Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  Max closed his eyes and threw open some shutter in his mind. When he opened them again everything was deeper, sharper, more accentuated than before. He saw himself from a distance. There he was, or somebody was, a guy and a girl, together on a windy rock leaning into the whirling flux, nature streaming through and around them.

  Aidos pointed to the sky above where an eagle soared. Max nodded, but the nod belied the overwhelming sense of wonder he was feeling, that he felt a part of. “Cool,” he said.

  Aidos turned in his arms and kissed him again. “I’m glad you think so,” she said, and turned back around.

  Max held her. An electric thrill coursed through him. The now familiar warning bell sounded in his head. “Aidos!” he blurted. “We gotta go!”

  “A helicopter.”

  “Yeah, it’s coming through the gorge. Come on!”

  Going looked a lot trickier than coming. The first rock he had to reach was small and slippery and a good ways out. He crouched, ready to spring.

  “Wait!” she said, snatching the back of his jeans.

  “Come on, they’ll be zipping around the bend any minute!”

  “They won’t see us.”

  “Are you nuts? Of course they’ll see us. We’re standing right in their way!”

  “Not if we don’t want them to see us.”

  “What?”

  She took his hand. “You’re not afraid, are you? Because if you are, it won’t work.”

  “What won’t work?”

  “It.”

  “Huh?” Max studied her eyes for a long second. She looked so at ease and self-assured. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he told himself he was not afraid, not after all he’d been through. No way. Forget it. And if she could stand there so intrepidly, then so could he.

  “I trust you,” he said.

  “It’s not me you have to believe in. It’s you. Credo quia impossibile. I believe because it is impossible. You said it yourself—now prove it.” She nodded and turned to face the on-rushing river.

  The whacking blades of the helicopter began to reverberate between the canyon walls. Max put his arms around Aidos’ waist and planted himself firmly on the boulder. They exchanged glances one last time.

  “Ready?” she asked, pulling his arms tighter around her waist.

  “For anything,” he said.

  “Show them what you’re made of. Think light.”

  The helicopter whipped around the canyon bend. It flew fast and low. The sun exploded off its glass bubble. The drumming ruckus battered the canyon walls and scared hundreds of birds into the air.

  Then the chopper slowed, stopped, and hovered twenty yards in front of them. Max and Aidos remained as still and silent as the rock they stood on. They saw two men in the cockpit. The passenger looked directly at them and spoke into a transmitter. He squinted, his hand over his brow. Max and Aidos stared back with impregnable concentration.

  Aidos flicked her wrist at the helicopter as if at an annoying pest. “Shoo!”

  The helicopter hovered a second longer, and then darted away down the canyon corridor. Max watched, blinking in astonishment. The helicopter shrank out of view.

  “You did it!” He picked Aidos up and swung her once around. “You really did it!”

  “We did it,” she laughed.

  He set her back down and kissed her on the forehead. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Sure you did. Otherwise, they’d have seen us.”

  “But I didn’t do anything, really.”

  “You weren’t afraid, that was enough. You can’t hide behind fear. It will betray you every time. But if you are not afraid, if you are fearless, then you haven’t anything to hide and all of nature is your cloak. Now come on, we have to get going.”

  Still baffled, Max watched Aidos leap from rock to rock like a billy goat back to shore. A few minutes later, pant legs dripping, Max returned to the cave. He stood at the mouth of the cave and pensively observed Aidos as she prepared for their departure.

  65

  Destiny

  “How serious is it in Pinecrest?” Max asked.

  “We should get back as soon as possible.”

  “But it’s at least a four-day hike from here.”

  “We’ll be back by nightfall.”

  “Tonight?” Max said, incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going to sprout wings and fly, is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “This I gotta see. And what do we do when we get there?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Max, and I think that we should turn ourselves in.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have a bounty on your head. You have a plan, right?”

  “Only this…I meet with my uncle and tell him I will consent to live with him and Nancy under the condition that he drop all charges against my father, and persuade the mayor to let you off too.”

  “What?” Max said, stunned. “Forget it. No way. I’m not going to let you do that.”

  “Max—”

  Max marched up to Aidos and grabbed her shoulders as if he meant to shake some sense into her.

  “Are you nuts?” he said. “Do you know where Ed and Nancy live? They live in the city. Not just any city either, but the big city. Think about it, Aidos. No more woods, no more wide-open spaces, and no more peace and quiet. Just asphalt and skyscrapers and shopping malls, and everywhere you turn—people, cars, and incessant noise. You can’t escape any of them for a minute. I’m telling you, Aidos, you’d hate it. What would you do there?”

  “I don’t know. Ed would probably send me to school.”

  “School?! What could school possibly do for you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”

  “What would you study?”

  “Well, I thought—”

  “Never mind. I’m sure you’d be brilliant at whatever you chose. The point is, I don’t want to see you forced into anything.”

  “Nobody is forcing me, Max. I knew I’d eventually have to leave. I’m ready now.”

  Max took her by the hand and led her outside the cave. He sat her down on a fallen log and began to pace.

  “I just don’t think you understand what you would be getting yourself into,” he said. “You don’t live in a city; you fester. And it’s not just a mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation either. There’s nothing quiet about it. City people are loud, rude, and obnoxious. Carping and complaining is their pastime; worrying and whining their chief sources of exercise.”

  “Max—”

  “And down there everything is plastic and phony, from the cards in their wallets to the smiles on their faces. Even their laughter is fake. It’s either forced or at someone else’s expense. They don’t chuckle; they snicker. They don’t guffaw; they snort. In the city, there’s always some paw on your shoulder, some nose in your face, some finger popping you on the chest. Did I mention lying and cheating? In the city—”

  “Max!”

  “What? Can’t you see I’m on a roll here?”

  “I know about all that. It’s okay. I can deal with it. I want to deal with it.”

  “If you don’t have to, why would you want to?”

  “I like people. And they have a lot to teach me.”

  “Aidos, if anyone has something to teach, it’s you. And what about your dad? What do you think he would say?”

  “I don’t want him to go to jail.”

  “He doesn’t have to! Listen, we can all live together somewhere. Another state, another country even. You, your dad, Ricki and Samantha—we could do it. Together we could get them out and disappear. Steve and the others would help us.”

  “That sounds really nice, Max, but it’s just not meant to be that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have another destiny, Max.”

  “What do you know about my destiny?” he said, irritated.

  “Only this—
that you are a born leader.”

  “I’m sorry, Aidos, but this time you’re wrong. The last thing I want to do is to lead anybody anywhere. All I want to do is get my girls back and mind my own business.”

  “Wherever you go, Max, people are going to look up to you. They are going to trust you, and you won’t let them down.”

  “I won’t allow them to look to me,” he said.

  “What are you afraid of, Max?”

  “Nothing,” he said brusquely. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “Exactly. And that is why they will always look to you. Do you remember when we used to talk about aretê?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you remember what it means?”

  “It means excellence.”

  “Excellence that comes from the developing of inborn capacities,” she clarified. “The perfection that comes from being truly oneself. You are far from aretê, Maxwell Stormer, but you are a lot closer to aretê than you are to the person you were one year ago. And there’s no turning back. You might even say you live in an entirely different world.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I live in a different world too.”

  “Different than mine?”

  “In some ways, yes.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be together, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t. But not right now. The best thing now is for me to go away with my uncle.”

  “The best thing is for us to go away together!”

  “Max…”

  “Aidos,” he said, leaping to her side, his legs straddling the log. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Max.”

  “No, no,” he said shaking his head. “You don’t get it. I don’t just love you. I’m in love with you. I want to marry you.”

  Aidos turned to him and took his hands in hers. “Max, I’m not yet sixteen.”

  “So what? In another time, you’d almost be considered an old maid. It’s only natural to fall in love and marry when you’re young. I’m ready now. What would waiting solve? I don’t need to shop around. I love you, Aidos. I think we could be happy together.”

  “Max, you love Katie.”

  This caused him some reflection. “Yeah…I love Katie.” He reflected some more. He shrugged. “I’d love to marry you both!” A big, dreamy smile flooded his face. “But it doesn’t matter because I asked her and she’s not interested.”

  “I’m sure she loves you, Max.”

  “Do you love me, Aidos?”

  “Very much.”

  “Okay, forget about marriage. We can live together. I have some money. We can build a new Camelot. Imagine it, Aidos! You, me, the girls, Beowulf. Can’t forget about Beowulf. We’ll build the perfect cabin together miles away from anybody. And everyday we’ll walk in the woods, and we’ll read and study and talk about what we learned. And you can teach the twins everything you know. And we’ll grow our own food, dig our own well. Be completely self-reliant! Let the world hang itself. What do we need it for? I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but we could do it. We really could do it! Let’s build our own world, Aidos. Come on, what do you say?”

  She reached for Max and kissed him on the lips and then hugged and held him tight.

  “Feel this,” he said, placing her hand on his chest. “Can you feel it? Can you hear it? It’s like I just ran for a ninety-yard touchdown. It happens whenever I’m around you. It’s yours. Take it. I want you to have it.”

  “It’s a beautiful heart, Max. A big heart. Too big to beat alone in the woods somewhere. You have too much to give and too much to do. The world needs people like you, Max. And although you don’t realize it now, you need the world.”

  “Not that again,” he groaned. “I don’t want to hear about it. I’ll decide my own fate, thank you. I’m a free man.”

  “Yes, you are. Free to choose. Do you choose aretê?”

  “Yes.”

  “We possess many selves, Max, like rungs on a ladder. We have no permanent ‘I,’ but only identify with a particular rung on the ladder. As you climb, each rung has its own realm of possibility. Continue on the road to aretê, and you will become another sort of man, and another, and another. Each rung is like entering upon a new reality with its own laws and limitations—its own freedom and choices, and inherent responsibilities. To know yourself is to know your rung, and to know your rung is to advance to another.”

  “And love?” he said. “What does love have to do with any of this?”

  “I said I love you, Max.”

  “So, what’s the problem? Be with me. Don’t leave. You don’t belong in the city. And you certainly don’t belong with Ed. You belong with me. We have something special together, something magical. You know that.”

  “I do know that. But for now we have different—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Destinies. Got it. You said that already.”

  “Okay, forget about that, then,” she said. “What about your plans? I thought you wanted to travel the world. I thought you wanted to be a rogue scholar.”

  “I changed my mind. You are enough of the world for me, Aidos. Loving you would be a journey no number of trips around the world could match. I’d rather explore you than the Nile. I’d rather discover you than any lost city. I’d rather know your heart than any other wonder on earth. What adventure could be more thrilling and exotic than loving you?”

  “That’s sweet, Max.”

  “Sweet!” He grabbed her shoulders. “You just don’t get it, do you?” He looked away and then back again. “…You know, I thought you said you were ready for anything.”

  “I am.”

  “But not love?”

  “Max—”

  “Because if you’re not ready for love then you aren’t ready for diddly.”

  “Max, you don’t understand—”

  He leapt up from the log and began to pace again. “I don’t know what you girls want. I don’t know why it all has to be so difficult. Look… No, forget it. Let’s get going…” He started to march off and then halted and looked up at the sky. It was perfectly blue but for a couple of lazy, fluffy white clouds. “There’s another big storm coming, isn’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’d better hurry. Come on.”

  “Max,” Aidos said.

  “What?” he grumbled.

  “Don’t be angry at me.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m—”

  “Don’t be hurt either.”

  “I’ll get over it.”

  “You’ll do much better than that, Max. You have no idea.”

  “Yeah, well, one thing at a time.”

  “Can I tell you something you might like?”

  Max shrugged, indifferent.

  “It’s something Henry Thoreau once wrote in his journal.”

  “Yeah, so…”

  “He said that the only remedy for love, is to love more.”

  Max laced his fingers behind his head and thought about it. “Saint Henry said that?”

  Aidos smiled. “Yeah.”

  Max mulled it over some more. “You know,” he said, “the guy never kissed a girl in his life.”

  Aidos laughed and gave Max a playful shove.

  “But that’s good, very good. Spoken like a true lover.”

  “Like you, Max.” Aidos turned and walked back into the cave and returned a minute later with a small daypack and her bow and quiver of arrows. She tossed Max the pack and started walking. “Come on lover,” she said.

  After two hours of hiking, Max said, “Short cut or no short cut, Pinecrest is at least a two-day hike from here.”

  “Who said anything about walking?”

  “Yeah, well I don’t see any flying carpet around here.”

  “Not yet you don’t. March!”

  They walked for another half a mile to where the woods thinned to a large meadow.

  “I thought you said we weren’t going to walk.”

  “Shh… Close your
mouth and open your mind.”

  Aidos led him to the center of the meadow. She stood quietly for a long minute and then put her fingers to her mouth and whistled loud and sharp. Max spun and saw a large black stallion charge out from the edge of the meadow. Aidos raised her hand and the horse slowed to a trot and stopped at her side. He let out a snort and Aidos petted his neck and kissed him on the nose.

  “He’s beautiful!” Max exclaimed.

  “Isn’t he?”

  “Is he…yours?”

  “You might say I’m borrowing him.”

  “From whom?”

  She shrugged, smiled, and said, “God?”

  “What do you call him?”

  “Bucephalus.”

  “You named your horse after a venereal disease?” Max said.

  “No, wisenheimer. Bucephalus was the name of Alexander the Great’s horse. He broke him in when he was just a boy. Plutarch tells the story. Upon his back Alexander conquered the world.”

  “Can’t I just call him, Boo?”

  “Look how noble he is,” she said. “Bucephalus.” Then with a swift and graceful toss of her leg, she leapt deftly onto his back.

  Seeing Aidos on top of the mighty steed—her bow and arrows around her back, hair tossing in the wind, poised and august—he was again reminded of Joan of Arc. She offered him her hand. Max took it and catapulted himself behind her.

  “Where to now, oh Maid of Pinecrest?”

  “There’s an old logging road that begins not far from here. We can take that all the way to the main highway. If we ride like the wind, we’ll be home before dusk. Hold on tight.”

  Max lashed his arms around Aidos’ waist. “I’m right behind you.”

  66

  Nuts

  It was a standoff. Nobody dared flinch. The troopers, their rifles still pointed in the faces of the snarling dogs, looked anxiously at their commander for instructions. Even the cameramen and photographers stayed put. Dark, muscular clouds built in the west and a crisp wind fanned the air.

  “You have been given fair warning,” the commander bellowed. “Quit now before somebody gets hurt.”

  “Live deep, live real. Stand steady, no deal!”