“There’s no hurry on that. We’ll get plenty of pictures. We’ll be here awhile.”
“How long, August?”
August shrugged. “As long as we want. Until we’ve seen enough hoodoos to last us. Until we’re tired of them and ready to move on.”
“I don’t think I could ever get tired of them.”
“How about until you know them so well you can see them in your head when you close your eyes?”
“That’ll do,” Seth said.
August left the boys in the motor home and walked to the only pay phone at the campground. The rain was just barely tapering off, and cell-phone reception was close to nonexistent. August used his calling card instead of quarters to call the county jail that held Wes because he was sure he’d spend a long time on hold.
He was wrong.
The woman who answered the phone and heard his question asked if he was family or Wes’s attorney. When he said he was neither, that was more or less the end of that.
“But I’m taking care of his children,” August said. “That’s why it’s so important I know his exact release date.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “The prisoner would have to authorize us to give you that information.”
“Okay, got it,” he said. “Thanks.”
He hung up and walked back to the rig, thinking the news had not exactly come as a surprise. Still, it felt depressing in ways he couldn’t quite pin down.
The rain had let up, and as he stepped level with the next campsite Seth came running at him, babbling and excited.
“You missed it, August! You missed it and it was amazing. Well, not missed it missed it. It’s still there, but it’s fading out. You should’ve seen it before. It was so amazing. I took your camera to take a picture of it. Boy, I sure hope that’s okay, but I just couldn’t miss it. I did it mostly for you, August. I wanted you to see it while it was still good, so I took a picture of it. I didn’t want to take it with my camera, because then you wouldn’t see it, because you won’t even still be around when we get home and get our film developed. I wanted you to see it now, today.”
“Whoa,” August said. “Whoa. Slow down, Seth. Took a picture of what? What was so amazing?”
“The two rainbows!”
He pointed along the steep use trail that led up to the canyon rim. Henry stood transfixed, faced away from them. Beyond him a double rainbow arched across the canyon. It was hard for August to imagine that he was seeing the faded version.
“Where’s the camera now?” August asked.
“Right here in my pocket. Where it’ll stay dry. But it’d stopped raining before I took it outside. But I just want you to know if it had started to rain again, I’d have kept it dry.”
“Hand it to me, would you?”
“Okay.”
Seth pulled the camera from his pocket and gave it to August, who lined up a shot.
“I got great pictures of it, though, August. And it was brighter.”
“But did you get Henry in there staring at it?”
“Oh. No. He was standing beside me. So no.”
“I just thought it looked nice with him in the picture.”
August snapped off a shot, then brought up all the photos to view. Seth’s were amazing, with both arcs of the rainbow visible and a perfect framing of the red rock canyon and hoodoos beneath.
“That was quite a rainbow,” August said. “You’re a good photographer, you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that. How could I know? I never took a picture in my whole life until we came on this trip. How can I be good at something if I just now started?”
“I think you just have a natural feel for it. Glad you captured this.”
“I think it might be a good sign. You know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure. You mean like an omen?”
“Maybe. Just, when I saw it . . . I sort of felt like maybe now everything is going to be okay.”
August offered no opinion. He wanted to go with Seth’s idea. It was appealing, and it drew him. But he still had a lot of questions and misgivings in his head and in his gut.
When August woke the next morning it was light, and something hard was pressed against his back between his shoulder blades. Something too round and heavy to be Woody. He raised his head and rolled partly over, which involved pushing the something out of the way. But it mostly shifted away on its own.
August sat up. The something was Henry. In August’s bed on the couch side. He’d been sleeping—or maybe just lying still—with his forehead up against August’s back.
August looked around for Seth and the dog. Woody might have been up front in the driver’s seat, watching out the window for squirrels. With the privacy curtain up, it was hard to tell. August listened for a minute, expecting to hear Seth in the bathroom. But all was still except for the rumbling of coffee percolating. Apparently Seth had put on a pot of coffee for August to enjoy when he woke up.
“Where’s Seth and Woody?” he asked, making eye contact with Henry, who quickly looked away. Of course, August had intended it as a rhetorical question.
“Out for a walk,” Henry said.
He had a small voice, like the sound one might imagine coming from a shy animated mouse. August felt his eyebrows rise. He watched Henry for a moment, in case there was more. Henry made a point of avoiding his eyes.
“So you can talk,” August said.
Henry nodded faintly.
“You just choose not to?”
Henry nodded again.
“What made you change your mind?”
Henry shrugged.
August lay back down, and Henry moved up closer and pressed his forehead between August’s shoulder blades again.
When Seth and Woody got back, August was sitting at the dinette table drinking coffee. Henry was seated across from him buttering toast.
“Thanks for the pot of coffee.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you didn’t worry about where we were.”
“Not at all,” August said. “Henry told me.”
Seth laughed a little snort of a laugh but didn’t answer.
“No, seriously. Henry told me.”
Seth’s eyes widened. “In words?”
“Yes. In words.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Whoops. Sorry.”
“For what?”
“For cussing.”
“That’s not very strong cussing.”
“But maybe you don’t want me to cuss at all. Like, ever.”
“Seth. Sit down.”
Seth took off Woody’s leash and sat next to Henry, still holding the leash nervously in his hands, his eyes cast down toward the table. “What?”
“You worry too much. You think you have to do too much. Like you think you’re always just about to make some terrible mistake. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn to dump the tanks. There’s nothing wrong with making coffee for me or walking the dog. It’s nice. But I get a feeling you’re doing it because you always feel like you need to do more. To be more. Like if you don’t make yourself useful, you’re not entitled to the air you breathe. Why not just relax and be a kid on vacation?”
Seth’s eyes came up to his, then darted down again. “I could try.”
“For your own sake. Yeah.”
“It’s just . . . I’ve been like this for so long.”
August pulled in a deep breath. Sighed it out again. “Yeah, I imagine you have. But I’d still appreciate it if you’d let go of the idea that you constantly need to impress me.”
“I’ll try.” But he didn’t sound too sure about his chances of succeeding.
“Toast? Henry will share, I think, and then we can make more.”
“Okay,” Seth said. Then he looked down at his brother. “Henry. You said something to August?”
Henry nodded. A bit more decisively this time.
“What made you go and decide to do a thing like that?”
Henry shrugged.
>
“Have you ever seen a hoodoo?” Seth asked. Then he fell silent while he listened to his father’s reply.
They stood in the baking sun at the pay phone. Henry hunkered down into a squat in August’s shade.
“Well, I’d never even heard of them. I wish you could see them, but at least I got pictures. I’m getting pictures of everything. Mostly I’m taking them on August’s camera, but he says he’ll give me a copy of all of them when we get home in September. Yesterday we walked all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and around this loop trail. And then we were right in with the hoodoos, right near the bottom of some of them. They’re like these . . . like spires. But rough, you know? And all these colors like red and orange and gold and white. I mean, rock colors, but more color than I ever saw in rocks before. Colors like in pictures of the Grand Canyon only even more colorful. I wish I could describe them better. They’re hard to describe. I wanted to call you from down there on the trail at the bottom of the canyon, ’cause I kind of wanted to describe a hoodoo while I was looking right at one. But I’m not sure even that would’ve helped. Besides, we didn’t get any reception down there. But it was a great hike. And Henry’s getting in pretty good shape. August didn’t have to carry him until we were most of the way back up to the rim again. He has better socks now. We both do. August bought us socks for hiking, so we don’t get blisters. That helps.”
A pause.
“Yeah, he is . . . Yeah, we are . . . Yeah, okay.”
Seth held the receiver out to Henry. “He wants to talk to you.”
Henry took the phone and squatted down again, but in the sun this time. He closed his eyes.
A minute later he held the phone out to August. When August put it to his ear, Wes was still talking.
“So, I know you’re being a good boy because you always—”
“Wes?”
“Oh. What happened to Henry?”
“I don’t know. He just handed the phone to me. I thought you wanted to talk to me.”
“Oh. Well. Not really. But—”
“I need to talk to you, though. Actually.” August looked at the boys, who were watching him carefully. “Boys, could you give me a second alone here?”
Seth’s face closed up slightly. Tightened. But he took hold of his brother’s sleeve and they moved away.
“So, what’s up?” Wes asked. “What’s the deal? Is there a problem?”
“No. No problem. I just wanted to know your exact release date. You know. So I can make my plans.”
“Hmm,” Wes said.
“Not sure why that would be hard.”
“Well. It’s ninety days. Like I said.”
“So you should know the exact date.”
“I’d have to be looking at a calendar.”
“I find it really hard to imagine that you’re not counting the days. What about all those prison films where guys mark off the number of days on the wall?”
“That’s mostly just in the movies,” Wes said.
“No, I don’t think it is. I think it’s human nature to count the days until something you hate is over. Anyway, this is getting us nowhere. So here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to authorize me to get information straight from the people at the jail.”
A stony silence. August’s mind raced, wondering how much to read into it.
“I can just find out the date and tell you.”
“I’d still like to hear it from them.”
“You think I’d lie to you?”
“Honest answer? I’m not sure. You told me you’d been in jail twice, and it turns out it’s four times.”
“This’s not about how many times I’ve been in,” Wes said, his voice hardening some. “That’s really none of your business. It’s just your business when I’m here to take the kids back.”
“Okay, I accept that. It’s none of my business. But you volunteered the information that it’s your second time in jail. Then you said you forgot the other two times. I don’t know if you forgot or you lied about it. That’s not even so much the issue. The issue is that I’m not sure I can trust the information I get from you. I’d like to hear it from the jail as well.”
Another silence.
Then, “Fine.”
“So you’ll authorize me with them?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, today?”
“Before the next time you call, yeah.”
“But I can call them on any day. It’s you who can only get incoming calls three days a week. So how about today, while you’re thinking about it?”
“Yeah, whatever, August.”
August squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again and watched Seth and Henry petting a woman’s golden retriever.
“I’ve taught high school just about all my life, Wes. I’ve lived long enough to know that ‘whatever’ basically means ‘kiss my ass.’ ”
“What do you want from me, man?”
“I want you to tell the prison officials that August Schroeder, the guy who’s taking care of your children, is authorized to receive information, same as blood family.”
“Fine. Okay.”
August opened his mouth to add something about timing but was interrupted in that thought. Not by Wes. By a dial tone.
Chapter Nine:
OPEN
August locked up the rig, and the three of them and Woody crossed the parking lot and stood at the wood-post and stone-pillar railing of the lookout into Bryce Canyon. Just to break things up, they had stowed all the movable items in the rig and set off on a morning’s drive down the long road that paralleled the canyon, stopping at every lookout.
It was higher in elevation here than at camp. Over nine thousand feet. August could feel the slight difference in his breathing.
The tiny cones of bristlecone pines littered the area, and Henry began to gather them up and place them in an impromptu sack made by holding up the bottom of his T-shirt. August wondered whether to tell him it was against park rules to gather anything. He weighed its importance, then let it go. When they got back to the motor home, maybe August would encourage him to choose his favorite and only keep that one.
A raven almost the size of a hawk sat on one of the stone pillars, eyeing them and cawing. Seth stared off into the canyon, transfixed. August pulled his cell phone from his pocket and was surprised to see bars of reception.
“Hey,” he said to the boys. “I can get cell reception here. I’m going to go off a ways and make a phone call, and then when I get back maybe we can call your dad.”
“Okay,” Seth said. As though barely paying attention.
“Will you take Woody for me?”
“Sure,” Seth said, and reached out a hand for the leash. Without ever taking his eyes off the canyon.
“Harvey,” August said. “Good. You’re there.”
“Thought you were mad at me.”
“No, you didn’t. You knew I just lost reception.”
“Pretty much. Maybe a little of both. Any updates?”
“Yes and no. I talked to the jail. And they wouldn’t give me any information. So then next time I talked to Wes, I asked him to authorize me. Right then. That day. While he was thinking about it. He didn’t seem very happy about it. In fact, he hung up on me. But he said he’d do it. But then I called the jail again, and he still hasn’t. Or at least he hadn’t as of yesterday.”
“Surprised?”
August looked up to see that the raven had followed him. Either that or a different one had landed nearby. The bird stared at August with one shiny black eye. August watched the odd shape of the top of his enormous beak as he opened and closed it, letting out his strange call.
“Not really. I’m just not sure if I should allow for some possibility that he might have forgotten. Or if I should just assume he blew me off.”
“Like there’s a difference.”
“Well. There’s some difference.”
“There’s no difference, August. People remember wha
t they want to remember and forget what they want to forget. If you told him something was important to you and he forgot to do it, he blew you off.”
“Yeah,” August said. “I guess I see your point about that.”
“I need to talk to him,” August told Seth as Seth waited on the line for his father.
“Okay.”
About a minute passed before more words burst out of Seth.
“Dad! Great. You’re there. So, look. I’m standing at the railing looking right into Bryce Canyon. I’m going to try to describe it to you. But . . . you know what? It’s still hard. The hoodoos have stripes. Sideways stripes. That’s the best way I can say it. Like the rock is really red like a brick, but even redder, but then it’ll have this wide white stripe through it. And even the part that’s red looks like it has stripes. And some of the hoodoos are all together, like one big wall of hoodoos all attached. And some of ’em are just standing all by themselves. Shoot. That doesn’t help at all, does it? I bet you still can’t picture it. So, listen. August needs to talk to you . . . No, he specifically said he needed to talk to you.”
August reached out for the phone, and Seth handed it over. Quickly. But not quickly enough. By the time August got it to his ear and said hello, there was no Wes on the line. There was no open line. The call had ended.
“Hmm,” Seth said. “Must’ve lost reception.”
August looked at the readout for reception. Four bars, same as when the call had started.
“Yeah, maybe so,” August said.
Henry fell asleep on the drive back to camp. Seth stared out the window for the first two-thirds of the way.
Then he said, “How long have we been at Bryce, August?”
“Five days, I think.”
“Oh.”
“Why? Does it feel like enough?”
“Well. It’s not up to me, August. It’s up to you how long we stay in a place. It’s your rig and your gas money and your trip.”
“But how does it feel to you? I’m asking. Does it feel like time to move on?”
Take Me With You Page 9