by Minick, Jim;
“Well, he used to know.”
From the backseat, “Damn it, Cicero. Damn it, Cicero.”
Ada busted out laughing.
Will just shrugged.
At Burns Valley, Will steered the car into a driveway, the house huge and painted white. “We’re here. Time to get out.” He scrambled to open Ada’s door, but she already had her foot on the ground.
“I’m not used to chauffeur service.”
Will opened the back door, but Cicero flew out the other window. “See you later, buddy,” Will shouted. The raven circled overhead, cawing before he flew east, disappearing up the valley.
“This here’s Aunt Amanda’s house,” he said with a nod. “As you know, she’s working for old man Johnson, otherwise she’d be out here to greet you. Now, turn your back and don’t look.” He opened the trunk and pulled out some things, then quickly shut the lid. “I saw you peeking.” He handed her a quilt. “Here, you carry this.” He picked up a picnic basket, grabbed her hand, and started walking.
Will loved the feel of her hand, those long fingers, their tight grip and soft warmth. Her warmth. “We’re going on a birthday picnic.” He pulled her along so that she had to hurry to keep up.
They walked on the shoulder of the road across a bridge. “Over there, that was my father’s farm, where I grew up.” Across a wide meadow another two-story, white house stood.
“And today, we’re going up there.” Will raised her hand to point to a high knoll. “That’s the highest point on Aunt Amanda’s farm. Highest point in the valley, far as I know, except for the mountains.”
Ada thanked him as he opened the gate. The tang of mint filled the air as they climbed the hayfield.
“What was your father like?”
Will’s hand tightened, and his pace picked up. “Oh, he was a crotchety old man who preferred his own company. I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, or playing my saxophone out in the barn. Then he got cancer and we had to sell the farm to pay all the bills. He was proud to go to his grave without any debt.”
“Do you miss the farm?”
“Not really. Too much work, too little pay. I miss the barn swallows that come back every year. And not having neighbors right on top of you. But somewhere along the way I learned I like engines more than cows.”
Ada didn’t ask any more.
Halfway up, they stopped for a moment. “I’ve made too much hay here. Always leaning uphill on the wagon, ready to jump in case the whole thing tipped.” He searched for Cicero. “And when I was little, I used to go sledding here. That little outcrop there made the best ramp. Me and Joe Brechbill, we’d see who could jump the farthest. One time he landed so hard the runners just flattened out under him. Ruined that sled.” The wind gusted and blew Ada’s whole body. Will pulled her closer, her hip against his. “Maybe this winter we can do that. What do you think?”
“Sledding, yes. Jumping off that ramp, no thank you.” Ada held the quilt close, afraid another gust might lift her dress.
At the top, they gazed down the narrow length of Path Valley. Aunt Amanda’s and Will’s old house looked made for dolls with their gingerbread trim. Will took the quilt and, with his back to the wind, threw out his arms, the blanket making a soft wuft as he lowered it to the ground. “You sit here.” He pointed to one corner. “Try to make sure this doesn’t blow away.” He placed the picnic basket on the other corner. “Now face the mountain and don’t turn around. I have to run back to the car.” Over his shoulder, he yelled, “And no peeking.”
Ada could hear him smile. Off he jogged, and of course Ada watched his black hair bob, his goofy gallop. When he reached the car, she turned back to the mountains, their vibrant green. She picked a wild rose and breathed in its scent, the pollen dusting her nose. She glanced to see Will grab something from the trunk, though she couldn’t tell what. Ada concentrated on facing away, on watching the cloud shadows skirt along Kittatinny Mountain, as if they were giant fish surfing green waves. The wind blew her hair into her eyes, and her cheeks hurt from grinning. She couldn’t remember ever feeling the nearness of so much air.
Will took a long while to hike back to the top. “You were looking,” he said, out of breath.
Ada shook her head. “Not me, William Burk. Can I look now?”
“Not yet. Give me a sec.”
She heard paper rustling and stole a glimpse, but Will had his back to her, and he kept glancing her way. “Uh-huh. I’m watching you.”
Finally, Will said, “OK, birthday girl, have a look.”
Ada turned. In his hands, a kite. A large-eyed dragon with fire coming out of its mouth, the long tail whipping in the wind.
“A kite!” she whispered. “I’ve never had one.”
“Happy birthday.” Will handed her the spool and kissed her on the cheek. Then he stepped away, facing her, holding the dragon above his head, its tail floating behind. “When I say go, you run backwards,” Will yelled over the wind. “Let out string as the wind catches it, but hold the line taut, too.”
He paced off another twenty feet before stopping. “Ready?”
Ada nodded.
He made a show of wetting his finger to check the wind.
“Go!” he shouted, and Ada light-stepped away, running sideways, trying to watch the ground and the kite at the same time.
Will yelled, “Good, good. Whoa, wait up.” Soon he caught her, hugged her from behind, and helped her hold the slender string. His chin by her ear. The faint sweet scent of his sweat. She nestled into his body.
Above, the tail-wild dragon with its scary eyes danced and quivered from side to side, growing smaller and smaller. They held tight to the long line, as if it might pull them away, sail them up into that sky.
Ada and Will stood together on top of a wind-worn hill, tethered to a high-flying kite, hovering above this beautiful world.
At sunset, they hiked down the hillside. The wind had calmed, and the mountains glowed in the last light. Will held her hand and yelled for Cicero, scanning the sky, but no raven. “I think he’s out finding him a girlfriend.”
“Before you know it, he’ll be asking for your car keys.”
“Oh, don’t say car keys around that bird. Took me a whole hour to find mine yesterday. That’s how he learned ‘Damn it, Cicero.’”
On the drive to her home, Will took the long way, the county road over Kittatinny Mountain. The two-lane twisted through scree slopes, and Ada leaned against Will.
She felt a piece of paper underfoot, a pamphlet, and tried to read it in the glow of the dashboard. “What’s this?”
“Oh, one of my boss’s damn religious tracts that he keeps sliding under my windshield. He’s trying to convert me.”
“To what?”
Will hesitated. He wanted to blurt, Christianity. “Oh, I don’t know. Some kind of Holy Roller church he helped start in the valley.”
“I see.”
Will was sure she didn’t and glad she didn’t ask more.
On the other side of the mountain, Ada said, “I’m hungry for some dessert. How about you?”
“Sure. What do you have in mind?”
“A surprise.” She pinched his arm.
At Hopewell, they drove past the harsh light of the turnpike, and Ada instructed Will to drive past her homeplace. The kitchen light was on, and she imagined her parents sitting down to supper, wondering where their daughter was on her birthday. A little guilt rose in her as she nestled in closer to Will.
“Look at that barn.” Will slowed, almost driving off the road.
“Daddy says it won’t be long. Another month, maybe. He’s real pleased.”
“Yesterday he kept singing, ‘It’s coming along. It won’t be long.’” Will paused. “So, where are we going?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
The night’s darkness had fallen, each star sending out its own tiny fire. After another mile, Ada told him to slow at a massive stone house and large barn right beside the road. “This is Ell
ie’s Uncle Jay’s farm. Cut your lights and turn in that lane just past the barn.”
“You want me to drive down a farm lane in the dark? What if this Uncle Jay comes out with his shotgun?”
“He won’t. And if he does, he’ll just scowl when he sees it’s me.”
“And we’re going to find dessert somewhere down this dead-end lane?” He cut off the lights, made the turn, and was suddenly blinded. Straight ahead, all lit up and a half mile away loomed their workplace. Will shaded his eyes and tried to navigate around the mudholes. He hit most. “Let’s hope we don’t get stuck.” He gunned it through another puddle. The Plymouth bottomed out, the car fishtailing. Slowly the road rose, the fields changing from corn to hay.
“Ellie and I used to do this right after she got her license.” Ada shaded her eyes. “We’d sneak her daddy’s old pickup up here just for some little dips of pistachio ice cream. That seems like a century ago.”
They parked at the upper edge of the field, and a huge circle of light enveloped them in a weird glow. The intense brightness snuffed everything else out.
Will had never seen the limestone building from this angle or in this light. At the Esso station, Hilton and Dino hustled around plugging cars. Trucks rumbled by, and Will caught the familiar odor of diesel.
It was a whole other world, surrounded by a mountain full of oaks and deer and ravens, this alien, lit-up place that never slept. In the harsh glare, Will realized how much he liked this foreign land—the money and friends and now Ada.
“Somewhere in here there’s a path and a hole through the fence,” Ada called out, her head down. Will could hardly see her, the light was so strange. He spotted her shadow better than her body. He stumbled through briars and the strange silhouettes of trees. Crickets sang, but the roar of a big diesel silenced them.
“Here it is,” Ada shouted even though Will was beside her.
“I’m getting hungry for some ice cream. How about you?” He wanted to kiss her right there, but a trucker blared his horn.
Ada high-stepped through the honeysuckle. Will followed on the narrow path. Previous trespassers had bent the chain link fence to make a gap. Ada and Will slipped through, and once they emerged on the other side, the shadows disappeared under the circle of light.
The orange roof of Howard Johnson’s shined, its cupola pointing into the star-blind sky. A family straggled up the sidewalk, parents pulling sleepy kids. No one looked across the highway.
Ada and Will surveyed the road—four lanes of traffic and four guardrails, the middle one doubled.
“What do you think a state trooper would do if he caught us?”
“I’d just tell him it’s my birthday. I think he’d understand.”
Will smirked.
“Besides, you forgot cake in that picnic basket. I’m sure he’ll let me off when I tell him that.”
Will poked her in the ribs and she jumped. Then they scanned the parking lot on the other side, searching for police cars. Close by, cars and tractor trailers wooshed past, and one trucker jackhammered his brakes to startle them. In the other direction, they saw the same steady traffic with only an occasional break.
Suddenly Ada sprinted across the hot concrete, her long arms pumping, hair flying. She reached the double guardrails in the middle and climbed between. For a moment, a rental truck obliterated Will’s vision of her, but then she was there again, looking back, waving a taunting wave. She yelled, but a Mack truck swallowed her words.
At the next break, Will rushed to the middle and climbed one guardrail to stand sandwiched between. “Damn! This is crazy,” he hollered, but only to himself. Ada already waited on the far side, sitting on the guardrail, swinging her feet and waving.
A car accelerated right beside him, and gravel pinged on the guardrail. Will stepped over the metal and looked east, watching the traffic, calculating speed, waiting, waiting. And then he sprinted.
“What took you so long?” Ada grabbed his hand when he reached her.
“Had a little traffic to deal with.”
“Oh, really?”
They were all grins as they entered the lot. No one had seen them, not even the Esso workers. Will swung Ada’s hand in wide arcs, and they pretended to be just like all the other travelers, having left the turnpike to get out of their car and take a break at the Blue Mountain Plaza and eat a bite at Howard Johnson’s.
Will opened the front door for Ada, and they entered laughing. At the ice cream counter, they stopped short. Aunt Amanda stood beside the register, arms folded, smile caught in a scowl.
“Imagine seeing you two here,” she said. “Hope that traffic wasn’t too bad.”
“Not too bad,” Ada said with a half smile.
“How far is it to Pittsburgh?” Will asked.
“Oh, Pittsburgh? Well, by car, it’ll take you about three hours. But by foot, well . . . I don’t have the foggiest.” She moved to the freezer. “I take it you’d like a little dessert this evening?”
“Two cones of pistachio, please,” Will said.
Aunt Amanda filled two cones with two dips each and handed them across the counter.
Will pulled out some bills and put them by the register.
“I think Mr. Johnson can cover this, seeing as how you’ve traveled so far to celebrate a birthday.” Aunt Amanda slid the money back across the counter.
“Happy birthday, Ada,” Aunt Amanda said. “Now you two have a safe trip home.”
Cicero
While Will and what’s-her-name went sparking up on that hill, I headed up Burns Valley, where I spotted three ravens. They were playing, something I hadn’t done with another raven in a long while. Two chased the other, who carried a feather—they dipped and did a low call like a snort. Then the feather carrier would open her beak and the others would dive to catch it. One snatched it before it floated very far, and the game went on.
I wanted to play. At first they chased me like I was the feather. But they didn’t try to pluck any of mine, so I figured they were just testing ol’ Cicero. When I tried to catch the prize, the biggest one flew right at my back. I barrel-rolled and dove to lose him. He flew back to the others and the game went on. When I returned, they let me get a little closer, but still, that feather stayed out of my reach. One snuck a look over his shoulder, but for the most part, they acted like I was just another piece of sky.
This Burns Valley threesome had a couple of different gronks and cackles—a dialect different from mine, but I understood well enough. I called back a few times, even imitated their one odd gurgle-snort. That shut them up for a bit, but not long. They went back to chattering and playing.
By god of all dictionaries and alphabets, this was the first time since the storm that I’d heard ravens talking to each other, really heard them. Not some passing cronk way up high but a long conversation with jokes and taunts and damnfine fun. Made me miss my family. Made me miss my own tongue. Right then, I thought about flying back over those two mountains to sit a while by the cliff where I’d lost Loot and our young. But I didn’t. Maybe I had some new friends right here, if I could just catch that feather.
By dusk, they had gotten tired of me and the feather game, so they sent me away. I wasn’t one of their clan, not yet. I flew to Will’s apartment and roosted in the big maple. Darkness came with its pinpricks of stars, and Will finally got home late—too late, if you ask me, but no one’s asking. The soft hum of his engine woke me as he turned down our street. He called for me softly, like he didn’t want to wake the neighbors. I just sat in silence. He never saw me. Let him worry, I thought. Let him come down from his kite-flying cloud with that woman. By god of all fool Romeos in love with the moon, let him feel a little of my loneliness.
Besides, he never gave me that hard-boiled egg. That was for me, Will. Me, your best buddy. How could you forget?
34
Ada couldn’t find her amulet. She searched the dish where she put it every night, but the white glass was empty. She squished her head again
st the wall to look behind the dresser and patted the floor underneath. A cloud of dust made her sneeze. In the closet, she searched the pockets in her uniforms and dresses, but nothing. I know I had it yesterday.
She went back over the day—she had it at work and on the picnic. Then she touched on the most likely moment—when she climbed the fence. The amulet must’ve fallen from her pocket there at the edge of the pike, probably into that honeysuckle. She would never find it, even if she went to look.
It was her lucky stone she’d kept in her pocket for the past five years, through school and waitressing and even the barn fire. Did it work? She never could tell. Maybe it had saved her from the burning timber, or maybe God had done that. Either way, now that tiny weight was gone.
Ellie honked in the lane. Ada yelled goodbye to her mother and ran out the door.
“My, that Leroy Snoke is a fine-looking man,” Ellie said as Ada slid in. She was leaning on the steering wheel, peering up at Leroy and his father as they worked on the barn trusses.
“Well, good morning to you, too,” Ada said. “And besides, I thought you were married.”
“No harm in looking. And good morning to you, Miss Priss.” She turned the car around and waved to the Snokes. “So, how was the birthday picnic?”
“Daddy says tonight will be the last we have to milk by hand. We’ll be in the new barn by tomorrow.” Ada looked back at the skeleton of rafters.
“That so?”
“Says that Reese will finish the plumbing today, and if the weather holds, the Snokes can finish the trusses this week. All that’ll be left is the roof. Then he’s going to have a big barn dance. You’ll come, right?”
“Of course, you know me.” At the tollbooth, Ellie signed in. When they pulled away, she said, “You know you’re going to answer my question. I could pull over right here and wait. I don’t mind being late. Won’t be the first time Mabel hollers at me.” She pretended to pull onto the shoulder of the road. “So, I’ll ask it again. How was your birthday picnic?”
Ada smiled and fiddled with her apron. “You don’t need to pull over. I’ll tell you. Oh, Ellie, it was wonderful.” She told her about their picnic, the kite, and about sneaking up to HoJo’s for ice cream. “Just like we used to, remember?”