East of the Mountains

by David Guterson

  Ben left and pressed on, past the United Church of Christ, past Verdah's Department Store and the Quincy water tower. The town lay sleepy and leaden, and except for the shade trees raging in the wind there was no other sound. On C Street he passed El Molino Bakery—TORTILLERIA Y PANADERIA it read in the dusty plate-glass window. There were no customers there, and none at Royer's Home Furnishing or any of the other stores. The town seemed uninhabited, yet as he crossed Central, a yard dog came out, a blunt, tough-looking stump of a dog who barked at him threateningly. Ben walked by with one hand on his hat to keep it from flying off.

  The bus stop was at the edge of town, out near the Great Northern railroad tracks, beyond which lay a liquid fertilizer plant and a big diatomite processor. Tumbleweed skittered down B Street toward him, and three children huddled underneath a blanket in the backseat of a rusting, dilapidated Buick parked at the Quincy Food Bank. Across the street stood a fence handcrafted out of stray bits of corrugated roofing metal salvaged or plundered from a refuse yard. Its gate chattered raspingly when the wind rippled through it.

  At the bus stop all the planter boxes were empty. There was the red, white, and blue image of a greyhound overhead, a sign advertising WESTERN UNION, another PACKAGE EXPRESS. All were attached to a slatternly storefront, and through its grimy window Ben saw rows of unpainted ceramic figurines—dinosaurs, Indians, Pilgrims, ghosts, tigers, dwarfs, elephants—some of a size to stand in gardens, others more appropriate as mantel knickknacks or to adorn tabletops and shelves. He pushed his way through the heavy door, pulled off his hat, set his rucksack on the floor, and bought a bus ticket from the clerk at the counter, a woman dressed in purple warm-ups and a patriotic-print nylon windbreaker, who was hard at work with a razor blade, shaving clay from a figurine of Snow White. Broad liver spots mottled her hands. She was neither friendly nor discourteous to him. She expressed no curiosity about his eye, and he guessed she knew, from long experience, that there might be trouble inquiring. She made out his ticket for the Wenatchee run with a slow, troubled inefficiency, as if writing was a trial. Her letters were tall, with shaky, large loops. She paused, adjusted the set of her glasses, then finished writing his ticket. A pottery kiln gave heat beside her. The rest of the room was cold.

  "Bus ought to be here in about three minutes," she told Ben, handing him the ticket. "You can wait in the doorway, if you want."

  Ben half-turned to take in the displays of angels, baying wolves, Indians on horseback, impressively antlered elk and deer, fringed frontiersmen, and wood fairies. "Did you make all these?" he asked.

  "I did," said the woman. "All of them."

  "Can you sell them here? Do you get customers?"

  "Not really," said the woman. "No."

  She took up her razor blade again and went back to cutting small shavings of clay from the crown of Snow White's head. "There's no money in this," she said. "That's the way it goes."

  "They're really good," Ben said.

  "I've been doing it a long time."

  "That's the way to get good at something."

  "Well, I don't know what else I'd do. Too much time on my hands."

  "It's a good hobby," Ben told her.

  The woman looked up. "Hobby," she said. "I hate that word."

  "Sorry," said Ben. "Me, too."

  They looked at each other warily. The bus pulled up to the curb outside, raising dust in the street. The brakes gave a hydraulic gasp, and the door hinged open noisily. The driver bounded down the steps with theatrical resolve and energy, a crisp, neat man of thirty-five, his hairline prominently receding. He wore wraparound sunglasses and carried a pair of leather driving gloves. Pushing through the door of the little shop, he swung off his cap, high-stepped and saluted, snapping it low off one eyebrow. He said to Ben, "Hi-dee ho!"

  "Hi-dee ho," Ben answered.

  "Stow your bag?"

  "I'll keep it with me."

  "Where to?"

  "Just to Wenatchee."

  "Trip to the doctor?"

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  "Boxing practice?"

  "Sure. You and me."

  The driver whipped off his sunglasses. "Whenever you're ready," he said, grinning. "I'll tag that other eye."

  The shop clerk laughed—the twitter of a bird—and her exasperation was evident. "Men," she said, shaking her head, her wrists turned back against her hips. "My God. What is it with men? Whatever will we do with you?"

  To Ben's surprise, the bus was crowded. Most of the passengers looked wan, road-weary. Small televisions sat mounted on high, but no one had them on. A wastebasket, clinched by a bungee cord to the back of the drivers seat, was full of hamburger and candy wrappers, cola cans, paper cups—all the refuse of travelers passing tedious, interminable miles in a ruinous highway torpor. A teenager in the front row slept against the window, his mouth gaping wide. A bag of Cheetos lay open beside him, as well as a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola and a gaudy paperback with a submarine on its cover. Behind him sat a black man with his hair in shiny ringlets, eating an Almond Joy. On his knees was a briefcase with a combination lock. He spoke softly with another black man, who wore a Nike Air billed cap and sat with his legs crossed effeminately. In the next row a fat man with headphones clutched a tiny cassette player, drummed his prominent belly, and occasionally stopped beating rhythm to the music to caress his long gray locks. There was a cheerless couple of approximately Bens age, looking washed-out and diminished by their journey, and even vaguely humiliated, as if riding the Greyhound was beneath them. Farther along was a very young woman traveling with three small children. A baby slept on the seat beside her, and the other two children wriggled, slouched, and slithered about as if underwater—first with their feet running up the backrests, then coiled like fraternizing sea snakes, then curled like small human seals. A coloring book lay on the floor beneath them, crayons scattered about. In the back of the bus rode three young men Ben guessed were apple pickers coming in late for the harvest, migrants following the crop even now, this far into the fall. They were all nut-brown and dusty. One sat tightly wrapped in a blanket, shivering and sweating from a fever, wracked by a sputum-filled cough.

  Ben sat down amid these strangers and looked up at the bus driver, who stood before them pulling on his leather gloves, securing them against his fingertips as if he were a gunslinger or a surgeon, YOUR OPERATOR, read a sign above his head, SAFE, RELIABLE, COURTEOUS. The driver made a final adjustment at the thumbs, flicked a lever that shut the door—it gave a soft, hydraulic sigh—then took his palm-sized microphone in hand, working its handset cord. His eyes were still concealed from view behind his sunglasses. "Hey, all right," he said in the voice of a man who considers himself a stand-up comic. "We have a new passenger riding to Wenatchee, and that's good, that's excellent, so why don't we all just sit back now and enjoy the ride, let me do the driving, relax and we'll all go Greyhound together—let's get this show on the road!"

  The driver adjusted himself on his throne. He pulled out, rumbled through town, and turned onto the highway. The bus shook as it picked up speed. Its ventilators hummed with a steady insistence. The passengers were jostled and stirred a little, readjusting their legs or heads or turning to look out the windows. Opposite Ben a girl slept with her face beneath her upper arm, a hardbound book propped open beside her, pages down, spine showing. The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolf Steiner. Subtitled The Basis for a Modern World Conception. She wore blue jeans many sizes too large, and when she moved her arm and half-sat up, he saw the ring impaling her nose. A compact girl, her hair tinted green, freckles on her cheeks and nose, fundamentally pleasing to look at. When she noticed that he was staring her way, he pretended to look past her at the orchards along the road, but she straightened up, stared back at him, and asked what happened to his eye.

  "I took a baseball bat to it," Ben said, "so I'd have a conversation starter."

  "Its gross," said the girl. "I mean, really."

  "True, but its been worth it," Ben
said. "I've had interesting conversations."

  The girl smiled, and he saw crooked teeth, but their asymmetry was a quiet thing and carried with it a certain charm. Her smile was unguarded and suggested to Ben that she was not afraid to speak to a stranger, an old and battered vagabond. "You look totally wasted," she said to him.

  "I am wasted," he agreed. "That's a good way of putting it."

  The bus slowed for a crew of linemen unspooling cable at roadside. There were low sloughs of water, aluminum silos, and rows of trellised apples. The sunlight pooled over everything, and the wind blew briskly in the trees. He could hear it whistling through the windows.

  In the back of the bus, the sick fruit picker began to cough. A phlegm-filled cough, coarse and rough, so that Ben turned to look at him. The picker wore his blanket like a hood.

  "Your book," Ben said, "looks a little profound. Not really typical bus reading, is it? The Philosophy of Freedom?"

  "I'm just reading it," the girl replied, handing it across the aisle. "It looked kind of interesting."

  "The Philosophy of Freedom," Ben repeated. "Are you a college student?"

  The girl touched a pimple festering on her chin. "I'm working on my master's," she said. "At WSU, on Goethe, his poetry. The author of this book—Rudolf Steiner—edited Goethe's scientific writings. I've gotten kind of sidetracked into him. Have you heard of anthroposophy?"

  "I have," said Ben. "I know the term. But I don't know what it means."

  "It's from Steiner here," the girl said. "It's a spiritual thing, a philosophy. And I really relate to what he's saying. To the point where I'm thinking of changing my thesis, focusing more on Steiner."

  "Why not? It's your thesis, after all."

  "It's just kind of late. I'm so far into Goethe."

  "You've got your whole life, though."

  "I don't know."

  "Believe me," said Ben. "You do."

  The girl turned fully toward him now. "Where are you from?" she asked.

  "Here. Hereabouts. A little north of here."

  "You mean you live here?"

  "No, I was born here."

  "You live somewhere else."

  "Over in Seattle."

  "Me, too. I grew up over there."

  "Two west-siders," Ben said.

  There was the chatter of the children in the row behind them and the hacking of the apple picker. The bus dropped toward the Columbia. A steep draw gaped beside the road, throttled by sage and sumac. In the distance ran the railroad tracks and a stark web of power lines against the dry, auburn hills.

  "Anthroposophy," Ben said. "Now you've got me curious. You have to tell me about it."

  "That guy," the girl said, lowering her voice. "He's been coughing like that for hours now."

  "It doesn't sound good," Ben agreed.

  "Well, anyway," the girl went on, "it's this spiritual thing, I guess is how to put it. It's like there's this spiritual dimension people just don't see. Because they're so occupied with the material world. And in anthroposophy you try to reach it. You train your consciousness to rise above the physical. It's mostly an intellectual thing. You use your mind, you train yourself."

  "That—to me—doesn't sound so unusual. I'm no expert on these matters, but I'd guess most religions would say the same—that it takes mental discipline to find spiritual truth. This anthroposophy, as you describe it, doesn't sound so unique."

  "I guess," said the girl. "Yeah, okay. But this was back around the turn of the century. People weren't thinking the same way then. Materialism had no counterbalance, except a few intellectuals like Steiner."

  "Tell me," Ben said. "This spiritual realm. This dimension you use your mind to discover. Is it life after death? What most people would call heaven?"

  "I can't say," the girl replied. "But no, Steiner doesn't put it like that. Angels playing harps in the clouds, if that's what you mean, no."

  "But does he describe it, this spiritual place? In some other way? Not angels?"

  "I haven't finished the book yet. It might be in a later chapter."

  "I wonder if he will," Ben said. "And I wonder how he'll claim to know."

  "You get there with your mind. You don't have to die first."

  "So it isn't life after death, then. It's something else, not heaven."

  "It's something else," the girl agreed. "Steiner doesn't talk about angels."

  "Well, angels wouldn't be bad," said Ben, handing back the book.

  She took it and set it on the seat beside her, rested her forearms on her knees, and dangled her loose hands in front of her. "You're a skeptic," she said accusingly. "You're way too analytical."

  "Skeptic, yes," Ben said. "I don't accept things easily, I have questions, I'm a skeptic. Analytical—maybe, but no more than Rudolf Steiner. Didn't you say gaining the spiritual realm was a matter of using your mind?"

  "Yeah, but its also spiritual. You have to accept that it isn't just intellectual. You have to believe it's out there."

  "What's out there?"

  "The other world."

  "I'll believe it when I see it."

  "That's circular logic."

  "Circular is good. It keeps me here."

  "If you like going in circles," said the girl. "Okay, fine, you're here."

  "Where else would I want to be? Out there with the stars?"

  "If you feel that way, death is too scary. But if you believe there's this spiritual realm, you're not afraid to die."

  "You're not afraid?"

  "No. I'm not."

  "That's good. I'm terrified."

  "That's because you don't believe in something."

  "No," said Ben. "It's because I'm older. Death isn't real at your age."

  The girl leaned toward him, animated now. "Yes, it is. I've thought about it. Death is totally real for me. Don't say that. Death is real."

  "It's easy to say," Ben said. "But try to imagine it."

  "I have," said the girl. "I'm not afraid."

  Ben smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. "This is why I smashed my eye," he said. "You see what I mean? It works."

  The girl laughed and took her foot in her hands; she was limber in an easy, unathletic way and looked comfortable sitting tailor-fashion. "It's weird," she said, "but you remind me a lot of this doctor I had when I was growing up."

  "Did he have a black eye?"

  "He had glasses like yours."

  "I was a doctor, too," said Ben. "I retired a year and a half ago."

  "Well, maybe you should look at that guy back there, then. He's really sick, I think."

  "Maybe you're right," Ben agreed. "But what if he speaks only Spanish? I won't know what to say."

  "That's all right," the girl said. "I took Spanish as an undergrad."

  "Are you pretty good?"

  "I read Don Quixote."

  "What did you think?"

  "I loved it," said the girl.

  "Quixote's mad."

  "Much madness is divinest sense." She admonished him with a forefinger. "That's Emily Dickinson."

  "Much madness can just be madness, too. What is it Sancho Panza calls him? Knight of the Mournful Countenance?"

  "I wouldn't talk," the girl warned, "with your eye swollen that way."

  Ben looked at the picker again. One of his companions looked back at Ben, calmly, showing nothing. He wore a cap emblazoned with the name of a fruit company, DOLE.

  "Come on," said the girl. "The guy's messed up. Take a look at him."

  Ben felt a surge of affection for her. He wanted her to believe in decency. "If you'll translate," he said.

  She stood up with no hesitation. She smiled at him, her hands in her pockets. "Come on," she said.

  "You keep yourself back a little. You don't want him breathing on you."

  "You look out, too. Wear a mask or something."

  "I don't have one."

  "Use a handkerchief."

  "I'll be fine. I know what to do."

  "What's your name, by th
e way?" said the girl. "Just in case they ask."

  Ben told her. Then she gave him hers. "Catherine," she said. "Catherine Donnelly."

  She led the way. She stood in the aisle next to the pickers who, up close, looked to Ben like boys younger than seventeen. "Es doctor," said Catherine, pointing at Ben. "Es médico. Quiere ayudar."

  All three looked at her, then at Ben, then away again. The one by the window stared out with no expression—a dark boy with a thick pug nose, his black hair swept up and pomaded, a faint mustache above his lip. The sick one shut his eyes with a listless resignation, the blanket draped closely over his head so that only his mouth, nose, and brow showed. The one in the Dole cap removed it from his head and set it gently in his lap. His hair was shorn close to his skull, except for a long black ponytail sprouting from the base of his neck. "No se preocupe," he replied. "Un resfriado. Nada más."

  "He thinks it's just a cold," said Catherine. "What do you want me to tell them?"

  "Tell him it isn't just a cold," said Ben. "Tell him the coughing is serious. And tell him he doesn't have to pay me."

  "Es muy serio," said Catherine. "Pulmonia. Tuberculoso. Es muy serio. El médico, no va a cobrarle. Es gratis, entiende?"

  There was no answer. The one by the window appraised her with suspicion. "El médico generoso," she said. "Gratuito. Un hombre de Dios. Un ángel de Dios. Muy bien." She touched the sick one's shoulder, lightly. "Hace cuánto tiempo que usted está así?" she asked. "I asked him how long he's been sick," she told Ben. "Just to get things started."

  "That's good," said Ben. "Keep it going."

  The sick boy didn't answer. Ben looked up the aisle of the bus. A number of the passengers had turned around and were watching him and Catherine. The driver watched through his rearview mirror. They were passing along the river now, not far from the place where Ben had been born. Orchards stretched away north and south. The poplars stood tall in the wind.

  Catherine sat down across the aisle. Ben could see the boy better now. His eyes were bloodshot, his eyelids crusted, his cheeks gleamed with sweat.