Even As We Breathe

by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

  Though I should have been, I was somehow unsurprised when I found old man Tsa Tsi sitting on our porch, hands on his knees, looking to the trees. I sat down beside him, rubbing my eyes. “Good morning,” I offered weakly.

  “Sunale,” he returned. He turned to look at me briefly, then back to the trees. “I’m sorry about your lishie.”

  “Thanks. When did you hear?” I wondered if they had awoken Tsa Tsi even before me.

  “Oh, just this morning. I came by looking for Edgar and met Preacherman on the steps here. Wouldn’t have bothered y’all had I known she was ill.”

  “You’re not bothering us.” I leaned back on my hands and tried to breathe in the morning air. “How long has he been missing?”

  “Not sure. It’s hard to know. Couple of hunters said they think they heard him last week, so I wasn’t too worried. But sometimes people like to think it’s Edgar when they’re scared in the woods. It’s better than thinking something else is tracking ’em. I haven’t seen Edgar myself in a good month or so.” Tsa Tsi shook his head. “Some kind of master I am.” He turned to me again. “I can’t rightly remember the last time I saw that monkey. Ain’t that terrible?”

  I nodded, more for myself than him, and trailed my eyes over the treetops as he had been doing, beginning to search the branches myself.

  Tsa Tsi sat up and pulled a Skoal can from his pocket. He jammed a wad deep behind his lip, then offered the can to me. I took a small pinch. I had tried it before, but was never partial to chewing tobacco. It smelled too much like Bud.

  “You know I used to sit on this very porch with your dad?” Tsa Tsi rubbed his fingertips, flecked with bits of tobacco, together. Their roughness made a soft swooshing sound. He crossed his legs high and tight, causing them to appear even more thin than normal.

  “Oh, yeah?” On another day, I would have shown more interest, but I couldn’t muster the energy to hear more ghost stories so early in the morning, especially this morning.

  “Yeah, before the war. Shoot, long before you were even born. Used to sit right here with him and Bud both. Lord’ve mercy. Those two boys were wild in their youth.” He wore a faint smile, as if we were traveling into a place of peaceful remembrance.

  “Really?” Thinking of my father and Bud being young and wild made me feel even older than I was—like I had somehow surpassed that phase in my own life. Maybe it was still ahead of me, but it didn’t feel like it.

  “Yeah. I’ve never seen two brothers so close. Lots of brothers are close, but those two did everything together.” He nodded. “That’s a special kind of bond.”

  “Hard to believe that now,” I muttered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t see much of my dad in Bud.”

  “How old were you when your father died? Four or five months?”

  “Not even that.”

  “Yeah, things look a lot different when you are around to see for yourself.”

  I turned my face toward him. “You telling me that my father was a bastard like Bud?” The anger was welling again and I did not want it to overflow onto Tsa Tsi.

  “Lord, no!” he protested. “I’m just saying Bud’s not always been like you see him. Used to be a real fine young man—wild, but respectable. War changes people.”

  “Sorry, Tsa Tsi. It’s just real hard for me to believe that.”

  “I know. I’m used to people not believing me.” He smiled. “Heck, how many people you think believe I have a pet monkey?” We laughed together. “Those three were just about joined at the hip before you came along,” Tsa Tsi continued.

  “Three of ’em? Who?”

  “Your dad, uncle, and mother. They grew up together and Lishie had taken in your mom like one of her own. Everybody always knew your mom would marry one of ’em, but I figured she’d find a way to marry them both.”

  My stomach churned and I was unsure whether it was his words or the tobacco juice escaping down my throat.

  Tsa Tsi read the disgust on my face. And smiled. “You know, you might want to give Bud a chance. I know he’s hard. And you sure as hell have to wait until he’s on the level, but he’s not evil.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned on his knees. The air felt hotter, wetter. Morning birds rhythmically called to each other.

  “Not sure I believe that either.”

  “Your lishie loved him. Your mother loved him. And your father especially loved him. You might try to see what they saw.” He let his hands slide back and stretched his back erect with a groan.

  “Lishie and my father had to love him. And I have a real hard time seeing how my mother would even like the man that led the father of her only son to his death if she’d been alive to see it.”

  “That what you think?” Tsa Tsi stood and leaned on a post, spitting into the dust below.

  “That’s what I know.” I scooped the tobacco from my lip and flipped the wad onto the ground.

  Tsa Tsi sighed. “Well, I better go find this damn monkey.” He started down the steps, then stopped and turned to me. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss. She was a good one.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. Good luck finding Edgar. I’m sure he’ll turn up.” I thought about telling him where I thought I’d heard him last, but knew it wouldn’t help after all this time. I wasn’t mad at Tsa Tsi for what he had said. But it crawled all over me, and I needed more air than the porch was offering. We’d have to tend to Lishie’s sittin’-up and burial soon enough, but first I needed to shed a least a layer of my feelings. I knew just the place to do it, too. I called back into the cabin through the screen door, “Be back shortly!”

  Myrtle hurried to the door. “You okay, son?”

  “Yeah, I just—”

  “And where the hell you headed now?” Bud’s heat stumbled up the steps behind me.

  “Out.”

  “We’ve got arrangements to—”

  I didn’t let him finish. I took off in a sprint, or as close as I could come to a sprint, through the woods.

  I did not have Edgar’s overhead leaf-turning to follow this time, and I was approaching from a totally different direction, but there was no question where I needed to go in that moment. Even though I had only been there a couple of times (several fewer than I had told Essie), the waterfall seemed far more familiar and consoling than anything home had to offer now. I ran faster than was wise on unfamiliar terrain, especially given the awkwardness of my gait. I stopped three times to gather my bearings, but finally found the rushing water, the enigmatic cave, and the cool basin pounded by the cascade’s force. My skin was slick from sweat and the heat sweltered around me the deeper I went into the woods as the morning humidity rose all around. But I could feel the cooling breeze floating on the surface of the water, so instead of stopping and wading into the water or beneath the falls, I pulled off my shirt in mid-run and splashed into the pool, falling to my knees on the muddy bottom. My pants absorbed the water and began weighing heavy on my legs. I fell onto my back and dipped my head into the water. I drew air deep into my lungs and pushed it back out again, trying to breathe four directions of wind back into a life, and this time that life was my own.

  I might have lain there the remainder of the day had I not had an overwhelming feeling that someone or something was watching me from just beyond the water’s cascade, or perhaps even inside the cave. I sat straight up and craned my neck to see what or who might be behind me, but I could not see anything. I stood, having to pull my left foot into proper supporting position as the mud made me quite unstable. My heavy work pants were made even heavier by the water. I tried to bleed the water from them by squeezing the sides, but had little success. Slogging my way out the water, I kept a careful eye on the cave.

  A thick oak log had fallen and made a makeshift bench by the pool. I backed over to it without letting the cave out of my sight. I didn’t hear anything except the waterfall. But my gut ached with the feeling of another presence that had no other place to hide except the grotto. The sun was starting to warm
the deeper part of the woods where I was, and my body was already losing the coolness it had retained from the water. I shook my head. I needed to dry out the pants before trudging back home in them, so I peeled them from my legs and laid them beside me on the log as the sun made its way through the tree leaves onto them. At least I was wearing boxer shorts. I figured that I had an hour or so before someone came looking for me. I just hoped no hunters were still out from the night before. I slid down the curve of the log and rested my back against it. My eyes stung. I closed them, inhaling deeply, and opened them again on the exhale.

  That was the moment that I heard the first break in the water. Its rhythm had been so consistent, if not monotonous, but now there was a different pattern of splash. I froze, straining to see if this emerging mass of fur was the same mother bear that Lishie and I had seen, but I couldn’t tell and there were no cubs around. It was entirely possible that the cubs were inside the cave, but this bear behaved unlike most mother bears. He moved with no concern for anything or anyone else around. He pulled his head back from beneath the falls and made his way around to the pool. I saw a large patch of matted fur on his left flank as he turned toward me. I wondered if a hunter had shot him or if another animal had attacked him.

  Thankfully, he ignored my presence. He struggled over to the water’s edge and bent down to drink. Periodically he raised his head and looked off into the distance, but he didn’t seem to be on the alert. After some time, he pulled his body into the pool with his front paws and sat in the mud. The clear waters churned with a mix of blood and silt. He appeared to gather even more strength and began to thrash in the mud, rolling onto his back and digging his head into the water.

  I have seen bears most of my life. I’ve seen them walk on all fours, stand like men on two legs, and swim across lakes. I’ve seen them resting and asleep. But this was the very first time that I had ever seen a bear wallow in mud as if he were a farm pig.

  I reached for my pants and glanced at my shirt nearby. If I were going to flee, this would be the moment, when Yona was too preoccupied to notice. Thankful that the waters must have washed the “man” off of me, I realized there was a decent chance that he did not smell me so nearby. I was optimistic, but not certain. I pulled my shirt on and fastened the buttons. There was no way that I would be able to pull on wet pants without fumbling, so I clinched them in my hand, hoping I could find a safe spot on the way home to squeeze back into them.

  Fear set me back down as soon as I began to rise. The bear stopped his roll and rose onto all fours in the pool. He shook his body as a dog would, sending water flying. He huffed a deep breath and then sauntered out of the water and climbed back toward the cave with no sign of a limp. I struggled to glimpse his left flank again, trying to see the extent of his injury, but saw nothing.

  As he entered behind the waterfall, I watched as the cascade purged the bear’s blood and agitated mud from its pool. By the time the bear disappeared, the water was completely clear. I had a strong desire to follow the bear. I wanted nothing more than to go with him into the cave, figure out if it was his home or just a resting spot in his likely large self-proclaimed territory. I wanted to examine his leg, understand if it had truly healed in that moment as it had appeared to. I wanted to journey with him deep into the cave and see if we came out clear on the other side of the Smokies.

  But that was an adventure I was not destined to make. The wind blew, tree limbs danced, and I was distracted by what sounded like Edgar. I resolved to follow the bending limbs as long as they led me in the general direction of home and leave the bear to walk on alone. I stood and ran as quickly as I could back toward the cabin.

  When I reached home both my morning tears and saturated work pants were dry. I had almost forgotten the heavy feeling of the cabin’s porch and the almost smothering heat of its interior. Familiar and less familiar faces swarmed inside, heating pots, pouring coffee, chopping vegetables, and slicing cakes.

  Grease

  Lilies

  Tobacco

  Vanilla

  Fresh dirt

  Pine sap

  “Cowney.” Myrtle pushed her way past the women in the kitchen, her wide hips relentlessly clearing the path. “I’m glad you’re back. You and Bud need to make some decisions.”

  I nodded. I knew Myrtle was trying to be helpful, but every word from her mouth twisted my heart tighter. “Okay,” I said. “I need to wash up first.”

  “He’s in with Lishie.”

  Knowing that simple fact motivated me to wash and dress quickly. Lishie needed someone else watching over her, anyone other than Bud.

  Myrtle facilitated every detail of Lishie’s sittin’-up, service, and burial. Bud and I nodded through the selection of dress, color of bandana, the quilt that she would be wrapped in, and the simplicity of a pine box from a Bryson City lumberyard. We chose passages from Ezekiel and Psalm 121 because we all knew Preacherman would read them anyway. When the choices became difficult, Bud deferred to me, not out of apathy, but out of deference. I accepted the permission gracelessly. It came so unexpectedly.

  “Who will the pallbearers be?” Myrtle looked to Bud, who immediately turned to me.

  “Whatcha think, Cowney? Obviously us, but who else?”

  I suggested a couple of men from church, he offered the names of two cousins, and the decision was made.

  “You boys need to think about a tombstone or some kind of marker. Maybe have someone to carve dates. As long as you know where the grave is, it should be fine. Tombstones are expensive.”

  “I’ve got some money saved from this summer,” I offered.

  “No,” Bud interrupted. “You should use that money how you intended to. I’ll find the money for a proper stone for her, no matter what I have to do.”

  I was so exhausted that I didn’t even notice this change in Bud until Myrtle proclaimed, “Os-ta. Okay. I think that is all. Thank you both. Lishie would be proud of you boys.”

  I turned to Bud and saw that a look of peace was spreading across his sober face and that he was looking at me. As difficult as it was to accept, I think Bud was actually proud, and proud of someone other than himself.

  The day continued with a constant stream of deliveries, both of people and of the essentials of death. Each one accompanied by its own distinct smell.

  Grease

  Lilies

  Tobacco

  Vanilla

  Fresh dirt

  Pine sap

  Myrtle and the other women had dressed Lishie and tucked her hair neatly into a new red bandana Tsa Tsi brought from town. He, Bud, Preacherman, and I had lifted Lishie’s stiff body into the fresh pine casket lined with the quilt from the foot of her bed. She had always been my soft place to land in life; feeling her heavy rigidness in death seemed unnatural. Lishie had always held me in comfort. To hold her, any part of her, now felt like detached manual labor and made me nauseous. Myrtle had taken the quilt from my bed, unwashed of my night’s sweat, and tucked it around Lishie’s body and beneath her arms, folding her hands once more on top. The casket was lifted and moved to the center of the living room for the entirety of the night. I stood beside it, hands clutched in front of me, for several hours until I lost feeling in my feet and my head pounded from greeting those who came to pay their respects.

  As the sun fell behind the mountains, the screen door screeched open in steady rhythm. Folks were getting off work, or leaving fields, or bringing by the remnants of that evening’s supper. My exhaustion led me to an unsteady rocking chair by the fireplace, still close enough to the casket. Mourners would greet Lishie’s body, shake my hand, and find a warm plate of food. Bud and Myrtle milled about, carrying on thankful gestures and sighs and hugs and back pats, depending on whether it was Myrtle or Bud offering. I must have dozed off periodically, because I do not remember half of the people churning through our home that Myrtle commented on later. I do, however, remember the moment the screen door creaked open so slowly that it sounded like something
shattering. And I remember how she peered around its edge, cautious and nervous. And I remember the tall soldier, still in uniform, standing behind her, propping the door open further so that she might be encouraged to enter.

  She was beautiful, and I hated that she was beautiful. Her loveliness splintered the sadness of the home, leaving threatening shards at my feet. The two entered the living room, attracting the unabashed stares of everyone in the room. I half expected Lishie to sit straight up in her casket to take in the odd sight.

  It’s hard to describe what the sight of her made me feel. I had far from forgiven the coldness she had shown me at the inn. The image of her and Andrea still haunted me so deeply that I thought it was slowly becoming a part of me. Seeing Essie Stamper standing in my living room was surreal. She entered my past uninvited. It was all well and good that Essie had come to know the Cowney I wanted her to know; I had carefully shielded her from the Cowney that my father and my mother had created, that Bud had created, that a twisted left foot had created. But now she was here to see the Cowney that Lishie had created, and I needed her to see him, too. Everything that happened at the inn suddenly seemed so unimportant, but I recognized how utterly weak it would have been of me to embrace her like nothing had happened, like she could treat our friendship with as much disregard as she wanted if it was convenient for her. I was tired—too tired to show her my hurt, and yet too proud to welcome her with anything other than a cold stare.

  Peter moved past her as she froze in front of the casket, staring at the floorboards. “Cowney, I’m sorry for your loss,” Peter began. “We’re sorry.” He turned and nodded to Essie. She looked up nervously and produced a half-hearted smile. “She wanted to come and … well, I knew she didn’t have a ride. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. Thank you.” I reached out and shook Peter’s hand. “I’m sorry. I left in such a hurry that I didn’t realize I was leaving her stranded.”

  “I can stay the evening and take her back in the morning, or I can come back after my next shift to fetch her?” he asked me, as if I were now responsible for her. Realizing this, he turned to Essie. “What would you prefer?”