B00A1ID5X0 EBOK

by Heldt, John A.

  So Michelle looked instead to a ridge to the west. Perhaps six hundred feet high with heavily forested slopes, it was imposing but doable. If she could get to the other side, the one facing away from the mountain, she would have a chance.

  Michelle did not need a history book to know the score. She knew all about the volcanic eruption that had taken fifty-seven lives, buried her family's cabin, and destroyed hundreds of square miles of pristine forestland, or enough timber to build 300,000 two-bedroom homes. Because the cataclysmic event had wiped out the site of many childhood memories, she had always viewed the eruption as a personal violation. She knew in considerable detail the stories of all the people who had died and many of the stories of those who had survived.

  She knew about four loggers who had been taken by surprise on the leeward side of a nearby ridge. All had been rescued, but only one had survived. She knew about the fisherman and his girlfriend who had escaped death by falling into a hole created by uprooted trees and the TV news photographer who had documented his escape from an apocalyptic scene. She knew that all but three of the volcano's victims had occupied places outside of the red zone and that many had not seen the destructive force coming. Because the sound of the explosion had gone up, not out, and had ricocheted off of the atmosphere to points as far away as Canada, they hadn't heard it either. Michelle would have little, if any, warning.

  Michelle was about to concede that she had been dealt a losing hand when she saw a well-groomed trail that followed a fairly straight line to the top of the ridge. Instead of a slow trudge through trees and brush, she saw a quick trip to safety. Her spirits soared. She took another glance at the mountain and got to work. Though relatively smooth and obstacle free, the trail was steep. Michelle yearned for the lightweight hiking boots she had left in Unionville but was glad she had at least remembered to bring her jogging shoes. The first hundred yards passed without a sweat.

  When she reached a resting point a few minutes later, her luck improved again. She looked into the distance, at a stretch of the logging road about a mile to the north, and saw a vehicle slowly move her way. Michelle didn't waste a second before turning around and racing down the hill. She reached the bottom in two minutes and ran from the trailhead to the road with her arms in the air. But the effort was all for naught. The vehicle, a dilapidated Ford pickup, blew past Michelle like she didn't exist.

  Just that fast her hopes took a hit. She could not believe that the driver had not seen her or, if he had, that he hadn't stopped. But Michelle didn't sulk. She headed back up the hill, this time with increased vigor. Missing her ride into town made her even more determined to beat the coming storm and live to tell her adopted children the tale of the century.

  As Michelle made progress toward the ridge, she thought about irony and the decisions that had put her in this predicament. She thought about the consequences of saving April, of course, but also about saving the deer. Had she simply plowed through the stupid animal she would have spent the night in Castle Rock and probably known the whereabouts of the Prestons. But plowing into the deer would have meant killing a creature she revered. She could no more do that than she could shoot a deer with a Winchester rifle at age sixteen.

  Michelle also thought about the many incentives to do what it took to survive. She had a loving husband, good friends, and an impressive house, a house that would soon be a home for a small family, if not a large one. She had made her second shot at life work and was bound and determined to make it work even better when she got back.

  She finally stopped to rest on a log about two-thirds of the way up. When she glanced back at St. Helens she saw a mostly gray but still majestic mountain, America's Fuji. She still had time. She tied one of her shoes and hit the trail again.

  Michelle found the home stretch rockier and steeper. Fewer hikers had apparently made it this far and fewer still had maintained the trail. She stepped over rocks and exposed roots with increasing regularity. But she progressed at a steady clip and by the time she reached another log two hundred yards from the top she allowed herself a smile. She was going to make it.

  She sat on the log for a second to pull a stick from her shoe and glanced again at the mountain. Nothing had changed. But when she started to tighten the laces on the shoe, she noticed two deer zip by on the clearing below. Squirrels came out of holes and frantically sought new shelter. The quiet tranquility of the trail was suddenly broken by the sound of dozens of birds.

  Michelle looked to the north and saw some of these birds leave the tops of trees in droves. Then she turned to the south and saw the plume.

  CHAPTER 56: SHELLY

  Castle Rock, Washington – Sunday, May 18, 1980

  Shelly opened her still sleepy eyes, stared at the ceiling, and wondered what had possessed her to follow her parents to Washington. Then she remembered that Scott had asked her out Friday afternoon and that she had decided that she had not wanted to deal with more of his entreaties and overtures over the weekend.

  So she had packed a bag at four and driven to Castle Rock as fast as her Volkswagen could take her. She had always loved the cabin and figured the weekend was as good a time as any to commune with nature and perhaps sort out several matters swirling through her mind.

  Leaving town, however, had meant dumping on Michelle. Shelly had wallowed in guilt from Unionville to The Dalles and again from Portland to Castle Rock. Only the breathtaking Columbia River Gorge had given her reason to think of anything else. She vowed to do something special to make amends. Determining what was her homework for the drive back.

  She had finally met up with her parents not at the cabin but at the Lucky Duck Motel in Castle Rock. One look at his damaged property Friday afternoon had convinced Fred Preston that two nights in a cheap motel beat two nights in a vandalized cabin. He had left a message for Shelly on the family's answering machine at three.

  Shelly had found the working weekend surprisingly therapeutic. She had helped her mother scrub and disinfect the cabin's interior Saturday morning and helped her father remove brush around its exterior that afternoon. Her only recreation had been a midday hike to the top of a ridge just off of a nearby logging road. But even that had been more than enough to clear her head and recharge her batteries. She was determined to graduate with her mind on future possibilities and not past or present problems. From that standpoint alone, the six-hour trip to Mount St. Helens had been worth it.

  Shelly conceded that the drive from the motel to Coldwater Creek had left her uneasy. She and her parents had had to pass through a roadblock to reach their destination on Saturday and police didn't put up roadblocks for nothing. She knew that if the mountain ever blew its top, the family cabin would be reduced to Lincoln Logs. For that reason and others, she had been eager to return to the Lucky Duck and its outdoor pool at the end of the day.

  She had insisted on taking her car to the cabin because she had wanted the freedom to come and go as she pleased. She had left her car at the cabin because she hadn't had a choice. She had run out of gas just as she had arrived. But that was a situation the family would remedy in a couple of hours when they returned to the tiny house to prepare it for summer.

  Shelly rolled to her side and took a look at the alarm clock. Eight thirty. It was probably time to wake her hard-sleeping parents or at least take a shower. She didn't really like the shower in their room. The water was too cold and the faucet leaked. But any shower beat smelling like a stinky dog all day.

  She got out of her bed, adjusted her nightshirt, and walked to a counter that stood outside of the bathroom. She filled a plastic cup with water and drank half the contents before grabbing her toothbrush and commencing a hunt for some paste. When she found it, she went back to the glass and froze. The water sloshed back and forth as if she had dropped a goldfish in the cup. Shelly raced to the room's lone window and threw open the curtains, allowing bright daylight to spill into what had been a fairly dark space. She stared out the window as if in a trance.

&nbs
p; "Shelly, what's wrong?" Fred Preston asked as he sat up in his bed.

  Shelly turned to face her father.

  "We're not going to the cabin today."

  CHAPTER 57: MICHELLE

  Sunday, May 18, 1980

  In the last minute of her life, Michelle Preston Richardson Land noticed and appreciated the beauty around her. She took in butterflies and flowers, a chipmunk on a log, majestic hemlocks and firs, and a deer that had stopped to look at her from a few feet away. They were all amazing creations and she wanted to savor them one last time.

  For that reason, she did not make a mad dash toward the top of the ridge. She knew that she would never make it and did not want her final moments to be filled with fear and panic but rather by beautiful sights and meaningful memories.

  As a wall of sulfur dioxide, rock, and ash raced toward her at nearly 700 miles per hour, Michelle sat on a log and took stock of her life. She thought of her rocky relationship with her mother, her mostly idyllic childhood, her joyless marriage to Scott Richardson, and her unbelievable second ride through 1979 and 1980.

  She had long wondered how her life would have turned out had she not entered the Pennington mansion on August 13, 2010. Would she have remarried? Would she have written books and followed new dreams? Would she have found happiness? She wanted to answer yes to all of these questions but wondered if that was nothing more than wishful thinking. Starting her second life poor, alone, and hopeless had forced her to adapt and seek fulfillment in ways that might have seemed impossible to Michelle Richardson.

  The happiness was tinged by regret, of course. Michelle thought of Shelly Preston and their broken date. She had no doubt that her young friend and younger self was alive and well in some mundane location and would soon get on with the life she had been meant to lead. She felt sad that she would not be able to be near her side when she graduated from college, published her first book, married, and had children. But she knew that she had given her the tools and inspiration she needed to make the critical leap to adulthood.

  Michelle thought also of the influence she'd had on two others and was proud that she had nudged both in better directions. April Burke would live to sing another day. She would find a man who truly appreciated her amazing virtues and do this, that, and the other things to the delight of those around her. Brian Johnson too was also a good bet for a happy life. He knew now that he had nothing to prove and a lot to give. He knew that he was fine as is and would eventually meet someone who shared that opinion.

  Then there was Robert. How could she do justice to him in mere seconds? He had taught her that true love was not only possible but worth fighting for. He had accepted her as a total stranger in September and again as an evasive liar in March. He did so because he saw that she was worth the effort and worth the time, even if their time was now drawing to a close.

  Michelle thought of other things as well, such as the children she would never hold and the lives she could no longer touch. She wondered if she would have been a good mother but quickly dismissed the question. She knew the answer, just as she now knew the answers to so many other questions. She had lived a good life – two of them – and knew that she would be fondly remembered for who she was, if not what she did.

  She closed by making a pact with God. If He gave her the chance, she would do more. No matter what her form or what her mission, she would serve others as often and as freely as she possibly could. She looked forward to her next assignment.

  Michelle tried hard to hold onto these comforting thoughts and keep harsh reality at bay. She tried to focus on the positive and block out the rest. But she knew she would not be human if she did not at least recognize the sadness of the moment and the horror to come.

  She felt the inevitable wave of fear as she looked to the south and saw the blast rip through the valleys below and destroy everything in its path. She did not want to go this way. She did not want to die. There was nothing pleasant about death by incineration.

  But there was a lot to be said about honor and bravery. So as her last act Michelle put on the bravest face she could find and did what she so often had not. She stared down her fears. She turned to face the plume, looked death in the eyes, and met her end like a warrior.

  CHAPTER 58: SHELLY

  Unionville, Oregon – Thursday, May 29, 1980

  Shelly stared at the closed casket and pondered what-ifs. She had done so often since a search team had pulled Michelle, still wearing a bright green UHS jacket, from near the top of Barton Ridge. What if she had called her friend from Castle Rock? What if she had left a more informative note? What if she had honored their date and had simply stayed home? Whatever the answers, one thing was clear: Guilt would be a constant companion for the rest of her life.

  Standing in the front pew with her parents, Scott Richardson, the Burkes, and the Johnsons, Shelly turned toward the entrance of the sanctuary and watched three hundred people fill St. Mark's. She had never seen this many in the building, not even at Christmas, but then she had never seen a person quite like Michelle Land.

  They had suspected the worst on May 18, when Michelle had not returned, and had their fears confirmed four days later, when state police had found Robert's Jeep. Evelyn Preston had told her daughter the terrible news shortly after she had returned from her last day of school.

  Shelly had not had the opportunity to speak to Robert Land. He had not returned to his classroom since the eruption and had not attended Unionville High School's commencement. He had instead secluded himself in his home, where he grieved with his brother and his daughters and, according to Karen Land, wrestled with what ifs of his own. All four Lands sat together in a small pew to the side of the pulpit.

  There were questions, of course, questions that even Michelle's closest friends and admirers had begun to ask. How had she known that a major eruption was imminent? Why had she not made more calls to the police? Where were her relatives? Did she have relatives? Shelly had grown weary of hearing them but admitted that she had questions of her own. Michelle Land may have seemed like an open book but, when it came to her past, she was an enigma to the end.

  Pastor Heinrich Schmidt opened the service at two with prayers, music, and words that he had probably uttered dozens of times but which today took on new meaning. "She came to us as a stranger," he said, "and left us as a friend." When he finished, he invited students, colleagues, and members of the community to step forward and offer their memories of the deceased.

  Shelly approached the pulpit first. For days she had doubted whether she could pull it off. She cried at the sight of Bambi and babies. How could she possibly hold it together for this? She struggled as well with what to say. How did someone properly eulogize a woman who had changed her life? With sensitivity, she thought, and honesty and humor.

  She recounted the time Michelle had "fixed her ticket" and the lessons she had learned in her impromptu classrooms. She also told the assembled how Michelle had provided critical guidance in difficult times and how she had been her tireless cheerleader, in school and in life. Shelly remembered Michelle as the truest of friends, a good listener, and a person she could count on when her parents and peers would not do.

  Erin McLaughlin, a troubled sophomore from a broken home, described a caring adult who had persuaded her to stay in school when dropping out had seemed far more appealing. She said she would honor Michelle's "unforgettable kindness" by graduating and going to college.

  Brian Johnson held nothing back. He shared a story about a woman who had talked him out of ending his life during a low point of his senior year. The revelation brought the mourners to tears and Shelly Preston to her knees. She had never heard the story and could not handle all that it represented. Caught up in the drama of her own life, she had not seen Brian's pain. She had failed her oldest friend even as Michelle, a newcomer, had saved him.

  April Burke recalled a neighbor who baked the best cookies in town and a friend who had pushed her in positive directions, while three o
thers praised Michelle's efforts as a tutor, a mentor, and a volunteer in numerous school and community activities. Marsha Zimmerman said Michelle was flat out the best friend she had ever had.

  Tony Bronson spoke last. He admitted that he had never cared for Michelle and felt nothing but hostility toward her when she had confronted him at the bowling alley. But he paid her the highest compliment of all when he said that her actions had prompted him to reevaluate his priorities and start attending the weekly meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

  Shelly clung to her father and then to Scott as the eulogies hit her like violent waves. What a fool she had been to believe she could make it through the service as if it were some sort of clinical exercise. Michelle Land had been more than a friend and a surrogate parent; she had been a part of Shelly in a way that still defied explanation. She was like a twin sister from another generation, a soul mate, a kindred spirit who was now lost to her for all time.

  Then Shelly looked at Robert Land and finally pulled herself together. Her grief was nothing compared to his. She could not imagine his pain. She could not fathom losing a spouse for the second time in two years and losing her barely two months into a marriage that offered so much happiness and promise. Shelly hoped and prayed that her math teacher and mentor would somehow find the peace and tranquility that he so richly deserved.

  April closed the service with "Amazing Grace." Though Shelly could not remember her singing more sweetly, her performance was almost anticlimactic. Mourners had already taken their emotional hits. All that was left were the memories.