Mountain Solo

by Jeanette Ingold

  "But you must have known it from someplace!"

  I shook my head. I knew I'd never heard that perfect music before because if I had, I wouldn't have forgotten it.

  MOM TOOK MY drawings to my violin lesson the next day. After I'd played them for Mr. Dreyden, he looked at me with an expression as odd as the tone in Mom's voice the afternoon before. "Good lord," he said. "I never dreamed ... Oh, my dear young Tess."

  Mom and Dad talked late that night, their muffled words going on long after they put me to bed.

  At breakfast the next morning the conversation became a triangle. Mom talked to me. "Tessie, your father is having a hard time grasping the significance of what you've done."

  Dad talked to her "Sharon, I'm not minimizing Tessie's accomplishment."

  Mom told me, "We've been discussing the next step. I think it's time to place you with a teacher who can make the most of your talent. But your father doesn't understand—"

  Dad interrupted her with a wave. "I'm not saying she doesn't have a gift, but we've got Drey to thank for bringing it out. He's a fine musician and a good friend, and I don't see how you can tell him we want somebody better."

  "You'd put a friend before your daughter?" Mom asked. She turned back to me. "Tessie, get your violin and play the start of that symphony for your father."

  "I heard it last night," Dad told her.

  "Tessie," Mom said, "your violin."

  Dad folded his arms across his chest and kept them that way while I played. He stopped looking so certain, though.

  When I lowered my violin, Mom asked, "Well, Stephen? Do you really think Drey's feelings are more important than Tessie's future?"

  Dad put his hand under my chin and tilted my face so that he could look into my eyes. "Pumpkin?"

  Because I wasn't sure what he was asking, I didn't answer.

  Mom said, "Remember I was right about when to give Tessie a violin and when to start her on lessons."

  Dad smoothed back my hair before he stood up. "I hope you were right. I wish I could be as sure as you." He pulled on his jacket. "Do as you think necessary, but don't lost sight of our daughter She's still a child."

  After he left, Mom loaded dishes into the dishwasher while I stayed at the table and thought over everything they'd said. When I was sure I had it right, I said, "Please don't make Mr. Dreyden stop being my teacher."

  Mom didn't answer so I said it again louder "Mom, please don't make Mr. Dreyden stop being my teacher."

  She wedged a pitcher into the bottom rack and then sat down next to me. "Your father trusts me to know what's best for you, Tessie, and you must also." She gave me a smile that I didn't all-the-way believe. "It's not as if you won't ever see Mr. Dreyden again. You can visit him, and when you give your first recital, we'll be sure to send him an invitation."

  Tess

  Meg takes Amy to a 4-H meeting after supper.

  Then Dad gets called back to his veterinary clinic and I go along, staying in the reception room while he and the nighttime assistant work on a Lab pup that tangled with a raccoon. Like our house, the clinic is a mix of familiar and new. Same animal scale, new vinyl floor Same molded plastic chairs, new dog biscuit jars on the counter.

  While I wait, I look at Dad's bulletin board, which I remember because I used to take care of it. Sandwiched among pet photos are pictures of some of the wild creatures that my father helps rehabilitators care for There's one spectacular shot of a great horned owl, and when Dad's assistant, Janie, comes out to get something, I ask her about it.

  "That's Midnight," she says. "A bow hunter wounded him last fall, and the poor owl was here so long he and your father become friends."

  "Is Dad doing very much rehab work?" I ask.

  "As much as he can," Janie tells me. "It's where his heart is." She looks at me with an expression I can't read. "Too bad that kind of work doesn't pay the bills."

  "HOW'S THE DOG?" I ask Dad as we pull out of the parking lot.

  "Full of stitches, but he'll live to get into more mischief. The last time we saw that pup, he'd tried to hassle a skunk!"

  "I heard about Midnight," I say. "Were you able to fix him up?"

  "That tough old guy?" Dad chuckles. "I took Amy to watch his release just last month. It was the funniest thing Midnight flapped to a nearby tree and then gave us a long, knowing look before he flew off, strong as ever He almost seemed to be saying good-bye."

  "Or maybe thanks," I suggest.

  "That might be a stretch," Dad replies, but I can tell he's tickled.

  "So," I say, "does Amy hang around the clinic much?"

  "All she can. Just the way you used to."

  He chuckles again, and I know we're both remembering how seriously I took my Saturday-morning job washing kennel runs. Dad used to say the president of the United States himself probably couldn't hire better help. Feeling very worldly, I'd say, "But we better hope he does."

  Now I ask, "And is Amy as good a worker as I was?"

  "Not quite as stick-to-a-task reliable with cleanup chores, but she's got a feel for the animals. She knocks herself out caring for die boarding pets, and I've seen her sit for hours soothing a cat that's come through a hard time."

  "You think she'll become a vet?"

  "She's got a lot of years to decide that, but it wouldn't surprise me. Vet or wildlife biologist maybe. You should have seen her with Midnight. She'd stand at his cage and talk to him, and he'd stare back as though he understood every word. I'm sure his good-bye was for both of us."

  I'm not jealous, but I do feel a little forgotten hearing how Amy's taken over my old job and turned it into more than I ever made of it. Maybe if things had been different—maybe if I'd never started playing violin or maybe if I'd started later; hadn't had the talent, hadn't left Montana—I'd be the one still helping Dad.

  As though he's been following my thoughts, Dad says, "There was once a time I thought you might choose some kind of an outdoors career yourself; but then nothing seemed to have the pull on you that your violin did."

  "No," I say.

  We drive several blocks before Dad asks, "Are you going to tell me what went wrong?"

  "I don't know myself exactly," I answer I hesitate and then ask, "Dad, would you mind if I stayed here? Permanently, I mean, and not go back to New York?"

  "This is your home," he says, "and you know I'd love to have you back here. But that would be a pretty major U-turn for you. You want to talk to your old man about it?"

  I shake my head. "It's something I've got to figure out for myself."

  He nods. "Well, when you do want to talk, remember I'm ready to listen. I may not be able to help, but I'll try my hardest and—"

  "I know, Dad. And that's all a mule can do, right?"

  He laughs. "I haven't heard that in years."

  "You're the one who used to say it. Remember? When I'd get mad because I couldn't do something just right, you'd tell me, 'Do your best, Tess. That's all a mule can do'..." My voice trails off as I think about that. "Sometimes that's not enough, is it?"

  "No," he says, and the way he says that one word, I know he's aching for me. "Sometimes it's not."

  The house is quiet now, but the light of a full moon keeps me awake. My mind turns like the second hand on a clock sweeping past each mark—Dad, Mom, my violin, Mr. Dreyden, Ben, New York, Montana, Meg, Amy, Midnight, Katharina, her father's old violin....

  Poor Katharina, thinking that after all these years it could just be taken out and played.

  Violins shouldn't disappoint. There ought to be a law against it.

  The moonlight is bright enough that I can see the shelf of dolls that someone's moved from my old room to here. They're old friends: Mama Bunny and Ellie Elephant, the brocade Dancing Lady, and Miss Petunia. They're in the wrong order though, and wearing one another's clothes. Amy's doing, I guess.

  I get up to wind the Dancing Lady on her music box stand, and then I switch on the ancient melody that lulled me to sleep when I was a little gi
rl.

  I wonder what I could tell Ben if I called him, if I knew where to call. He'd want to know when I'm returning to New York. I wouldn't know what to answer.

  SOMETIME LATER I'm jolted awake by a nightmare in which my hands are tightly bound and their backs laced with sutures. Someone is taking away my violin, saying, "You won't need this anymore. You won't need this anymore." My palms hurt from my fingernails digging into them.

  Katharina, I think, as I shake off the bad dream. Seeing her scars must have planted the seed for the nightmare.

  I get up and rub lotion on my hands, and before I go back to bed I open my window to the reassuring spit-spit-spit of a lawn sprinkler It's one sound I never hear in New York.

  I WAKE BEFORE seven o'clock the next morning, dress, and take my extra camping clothes down to the basement where Dad and Meg are loading gear into backpacks. They've got stuff spread out from one side of the playroom to the other.

  Dad asks, "Think it'll all go in?"

  "I don't know," I answer eyeing how much is left: sleeping bags and ground pads, cooking utensils, rainwear hats and gloves for early mornings and cool evenings, a water filter a collapsible stove and fuel, matches, cups, powdered milk, freeze-dried food. "I guess it's got to."

  I offer to get breakfast for everyone, and Meg's "Thanks" sounds really grateful.

  Amy doesn't help so much as bounce around, but her enthusiasm is catching and I find myself beginning to look forward to the day. Or maybe I'm just excited because I can still lift my pack once it's bulging with my share of the supplies.

  From home, it's a short walk to the trailhead, but it feels like moving from one world to another One moment we're striding along Rattlesnake Drive, keeping out of the way of cars, our talk drowned out by the power mowers of a lawn-care crew. Minutes later we're in a cool, quiet forest world where insects clack, conifers scent the air and the ground feels good underfoot.

  We stop near a Forest Service bulletin board to adjust our packs, and Amy wants to know about a pair of notices that show a bear and a lunging cougar Although she stands on tiptoe, they're too high up for her to read.

  I tell her that they say not to wear purple in the backcountry unless you want to be mistaken for a huckleberry.

  "No! Really?"

  I scan the papers. "They warn against surprising animals on the trail or leaving out food where it will attract them."

  "Everybody knows not to do that," she says.

  A half mile in along Rattlesnake Creek, we get to Spring Gulch and the Stuart Peak trail. Reaching the top is our day's goal: 7,960 feet high. About eight miles according to the trail sign—and all of it uphill—and in my opinion the sooner we start, the more likely it is we'll make it.

  But Meg wants to detour to inspect the remains of an old bridge. "It's part of the Rattlesnake's history. Come on. You all should see it."

  She veers down a narrow path, the rest of us following, and then disappears into a thicket of shrubs. Amy and I start after her but Dad puts a hand on my shoulder and points. Amy stops, also.

  At first I don't see anything special, but then I hear something fly close by my ear.

  There it is. An iridescent green hummingbird no bigger than my thumb hovers in midair I flash Dad a grin, thinking that the bird is what he wanted me to see, but he shakes his head and points again. "Look in the bush behind her."

  Sitting side by side on a thin branch are two baby hummers. They can't be much more than an inch long each, and while I watch, the hovering mother bird pokes her needle-like beak into a baby's mouth.

  "She's feeding it!" Amy exclaims, and immediately the parent hummer speeds by us, out of sight.

  "You scared her" I say.

  "I didn't!"

  Dad motions us to be quiet. Hie mother bird has returned and is now gathering nectar from a small cascade of white blossoms, the only ones left on a shrub almost done with blooming.

  We watch her go back and forth between flowers and the babies, getting food and feeding them. The birds are so tiny, it's like watching creatures in a fairy world.

  And then, suddenly, this other hummingbird, rusty orange and half again the size of the green one, swoops in like a dive-bomber taking over It samples the flowers and then flits furiously back and forth and around, wings buzzing with a metallic whirrrr, and there is no way the tiny green bird is going to get more food for her babies.

  When I look to see how the babies are doing, they've disappeared. Then the adults are gone, too.

  "Wow," Dad says. "In all my years of birding, I've never seen a hummingbird feed its young."

  "I hate that big one," Amy says. "Don't you, Tess?"

  "Well, not hate it, but I feel sorry for the littler ones that got driven away. They were calliopes, right, Dad?"

  He nods, looking delighted that I've remembered their name. "Stellula calliope, and the aggressive one was a rufous."

  I'd like to wait and see if either comes back, but Meg calls, "Are you three lost?"

  "Coming," Dad answers, and he leads the way through a final stretch of thick bushes.

  Amy, treading almost on my heels, turns the Latin into rap. "Stel-luuu-la-ca-li-o-pe, Ste-looo-loo..."

  WE EMERGE AT the top of an old concrete bridge abutment. Another crumbling support stands opposite, and the creek rushes below, no longer spanned.

  "What is this place?" I ask, watching Meg work her way down the bank.

  Dad answers, "The original way into the upper Rattlesnake, from back when there were still people living up here. Right, Meg?"

  "You got it," she agrees, halting on a rocky crescent of shore. "From where you are, one road went up to the Spring Gulch meadow and another followed the main creek. Every time homesteaders like Frederik Bottner and his family wanted to visit town, they had to cross this bridge."

  I look back at the thicket we've just come through. It's hard to imagine that anything as solid as a road could have disappeared so completely.

  "Who's Frederik Bottner?" Amy asks, but before Meg can answer Amy starts peppering Dad with other questions. "Do hummingbirds have just two babies? What do their nests look like? Do you think the babies went back there after that big hummer scared them away? What's his name again?"

  "It was a rufous."

  Meg wets the tip of a finger and runs it over a bit of the bridge remains. "The concrete's holding up. Of course, this bridge was built to handle everything from farm wagons to logging trucks."

  AS WE BACKTRACK to the Stuart Peak trail, Amy is still talking about the hummingbirds. "I wish Midnight would come scare the rufous. That would serve it right."

  She reminds me of a hummingbird herself the way she's tiny and quick, darting off to check things that catch her eye and then returning to hover by Dad's side.

  "Except I don't want Midnight to eat the rufous," she says. "Owls don't eat other birds, do they? Pop, where do you think Midnight is now? Do owls have a big range? Because if they do..."

  Meg, bringing up the rear with me, says, "Your father has got the patience of Job."

  Meg's still in historian mode as we start up Spring Gulch. She tells me that a schoolhouse once stood in the vacant meadow off to our right. "Just a one-room grade school with a couple of outhouses in the back."

  As the gulch narrows, the meadow gives way to a lush, thick tangle of leafy shrubs and undergrowth. Dad's striding out in front in his easygoing, hike-all-day pace that I remember When I was little, he'd usually slow it down so I could keep up, but sometimes he'd forget and then I'd have to run a couple of steps for every few I walked. Now it's Amy who's doing the walk-run, and the two of them are talking as fast as her feet are going.

  "Amy sure is a happy kid," I comment.

  "Mostly," Meg replies. "We've moved around a lot and she hasn't always had the easiest time fitting in to new places, but this past year's she's really blossomed and developed some confidence. That's largely your dad's doing, of course." Meg smiles ruefully. "Though sometimes she's a little too confident for her ow
n good."

  Meg waves toward a distant pair of bushy trees that tower maybe a hundred feet tall. "What do you want to bet there used to be a house there?" she says.

  "How can you tell?" I ask.

  "Those Lombardy poplars are a sure giveaway. They're not native to this area, so somebody planted them, probably as a shelter from wind. And now, although the people are gone, the trees show where they once lived."

  "Cool," I say, impressed even if the explanation is obvious now that I've heard it. And when I spot three scraggly apple trees a ways farther on, I say, "And those must have been planted, too, right?"

  "Right you are," Meg says. "Somebody's orchard. Lombardy poplars, lilacs, apple trees—none is native to Montana, so when you see them growing in what seems like a wilderness, you know it hasn't always been completely wild."

  By now, Amy's back to rapping Latin, and she's got Dad doing it with her Apparently the full name of the rust-orange hummer was Stelasphorus rufus. Stel-as-phor-us-ru-fus, Stel-hmu-la-ca-li-o-pe.

  Meg asks me, "How much more Latin do you think your dad knows?"

  "I don't know," I answer "but I saw him put his bird book in his pack."

  She shows me one more remnant of the valley's history, a caved-in section of bank that she says is the remains of an exploratory mining pit. "Back when gold and silver were coming out of places not fifty miles away, prospectors had high hopes all over this area."

  "Did they ever find anything?" I ask.

  "Not around here, although I know of at least one small mine that was worked off and on for years, and I imagine there were others."

  The trail makes a hairpin turn around the head of Spring Gulch, and with that we start really climbing. The valley bottom drops rapidly behind us, a spreading panorama of many shades of green, and my legs and lungs start to feel the strain of the long ascent. When, finally, Dad announces, "Lunchtime," I'm the first to hit the ground.