The Mountain Story

by Lori Lansens

  “Right,” I said, eyeing the women one by one. “Right.” It hit me that they were in a conspiracy to keep the food for themselves. Chances were they’d already found the blue mesh bag with the water and had eaten the three granola bars and the peanut butter too.

  Turning to Vonn and Bridget I urged, “We need that bag.”

  I must have sounded desperate, or threatening, because Vonn shared a look with her mother and they went off into the brush again without a word of protest.

  “Don’t give up, Wolf,” Nola said. “There has to be a way up that wall.”

  “Why are you lying about the food?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a jar of peanut butter in your knapsack,” I said.

  “I do not,” she insisted.

  “You have crackers in there too? Are you holding out on all of us or just me?”

  “I would not hold out. I would never hold out.” She glanced around to ensure that her daughter and granddaughter were out of sight before she dug into her knapsack with her good hand and took out the plastic jar, passing it to me gingerly.

  “Okay.” The plastic jar was not filled with peanut butter but something that looked like ashes. “Is this …?”

  “Yes.”

  “The urn they sold me was so heavy,” Nola said. “I couldn’t lug that thing up here. I bought some disposable bags but at the last minute I realized they were snack-size. I needed something lighter that had a tight-fitting lid and …”

  “Why is it a secret?”

  “Bridget was against cremation. Since she was a child she’s … We had to take her to a shrink … So many fears and phobias. Superstitions. She thinks she’s clairvoyant. Poor thing. I suppose that’s my fault for indulging her but it comforted her as a child to think she could tell the future. Is that so bad?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know if you ruined your kids or if they were born that way.” She paused. “Anyway, Bridget wanted to know that Pip’s body was at the cemetery where she could visit him.”

  “So you buried an empty casket?” I asked.

  “It’s done more often than you think. He’s been in the urn in the closet for months. Just been driving me crazy. I used to think I’d go nuts from his snoring but this … it’s like I can hear him yelling to be let out.”

  “Okay.”

  “I thought our anniversary would be the right time to sprinkle his ashes on the mountain. I was going to do it when Bridge wasn’t looking.”

  Nola’s choice of sprinkled instead of scattered made Pip’s remains sound like cake decoration. “He wanted to be … sprinkled … at Secret Lake?”

  “That was my idea,” she admitted. “We never talked about it. We’re barely into our sixties. We were still raising Vonn half the time. We talked about grades and allowance and curfew. Sometimes it was golf and cards and what we were going to make for dinner. We didn’t ever talk about dying.” She paused again. “We should have though. Your loved ones should know your final wishes.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t leave him in the jar.”

  “No.”

  “He hated peanut butter,” she said. “We kept it in the cupboard for Vonn.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t think he’d be in there for long.”

  “Right.”

  “It was the only clean plastic container I could find.”

  “Sure.”

  “I feel terrible you thought I wouldn’t share with you if I had food.”

  “Sorry.” I noticed beads of sweat collecting on her forehead and a dark cast beneath her eyes. Her arm appeared even more swollen, if that was possible.

  She attempted to find a more comfortable position. “Has anyone you loved ever died, Wolf?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you feel them sometimes? Their presence?”

  I couldn’t answer.

  “I feel Pip like he’s still here. I keep going to tell him something and every time it’s like a slap in the face. It happens a hundred times a day.”

  “It’s hard to break the habit of thinking a person’s alive.”

  She stopped. “Who do you think of as still alive, Wolf?”

  “My mother,” I lied.

  “Since Pip died I haven’t seen the point of carrying on,” Nola said. “Now?”

  She didn’t have to tell me. I knew she’d changed her mind.

  Long shadows crept over the rock below me as I started up the wall once more. My fingernails were shredded, my palms ravaged, but worst was my sagging spirit. This would be my last attempt before darkness fell.

  Midway up I paused to rest and heard, even from this distance, the sound of Nola humming below. I recognized the melody as a classical piece—a violin concerto from the old film version of Much Ado About Nothing. It was the only thing that I could remember from my brief time as a freshman at Santa Sophia High School. Most of the other students fell asleep during the film appreciation class but I was transported by the music. Korngold was the composer’s name.

  Nola’s humming stoked my adrenalin and drove me on up the wall and soon I was climbing higher and faster than I had all day up a route I’d not considered, accompanied by the weeping violin. And there I was, inches away from the ironwood. I reached, and I strained, and finally I gripped a branch of the dead tree. I tugged and felt its roots deeply anchored in the rock. I paused to consider the best angle to hoist myself over the cornice.

  The wind died completely. All was still, and I took a moment to look out over creation. “Thank you,” I said out loud.

  That’s when I realized that Nola wasn’t humming anymore, and peered down to find her splayed awkwardly over the smooth rock metates where she’d been sitting. Even at a distance I could see that there was blood pooling into the mortars where she’d hit her head. I felt quite certain that Nola Devine was dead.

  The fickle wind kicked up again, driving in from the north like a train. I shouted for Vonn and Bridget but they couldn’t hear me over the gusts. “Mrs. Devine!” I called, but she lay there motionless. “MIM!” But the wind howled louder and my voice was lost in its refrain. “NOLA!” I shouted anyway. “BRIDGET! VONN!”

  I don’t remember climbing down and I don’t remember stumbling over the loose boulders to reach her but I do remember taking Nola’s good hand, relieved to find a pulse. Blood was still dripping from the gash in her forehead, but I’d seen more blood than that in one of Frankie’s six-pack-pirouettes into the bathroom sink. I had no strength to lift her, yet I did, and thanked God.

  I carried Nola to the cave, fearful for the first time since we’d become lost that one of us, or all of us, might die here. I covered her with my parka then used the sleeve of my hoodie to stop the bleeding on her forehead. Bridget and Vonn appeared looking drained and defeated. Bridget did not scream when she saw her mother’s head wound, which made me shiver. Vonn and I shared a look.

  Nola woke, confused by how she got there. I could smell her wound festering beneath the cloth bandages. “We should look at it,” Vonn said.

  Bridget stepped away when her daughter began to peel back the crusty brown fabric strips, which gave way to the freshly bloodied layer of the black bandana. “We have to clean it. We have to re-dress it. What can we use?” Vonn asked, looking around, swallowing a gag.

  “Leaves,” Byrd whispered from the trees.

  The wind caught the trees and spoke to us all. “Leaves,” it said. “Leaves,” Vonn echoed, like she’d heard too. “Don’t some leaves have medicinal powers? Like, aren’t some antibacterial?”

  “You know anything about that, Mountain Man?” Bridget asked.

  “Sterasote,” I said, aware that had the bush not blocked my path to Angel’s Peak I might not have thought of it when she asked.

  “Never heard of it,” Bridget said.

  “You know it by smell. I smelled it somewhere here. After we fell. Native Americans used it for healing everything. We could make a paste. Mash it or somet
hing.”

  “A poultice,” Vonn said.

  “Stay with Mim,” Bridget instructed Vonn, as she took my hand and dragged me into the brush. “Where? Where is it? Come on. It’s going to be dark in two minutes.”

  We searched through the brush, my eyes darting here and there. I couldn’t remember where I’d smelled that camphor smell and I started to panic that I was remembering the one that had blocked my way to Angel’s Peak and that indeed there was no sterasote bush here.

  When we came to a small clearing where Jeffrey pines framed a scarlet sunset, Bridget stopped. “Is my mother going to die?”

  A bad infection could kill a person and our circumstances were, as Nola would say, not ideal. I figure Bridget knew it too. “No,” I lied.

  I carried on, taking Bridget by the hand when she faltered. “Vonn will blame me if something happens to Mim,” Bridget said.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I ran from the bees,” Bridget said. “If I hadn’t run from the bees we would have gone to the lake and we would be home right now.”

  “It’s not your fault you’re allergic to bees.”

  “Other things are my fault,” she said. “And it looks like I’m not allergic anyway.”

  “Maybe you weren’t stung.”

  “I was stung!”

  “Okay.”

  “Imagine if your whole life you thought you were allergic to bees then found out that you weren’t. Just imagine thinking something your whole life then finding out it isn’t true.”

  “What would you have done differently?” I asked Bridget as we searched for the sterasote bush. “If you thought you weren’t allergic.”

  “Smelled more flowers,” Bridget said with a shrug. “Isn’t that a funny, stupid cliché? I would have stopped to smell the flowers, which I’ve never really done because I’m afraid of bees. Especially the roses. I would seriously stop and smell the roses.”

  The wind chased us in circles. I lifted my nose, praying to catch a whiff of the sterasote bush but my keenest sense, overwhelmed by frustration, had abandoned me. The cold wind bit my nose and cheeks, and when I looked back to find long shadows over Bridget’s slender face, I cursed the coming night.

  She moved to take the lead, but we found no sterasote bush through the pines or near the cluster of brittlebush or beyond the spiky chamise or through the common juniper.

  Night was closing in and I was annoyed when Bridget stumbled over a loose boulder and fell to her knees, then frustrated to find that she was weeping. She clearly wasn’t injured. All I could think was we don’t have time for this.

  Bridget looked up at me and asked again, “Is she going to die?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a bad infection.”

  “She’ll be all right.”

  “I can’t lose my mother, Wolf.”

  “Shh.” I didn’t know how to comfort her.

  I kneeled down beside Bridget, taking her heaving shoulders, and drew her body close to mine. The warmth of her gave me such comfort as I’d never known. We found each other’s eyes, and at that moment I caught a draft from the west and began to sneeze fiercely. “Sterasote,” I managed to say.

  I rose, helping Bridget to her feet, and drew her over the rocks and through the trees, searching for the sterasote bush, whose odour grew brighter as we got closer. I covered my nose with my jacket. “Be careful. It’s over here, close to the edge.”

  We found the bush and began to yank at the small, stubborn leaves. Quickly we snapped the dry fibrous stems, stuffing our pockets with what we hoped would be a miracle cure for Nola.

  Armed with the sterasote leaves and stems, we charged back through the brush. As we drew near the cave we were frightened to hear the strangled cries of an injured beast—a horrible screech that sounded like no night bird I knew. We scoped the trees as we hurried on.

  But it was Nola who was making the terrible sounds, as Vonn, blinking tears, cleaned the festering wound with the edge of a credit card. Her ability to stomach the task impressed me.

  Vonn looked up. “What took so long?”

  We emptied our pockets of the sterasote into the mortars in the rocks near the wall. Bridget started to pound the stems and leaves into a slimy mush with a round stone she found nearby, squinting against the vapours from the plant’s volatile oils. “This stinks,” she said.

  Together we ground the sterasote into a thick paste, while a few yards away Nola endured the vigorous cleansing of her wound.

  When I ventured back to check on Vonn’s progress, I wished I hadn’t. “How can you do that without hurling?” I wondered aloud.

  “You do what you have to do,” Vonn said. “I’m almost ready for the paste.”

  When I returned to the metates to collect the mashed sterasote with a fresh plastic credit card from Nola’s wallet, I remarked on Vonn’s ability to handle the rancid wound.

  “She gets motion sick on anything that moves but she’s fine with everything else,” Bridget said. “I have vertigo and she gets motion sick. We wouldn’t have come but then Mim confided about the secret anniversary ritual with Pip. We could see she didn’t want to go alone.”

  Bridget stopped mashing the sterasote, her attention caught by something moving on the rock beside me. Please God don’t let it be a snake.

  I glanced down and discovered, an inch away from my hand, the fat ground squirrel who’d startled us earlier. I could have snatched him, then and there. And what? Thumped him dead with a stone? Torn his flesh with my fingers and teeth, sucked his warm blood? I was revolted by the thought and would not have believed that later I’d have some graphic and disturbing fantasies about doing all of those things. “Git,” I said.

  Bridget turned to look in the direction of the cave. That morning she’d been the most optimistic of us, so sure about the helicopter, so certain of our survival. Mountain time being as it was she’d had a rapid shift in spirit. “What if we don’t make it, Wolf?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said slowly, giving the question full weight. “When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at the library. I’ve read a lot of adventure books, true stories, and I guess, if I broke it down, I’d say the most successful people in the most impossible situations are the ones who are sure they’re gonna get out of it, and they go on thinking that, even if they die trying. So that’s what we’re gonna do.”

  We fell silent. Agreed.

  The owl called from the distance.

  Bridget and I approached the cave to find Nola propped up against the rock, pale and stoic. Vonn looked at the sterasote mulch—a mound of green pulp on the credit card in my palm. She leaned over to smell it, cringing, then suggested we apply the pulp directly to the wound. “We need a clean bandage to put over top.”

  “My brassiere?” Nola offered.

  “Brassiere,” Vonn said, snorting at the word. “Here, use my brassiere.” In several deft movements she removed her bra and a long tank top undershirt without taking off the Christmas sweater Nola had given her. After scooping the sterasote mulch into one of the bra cups Vonn bound it with the undershirt while Nola shrank in pain.

  Something caught my attention—a scent on the air—and it must have been a strong scent to overpower the sterasote. I found myself sniffing the wind, a grin splitting my lips. The quiet blue fragrance meant rain. I felt instantly buoyed. “It’s going to rain tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “How do you know, Wolf?”

  “I can smell it. We have to figure out a way to collect the rainwater.”

  Nola peered at me from under half-closed lids. “My poncho,” she said. “There’s no seam in the hood. The plastic’ll hold water.”

  Vonn went to the poncho, and turning the hood inside out, saw that it made a large leak-proof container in which to collect enough rain to fill the canteen.

  “Good idea, Mim,” Vonn said.

  “Make sure those grips on the poncho are wrapped tight around the branches,” Nola said, shiveri
ng in pain.

  As Bridget and Vonn set about securing the poncho, Nola whispered to me, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not good, Mrs. Devine. You need a doctor.”

  When Bridget finished with the poncho she pulled me away from the cave, punching me hard on the arm. “Why would you tell her that?”

  “I think she knows.”

  “You know nothing! You said you knew the way when you didn’t! You said you could climb the wall and you can’t! You said tracking dogs would come and you said we’d find the granola bars. You know nothing!”

  I walked away before she could say anything more, taking my place in the cave with Nola and Vonn.

  “What was all that about?” Vonn asked.

  I shrugged, relieved that Bridget stayed outside to cool off. She was right. I’d made promises only God could keep. When she pressed in beside us a little later, I avoided her eye.

  There were scents that rose up to me that night, microscopic particles that brought odours from far away; fry grease from the fast food joint a few miles down the highway, diesel fuel, dry-rot in a wood cabin, dead koi in some distant pond. We watched the lights of Palm Springs grow in the darkness, and Vonn, mooching my thoughts, said, “I hate that it’s so close. It’s like starving with a tin of food in your hand and no way to open it.”

  “Dying of thirst on the ocean.”

  Bridget said, “One of these times, when we think it’s a helicopter it won’t be the wind.”

  “They will never fly a helicopter here,” I said, more harshly than I needed to. “Never.”

  “My dream.”

  “The air in this part of the canyon is never stable long enough for a helicopter to search. Even if they’re looking for us right now they’re not using helicopters to search Devil’s Canyon.”

  “That so?” She didn’t believe me. I could hear it in her voice. Bridget’s faith in her dream was absolute.

  Only Nola slept. Bridget and Vonn were restless, shifting and sighing. It was cold.

  “I can’t sleep,” Vonn said.

  “Me neither.”

  “We need to think of ways to make the time go faster,” I said.

  The owl flapped invisibly above us as coyotes howled in the distance. Beside us Nola kicked in her sleep. I turned to look at Bridget with her dry lips and wide eyes. Vonn’s toes burned against my flesh. Her face had grown subtly longer.