by Doyle, Brian
I don’t know any prayers, says Declan out loud, startling the gulls, but if I knew any prayers, or thought they did any good, I’d say one for you. But I don’t know any prayers, and I don’t think they do any good. You did good, though. Amen.
He stands there at the gunwale another minute and then steps into the little cabin and starts the engine and turns the boat around and heads back to shore. He sets two halibut lines. He eats a sandwich. He sees a gray whale, two jaegers, a little whirlpool filled with sneakers and tampons and fishing floats, and what sure looks like the kind of little albatross that lives on Hawaii. Then, without any sort of momentous ceremony, he hauls in the halibut lines and turns the boat around and sets course straight west for where the sun goes when it falls over the rim of the world, and he stretches out for a nap in the stern, and the boat slowly putters into the endless ocean. The gulls follow, wheeling in huge circles.
4.
Grace and Stella are in the corner of the bar where fat buttery bars of sunlight hang out every time it is sunny which is, as Grace says, it’s sunny like twice a year, you don’t want to miss summer here, it’s a great weekend.
The rest of the year is a fecking hell hole, says Grace, but she is smiling.
We can get this signed today with McCann, says Stella. You sure you want this?
Yup, says Grace.
And Declan is cool?
Yup. The land is in both our names and we agreed to make it pay however we could so we can take care of the boys. Dec wants them to go to college.
You don’t want to go to college?
Nope. I got things to do. I got ideas. I don’t want to study other people’s ideas.
It’s hard not to drink the profits, as if there are any profits, says Stella very quietly. Believe me I know. Believe me.
I believe you, says Grace, not smiling. I got ideas about me and drinking not being the closest of companions any more.
And the hours are long and you’ll have trouble. Drunks, distributors skipping on bills, broken glass, sudden inspections, demand outstripping supply, supply outstripping demand. Whatever you think running a place like this will be, it isn’t. It’s like being a den mother for idiots, and there’s a smell of stale beer and old grease that never quits. And the bathroom is always a mess, and no one will clean it for you, no matter how much people offer to clean it for you, they never actually get around to it, not that I am bitter or anything. And sometimes the field mice come in when it’s cold.
You’re being too persuasive, says Grace.
Got to be honest.
I’ll be honest in return, says Grace. I got one word for you. Mud. You are buying a lotta mud. It’s deep and evil and it smells like shit. It’s always cold and windy even in summer. There’s coyotes. There’s skunk cabbage in the ravine and in March when the skunk cabbage flowers open it smells like shit more than it usually smells like shit. For every lovely day when goldfinches are surfing on the thistles and a falcon zooms by and you hear sea lions in the cove down below, there are a hundred days when it’s cold and wet and muddy and it smells like shit. Also there’s at least one huge cougar up there somewhere. Any questions?
They stare at each other for a moment, two sturdy flinty roiling fearful brave women, Grace with her chopped hair beginning to assume some sort of shape again, Stella with a cold face and the most gentle eyes you ever saw, and then they burst out laughing.
This is nuts, says Stella. Let’s go for it.
Jesus, a vineyard and a tree farm and a nursery, you got balls, says Grace.
No, I got a bank loan, says Stella. And look who’s talking. I could never make this pay more than enough just to keep me slaving away at it. Hope you make it work.
It’ll work, says Grace. I got ideas. I got a lot of ideas.
5.
Moses didn’t die but he lost both wings, shattered to tatters, and he lost a lot of blood, and he was unconscious for a couple of days, dreaming dark corvidian dreams, but then he woke, murmuring, and he and Owen are in Other Repair this morning, contemplating wings. Moses standing on the old football helmet, Owen sitting at the workbench, goggles on. Smell of paint, cedar, maple, fir, alder, varnish, cigars, tears, sweat, rubber, oil, sawn metal, burnt gasoline, smoked fish, sawdust, old newspapers, woodsmoke, footballs, turpentine, apples, ink, crow.
I’m thinking steel, says Owen. We could pull that off. Superlight steel with hinges that I design to work off your chest muscles. Your shoulders, so to speak, are still there, so you have the engineering to make this work. I had a good talk with the doctor and there’s a lot we can do with implants. It’s kind of an engineering problem.
I don’t know, says Moses.
Look at these sketches, here, see, if I use your rotator cuffs, and figure it out with wires, I could make a pair of wings that would work. No way they would be as good as the originals but they would be functional. I think they would be functional. At least they would be cosmetic. Glossy black paint. We can get Nora to engrave them maybe. What say?
I don’t know, says Moses.
You don’t want new wings?
I don’t know.
Or wood, says Owen. What if George and Nora found some superlight wood, like balsa, and we made a set of wooden wings? Or you could have several pairs for various occasions. Like suits of clothes. Linen wings, paper wings, wooden wings, steel wings. Or you can have wings made from all sorts of feathers. Not just crow feathers but hey, osprey feathers! Heron feathers! Wouldn’t that be cool? You could wear whatever wings you wanted in the morning. Be an osprey for a day. Boy, that would freak out the ospreys, eh? Or wings in different sizes, wouldn’t that be cool? Like huge wings for summer, when you can be a kite. We’ll take you out on the beach and fly you, wouldn’t that be cool? And different colors. You can have bright orange wings for Oregon State University football Saturdays, hey?
I don’t know, says Moses. I think maybe wings are a thing of the past for me.
What?
I find that I don’t actually want new wings.
You don’t want to fly anymore?
It’s not that I don’t want to fly, says Moses slowly, it’s that I don’t want to try to fly the way I flew. Does that make sense? I was one sort of creature and now I am another sort of creature, and I find that I am curious about the new creature. I’ve never seen the world steadily from this angle, from the pedestrian point of view, and it’s sort of interesting not to have a bird’s-eye view, you know? Everything is flatter. Everything is at an oblique angle. There are a lot more corners. It’s a different geometry. Previously I perched, but now I walk. Yet I am aware that there may come a time when I mourn flight. I am aware of prospective sadness. But at the moment I am filled with curiosity. I would almost rather that you designed some sort of conveyance or vehicle for ground transport. Also I suspect that I will have to get comfortable with riding on shoulders and in the seats of cars. Perhaps a small seat belt is the engineering problem we should be contemplating.
Owen takes his goggles off and stares at the bird.
You asked, says Moses.
You are a most unusual creature, Moses.
I don’t know. We are all unusual by definition, isn’t that so?
Thank you for saving Michael.
I don’t know that I saved Michael. He is a professional and very likely would have found a way to extricate himself from the situation.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.
Why did you do that?
I don’t know, Owen. It was the strangest thing. I was very happy. It just seemed like the thing to do. I didn’t think about it. I just did a barrel roll and went for it. It felt great to fall like a falcon. I have long wondered what it would be like to fall like a fist from the sky, accumulating great energy, and now I know.
Owen stares, smiling. The radio burbles a baseball game from someplace far away where the trees are bedraggled and desperate for water. Outside the shop the wind tacks to starboard and the change roils the smells inside the
shop, so that the smells of sawn wood muscle out the oil and turpentine and newspaper and apples and ink. For a moment the smells of pine and alder wrestle with each other and then alder totally wins the day.
6.
The doctor’s house is arranged in such a way that it huddles under the sandy hill like a baby asleep under the maternal jaw; to get to the ocean you go up, through a path splitting the jaw, and then down a precipitous rickety creaking groaning splintery staircase of weathered alder, or you go take the long way down the sandy path and all the way around the huddle of the hill.
Kristi and Daniel contemplate their options.
Down looks easier, says Kristi.
Up’s quicker.
You in a hurry?
Let’s go up. If you push and I pull we can do it.
But maneuvering a boy, age twelve, not slight, all those bicycled muscles still weightily there, in his wheelchair, not light, up an incline, is no easy task, and very soon, pants Kristi, we are not, going to, make it, hey, hey, hold up! Brake!
Daniel would say something witty but he’s exhausted.
I got an idea, says Kristi after a minute. How about we get as far as the top of the stairs in the chair, and then I put you on that sled there?
For indeed huddled in a pile of old stuff under the lip of the hill there is a rusty sled, as well as half a small refrigerator, old shingles, a pickaxe, and what looks like it was once a weed whacker.
And I surf down the stairs? says Daniel. Whoa. Tempting.
Be easier than bumping the chair down step by step. There’s a lot of steps.
Let’s do it.
When they get to the top of the hill the wind says hey! and their eyes water with the salt and insistence of it. Kristi helps Daniel out of the chair and onto the sled. Daniel braces his legs against the ancient steering apparatus and pretends it doesn’t hurt his knees. I better strap you in just in case, says Kristi, and she ropes him to the sled in various and intricate ways. They start laughing and cannot easily stop. Ready when you are, captain, says Daniel. Aye aye sir, says Kristi. She sits on the step behind him and wraps the ends of the ropes around her wrists and very gently pushes the sled down one step with her feet, taking exquisite caution not to bump or jostle him. She is staring into his hair from this angle. All that hair. Carefully braided this morning red black brown. She hauls back on the ropes like reins. She’s stronger than she looks and in this way they descend step by step, as slowly as they can go. There are fifty steps. After a while they count out loud. The wind whips. At the bottom of the stairs the sand invites them gently down to the sea. Kristi reverses rigging and pulls the sled. Like a ship, says Daniel. She stops at the high-tide line but he says, let’s go in. She doesn’t say, but it’s cold! and she doesn’t stop to take off her sneakers or roll up her pants but just forges into the gentle surf face-first pulling him. The sled slides into the sea. Kristi doesn’t say, but your casts! and neither does Daniel. She gets waist-deep and stops and lets go the tension in the ropes and Daniel floats there grinning. Both of them are soaked. It’s the sunniest day there ever was in the whole history of the world. Daniel thinks of sea lions swimming through caves at the bottom of the sea. Kristi does not think, how are we going to get back up to the house? Neither of them says a word for a really really long time and the sun is friendly and nutritious and the sled rollicks and a gang of terns goes by all whirry and curious.
7.
What the hell, kid, says George Christie to No Horses, let’s do it, what say, you got a real nose for wood and I know wood, and you know what to do with it, we could make a bundle, or hell, we could make enough not to starve anyways, and we both got mouths to feed, what do you say? Jump right in here with yes, kid, because I ain’t getting younger and this is a one-time offer, a bo-freaking-nanza, you in, what say? We’ll do her for a year to start. Special lines of stuff made from cypress, hewn from hemlock, elicited from alder, sculpted from spruce, polished from pine, seceded from cedar, hell, I’m writin’ the catalogue copy as I go here, kid, you taking notes? Because there’s a lot of tourists will come, kid. A lot of people will come through here in the years to come. They’ll be starving for what we got here. We don’t have jack shit here, we think, all we got is rain and drunks and garbage fish, and there’s no more huge trees and huge salmon fish, so we got exactly nothing, that’s what you’re thinking, I know, but I got a vision, kid, I see the future, when people are sick and tired of electric shit and plastic shit and pressing buttons to make everything go on and off, and being stuck inside houses and offices and cars, you mark my words, people will come here just to breathe, just to get rained on for a change, just to hear a real river, just to smell real mud, just to see a real fishing boat going out to catch real fish, trust me, people will come a long way just to see something made out of real wood by a real person with a real knife, and that would be you, kid, and there will be people desperate to buy something real, and hold it, they’ll be saying to each other you remember that time we went to the coast and the sun sneaked outta the rain and we ate fish that was caught there and drank beer that was brewed there, remember that? wasn’t that a great time? that’s what they’ll say, kid, as they’re running their hands over your carving of A Old Logger, hell, there’s your first line of product, the most amazing carvings of handsome burly colorful old bastards who all look eerily like old George Christie, what say, kid, you in?
Yes, George, says Nora, grinning. Yep. Yup. Count me in. You got to quit being so shy, George. You want to speak up once in a while or no one will ever know what you’re thinking.
8.
Worried Man in his office in the Department of Public Works goes over and over and over and over and over the equipment, feeling that if he misses one tiny thing, one infinitesimal niggling shy ignorable detail, it will of course be the Crucial Thing, the ephemeral bolt or screw that secretly holds the everything together, and the whole idea will collapse and shrivel and fail, and he will be an idiot, and Cedar will be disappointed, and that will be a great shame. It turns out, he thinks to himself, that even after all these years, even after all the times I certainly disappointed him, that I hate disappointing him. Isn’t that interesting? And how many ephemeral screws hold everything together anyway? What if little tiny screws are what actually holds the universe together? If you had a big enough magnet could you find them? And what size screwdriver would fit those screws?
Boots, gloves, socks, wool underwear, sweaters, hats, sunglasses. Tent, tent stakes, sleeping bags, blankets. Ice axes, crampons, rope, more rope, carabiners, skis, ice screws, ice saw, pickets, belay loops, snowshoes, shovel, knives, iodine tablets, matches, more matches. Waterproof match cases. Maps. Batteries. Compasses. Flashlights. Headlamps. First-aid kit. Wristwatches. Ham radio. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. Toilet paper. Notebooks. Camera. Film for camera. Dried berries. Dried elk jerky. Dried salmon sticks. Walnuts, almonds, pine nuts, peanuts. Water. No beer. Aspirin. Whistles. The whistles make him think of Maple Head again and he smiles and winces.
Owen and Cedar drive up in Owen’s truck. For some reason no one feels like talking. They load the truck, Owen doing most of the work.
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, says Worried Man.
Matthew, chapter seventeen, says Cedar. We’re off, says Owen, and off they go, over rills and hills, creeks and rivers, streams and rivulets, swamps and springs, hamlets and villages, towns and cities, sprawl and suburb, and then up, through Marmot and Salmon and Wildwood and Brightwood, unto the mountain. As they rattle over the Salmon River bridge, just past Rhododendron, the mountain leaps out from behind a curtain of vaulting fir trees. It looks cold and stern and brilliant. It looks like something from another galaxy. It has angles and corners and faces and gleaming ravines. It looks like no living thing has ever been on or near or around or over it since the day it was born millions of years ago. Whosoever toucheth the mountain shall surely be put to deat
h, thinks Worried Man. Exodus.
Past Government Camp, up to Timberline.
They unload in front of the lodge. Owen helps them with their packs. He and Cedar glance at each other sideways and Owen gives him twice as much to carry. A raven requests character references. Worried Man stares at the mountain. Chipmunks chitter. They review the plan—Pacific Crest trail to the northwest side, easy ascent past the last straggling junipers, camp, slow steady ascent over next three days, assess progress afternoon second day, examining terrain for caves, cautiously exploring caves if practicable, descend back to trail after five days maximum, etc. There are tiny butterflies in the aster flowers. They review signal plans and flags. There is a dusty grasshopper flexing on a rock. They review emergency procedures and contingencies. There are a dozen headlong bees among the pale bones of fallen alpine firs. They synchronize watches. The raven again inquires. They shake hands all round. Juncos and nutcrackers flare and flitter. Worried Man kisses Owen on his rough cheek and says a chara, take care of everyone. Ants sprint across seas of moss. Owen watches as the entire Department of Public Works strolls brisk and grinning up the dusty trail. The gnarled tough juniper trees bask and wait.
9.
Maple Head and No Horses walk upriver through the trees. Alder thicket and spruce copse. A flutter of grouse. Up and up and up. Hemlocks. They find a tiny creek neither of them have ever seen before and pause there for lunch. Wading in the creek poking for crawdads, staring at the water striders, listening for ouzels.
Dippers, we are supposed to call them now, says Maple Head.
Never, says Nora. Ouzels forever. Coolest word ever.
Up and up and up. The hills get steeper and steeper. In the afternoon they stop talking and walk along panting a little. On a particularly steep trail they hold hands.
Late in the afternoon, much more tired than they thought they would be, Maple Head suggests gently that they call it a day, and they find a dense copse of spruce to sleep in, with a springy floor that feels ten feet deep in needles, and they have a light supper, and make a tiny fire, and both of them figure they will have a thorough talk, but they are both asleep moments after they eat, and not even dawn trying to stick its fingers into the eye of the spruce thicket wakes them. Finally chickarees do, three of them, chittering loud and long.