Into the Canyon

by Michael Neale

  Gabriel passed Billy a piece of jerky from his backpack.

  The forty-something man sat with his elbows on his knees as he took a bite and reminisced.

  “I thought I’d lost Jacob. We were so careless. God, he was so blue. It was a miracle that he survived. I had to tie up his shoulder. The blood was just pouring out. Once I got a pulse on him, I heard this kid—you—screaming up on the ridge, alone.” He took off his knit cap and ran his fingers through his jet-black oily hair. “You were terrified and confused. What little kid wouldn’t be? I left Jacob there and crossed downstream. I asked you what your name was, and you just stared at me. I tried to get you to come with me to the other side so I could watch out for you. You wouldn’t let go of the tree.” Billy’s lip quivered and his voice cracked. He stared at the dirt.

  “ ‘Where is my dad? Where is my dad?’ you kept asking me. It was like a dagger through my heart.” He wiped his nose with his hand. The power of the memory overtook him. His face turned red, veins popping as he tried to keep from sobbing. “Man, I’m sorry.”

  Gabriel sat calmly for a moment as he processed Billy’s emotion. He felt sorry for him. He didn’t know what to say. He knew he had every right to be angry at the man, but he wasn’t. His compassion for this broken man outweighed the memory of what he did.

  “So it’s pretty cool that my dad caught your attention before you went over the falls, huh?”

  Billy nodded.

  “I’m coming to terms with everything, Billy. I still get angry from time to time . . . sad too. But I’m moving further away from it. New memories are pushing out the old. My dad was a great man. He’s not here. Now it’s time for us to get on with being great men.”

  Billy composed himself. The grace Gabriel extended him in that moment brought visible relief.

  “There was a hiker nearby who really saved the day for us. He stayed with Jacob while I carried you out of the gorge and went for help. I delivered you to your mother back at the lodge. I went back with the paramedics and officers to get Jacob out.”

  “When did they get my father’s body out?”

  “We found the body that afternoon downstream.”

  Gabriel had memory flashes . . . scenes he hadn’t remembered that ran through his mind . . . his mother taking him from Billy . . . Billy carrying him out of the canyon . . . then . . . his view at the funeral.

  “Were you at the funeral?”

  “No . . . I was too ashamed. I heard the whole town showed up. I wish now that I would have gone.”

  Gabriel’s newly recalled memories became more vivid. He saw the casket with the white-water helmet and paddle resting on top. He remembered sitting on his mother’s lap and her whispering in his ear, “I love you, baby.” He saw Ezra reading from a book next to his father’s body.

  “It helps to hear some of this. It feels like a few more pieces to the puzzle of my life are getting filled in.” Gabriel changed the subject. “Why aren’t you and Jacob on good terms?”

  “Just too much has happened. You don’t know me. You don’t know my past.”

  Gabriel felt himself stepping out of his introversion to reach into Billy’s world.

  “Everyone has a past.”

  “Not everyone has a past like mine.”

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sure Jacob will tell you. I better be getting back.” Billy stood up.

  “Hey . . . for what it’s worth, he wants you to come home again. I think he really misses you.”

  “That’s funny. Never heard him say that. Glad you’re doing well, Gabriel Clarke.”

  “Billy.”

  “Yeah.” The mountain man squinted as he looked at Gabriel.

  “Thanks for taking me off the mountain that day.”

  Billy nodded, took one more look at John Clarke’s gravestone, and then reached into his backpack and rifled through it until he pulled out an envelope.

  “Here. You should have this,” Billy said and then disappeared into the woods.

  Gabriel opened the dirty envelope and pulled out the tattered, folded newspaper clipping inside. He unfolded it gently. He read the headline.

  “Local hero dies saving two brothers.”

  Below the headline . . . a picture of his father . . . smiling . . . holding young Gabriel.

  Gabriel looked up to see if he could catch Billy, but he was gone. Gabriel sat back down and read every word of the article, chronicling the heroic efforts of his father. As hard as it was to see and read the account again, he knew he held a treasure in his hand.

  Gabriel got up and went over to a large pile of river stones that lay next to the Cathedral rock. He knelt down and placed his hand on them.

  “My Rio. Hey, buddy. I’ve missed you. It’s not the same around the camp without you. Would you see if there’re any others like you up there and send me another friend?” He laid a piece of jerky on the stones. “It’s teriyaki. Your favorite.” He smiled.

  As Gabriel left the Cathedral of the Sun, his heart was heavy for Billy. These two brothers were in his life—each of them seemed to live with their pain differently. One appeared free. One seemed shackled.

  He was grateful that instead of memories feeling like a crushing weight, they were beginning to lift him, like stepping-stones to a free and whole-hearted existence. He was learning each day that a greater story was unfolding and The River was at the center . . . not him.

  16

  Millie

  November 1973

  “Thanks for coming, Ezra.” Jacob turned to his mentor in the passenger seat.

  “Of course,” Ezra replied as the Jeep chugged up the winding roads.

  The light snowfall coated the road in a soft, white blanket. The pines and firs dusted with the powder turned the canyon into a winter wonderland under the gray sky canopy.

  Gabriel piped up from the backseat as he wiped the fog from the clear plastic window of the soft top. “The snow seems to quiet everything down. It’s really beautiful.”

  They crested a hill and started to descend on a tight switchback. Jacob downshifted and the back of the Jeep slid a little.

  “Whoa.” Gabriel gripped the roll bar. Ezra didn’t flinch.

  “Yeah, we don’t want to end up down there.” Jacob chuckled as he looked out his window at the steep drop-off just a few feet away. He pulled off the road onto an unmarked, snow-covered path.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Gabriel said to Jacob.

  “Do what?”

  “Know where you’re going out here, especially in the snow. Everything seems to change in the snow. I don’t have a clue where we are.”

  “I’ve just been here so many years, I guess I have a feel for it,” Jacob replied with confidence.

  Ezra started a slow, rumbling laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Jacob sounded defensive.

  “Oh nothin’.” Ezra tried to gain his composure.

  “Come on, Ezra. You can tell me,” Gabriel said, smiling.

  “Well, I guess it’s just years of Jacob’s experience that helped him know the path. Here I thought it was just that red rag tied up in that pine.”

  “I didn’t see that . . . I just knew.” Jacob was smiling now. “Why do you have to give away all my secrets, Ezra?”

  “Oh, I see!” Gabriel flicked Jacob in the shoulder and laughed.

  Jacob set the parking break on the Jeep and jumped out to turn the hubs for four-wheel drive. He got back in, rubbing his hands together vigorously. “I guess it’s officially winter.”

  Before he began the rocky descent to Billy’s cabin, he paused.

  “I hope we find him here. It’s been too long.”

  The Jeep descended the hill slowly. They parked among the trees where the ground leveled. Snow covered the tin roof of the small wood cabin, and smoke billowed from the chimney. Billy’s truck sat parked a few feet away. Jacob led the way with Gabriel and Ezra a few steps behind. He walked up on the p
orch and knocked on the wood plank door.

  “Billy. It’s Jacob.”

  He knocked again.

  No answer.

  He formed a visor with his hands and peered in the window. The fire was going in the potbelly stove, and a couple of lamps were on.

  “I’ll go check around back.” Gabriel zipped up his coat and flipped his collar up to keep warm. His boots squeaked against the snow as it melted under each step. He walked around the back of the cabin and made his way toward a large wooden shed where a door was cracked open.

  “Billy?” Gabriel approached the shed and pulled the door open gently. He heard a scraping sound. He poked his head in. He noticed a large table saw with lots of woodworking tools lying around. Some of them looked familiar . . . maybe from Jacob’s collection. A solitary work light dangled from the ceiling. The sawdust smelled fresh. Gabriel opened the door farther and walked in.

  His pulse quickened at the eerie silence. After a few seconds, he walked back outside. He’d taken a couple of steps when he noticed boot impressions in the snow that led into the woods. They were fresh but fading fast. Without thinking, Gabriel followed the footprints. The forest grew more dense with each tromp of his boot. He glanced back toward the cabin before the prints took a turn toward The River. Is this a good idea? His exhales steamed in the sub-freezing temperature. If he went back to get Jacob, he might lose the prints. With his eyes glued to the footprints as they grew more and more faint, he lifted his head and saw what appeared to be Billy about twenty yards away. He was on his knees in the snow. His knit cap was almost entirely covered with snow. He sat staring at something on the ground. As Gabriel got closer, he broke the silence.

  “Billy?”

  The bearded man didn’t respond.

  Gabriel saw what he was staring at . . . a small wooden box resting at the foot of a large spruce tree.

  “Hey, Billy. Me and Jacob and Ezra came to see you. They’re back at your cabin.”

  Billy turned to look at Gabriel slowly. His cheeks were wet with tears.

  “She would have been fourteen today. I made this box for a couple of things I found of hers.”

  Gabriel didn’t know what to say. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jacob and Ezra approaching. They joined at his side.

  “I only turned around for a few moments, Jacob . . . it was only a few moments,” Billy said as he put his head in his hands and sobbed. “It’s my fault! It’s my fault!” he kept saying through his cries.

  Ezra walked over, stood next to Billy, and put one hand on his shoulder.

  Jacob tried to comfort his brother. “Billy, don’t say that. Don’t say that. It could have happened to anyone.”

  The grief-stricken man tried to compose himself as he continued telling the story. “The water was so high that day . . . We didn’t know it was going to flood the canyon like it did. We were watching The River from the porch. The rain was pouring down like I’d never seen it.” He laughed through his tears as he remembered. “That little girl had no fear. We were all just praying for it to stop, and she kept asking to go out to play in it. She’d never really wandered off the porch before. I went in to taste that pot roast Janie was cooking. I didn’t think I was gone long enough for her to make it to the water’s edge.”

  His eyes opened wide and he looked at Jacob as if something new came to his memory.

  “I was drinking, Jacob. I was drinking!” he shouted. “What kind of man leaves his daughter alone?”

  He started to break again. “All these years, wondering when I would find her. I saw you fishing that day. I saw that you found her. I wanted to bring her back here, back home.” He looked back down at the ground. “I’m sorry, Millie. I’m so sorry.”

  Dusk was settling on the canyon. The snowflakes got larger and more numerous. Gabriel felt Billy’s pain deeply. If there’s one thing he knew, it was debilitating grief. A sadness that is so crushingly heavy you can barely breathe. He felt for many years that he should have been able to save his dad that fateful day. He carried guilt for years for staying glued to the tree. He was only five, but that didn’t matter. He felt he should’ve tried to save him. He watched Billy writhe in agony at losing his little girl, and he longed to offer some help. All he knew to do was just be there.

  The men waited in silence, standing guard as Billy grieved. Gabriel joined in his tears. After several minutes passed and night grew closer, Ezra sensed the rest in Billy and jumped into bring a little levity to a dark situation.

  “Boys, I’m not sure if I have any toes. If I do . . . and I pray that I do . . . I sure can’t feel ’em. How about I make everyone some hot chocolate?”

  Gabriel and Jacob smiled. Billy wiped his nose and stood to his feet. Jacob pulled him into a bear hug. “You can get through this. We’ll get through this,” Jacob said quietly.

  The four men lumbered together through the snow back to the rustic cabin. Jacob put his arm around Billy’s shoulder as they walked. “The three of us ought to go out on the water come spring,” Jacob said as he looked at Gabriel and Billy.

  “Sounds great to me,” Gabriel replied as he headed to grab some logs from a cord of wood that was stacked against the back of the house to stoke the fire in the claw foot potbelly stove. They took off their gloves and laid them on the ground next to the stove to warm them. They all sat around the rough-hewn, round farm table in the kitchen as Ezra worked his magic with the supplies he had brought.

  “Gentlemen, is anyone in the mood to lose some money?” Jacob took a deck of cards out of his coat pocket and slapped them on the table.

  Gabriel tapped his finger to his chin and assumed a puzzled expression. “Do you guys hear that?” Gabriel cupped his hand to his ear.

  “What?” Jacob responded.

  Billy glanced up.

  Gabriel answered his own question. “Yep. I hear it. It’s the sound of Jacob putting cash into my hand. Jacob, save yourself the trouble, and go ahead and give me all your money.”

  Jacob snickered. “Oh, I see. I see. Billy, you in?”

  “Why not?”

  “Ezra, how ’bout you?” Jacob looked back at the old man at the stove who was stirring his chocolaty brew in a large saucepan.

  “Do you promise to take it easy on the old man? I’m not as sharp as I used to be.” Ezra pulled the spoon up to his mouth for a taste. His hand shook a bit.

  Gabriel commented to Billy under his breath, “Don’t believe that slow Southern drawl for a second. He’s a sandbagger . . . wins at everything. Show no mercy. He’ll start moving slower . . . talking slower. You watch. It’s quite impressive, actually.”

  They settled in around the table with their mugs of rich hot chocolate, and Jacob dealt the cards.

  “What are we betting?” Billy asked.

  Jacob reached in his other pocket and pulled out a huge roll of one-dollar bills held together with a rubber band.

  “What do you think? There’s four hundred here. I was going to use this for some bills, but I think this is a better idea. Gabriel, I owe you some money for those extra hours. Ezra, I’m sure I owe you from previous games, and, Billy . . . you’re my brother, so why not? Each of us gets a hundred.” He snapped the rubber band off and divvied up the loot.

  Ezra took a pipe out of his jacket pocket and showed it to Billy.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all, Ezra.”

  He pulled out a tin of tobacco and began to stuff the pipe slowly.

  “Texas hold ’em, boys.” Jacob slid the cards to each man.

  Billy seemed to be loosening up. “Jacob, do you remember when we were kids and we decided to hang that rope swing over Jamison Creek?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jacob dismissed it as he looked at his cards.

  Billy turned to Gabriel and Ezra.

  “I think Jacob was about thirteen, and I was ten. He was always trying to impress the girls. So Sally Culverson came with us to the creek, and Jacob wanted to try a fancy swing i
nto the water. So he climbs way up the tree to launch himself out, but it was never good enough for Jacob to just swing normally; he had to turn it into a trick.” Billy stood up, acting out the moves. “He twists his foot around the rope and starts to swing upside down, only his foot slipped, and somehow his pants got caught on the rope, and as he slid down, his pants didn’t! There he was, hanging bare-butt from a rope swinging across the creek. Full moon! Sally Culverson got more than she bargained for that day!”

  Jacob sat there shaking his head and looking at his cards. He couldn’t help but join the laughter.

  “I don’t remember seeing Sally after that.” Jacob shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m out.” Gabriel laid his cards down.

  “Why don’t you come work with us again?” Jacob asked his younger brother.

  Billy seemed hesitant. “I’ve got some other jobs to do. I don’t know. Ezra?”

  “Call,” the old man said as he blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and kept the game going. They laid their cards down. Ezra waited a moment, then laid down his. “Are these any good?” he asked, sounding naive.

  “Aw, man! Are you kidding me? A royal flush?” Jacob yelled in frustration.

  Ezra smiled as he scooped the pile of one-dollar bills over to himself.

  “I was running a little low on tobacco, so this will come in handy. Thank you, boys.”

  “I told you . . . the luckiest man alive!” Gabriel pointed at Ezra.

  Ezra spoke up again. “You know, our evening together made me think of something.” Ezra took out a small leather-bound book from his jacket pocket. He sorted through the pages and stopped. “Ah-ha. Here it is. I wrote this down many years ago in my journal.” He read aloud.

  Sometimes life takes us to our purpose and destiny the long way ’round. The Maker sees the end from the beginning all at once. The timing doesn’t make sense to us, but from a higher view, it is right. It will be right. In the season of the long and dark valley, the soil of our lives becomes rich and fertile with the nutrients of our suffering. That soil, the soil of suffering, grows trees that bear the most luscious fruit . . . flowers that bloom in colors so vivid we can’t even describe it . . . and joy that can never be taken away . . . if we will allow it. So take heart and know that your tears are shared, and one day, you will laugh again.