Night Wings (11 page)

S
omeone once asked Grampa Peter if he ever got lost in the mountains. His reply was simple: “Nope.”

But if that person had asked Grampa Peter to clarify that answer some, Grampa Peter might have added what he later said to me: “But I got confused one time for about two weeks.”

His real point was that you are never lost until you think you are. It’s just that some times are harder than others when it comes to finding your way.

I’m remembering that right now. Being trapped is like being lost, I think. But am I really trapped?

I begin to feel my way along the wall in front of me. There’s a draft of air coming from somewhere. I reach down and find a place just above the floor where there is space between the stones.

The caves in these mountains are made by great slabs of stone that have slid down, piled on top of one another. So I’m not surprised to find this place where the rocks don’t fit neatly together. It’s too small to squeeze through, but it’s probably big enough to see through.

I get out my flashlight and press the button. The beam that shoots out of it is so intense that it hurts my eyes after all this darkness. I blink, then gradually open my eyes, letting them get used to seeing light again. I fasten the Velcro strap around my head, crouch down, stick the light into the crevice, and put my cheek against the stone so I can see through with one eye. And what I see makes me gasp.

It’s a much larger chamber than this one. I can’t tell exactly how big it is, but I can’t see the walls on either side. In the middle is what looks to be a big sleeping mat, maybe ten feet across. It’s made of evergreen boughs woven together, the way we sometimes cover the floor of a lean-to when we’re out in the forest for a few nights
and need to make a quick, comfortable shelter. Some of the boughs are so fresh that they are still green. My nose picks up the scent of crushed balsam needles, and I see that the sleeping nest is dented in the center like someone—something—big has been resting there.

But I only glance at that briefly because as I move my narrow flashlight beam about, it reflects off hundreds of points of light. Objects that glitter and gleam. I know what I am seeing. It’s Pmola’s treasure.

I can’t help myself. I start chuckling. But it’s bitter laughter at the thought of all Grampa Peter and I have been put through. Tears are coming to my eyes as I laugh, thinking of the things Darby Field and his crew have done to others in search of wealth that, compared to human lives, is always really worthless in the long run. All the nervous energy that’s been bottled up in me is coming out.

I focus light once more on Pmola’s great treasure. Precious objects all right, things that my ancestors saw as full of power and meaning, but far from the riches that modern people covet.

Not silver or gold, not diamonds or rubies. Instead what I see are carefully piled stacks of quartz crystals, shiny stones that contain iron
pyrite—fool’s gold—and some roughly made bracelets that might be pounded copper. All brought there by Pmola over who knows how many years, how many centuries, the way a crow will pick up something shiny and carry it back to its nest.

How many centuries? Thinking of that long passage of time reminds me of where I am. I’m in that other time, the time of our old stories. How would my ancestors have related to this? What would they have done if they found themselves where I am? What could they have said—and in what tongue? And how would Grampa Peter behave?

I lean back from the crevice, turn my flashlight beam back the way I came. I’ve seen the light now. I know what I need to do.

I start making my way back to the cave entrance, thinking about the right words to use. I pause at the cave mouth and turn my light off. The moon’s bright enough to cast a faint shadow on the ground. Sometimes moon shadows are really exaggerated, but I know that the very large shadow I am seeing reflects the shape that is waiting out there, a wide-winged shape on top of a great boulder, the shadow widening and narrowing as those leathery wings open and close.

Breathe. I crawl out through the cave mouth slowly. Fast movements always attract night hunters. I feel Pmola’s cold gaze on the back of my neck and I turn around.

It’s right there, not more than an arm’s length from me, so close that I can see the ripple of the muscles under its sleek black pelt as it raises one arm. Pmola seems as big as the mountain itself.

Like most Abenaki kids of my generation, I was not raised with just our old language. Instead, what I heard most of the time was English with a few words and phrases in Indian mixed in. I’ve always wished I could speak our language as well as Grampa Peter, but at least I know some of the most important words. And right now I know that anything I say should be in our old tongue. And I think I know what those words should be: the phrase that we all speak to each other at the start of the new year when we want to begin fresh with clear minds and forgiving hearts.

I don’t look up into Pmola’s dark eyes. That might be seen as a challenge. Instead I look down at the earth, bow my head to show my respect, and speak.

“Anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan.”
Forgive me for any wrong I may have done to you.

I can hear the even rhythm of Pmola’s breath from at least five feet over my head. Then a sound I didn’t expect.

“Hmmph!”

Is there approval in that sound? I risk looking up and see that Pmola is holding out its long arm and pointing with one razor-clawed finger toward a trail that leads down the mountain.

“Go,” Pmola says in a voice that reverberates through me like the clang of a huge bell.

I hesitate, though. I wasn’t just asking for understanding and forgiveness for myself, but also for Grampa Peter. I don’t know where he is or what’s happened to him. I can’t leave the mountain without him. But how can I tell that to a creature that could take off my head with one swipe of its claw?

“Piel!” a voice calls to me from down the trail that Pmola just pointed to. It’s Grampa Peter. Even in the moonlight I recognize his familiar shape. He’s gesturing to me with an open hand.

I take one step backward and then another. The huge, black-winged being stands there as still as a statue, although it does seem as if the expression on its long-muzzled face has changed just the slightest bit. I might be wrong, but it almost looks amused. Then I turn and walk forward to
take my grandfather’s outstretched hand. We go down the mountain together. We don’t say anything and we don’t look back.

At first we pass through a thick curtain of mist. Then the way ahead of us begins to clear. We stay silent and walk on as minutes and then hours pass.

There is more light around us even though the moon is gone. It’s the first light that comes before dawn. I’m concentrating on the trail because it is starting to look familiar. There’s a pond, as green as emerald at the foot of a cascade. Gem Pond. I know where we are. Less than half a mile later we cross a brook. We’re on the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail that leads to the parking lot on the Base Road.

Birds are singing to greet the new day, and I hear the sound of human voices as well. Around the bend, climbing up toward us is a party of five or six hikers getting an early start.

As we pass, they hardly give us a second glance. Hands raised, they greet us as if we are nothing out of the ordinary, even though neither of us has a pack and my torn clothes and the bloodstains on my coat must make me look as if I’ve been wrestling with a bear. They’re totally focused on the climb ahead of them.

“Hi!”

“Great day for a hike.”

“Yo.”

I smile and say hi to each of them in turn.

When they are all past, I look at Grampa Peter. He nods at me. We’re back in our own time again.

It is midmorning when we reach the parking lot. I suddenly feel as if I’m about to collapse. My legs are shaking.

“Here,” Grampa Peter says. He helps me sit down. Then he walks over to a Land Rover with out-of-state plates. Its middle-aged owners look friendly and also unlikely to do anything more than turn around and drive back down the road after having come this far.

“My grandson had a bad fall,” he says. “Lost his pack. Could you give us a ride down the mountain?”

It’s one of the longest speeches I have ever heard him make, and it works. Fred and Irma Peck turn out to be two of the kindest folks you could ever want to meet, visiting New Hampshire from Indiana to see the Presidentials. They’ve got a thermos full of something they call sweet tea and they insist that I drink some of it and eat one of the energy bars they’ve got in their glove box.

“We’re taking you two right to your door,” Irma says as she hands me a second energy bar. “It’s only a little out of our way.”

“Not every day we get a chance to be Good Samaritans,” Fred adds with a big grin.

“Thank you both so much,” I keep saying in between sips of tea and mouthfuls of carob-covered caramel and nuts.

“Why, son,” Irma says, “it’s nothing more than anyone would do if they had a chance.”

Ironically, she says that just as we go past the place where Darby Field turned off the road. Was that only a day and a half ago? I look over at Grampa Peter, who I’m sure is thinking just what I am.

No, there are some people in the world who would not do what the good-hearted Pecks are doing. Far from it.

T
wo months have passed since Grampa Peter and I came down from Agiocochook. I start school tomorrow and I am sort of looking forward to it. After years of saying no to coaches, I’ve finally decided to try out for the basketball team. It turns out I can shoot the ball better than I thought.

One morning, after the wound in my shoulder healed up, Grampa Peter pulled up with a backboard and a hoop in the back of his truck.

“Exercise therapy,” he said. Then he tossed
me a new red-and-black basketball, and the two of us set up a half-court on the paved drive in front of the trailer.

My first left-handed shot swished through the net without touching the rim. I just about couldn’t miss when I shot from that side, whether it was a fall-away or an actual dunk.

Maybe it’s that the rest of my body has finally caught up with all the height I put on over the last two years. I’ve been filling out more, too, adding muscle. I’m twenty pounds heavier than at the start of the summer, and none of it is fat.

Or maybe there’s another reason why I healed up so fast. Why I’ve been getting stronger. Why I have such accuracy when I shoot a basketball. Why I have so much more self-confidence. Maybe when Pmola touched me with its talon, it wasn’t trying to hurt me. Maybe it was actually giving me a gift, like it gave that hunter in Dad’s story.

There are times when I wake up in the morning and wonder if what happened to us was just a dream. But I know it wasn’t. It’s just like when I wake up thinking that Mom and Dad are in the next room and not off in Iraq. Some things that you wish were just unpleasant dreams are real. Life is hard a lot of the time. The
trick, as Mom said to me once, is not to expect things to get easier. Just get better at surviving the hardships.

I open my email. Nothing new today from Mom or Dad yet, but I have to remember that time in the Middle East is different. When it’s day here, it’s night there. In more ways than one. But I hear from them regularly. They’re both doing okay. They’ve sent me loads of photos. My favorite, which I printed out and stuck to the wall above my bed, shows them with their faces so close together that they are cheek to cheek, smiling so wide that it looks like one big grin between the two of them.

They’re going to be all right. I know that in my heart. And when I said that to Grampa Peter, that my parents were going to come home safe and sound, he looked at me like he was looking into me. Then he nodded in a way that told me a lot of things.

Grampa Peter and I have exchanged knowing looks a few times over the last week when we’ve tuned in to cable’s
The Search for Darby Field: Mystery Man’s Mysterious Disappearance
. Apparently no one noticed that his group was missing until weeks after Grampa Peter and I last saw them. It seems that Field always kept
a cloak of secrecy over his movements. Even his producer had no idea where exactly Field had been heading when he left Boston. All he knew was that it was somewhere in New England. Grampa Peter and I are the only ones who know where they really were when the past, literally, caught up with them.

A week into the search a local news anchor and cameraman tried to interview Grampa Peter, seeing as how he was the Native American elder who knew the most about these mountains, which might have been Field’s destination.

Although news shows these days like short sound bites, Grampa’s usual “yups” and “nopes” were a little too short for that news anchor. She gave up on the interview after ten minutes.

Did the four of them survive? Are Field and his crew alive and caught in the past? I have to admit, I’m not worried about them. All I know is that wherever they are, it’s better than having them here among us.

I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. I see a tourist who has parked his car on Base Road to take a picture. It’s ten, maybe twenty years from now. He notices an old trail that was concealed by the slope of the road, climbs down to follow it—ten yards, twenty, a hundred—as
it turns and twists away from the road. He sees a glint of rusting metal, pushes aside a branch, and sees a van deep in the evergreen thicket. He reads the fading words on the van’s side. Then he sees that a trail begins just past that spruce thicket and thinks of taking it.

But just as he has that thought, he realizes the day is fading, the sun slipping behind the western slopes. He hears a sound from overhead, something like the beating of wide wings. He looks up, but doesn’t see anything. Still, by the time he reaches the familiar safety of the highway above him, clawing his way up the slope in panic, he’s deeply relieved to see that nothing has followed him. He stands there, breathing hard. His heart is pounding.

Why was that van with its strange name hidden down there? What happened to those who left it?

That hiker will never be able to imagine just how strange the answers to those questions really are.