The Way of Women

by Lauraine Snelling

  “I know.” Katheryn caught herself before she added another “but.” They had been over and over this argument the last two nights. Lord, help me change his mind. “Look.” She brushed a lock of shoulder-length auburn hair back behind her ear as she struggled for some kind of compromise. “You know how glad I am that you’ve taken this time for Brian. And for yourself. But what if you went to Mount Rainier instead?” She could tell by the set of his shoulders that her arguments were useless.

  “Katheryn, my love.” He turned and grasped one of her hands in his. “I can’t explain this connection I have with Mount St. Helens, but you know it’s been that way all my life. How many times have I gone to her and always come back renewed? Right now, for sanity’s sake, I need to go back there. Call it reverting back to childhood or whatever, but somehow any peace and the restoration of my life are bound up on that mountain. I have to go back. Now.” His voice cracked on the final word.

  She knew any further argument was useless. While he couldn’t define his need for the mountain, how could she explain the tiny, inner rodents that gnawed with shrieks and chitterings every time she thought of him leaving? Sane and rational reasons she gave for his behavior did nothing to disperse them. Besides, Governor Dixie Lee Ray herself had ordered the mountain closed. She had established a red zone that made it illegal for anyone to penetrate the boundaries without special permission. David knew all this; they’d dogged it to death more than once.

  “How are you going to get in? There are roadblocks all over.”

  Her husband shook his head. “You think with all the time I’ve spent on that mountain I can’t get past roadblocks? She’s so crisscrossed with logging roads it would take every trooper in the state of Washington and the National Guard combined to close it all off.” He rose and wearily stuffed the last of the supplies in his backpack.

  “You about ready, Dad?’ Eleven-year-old Brian bounded into the kitchen. “I’m all packed. I put another coat of mink oil on our hiking boots.”

  “Sure, Son. We’ll leave just as soon as your mother fixes us some breakfast.”

  “You said we could stop at McDonald’s.”

  “You’re right.” David turned and gently kissed his wife. His smile belied the bleakness in his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered. He hauled the pack up by one strap and clasped his other hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Grab your gear, Son. Let’s hit the road.”

  Katheryn hugged them both before they went out the door. She swallowed useless warnings, her desire to give them a happy send-off paramount in her mind. She would not be the one to cancel their plans, even if she could.

  “See you Sunday night,” she called just before they closed the doors on the old blue VW bug. She continued waving until she could no longer see the taillights in the predawn darkness.

  She crawled back into bed, grateful for the warmth of the electric blanket. No matter how nice the weather had been, May mornings could be brisk in Seattle. She huddled into herself, not sure whether the shivers were from the weather, the worry, or the petitioning heaven for their safe keeping. While the warmth eventually relaxed her muscles, sleep failed to reclaim her mind. It leaped ahead of the blue bug to the smoldering mountain.

  Brian chattered nonstop for the first hour, filling his father in on all his recent activities. “Mostly”—he leaned back with a sigh—“I’m glad to be out of school today.”

  “I’ll bet.” David forced himself to respond. “Hooky for a day always cheers a kid up. You having any more trouble with that big, rough kid? Ah, what’s his name?”

  “You mean Kenny?” Brian drew the name out, derision evident in the tone. “Na-a-a. He got suspended for a while. Now he plays it cool.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Huh?”

  “Cool. What do you mean by that?”

  “Aw, Dad.”

  David chuckled at the pained expression on his son’s face. He’d automatically switched from a father’s questions to an English professor’s questions. Be specific. Say what you mean. Write what you mean. How many thousands of times had he said those words or written them on theme papers? Good thing he didn’t keep count. His mind careened off like a rabbit in a maze. What was causing this despair? He’d tried to shrug it off as spring fever, but spring fever had never before brought recurrent thoughts of ramming his car against some concrete abutment. He had so much to be grateful for. Then why can’t I be grateful?

  As they approached the town of Chehalis, David watched the dawn paint Mount Rainier in glowing pinks, drink dry the fog lakes in the valleys, and strew diamonds in the grass along the concrete roadside. With a nudge of regret he turned his attention instead to the exit signs. They pulled off the freeway at the familiar golden arches.

  “Hey, at least wait till we quit moving.” David’s words faded into the door slam as Brian leaped out.

  “Sorry.” Brian watched and matched his steps to his father’s as they crossed the parking lot. “I’m sure hungry, aren’t you?”

  After half an hour, a stack of pancakes, and Brian’s flock of incessant questions and comments, they were back on the road.

  “Dad?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Are you okay?” Brian’s voice squeaked on the last syllable.

  David took a deep breath. “Sure. Why?”

  “Well, you hardly ate, and …” He screwed up his face, searching for words to convey his concern.

  David cursed himself in the recesses of his mind. He’d forgotten how sensitive his youngest child could be. He decided to be honest.

  “Brian, you’re correct. Something’s wrong. No, not wrong. Just not right.” Right, be specific, the little voice from his shoulder mimicked his words. “I mean.” He took a deep breath and started again. “It has nothing to do with you. Maybe if I knew what was wrong, I could fix it. But sometimes in life there are no immediate answers. You just keep muddling along until the thing either goes away or at least makes itself known.” He paused again. “And sometimes feelings have nothing to do with things. Stuff just piles up and …” Another pause.

  “And then you head for the mountain?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Mom said …” Brian shrugged. “And I watched you, you know, get quieter. You run more.”

  Yeah, running it off didn’t work this time either. David reached over and tousled the boy’s strawberry-blond hair, so much like his own used to be, before the gray silvered it. “You take after your mother. She’s one smart woman. Make sure you listen to her.” Like I should do more often and don’t or can’t. He swung the car off I-5 at the 504 exit. “Keep your eyes peeled for troopers now. We’ve got to sneak around the roadblocks, or we might as well be camping in Kelso.”

  Several miles passed before they caught a glimpse of the Toutle River. David had tried to prepare himself for gray water rather than the milky runoff from snowpack or the crystalline blue of the summer river. Even so, the river shocked him. Roiling masses of concrete-colored water ate away the banks and hurtled stumps and brush ahead to drown in the turbulence around the next bend.

  “Dad, look!” Brian turned to his father.

  “My God!” David tried to breathe around the rage restricting his chest. What in God’s name has happened to my river, my mountain? All the newscasts had not prepared him for the actuality. He had loved Mount St. Helens from the time his father took his firstborn to meet The Lady. Awe and reverence inspired awe and reverence, even in a toddler.

  David stopped the car when they reached a high point that gave them a full view of the mountain. His anger turned to agony. He stared at the desecration caused by the ash and steam eruptions over the last two months. Once pristine glaciers now trailed tears of black. Her snow-cone symmetry sank with craters, and her subpeak, Dog’s Head, bulged above the shale slide. Steam vents shot smoke signals into the stratosphere in a language he could only define as pain.

  Neither said another word until David parked the car in a small campground near the
river. The trail they planned to take started at the back of the camp.

  “You put rocks in here or something?” David asked as he held the blue pack for Brian to slip his arms into.

  Glad to have some return to their usual banter, Brian shook his head and grinned. “Nope, I’ve got the good stuff. You got the rocks.”

  “You’re right.” David shrugged his shoulders to get the straps in the right places. The weight of the pack settled as he buckled the hip strap. “What’d you do, pack enough for a week?” He worked the pads into place on the shoulder straps. “Friday through Sunday is only three days as I count them. I’m sure we’ll find a restaurant somewhere on the way home.”

  “You’ve said, ‘always be prepared for any emergency.’ ” Brian tried to look serious as he quoted. “Besides, I put your camera and stuff on top. I figured you’d want it.”

  David lightly slapped the boy on the rear as they turned toward the trail. “Thanks.”

  Twilight found them miles up the trail, sweaty, and hungry. David could feel himself easing out of the shroud of despair that had enveloped him the last weeks, maybe even months. His resurgence had started with the first pain in his side as he tried to keep up on the switchbacks. Brian was definitely in better shape than his father. Not one to ask for quarter, David suffered, got his second wind, and felt the internal heaviness leach out with each drop of perspiration.

  They pitched the blue nylon pup tent, pounding the stakes through the fir needles into the dirt crust. The small clearing was a hiker’s dream: a fire pit already stone ringed, aged logs for table and chairs, Douglas fir trees to whisper secrets in the wind above them, and a tumbling creek to sing them to sleep.

  David inhaled a breath of hope. “Let’s find some firewood.”

  Brian’s gentle snores didn’t keep David awake. The rat race in his mind did. That plus the rocks and sticks that lurked under the blanket of fir needles and poked every bone that touched the ground. On top of everything else, I’m getting old. That thought was one burden too many. The ground never used to bother me. Neither had lazy, uneducated students, grouchy coworkers, class overloads, legislatures that refused raises to university staff, traffic, a house that needed repairs and painting, and insufficient time and energy to do things the right way. Maybe it was time to leave teaching. To do what? He rolled a few inches to the left to dodge the boulder grinding into his hipbone.

  An owl screeched in flight. Some small animal skittered across the ground by the head of the tent. David drew in a deep breath and, with its release, let the worries float out into the night air to meld with the perfume of a mountain spring night. Fir branches rubbed and scraped in the breeze above. The creek gossiped with the rocks. He slept.

  By Saturday noon, they reached timberline. Every viewpoint revealed The Lady in distress. The newly created crater at the north summit belched steam fumaroles into the fleeing clouds. The snowpack cried muddy creeks. Cinder-gray ash weighted fir bows like dirty snow. To the north, Spirit Lake shimmered beneath the intermittent sun, its deep blue a reflection bowl for the struggling peak.

  David and Brian shrugged out of their packs and grabbed a bag of trail mix. They climbed to the top of a granite point. Far below them a miniature Mount St. Helens Lodge bounded the edge of the lake.

  David opened his camera case and focused on the scene below. Harry Truman’s Lodge, he thought, remembering back to a time when Coke glasses were filled with Harry’s special brew and imbibed in front of a roaring fire. Harry thought he owned the mountain. “Wonder how Harry’s doing?” He adjusted the f-stops on the camera body.

  “That song about him sure hit the top fast.”

  “The old reprobate.”

  “Dad! I thought you liked him.”

  “Sure I do. He’s a genuine character. But if the mountain really does blow like they’re predicting, he’ll get himself killed, and someone else will die looking for him.”

  For a second Brian forgot to chew. “How?”

  “Well, if the mountain really does erupt …” David turned the wide-angle lens toward the peak. After a long pause, without pressing the shutter, he put his gear away.

  “Dad?”

  “Uh-huh?” David slumped, eyes closed. “I don’t want to remember her this way. Next time we come, she’ll be herself again.”

  After shouldering their packs, Brian asked. “You want to go higher?”

  “No. I had thought about looking in the crater, but let’s leave well enough alone. You want to head on down to the Lodge?” The thought of a shot of Harry’s special stock bit a desire into his throat.

  “Na. The lake’s too cold for swimming yet.” Brian glanced at the man beside him. “You want to?”

  David thought a moment. “No. Let’s head back for camp. See if there are any trout in that stream. I know you packed plenty of food, but creek-fresh trout tonight or in the morning sure sounds good to me.”

  After supper at the campfire, as Brian roasted marshmallows on a willow stick, David thought of home. I wish Katheryn were here. She’d help me sort through this muddle. Why can I talk about great writers and thinkers, even grammar, for hours, but can never explain or describe this heaviness that settles near me?

  “Dad, you want one?” Brian held out a marshmallow, light brown on all sides and mushy in the middle, just the way his father liked them.

  “Perfect, thank you.”

  “Another?”

  “No thanks.” The marshmallow being turned burst into flame. “At least not that one.”

  Brian blew it out. “I know, that’s for me.” He pulled off the crispy coat, ate it, and held the gooey center over the coals. “I love you, Dad.” His whisper danced with the sparks against the black of the night.

  Sleep that night came quickly. David’s last thought as he shifted his aching legs away from a root stabbing him was one of gratitude. Tomorrow would be a new day. And maybe a granddaddy trout lurked in the shaded hole just beyond the knobby knees of that giant cedar.

  MAY 17, 1980

  Cleaning failed to keep her mind occupied.

  Katheryn threw her cloth in the sink, wrenched the rubber gloves from her hands, and tossed the slippery things into the sink after the cloth. I’ve had it—give it up, dope, she dumped her thoughts after them.

  No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t keep her mind away from the mountain—and her two men. David had been so down lately, and there seemed no way to get him to open up and talk about it.

  Maybe he didn’t want to figure out what was bothering him. Why was this time any different than the other years, other than deeper depression, or so it seemed?

  And you let Brian go up with him, in spite of your doubts and fears. That was the part that rubbed raw right now. If David needed to go, so be it, but to put Brian in harm’s way …

  And you let him. The voice refused to shut up.

  “How could I do that?”

  How could you not? The calmer, more rational side of her brain kicked in. All these years she’d lived by the creed that David was the head of the household, and therefore he had the final say on things. If they disagreed and were not able to come to an agreement, she believed he should lead. That’s what Scripture said. That’s what she’d heard preached.

  But now!

  I’m worrying needlessly. And I know that worry is a sin, an elevator going down and taking me with it. She drew in a deep breath. “Father, forgive my worrying. Please free me now so I can … can what? Thank you for knowing me better than I know myself, and please keep those men of mine safe up there. Let them have a wonderful weekend and come home refreshed with wild stories of their adventures. Thanks for listening. And loving us all.”

  She wandered around the now sparkling house. All the windows were divested of their spotted winter look, and the rich cherry wood dining room set sent burnished reflections back to the cheery sun now able to penetrate the windows. She stopped at the French doors from the family room to the deck. Two tubs of Red Emperor
tulips nodded in the slight breeze. The daffodils needed to be replaced, she saw. Their yellow trumpets had gone to seed heads. The air tasted like spring with freshly turned earth, hyacinths, sprouting grass, and budding leaves all blended into one heady fragrance as she bent to snap off the seed pods. Perhaps snapdragons would be a showy change, she thought, pulling out a couple of weeds at the same time.

  Back in the kitchen, she turned on the teapot. She hadn’t felt much like eating, but the clock on the stove reminded her that lunchtime had come and gone. When the cranberry herb tea and peanut butter toast were ready, she took them into her office.

  You have absolutely no more excuses, she scolded herself. The house was immaculate, the errands run, the ingredients on hand for the chocolate-chip cookies she would bake for her returning campers, and her weekly letter sealed and stamped for her mother. She finished her lunch, brushed auburn strands of hair back from her face, and drew the disk for her third young adult novel from its protective sleeve. She slipped it into the computer, brought up chapter four, and immersed herself in the peccadilloes of thirteen-year-old Brandy Evans. Three hours later she was still tapping away at the keyboard.

  Dusk shrouded the yard when she stretched her arms above her head. She massaged the muscles in the back of her neck and looked around the room, amazed that tortoise-time had escalated to hare. On her way to the kitchen for a refill on the tea, she thought of her campers, most likely cooking dinner at their campfire. I can’t believe it. Eight already. She switched on the burner. David and Brian were most likely already in the sack. The thought of her husband’s sore muscles made her conscious of her own.

  A gentle “woof” at the door reminded her that Lucky wanted in. In fact, the German short-hair Lab had probably been begging for admittance for who knew how long. “I’m sorry, Lucky. I lost track of time.” And everything else. She gave the liver-red dog an extra pat to make up for the lack of attention. Lucky sat and offered one paw, as if she were the one who had been remiss. Katheryn knelt down, shook the proffered paw, and rubbed the dog’s broad head. Her strong fingers found Lucky’s favorite place behind her soft ears and stroked. The dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy.