Backwater

by Joan Bauer

  “That’s the chapel,” Jo said. “I keep it open for the kids year-round.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. What I really meant was, That’s very, very weird.

  Birds ate at half a dozen feeders that were hanging from trees. I felt like I was on another planet.

  Mountain Mama walked several yards away and leaned against a tree, trying to not be obvious.

  Josephine turned to me. “You’ve come a long way to find me, Ivy.”

  “The family history wouldn’t be complete without you.”

  Her eyes seemed distant. “How did you know where I was?”

  I told her about Mrs. Englebert, the holly, and Town Records.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Could we try and talk, Aunt Jo?”

  She looked at Mountain Mama, who was whistling to birds at a feeder. “I don’t know.”

  I had to ask. “Do you feel uncomfortable that she’s here?”

  Josephine laughed. “I feel uncomfortable that anyone’s here.”

  “I’m … sorry … I don’t want to push myself on you in any way.” The next part was trickier. “I don’t think you would have decorated those graves if being part of the family wasn’t important to you.”

  She sighed.

  “That was a long trip you made.”

  She looked away.

  “Would you consider letting me stay here and having Mountain Mama pick me up later so we could talk?”

  Josephine’s face got cloudy. She said she had to think about that and needed to be alone to do it.

  * * *

  Mountain Mama leaned against a tree. “Breedlove, I don’t want to crowd you, but I don’t know if leaving you here is the right thing.”

  “I don’t want to have come all this way for nothing!”

  She crossed her great arms like a sentry. “I’m responsible for you, legally and otherwise.”

  “I can handle this.”

  She studied my face. “Do you promise to stay put? No long treks off this property. No solo junkets to find your true self or Jack.”

  I blushed. “I promise.”

  “You do not leave, Breedlove, under any conditions until I come back to get you.” She put her stern face close to mine. “You avoid fatigue, wet clothes, inadequate calories, and stupidity in all forms. Any one of those things can cause accidents. Do we understand one another?”

  “Acutely.”

  “Let’s see what she says.”

  We waited for Josephine to reappear. When she finally did, she said I could stay for two days. Mama would have to leave—nothing personal. She walked back to the cabin, not waiting for a response.

  Mountain Mama turned to me. “I will be back here on Tuesday at high noon to bring you down and, Breedlove, you will be packed and ready to go.”

  I saluted. “I will. I swear.”

  “All right then.” Mama shouldered her great pack and headed down the path.

  “Two days,” I called after her. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine! Piece of cake.” She disappeared into the snowy woods.

  I was now totally alone and defenseless with a hermit who wore birds on her head.

  The wind blew a branch against the cabin door.

  A racing cloud dragged a shadow across the snow. I never paid attention to those things back home, but here it seemed important.

  The Adirondacks stretched before me. I felt very aware of my own limitations. I’d been to camp for a dozen summers, but I didn’t understand true wilderness. Once a camp counselor told me that you only appreciate the wilderness when you understand the fundamental truth—so hard for people to grasp—that man is puny next to it. But I was so busy trying to assemble the world’s largest s’more, that I didn’t think much about it.

  Why did people say I was like Josephine?

  I had no desire to live alone in the mountains. I liked being around people, except when they were pushing me to be something I wasn’t.

  I walked up the three short steps to the front of the cabin and examined the workmanship. Each log fitted perfectly into the one above it. How many trees had it taken to build it, I wondered? How long did it take? What were the joys, the frustrations? How long would it stand after Josephine was long gone?

  It seemed as though Jo had built it as a reminder to herself that she needed to change her life and she wanted that change to be lasting and significant.

  I had great hopes of doing something significant.

  But I sure didn’t want to do it where other people couldn’t see it.

  It bothered me that I cared so much about what other people thought.

  11

  Inside the cabin was like being in a giant Lincoln Log house. The ceiling arched in a V above a stone fireplace with an intricately carved wooden mantel. Several of the birds sitting on the mantel flew over to Jo when I walked in. Josephine grinned and cooed at them. A black Franklin stove sat like a sentry in the middle of the main room. Jo layered logs in the stove’s belly and struck a match. She had a bird on her shoulder as she did this.

  There were blue curtains on the windows, a yellow rocking chair in the corner, a small couch covered with red blankets, a braided rug. Off to one side was a corner kitchen with a painted blue cupboard and an old wood stove like the kind we had at summer camp. Across from the kitchen was a bedroom nook with a twin bed. The bed had a high carved wooden headboard and a faded patchwork quilt. On an antique dresser lay a banjo made out of a ham can and an old rag doll with no face. All through the house were wood carvings of birds and animals. There were a few old paintings of forest scenes, hand-painted dishes, a copper teapot and wooden carved candlesticks of every size and shape. There were candles in holders and lanterns hanging from hooks. The two long sides of the cabin had floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were stacked with as many books as I’d ever seen in one room.

  It was wonderful.

  Her book collection was awesome—literature, science, philosophy, history, theology, and dozens of books on birds—from behavior to diets to bird medicine, called ornithology. A well-worn book on first aid was propped against an antique Bible. Old fishing reels, baskets, and snow shoes hung on the wall, along with three pairs of deer antlers.

  “I don’t shoot them,” Jo said, hanging my coat on an antler. “I find them.”

  There was a primitive table stenciled with soaring birds. The rugs looked stitched together, resembling a Hudson Bay blanket stripe. There were folded blankets on the backs of chairs. Three steel bird cages hung from the ceiling, doors open; a few birds flew in and out.

  “This isn’t roughing it,” I said, and scraped the snowy mud off my boots and put them by the door by what appeared to be carved wooden feet. My eyes followed the feet to the knees, the knees to a skirt. I looked up at a carved wooden statue of a woman some five feet tall that looked a great deal like Tib had ten years ago.

  “That’s her,” Jo said.

  “You did this?”

  “One of my early ones—the legs are too short, the torso’s too long.”

  “But it looks like her.” I felt the statue’s carved square chin.

  “Balsam Poplar is best for carving. There’s plenty of it lying on the ground to keep me busy.”

  I was transfixed by the likeness. “Has Tib seen this?”

  “It’s less for public viewing than for me,” Jo said, and motioned me to sit down.

  “I didn’t mean that the way—”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  I shivered on the cold board floors. Jo whistled to the little brown bird still perched on her shoulder. The bird flew to her hand, balanced on her index finger.

  I looked at the smooth lines of the statue’s face, the carefully carved eyebrows. “You got her eyes right, Aunt Jo. That’s amazing.”

  “That was the hardest part. Those Breedlove eyes of hers sweeping down at you like a peregrine falcon.”

  “She can’t see much now.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jo looked very sad.


  “She remembers things in her mind. She gets around really well.”

  “I’ll tell you what I remember most about Tib.” Jo walked over to the statue, tilted her head, studied it. “She’d crawl into the cave I had in the back yard when I was a kid and just sit with me. She was the only adult who did it. It took me a month to dig that cave out of the hill we had out back. I just liked sitting there in the dark with my candle, thinking in the quiet. Tib always brought me a new candle when she came to call. And she’d say to me, ‘Josephine, as your godmother, I’m here to tell you that God’s made you different for a reason and it’s a safe bet you’re going to have one rugged journey finding out why, but when you figure it out, you’re going to be a happier person than most of us.’ ”

  There was no time to get my tape recorder or paper and pen to write this down.

  I held it in my heart.

  I had to remember.

  Josephine grabbed her parka abruptly. “We’ll go to chapel now.”

  She marched out the door.

  * * *

  It was as cold in the little A-frame chapel as I imagined life gets. My breath came in icy blasts; I was moving as much as I could to keep from freezing and still be reverent. Jo lit a lantern on the wall that illuminated a small, carved cross by the wooden window. At the base of the cross was a holly wreath like the ones I’d found on the graves. There was an armchair in the far corner made from tree branches and twine. Wooden ledges hung from the walls; at least two dozen birds were perched on them, waiting.

  “Had a stove in here,” Jo explained, “but the kids needed it in the hospital. Why don’t you lead the prayer.”

  “Me?”

  She bowed her head. More birds flew around the rafters.

  I felt completely inadequate.

  “Aunt Jo, I’ve never prayed out loud before.”

  She motioned me to do it anyway.

  All I could think of was “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

  “Just say what you feel, Ivy.”

  “I feel cold.”

  “Start there then.”

  I said, “Uh … God … Sir … here we are in this place … and there you are up in heaven. It’s really cold here, so if you wouldn’t mind sending a little heat down this way, we’d sure appreciate it. Not that I’m complaining.” I gulped. “Amen.”

  I’d just uttered the most inane prayer in the history of religion.

  Jo smiled at me, clasped her hands together and said, “Lord, thank you for the blessings in this life—the ones we understand and the ones we take for granted. And thank you for the birds who teach us to be free.”

  “That’s what I meant to say,” I muttered.

  * * *

  Dinner was excellent—bean soup with deer sausage, thick crackers and homemade applesauce. Jo kept most of her food in a little log supply shed that was attached to the cabin. Three pots hung from ropes in front of the shed door and clanged together loudly when you went inside. Jo said it was to keep the bears, coyotes, wolverines and raccoons from getting in and stealing the food. There were scratch marks all over the outside of the shed. “Wild animal graffiti,” Jo explained. I had to bend over to get in the shed that was dark and filled with canned goods, a few smoked meats, a bushel of apples, and stacks of birdseed in large bags. Jo said she made a few trips into town each year to get supplies, but mostly she relied on two friends to bring food and birdseed to her. One of them owned a store in town where she sold some of her carvings.

  We didn’t talk much at dinner.

  I said a few things about the importance of preserving family memories, how I so appreciated her letting me stay, how there was no rush in sharing her stories. An oral history is something that has to emerge and I was going to be here for two whole days, which seemed like a very long time when the person you’re talking to isn’t responding.

  We didn’t talk much after dinner.

  I said something about the connectedness and courage that all Breedloves share and that everyone back home was so looking forward to Jo being part of the family history.

  She looked at me for a long time. “I wouldn’t imagine there was a big wave of support for you coming up here.”

  “Well, you know, people were … divided.”

  I didn’t mention the actual numbers.

  “The daybed’s over there if you’re tired.”

  “I’m exhausted.”

  I crawled into the bed by the corner, dead from stress and the keen possibility of genealogical failure. I pulled two wool blankets over me, said good night.

  Historians put up with a lot to get a new cut at yesteryear. I started drifting off.

  “One thing, Ivy. You don’t need to sugar-coat what the family says about me. All right?”

  I hid deep in the covers and said I wouldn’t do it again.

  * * *

  A scratch at the door, movement outside.

  A long, wild howl.

  My eyes were too heavy to open. I heard Jo pad to the door, open it. A gush of cold, wet air ripped through the room.

  I raised my head, eyes still closed. “What?”

  “Go back to sleep,” she said quietly. My head crashed on the pillow.

  I heard Jo whisper, “Malachi, where have you been?”

  A shaking wetness touched my forehead. It didn’t matter. I was too tired to move.

  Jo said, “Don’t do that. We’ve got a guest.”

  More footsteps. A sniff.

  “No!” Jo whispered.

  Something distant, like padding steps. I sensed something close. It sniffed my feet, my knees.

  Jo snapped her fingers furiously. “Malachi, get over here!”

  Something wet, alive, near my face. I opened my eyes to a black, wet nose attached to what appeared to my untrained eye to be …

  A large gray dog. But this was more than a dog …

  A deep primal shriek came from the core of my belly.

  Jo said, “Ivy, relax. This is Malachi. My wolf.”

  “That is a carnivore!” I leaped from the bed, tripped over the blanket. The wolf moved into fighting position, fully baring his teeth, growling, snapping the air.

  “Don’t,” Jo shouted at me, “move! Wolves don’t attack humans. That’s a myth.”

  I studied Malachi’s flesh-ripping teeth. “What if he doesn’t know that?”

  Josephine grabbed the wolf firmly with both hands on either side of his head and shouted, “No!” He put his tail between his legs and whimpered. Jo held her hand in the “stay” command and turned to me.

  “I’ve had him since he was a pup. I’ve trained him to obey, but he’s still a wild animal. Let’s leave the blood-curdling screams for the horror movies, shall we?”

  “I’m sorry.” I sat in a lump on the floor with as much authority as a broken person can. “I got bit by a huge dog when I was little.”

  “That had to be scary for you.”

  I instinctively pulled the blanket around myself, carefully hiding all body parts. I remembered the dog biting my arm, Dad kicking him, pulling him off. The dog’s owner kept saying he was tame, he’d never done that before.

  This is why I had a toy poodle. If Genghis flipped out, I’d stick him in my pocket. End of uprising.

  Jo held her hand in “stay” command; Malachi obeyed, keeping a watchful eye on me as she went to the kitchen. I watched him, too. Our eyes met. Malachi’s were shining yellow in the dark cabin. I looked away first. Not good to lose the staring contest.

  Jo took dog biscuits from a bag and threw one to Malachi, who gobbled it down without chewing.

  “He might still be hungry,” I said quietly.

  “Do you want to give him—?”

  “No.”

  Jo tossed him a biscuit from under her leg. It looped through the air. Malachi jumped up to catch it.

  “A trick wolf,” I said weakly. “This is a permanent relationship?”

  “You could say that.” She stroked Malachi’s head between his ears,
which put him in a subdued state of wolf reverie. “I found him six years ago. A man was selling wolf pups outside of town, which is illegal. The police came to arrest him and Malachi escaped. I found him shaking in a little wet ball by my jeep. We’ve been best friends ever since.”

  I inched further away. This wolf would make pâte out of Genghis.

  “He thinks of me as the leader of his pack. Whenever I grab either side of his head, that’s the same motion the alpha wolf uses to keep the others in line. I think you’ll become friends. It takes awhile. Some relationships need a bit more effort, but they’re worth it. Maybe we should try to get some sleep.”

  “The wolf sleeps here?” I felt a great deal like Red Riding Hood.

  “Usually. He sleeps by my bed. Just don’t move suddenly.”

  I moved slowly now, so slowly. I picked up my blanket, crept with nonthreatening movements to the bed. I tripped, unfortunately—a very sudden movement, indeed—and Malachi started toward me, but Jo called him back. I tore under the covers, waved one hand peacefully in the air, wondering if all of my beloved body parts would make it until dawn.

  12

  I hadn’t expected morning to be so hard.

  First, I had to go to the bathroom in a frigid outhouse, then Jo and I had to walk down to the lake with buckets, dip them through a hole chopped in the lake ice, and carry the water back to the cabin for drinking and washing. We didn’t do this the easy way. I had two buckets attached to a wooden yoke positioned around my neck. I kept crashing into trees because the weight threw me forward. I tried standing straight and listed to the left. Jo said the lake water here was pure as I pitched forward like an overburdened oxen. I thought about my ancestors reaching this forested country, finding their plot of land (arguing about it first because they were Breedloves), felling trees to make their first cabins sure and true. I thought about that so hard that I tripped over a tree root, which sent me and the buckets sailing. Some outdoor skills take longer than others to acquire—like walking. I refilled the buckets. When I finally got back to the cabin, I had to heat the water over the fire to get it decently warm just so I could wash myself (how I missed showers). I had to dry myself in the presence of a carnivore, who kept sniffing my knees like they were some rare backwoods appetizer.