Mink River: A Novel (26 page)

So you and Cedar are going to find it?

That’s the idea.

Just you two?

Yes.

How?

Well, our plan is to climb the mountain carefully, and explore. If my calculations are correct, the north-northeast side of the mountain, where caves have occasionally been reported when the ice is in retreat, is a serious possibility for …

You are going to climb the mountain.

Yes.

You just had a serious heart attack. So serious you told me you thought it was the end. So serious you couldn’t breathe.

Well.

Now you’re going to climb a mountain eleven thousand feet high. At your age. With your heart.

We won’t be going all the way to the summit. There’s no need for that.

She withdraws her arm from his arm and stops walking and turns to look him in the eye.

Are you asking me or telling me about this trip? she says.

I’m … asking for your blessing, I suppose, he says.

No.

No?

No. Why are you doing this? You are in no condition to do this. It’s dangerous. It would be dangerous for anyone at any time but for you now it’s deliberate danger and I don’t understand it. I don’t see any reason for this. You could send someone else.

May …

I know what you are after and I understand it and I have always thought it creative and quite possible and possibly world shaking but this—this is crazy, Billy. Crazy. And you know it. This is self destructive.

May, it’s something I have to do. You know that. There are just things you have to do. Things for yourself. Things to
be
yourself. Believe me I have thought it over. Believe me I know how I am not the best candidate for such a trip. But I feel that I
have
to do it. I feel that all my work is pointless unless I prove it to be true. And I know in my bones it’s true. I am convinced. Dead sure.

What if something happens?

Cedar will be there.

You’re risking all the people you love. You’re risking losing Nora and Daniel and Owen and Cedar and me. And your work. And all the people you might save with that nose of yours. Your talent. All the people who love you.

May …

She spins on her heel and walks off down the beach again and he hurries to catch up to her.

May, please.

She takes her book bag from him.

Do whatever you want, she says.

May, please.

I love you, Billy. I love you dearly. But I don’t love this. This is wrong. This is
wrong
. This is putting yourself in danger deliberately. This is selfish. That’s why I am upset. You’re never selfish. But this is selfish. Do whatever you want. But don’t ask me to like it. Don’t ask me to smile and say it’s fine. It isn’t fine. Go ahead and go. It’s your decision. It’s your life. Do whatever you want.

21.

Worried Man tucks Daniel into his bed at the doctor’s house and sits on the edge and cups the boy’s face in his enormous hands.

Tell me a story of the old days, Gramp.

Ah, I am filling your head with stories, boy.

I like to hear them. I feel lucky when you tell me stories that no one knows anymore.

Mm.

Tell me a funny story.

Well, I don’t know. I am a little rattled tonight. My memory isn’t what it was. I am getting old, Dan. No way around it.

Just one story.

I’ll tell you a story if you promise to go right to sleep afterwards.

Deal.

Well, hmm. I’ll tell you about when the People first started to celebrate the Fourth of July. It wasn’t
our
holiday, you know—we were always an independent people, England was never our mother—but my grandfather remembered when we celebrated it for the first time. It was maybe 1877 or so, a few years before the Ghost Dance War east of us, when most of the tribes and clans rose up one last time against the loss of their lands and language and stories. That’s a sad story. They wore white leather shirts, Daniel, because they were convinced bullets couldn’t pierce white leather shirts. But they were wrong. That’s a long sad story. That was the end of all the People east of us. And we were ending too but we didn’t know it then. We didn’t know it for the longest time. My father was the one who saw it clear finally. He was the one who spoke it and the People never forgave him for it. He was a brave man, my father.

What was his name?

Sisaxai, which means
healer with two hands
. He was a body healer and a spirit healer too. Very few people could do both healings. He had a healing sign carved on his bed. My mother carved it for him. My mother was one of those crazy Cheamhills! She lived in a place called Wamka, the Valley of the Gophers. Her name was Wocas, which is the bright yellow lily in ponds and lakes. My father met her when he was berrying there one summer. They were in thickets by a creek. He didn’t know she was one of the crazy Cheamhills. He saw her through a thicket. He said hello and she ran away down the creek quick as a deer. He used to tease her about that all the time.
When you saw me you ran away!
he would say to her to make her laugh.
I must be as ugly as a cod!
he would say. He was always trying to make her laugh. She liked to laugh. They were always laughing. He was a brave man, my father. He walked into that Cheamhill village one morning shirtless with his hands empty and his hair unbraided. I have no war for you today, he said to the Cheamhills. Their warriors surrounded him. They were furious at his cheek.
Tunaqayu
, o warriors, I saw a woman of your people in the thickets and there’s nothing I can do to control my heart now, he said to them. The
tunaqayu
men did not want to listen but their old women made them listen. I am here with no weapons, said my father. I am here with my hair undone. I am here without armor. I am here without brothers. I am here without friends. I am here without the heart I used to have. I lost it there in the thickets. I wish only to speak to the woman I saw. I wish only to see her again. Her face is now my food. If she tells me to leave I will leave. If she tells me she does not like me I will leave. I have no war for you today. That’s what he said. He was a brave man. My mother liked to tell that story.

What happened? says Daniel.

Well, they called my mother out to look at the crazy man from Neawanaka.

And?

They understood each other.

What does that mean?

They liked each other.

Did they get married?

O, not for a long time. But eventually yes.

Why so long?

There were many negotiations, not least between them. They were from different people, and different countries, and they lived in different ways, and even ate different foods. My mother never did like fish and fish is about all my father ever ate. But they understood each other. It’s like your mom and dad, Dan. They understand each other. Now there’s another story. They met by the ocean. And your grandmother and I met by the river. And your great-grandparents met by that creek in the Valley of the Gophers. So we all met by water. Be careful, boy. Your woman will be waiting by water. That’s just the way it is. She’s probably waiting there for you right now. Time for bed.

You never told me about the first Fourth of July here.

Ah, you’re right. Tomorrow.

Goodnight, Gramp.

Goodnight, boy.

I love this, Gramp. When you tell me stories.

Me too.

I love you, Gramp. I love you very much.

Me too, Dan. Me too.

22.

No Horses goes up the coast alone for a couple of days.

On a clear day the Oregon coast is the most beautiful place on earth—clear and crisp and clean, a rich green in the land and a bright blue in the sky, the air fat and salty and bracing, the ocean spreading like a grin. Brown pelicans rise and fall in their chorus lines in the wells of the waves, cormorants arrow, an eagle kingly queenly floats south high above the water line.

She lies in the hot sand half-asleep, thinking.

Am I insane?

Owen tries to lose himself in his shop but work doesn’t matter and he isn’t hungry anymore and he can’t sleep, so he goes to the Department of Public Works and kneels down in the grass and stays there for an hour in that position, his face pressed into the grass, the hot dying smell of it filling his nose and mouth and eyes, his sobs muffled by the embracing grass, his tears sucked down by the thirsty grass, his body grateful for the gentle grass, and then exhausted he sprawls full length in the endless grass and stares at the sun and tries to burn his eyes out of his head, my eyes are holy and burning like Billy says, he thinks, but soon his eyes can’t endure the pain anymore and they close protectively and by that time Owen’s mind is driftless and exhausted and he falls asleep.

Cedar sees all this from the window.

23.

The man with eight days to live is thinner and thinner. The bones of his face are sharper and sharper. He spends more and more time in the chair by the window under the maps of the sea. Daniel reads to him. The doctor sits with him morning noon and night. Moses floats up every afternoon to sit with him also. The man and Moses have become friends. When Moses floats up and lands
plop
on the railing the man rises slowly from his chair and helps Daniel into his wheelchair and wheels the boy out on the porch in the fat salty sun. Today man and boy and crow are talking about water and daughters. I love both my daughters the same but in different ways, says the man. One is a challenge and the other is a comfort. One is a battle and the other is a refuge. One is brass and the other is velvet. One is a knife and the other is a spoon. Daniel tells the man about his grandfathers and grandmothers. One grandfather is alive and the other is dead, he says. One grandmother walks like the wind and the other never walks anywhere. One grandfather fights against time and the other one fought against hunger. I guess everyone fights against something. I fight hawks, says Moses cheerfully, and they all laugh. A fourth voice laughs: Kristi, who has been listening from the porch door. Come out, come out, Kristi, it’s sunny, says Daniel. I am afraid of the eagle, says Kristi. I am no eagle, says Moses, startled. The bird talks! says Kristi, startled. That bird is my friend Moses, says Daniel. Moses, Kristi, Kristi, Moses. Moses bows and says the honor is mine, Kristi. The bird talks! says Kristi. Indeed he does, and with a great deal of sense, says the man with eight days to live. Not to mention a terrific grasp of the Psalms. Moses is fully as astute on the Psalms as our host the doctor is on the Acts of the Apostles in particular and the Good Book in general. He rises slowly and offers Kristi his chair but she declines politely, still staring at Moses. Did you teach him to talk? she asks Daniel. No no, says Daniel, Moses works with my dad. Actually I was instructed in your language by a wonderful woman now deceased, says Moses quietly. Tell us about her, says the man. O, says Moses, she was a wonder in every way, a remarkable creature. Never lost her temper. Never did her hands rest for an instant except when she was asleep. Sang all day long. An excellent cook. She was a nun. She died recently. I think of her every hour. Her soul shone like the face of the sun. Moses stops speaking, unable to go on. I’m so sorry, whispers Kristi, and she reaches out tentatively and strokes Moses’ gleaming back and for the first and last time in his long life he begins to cry, long ragged aching sobs, the sound of lost, the sound of empty, the sound of alone. Daniel stares at his lap and the man stares out to sea but Kristi stands up and gathers the weeping crow into her chest and belly and bends over him and croons, the sound of healing, the sound of warm, the sound of yes.

24.

I am of the clan of crow, Moses explains to Kristi. They are still sitting on the porch, Kristi stroking his back and Moses humming with pleasure. Daniel and the man with eight days to live have wheeled inside for naps. I am no eagle, says Moses. God forbid such a thing. The clan of raptor is a mean clan. Their minds are small. Their horizons are meat. They take pride in their violence. They tear and shred each other with no regret or compunction. Their hearts are limited. They have no sense of time. They have no perspective. They have no past and no future. They are never sad, having no past to mourn and no future to fear, but they are never happy. They glower and snarl. They live for blood. What kind of life is that? They glory in power. What kind of life is that? They have no humor and their affection for their children is measured out in meat. What kind of life is that? Whereas my tribe is motley and chaotic. My tribe is dense and tumultuous. We argue and tease and wrangle and goof and fly upside-down. We are brilliant and stupid. We are lonely and livid. We lie, we laugh. We are greedy and foolish. Sometimes we all sing together. We tease dogs. We can be cruel but never for very long. We just can’t sustain it. If we could sustain and organize our cruelty we’d rule the world. But what kind of life is that? We all fly home together at the end of the day. We have no kings. We have no outlaws. We have no ranking. We have no priests. We have no status. Age confers nothing in our clan. Size confers nothing. We have no warriors. We have no beauties. That’s just how it is. We all look the same. Our stories go on all day long. We remember everything. Our life can be maddening. It gets loud. We never agree on anything. We bicker. We play jokes. We take chances. I have often taken refuge with your tribe just to escape the hubbub of my tribe. Your tribe is better able to be alone. Lots of you are alone. Lots are lonely too. The old nun who raised me, who saved me from death in the mud, my dearest friend, she was alone and sometimes lonely, but she fought loneliness with calm ferocity. She was a most remarkable woman. You look like her. She was a most remarkable creature. You have the same eyes. It is remarkable. Is her soul now in your body? I do not fully understand the ways of human beings. They are a curious and remarkable tribe altogether. They are capable of anything. I know that much. They are a constant surprise to me. They are a constant surprise to themselves also. They appear to live in a state of constant amazement. This makes them refreshing and infuriating. But there is a greatness about them sometimes. More perhaps than they know. Or a capacity for greatness. More than they know. It’s confusing but I know this to be true. I have learned that much in all these years.