Lifting the Sky (9 page)

“You go ahead,” I said. “I'll get us a newspaper.”

It's hard not to be rude when you're trying to whisk your kid out the door. My mom managed. Clyde folded his arms over his chest and nodded at her as she turned and pushed through the door. It shut with a
bam
behind her.

From behind the counter he looked down at me over his glasses and winked. He was almost hidden behind a barricade of newspapers, travel maps, tourist brochures, boxes of bananas and cherries, jar after jar of beef jerky, and racks hanging with beaded Indian earrings and necklaces. Beaded barrettes, moccasins, and belt buckles glittered in the glass shelves beneath the counter while drums and beaded vests
hung from the rafters. The trading post smelled of coffee and leather and floor wax. It was a good smell.

We'd hit the morning mail rush, the locals stopping to grab a cup of free coffee and catch up on the gossip. With the tourist season just starting, a steady stream of cars had come by to gas up, get a tire changed, or to get reservation fishing licenses and maps or groceries. My eyes had kept as busy as my mouth, I'd been so distracted watching everyone's lights. If I hadn't had a message to get out, I would've just stood there and enjoyed the light show. It was the first time we'd been out in public and I was wide-eyed at my new ability to see everyone's lights so clearly.

I'd chatted so much while Mam got the groceries that I'd about winded myself. Now, with Mam out the door, I sped to the mailboxes lining one wall. I reached into my backpack and pulled out seven stamped, slightly wrinkled letters. They were all addressed to different towns in Wyoming, but to the same person—my dad, Anton Gaspard.

The night before, after Mam's story, I'd run up to my attic, sprawled flat on my bed, and buried my head under my pillow. Sometimes it hurt so bad, as if I had a deep fatherless hole in my heart that could never, ever be filled. Every little bit I learned about him I had to write down in my journals, as if by doing that I could hold something of him down, and at least keep the wisps from floating away. So after a while I sat up and got out my journal. “Your dad had a gift for healing,” she'd said. I wrote that down. Somewhere I thought I had a memory about my dad healing
something—but for the life of me I couldn't bring it back up. But it made me shivery just thinking about it. Maybe he'd understand what was happening to me. Maybe …

I tore some pages out of my school notebook. He just had to find us. He had to. Maybe I should write an ad like they did for lost pets and put it in the paper. Except Mam wouldn't really go for that. Okay, I'd write letters, that's what I'd do. I'd send them all over the state. It was a big state, but there weren't a whole lot of people in it. Even if he wasn't in a town the letter was addressed to, if he worked at a ranch in that area, why, someone would know of him. At least it was worth a try….

Dear Papa
, I wrote (I remembered how I used to say
Papa
with a French accent because that was how he'd said it himself).

I miss you so much. I hope you're doing well. I'm well and my mom is too, but she's awful quiet. Stew Pot's well too. I'm writing to let you know where we are because I'm sure you've been looking for us. I know we could be a happy family again if only you'd come back. I have a lot of questions I need answered. I'm sending a copy of this letter all over the state. I'm hoping one will find you.

Your loving daughter,

Blue

P.S. I never had a chance to say good-bye. You were already gone.

I made six copies and stuck each in an envelope and addressed them all to Anton Gaspard. Then I covered the state, writing Cody, Cheyenne, Casper, Gillette, Pinedale, Jackson Hole, or Riverton on each one. “Please forward,” I added. Then I very clearly wrote down our address. I left the post office box number blank. We never got mail, but I'd ask Mam to get us our own box. Not like we ever got any mail. My excuse would be that we needed a return address to get my final report card. I got all the envelopes addressed and then stuffed them into my backpack. No sense in Mam knowing about this.

I'd gotten one of her looks when I insisted we needed a post office box, but she'd humored me and asked Clyde to assign us one. Part one of my plan accomplished.

Part two had been to spread the word about who we were and where we lived. I'd made a big point of meeting the storekeeper–post master, Clyde, and of chattering away as Mam filled out the forms for our box. It hadn't hurt that the store had been packed with people getting their mail and morning coffee and newspapers and supplies. I'd made sure everyone heard our name and where we lived.
“Shh,”
Mam had said several times, wrinkling her forehead at me.

So now, after she'd sailed out the door, I quickly jotted down our new box number and the right zip code on each envelope and slipped all seven into the mail slot.

I knew Mam would be drumming her fingers by now, so I dashed back to the counter and grabbed the fattest
newspaper, the
Star Tribune
from Casper. I fished in my pocket and slid one of my hard-earned dollars across the counter. “Gotta keep in touch with the world,” I said. “We're pretty isolated up there, you know.”

“Ain't that the truth. That ranch is 'bout as far back as you can get,” Clyde said as he patted the change into my palm. “Sure was good getting to know you.”

Two ranchers, both wearing tall rubber irrigating boots, stopped sorting through their mail and looked over at me. “You take care, now,” one said, and the other said, “Real nice meeting you, Miss Gaspard.”

They'd obviously heard my whole story. That was good. About a dozen other people had been around while I chatted to Clyde. I beamed at the men. “Thanks. Nice meeting you too.” I squinted at the fatter of the two men. “Be careful,” I said. “Take care of your heart.”

His hand shot to his chest. I bit my lip.
Why'd I say that?

I grabbed the sack of groceries Mam had left on the counter and started toward the door. A young Indian woman with two little boys right behind her held the door open for me. I wanted to reach out and touch her belly; the lights around it were so pretty, all fizzy champagne bubbles and sparkly pink lights. I beamed at her. “Thanks,” I said, “and congratulations.” The woman ducked her head and smiled back. The two little boys peeked shyly around her skirt. I wondered if they knew about the baby. Her belly wasn't the slightest bit big yet, but boy did it ever glow!

Ol' Yeller was practically snorting, with puffs of smoke putting out his rusty old tailpipe. I heaved the sack into the cab and climbed in, nudging Stew Pot into the middle. Mam gunned Ol' Yeller and the truck backfired as we turned onto the highway.

“Was all that chitchat necessary?” Mam asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

“It's not like I've seen or talked to anyone 'cept you and Stew Pot since Mr. Mac left,” I said, twisting my hair into knots.

A long silence followed. We turned off the highway onto our road. The “No Trespassing” sign flashed its tin warning into the bright sunlight. Mam stared at it. The veins stuck up on the backs of her hands as she gripped the steering wheel. “I should've known this place would be too remote,” she said. “Did I make a mistake taking this job? Are you feeling too cut off from the world?”

“
No!”
I screeched as we hit a rut. “I mean, I'm just a chatterbox, that's all. Sometimes I talk to hear myself talk.” I crossed my fingers. Luck and lies—crossed fingers covered both, didn't they?

Mam shot me a look but said nothing.

Truth was, I'd run on at the mouth to let everyone in the store know our names and where we were staying. If somebody wanted to find you and you
wanted
to be found, wouldn't you spread the word?

But maybe I'd overdone it. Sending the letters was one thing, but Mam liked her privacy. Maybe I'd taken this one step too far. Had I even asked her if she wanted
my dad to come back? It'd been my hope and my prayer for so long I'd never even thought of asking her how she felt about it. All I knew about my dad since he left was what she'd read out loud to me from the few letters he'd sent. Some parts of those letters she'd kept secret. Too secret, perhaps.

The first day of June was all shimmery green leaves and blue skies, all bees, butterflies, and gooseberry blossoms. It was larkspur, Indian paintbrush, and wild onions popping up on the hillsides. It was a world gone crazy with birdsong.

It was also a trip back down to the trading post. It was letters in our mailbox.

My stomach did a cartwheel as Mam leafed through the letters. “That's strange,” she said. “One's from your school. But ‘Return to Sender' is stamped on the other five. Obviously that's
you….
”

I felt a knot in my throat. The jig was up. Now she knew I'd secretly sent them off and was seriously searching for my dad. Of course my plan hadn't worked—what had I expected? I stared down at the floor. Two letters hadn't been returned so I had just a smidgen of hope left….

“If he wanted to find us, he would,” Mam said, sticking
the five letters into my limp hands. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“But this letter here says you passed,” she went on, opening the one from my school and reading it through before handing it over. “Congratulations. You did really well. Tomorrow you can have the whole day to do as you please. I'll feed your bums and I'll even take care of those beaver dams you've been sneaking off to undo.”

I should've known it was impossible to get anything by her. One by one I let the letters slip out of my hand into the trash can.

Over at the counter, Mam was setting out the things we had to buy fresh, like milk, eggs, bread, and bananas, and some ranch supplies like salt for the cows and more fence staples and some seeds. Clyde rang them up and then pushed a piece of bubblegum across the counter toward me. “Keep smiling,” he said, and I flashed him a lopsided smile.

As the door banged behind us the feeling came over me that maybe
this
was what it felt like to have roots. Maybe it was just someone handing you a piece of gum because they'd watched as you dropped your hopes, one by one, into a trash can.

Mam didn't mention the letters again. Instead, she kept me so busy all day that I didn't have two minutes to brood. We mucked out the barn and fixed the fence around the plot in the yard where once there'd been a garden. Then we dug up the weeds and planted lettuce and spinach and beets, potatoes and onions—things that might stand half a chance at seven thousand feet up in the mountains. I even planted
half a sack of sunflower birdseed for the fun of it, and because we'd never hung around anywhere long enough to see if birdseed (or any seeds, for that matter) would grow. “Bloom where you're planted,” I whispered to each little seed as I tucked it into the earth.

All day long I thought about what I wanted to do the next day. I got everything all set out for an early start. I had a trail mix of raisins and nuts and a bottle of water and my journal and pencils tucked into my pack. My clothes were laid out by my bed.

I went to bed with a plan. I'd never trespassed farther than my hill. Tomorrow I'd sneak through the fence and explore the big world beyond it.

What I didn't know was that events would knock that plan clear off the map.

On the second day of June I woke to the wonder of cold blue-white silence and the whole world hushed by a blanket of snow.

During the night snow had sifted through cracks in the windowsill and dusted the floor like a sprinkling of powdered sugar. Doggie paw prints tracked from the beanbag to the stairway, so I knew Stew Pot had deserted me. I could see by the light in the room that I'd overslept, but I couldn't tell if it was dawn or ten o'clock. It was quiet, still.

Then from somewhere in the hills came the yip-yipping of coyotes and, from another direction, a sound that rose and held and floated on the air and sent shivers up and down my whole body.

A
wolf
? But they were supposed to be farther to the
west, around Yellowstone. Had they spread clear to
here
? It
had
to be a lone coyote howling to his friends on the opposite hill.

I kicked off my covers, shook the snow dust from my clothes and shivered into them, found my coveralls and boots and tugged them on, decided not to take my backpack, crammed my hair into my blue stocking cap and sprinted down the stairs.

From the hallway I could see into the kitchen through the half-open door. Mam's teacup stood upside down beside the sink, so I knew she'd already gone out. And no Stew Pot. He always dashed out the door with the first one who opened it. In the mudroom two bottles of milk stood by the door—well, at least they'd been filled, but there went Mam's promise to feed the calves on my day off.

I grabbed my jacket and gloves, stuck a bottle under each arm, and plunged out the door.

Startled birds whirled off the porch where Mam had scattered the rest of the sunflower birdseed. It was a white-magic day, the whole world transformed by six inches of snow. Bushes draped in ghost sheets drooped to the ground to make snow caves. It was still lightly snowing, though a pale sun peeked through a gray veil of clouds.

Ol' Yeller's tracks led down toward the barn, so I knew Mam had taken off to feed the cattle some hay.

The day before, my bums had been hopping about on green grass. Now they huddled way back in their shed,
moo-ahhh
ing their little hearts out and rolling their eyes as I brushed the snow off the gate and unhooked the latch.

“Hold your horses,” I said as they both lunged for the bottles. “One at a time.” I crooned their names as I juggled bottles and bums. One day they'd be back with the rest of the cows and I wanted to be sure they knew their names so I could call them out of the herd. As I fed them I daydreamed that Mr. Mac might let me buy them so I could keep them forever and they'd have lots of babies and none of them would ever,
ever
have to be branded or sent off to market….