two other M.P.s waved us into a parking lot situated just above the resort’s main hall. I slid the sheet of paper onto the dashboard. Essie looked at me, silently, but still communicating, Well, here we go.
“Not too shabby, is it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she confirmed.
“Yeah, me neither. But I don’t think most folks have. Probably even a lot of people from Asheville have never been here.”
“Wonder why they thought to put prisoners here?” Essie asked as she opened her car door. I had intended to open it for her, but my left foot was knotted into a tight cramp from working the clutch, and I could only manage to get myself halfway out the door by the time she was stepping out.
“Guests,” I reminded her. “You mean to say guests.”
“Yes. Of course.” She nodded, straightening her back and lifting her chin.
I moved to the back of the car and opened the trunk, setting all three suitcases on the ground. “Not sure. I guess they figure they’ll keep them pacified in a resort and, well, we are in the middle of nowhere.”
“And I thought Cherokee was the middle of nowhere.”
“Apparently they save reservations for real prisoners. Let’s go. We can check in with the manager together.”
Essie nodded and picked up her bags with no indication that she was accustomed to anyone else ever carrying them for her. I was relieved, certain I couldn’t have carried so many down the hill without tumbling into the front lobby.
“Alright. Keep up, will you!” She was almost cheerful as she started down the slope ahead of me.
That is, until we reached the large oak doors. She stood motionless in front of them, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
“You okay?” I asked, catching up to her.
“Yes. It’s just … Well, what you said about the children …”
“Oh, no! No, no, no. Just ignore me. Heck, everybody else does. It’s fine. Come on. You’ll see.”
I moved in front of her and pushed the right door open. I imagined how just a matter of months ago there would have been someone who looked a lot like me to open the door for us. And then there would be someone else who would sweep in and take our suitcases. They would have assumed we were on our honeymoon, perhaps. And though we weren’t exactly on some sort of upper-crust holiday together, my chest swelled to think that I was about to lead Essie anywhere. In truth, I can’t say for certain that I had ever led anyone anywhere.
I stepped back against the open door so Essie could walk through without shifting her bags. I watched as she cautiously surveyed the enormous lobby.
Stone-bolstered walls fortified the space, an impenetrable holding cell for the haves and the pretend-they-haves. I felt as if I was exploring a cavern, finding the only entrance through a tiny door compared to the enormity of open space inside. We were tumbling down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole.
“I wonder where we go,” she whispered.
“This way,” I motioned with my elbow, hands still holding my bag. “The main office is over here.”
She continued to follow me over to a small glassed-in office. A uniformed guard stood out front, but no weapon was visible.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re here to work,” I said.
“Well, I figured you weren’t checking in for holiday.” His eyes drooped in line with his tone.
Essie leaned forward past me. “I’m Essie Stamper and this is Cowney Sequoyah.”
She remembered my name again.
“We just got here and need some direction. So please excuse us. We need to find the person in charge.” Essie’s cool demeanor fully returned. I think she may have scared me more than the guard.
“Letcha off the rez, did they? In there.” He pointed.
As we continued through the door, I leaned over to her. “How’d you know he wasn’t in charge?”
“His rank.”
“How’d you know his rank?”
“My brother’s in the army. My brother orders flunkies like him around.”
I felt strongly that she was about to order flunkies like me around, too.
“Wait there.” A thin man in a tan linen suit sat at the desk in front of us. He held the black phone receiver to his ear and pointed us both to a couch with his other hand. As he talked into the device, he kept his eyes on us.
The glassed room gave us a view to the sheer massiveness of the inn’s lobby. Great pillars formed an exoskeleton of dark wood, flecked with stone joints. Scaffolding lined the colossal windows, most likely to replace original ornate draperies with canvas tarps and to reach the delicate chandeliers so that they could be wrapped in protective sheets during the army’s tenure. In their desperate attempt to shield the resort from the economic laceration of the Depression by contracting with the US government, the inn’s owners would still go to great lengths to protect their architectural treasure from the scars of the war. I wondered just how much light, natural and otherwise, had been stripped from the palatial space when the military arrived. It was now hard to imagine the light ever being here.