Road to Bountiful (12 page)

I agree with him. It
has
been a long day, and I am thinking that a soft bed somewhere sounds unbeatable. And maybe I’ll meet another . . . another . . . let’s see, my true love’s name . . . Evelyn, yes, that’s it, Evelyn, in the wilds of Montana, and I could get over my broken heart completely. Sew that aorta right up. Yes, sir, sounds good to me.

We make our way up a twisty two-lane road. The pavement turns a dark bluish-gray, and the sky fades from gold to orange to the same color as the road. I love this part of the day. It’s sleepy, it’s peaceful, it’s quiet, and it’s hard to tell the difference between colors. Everything blends. I always want to sing “Kumbaya” right about now. The world becomes muted. I don’t think of money or what jobs my roommates landed this summer. I don’t think of the grocery store. I don’t think of getting ahead. I don’t think of all the miles I have left to go.

Uncle Loyal stares out the window. We pass through a small canyon with a trickle of a stream coming down. We start to see old, little homes, more like cabins, on both sides of the road. Most of them are dark. We make a great, wide, sweeping curve in the road, and then ahead of us is the small town, not much more than a dozen buildings.

“Old mining town, played out. My suspicion,” says Uncle Loyal. “We may not find a place to eat, and I am unsure of the quality of the food should we locate a restaurant.” He pauses. “There. Over there. I see a sign that says café, and it looks as though it is open for business.”

A sign flickers in the dim light. It reads, “Hardpan Café,” and below it, in smaller letters, it reads, “and Hotel.”

It was gray and dusky by then, and even though it is August, there is a chill in the air. We must have been five thousand feet up in the mountains. Uncle Loyal and I park headfirst outside the café and hotel and peer inside. There are no customers. In fact, there is only one man inside, a fellow with wild, gray, frizzy hair, dressed in overalls and leaning over a table reading a newspaper. I think,
This comes right out of an old, bad western movie. Bet anything his name is Snuffy or Grumpy or Dutch.

“We need to ask ourselves a couple questions: How hungry are we? How tired are we? Do we take a chance on this place?” I mumble.

Uncle Loyal looks into the darkening sky. Stars are popping out. A little puff of wind floats down the canyon. I hear music from a radio drifting across the empty main street. Uncle Loyal strokes his chin thoughtfully. “We can try it. It may be quite the experience. It almost certainly will become a good story to tell. We are off the beaten path. Let’s try it.”

With more courage than I feel, I say, “Okay, let’s head on in and give this place a shot, but I reserve the right to run out of the restaurant like a raving crazy rat, jump in the car, and drive away at a high rate of speed. And if you can’t keep up with me, tough, Uncle Loyal.”

“I agree to your conditions. However, I must insist on a head start.”

We push through the door, which has a little bell attached to it. The tinkling of the bell causes the man at the table to raise his head and take a long look at us.

“You got a couple of customers, Libby. Live ’uns. First since last March, just after the blizzard, I reckon. Better come in a hurry, ’fore they git scared and run out a here.”

“Quaint Montana humor,” I whisper to Uncle Loyal. “Local color.”

A small woman comes from the kitchen, short, hunched over, wrinkled, but with a smile that made the place almost seem normal. She does not, however, have very good hair.

“All I can feed you is eggs, hotcakes, or a cheeseburger,” she says. “All’s we got left. It’s fresh, though. Mostly. Eggs keep a long time.”

Uncle Loyal says he’ll take the eggs and hotcakes, and I order the cheeseburger.

The short story is that the meal is fine, the old timer comes our way and talks to us as we eat, and Libby, the chief cook, waitress, and owner, eventually comes over, puts her elbows on the table, and joins in the conversation. We sit there, plastic table cloth, plastic flowers in a plastic yellow vase, and talk as if we are all old friends. We get the history of the place—an old mining town, the tailings polluted by arsenic, the water dangerous to drink, and the air filled with unhealthy dust. Other than that, it is a fine place, Libby and Dutch—or Bill or Sourdough or whatever his name was—reassure us.

“Not a bad place for kids, other than the arsenic in the water,” Dutch astutely points out. “Makes the kids’ faces stick in one place. Stunts their growth too. We got nothin’ but little biddy kids here.”

Uncle Loyal whispers, “More quaint mountain humor, I assume.”

“The feds are pouring a lot of money into this old wreck of a town,” Libby says. “But I don’t know. Just don’t know. I think we’re done for. What few kids we have don’t stick around, and you can’t get nowhere without your young.” She drums her knuckles on our table, distracted by the thought and glancing around the little restaurant, which is where, she probably figured, she was going to die. I feel sorry for her. She is a nice woman.

Eventually, Uncle Loyal gets around to asking if any rooms upstairs are for rent. Libby says yes, all singles, shared bathroom, clean, and how does twenty dollars cash sound for the night?

Uncle Loyal says, “It sounds just about right.”

Libby says, “Well, it’s about time to clean up the place. If you want, breakfast will be served starting about six, maybe seven,” if she woke up tired. We understood that was our signal to get our suitcases and bags and head upstairs.

“Take whichever room you want, none of them are locked, and you don’t need to lock them here. You won’t be bothered,” Libby said. The old man in overalls reached over to Libby, gave her a little kiss on her ear, and said, “Good night, babe. See you in the morning.”

Libby looks both pleased and annoyed and tugs at his hand and squeezes it. Uncle Loyal and I walk to the car, get our belongings, and march upstairs. He takes room six; I tromp into room five. They are plain and old and don’t smell quite okay, but the bed in my room seems fine, and the sheets and blankets are, as Libby promised, clean and crisp.

I clean up for the night in the common bathroom. Then I get back to my room, climb into the slightly creaky bed, stare at the ceiling, and begin to take inventory, something that usually doesn’t make sleep come any faster.

Where did this day go?

Why was it so important for Uncle Loyal to visit Glenn’s grave site?

Will the room light up the next time I see Rachel?

What did I see today? The plains, the hills, a few mountains, old people, young people, people with brown skin in the Mexican restaurant, the food they cooked so well. A town that was dying. A good cheeseburger in a place where you shouldn’t drink the water. Blue mountains, blue sky, green forest, all fading to a gray in the twilight. And now here, this room, this place, by myself, Uncle Loyal probably snoozing next door. A promise to climb a mountain, teach an old man how to fish for trout. A sunset that went from brilliant yellow to lush red to drowsy purple.

A fast red car that I slowed down. A woman with big hair, big hair that she loved. The fleeting flash and pop of Rachel’s face before me when I told Uncle Loyal about her. The fuzzy, finicky, flustered feeling I had when I thought about her. An old man in overalls, who called an old woman “babe.” That old woman who could really cook.

It had been quite a day. My thoughts were diffused, gauzy, pleasant. Uncle Loyal, who thought I’d be upset about the detour to Glenn’s grave. Uncle Loyal, so wise, so pleasant . . .

My cell phone chimes, a foreign sound in this place, a noise that seems loud and raucous. I reach over for it in my bag. I look at the display. It’s Aunt Barbara calling. I flip it open and put it up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Levi. Barbara Bates here.”

I didn’t like that beginning. Of course I know it’s Barbara. Of course I know it’s Barbara Bates. What about Aunt Barbara? Or your friend Barbara? She gets to the point quickly.

“How are you? Where are you? Did you pick up my father okay? Is he okay? You know, is he going to
be
okay?”

“Your dad’s fine. We’re doing fine. We’re somewhere in a little town in the mountains of northern Montana. At least, I think we’re in Montana. I don’t know for sure. No. Wait. Yeah, must be Montana. You kind of lose track of time up here.”

“Where? Northern Montana? That’s so out of the way. Remember, I’m in the travel and hospitality business. I thought you’d be much closer to Bountiful. I
hoped
you would be.”

“Yeah, it is out of the way, but not too much, and your dad wanted to see an old friend, and I had the time to take him, so I thought, why not?”

“Which old friend?”

“Oh, I can’t remember his name. Nice old fellow though. Maybe his name was Gary or Mitch or something like that. Didn’t have much to say. Quiet, for sure. Not a real ball of fire, but he and your dad got along super, and it was worth the extra time to take the detour. Not what I’d call a great personality—couldn’t get him to say a thing—but they were happy to see each other. Hardly even knew he was there. But Uncle Loyal was excited to be around him again. Really excited. It meant a lot to him. I met him too; we had a quick chat.”

I’m babbling. I wish I had a babbling filter. But I’m covering for Uncle Loyal.

Silence. She’s thinking. Then, slowly, the judgment. “I guess that’s all right.”

“And I made some promises to Uncle Loyal. He’s never fished for trout in a mountain stream. Not ever. Just pond stuff in North Dakota. So I start thinking. Here we are in Montana, the Big Sky, and streams about every five miles where the trout almost jump out of the creek and into your lap, so I told him, ‘Loyal, we’ll do some fishing while we’re here.’”

“Fishing? Why? My father is old for that. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Why, Levi?”

“Because we are here, and he wants to, and this place is crazy with streams and lakes with lots of fish. That’s why.” I almost say, “And before you put him in jail, it would be a nice experience for him,” but fortunately, my good sense made a rare appearance just in time.

Jangling. The jangling of precious metal on her arms, around her neck, down her wrists. The jangling that let me know, seven hundred miles away and in a whole different world, that she has
money.
The jangling of her thoughts as I told her something that was beyond the scope of her everyday world. The jangling of emotions as she thought about her father somewhere in tall mountains with icy cold clear water rushing down a gully with a fishing rod in his hands.

“Don’t you need fishing gear? And a license?”

“Oh, sure. But the card you gave me. I could charge a couple of cheap rods and buy the licenses, just a day license, and we could go fishing, and you’d have one happy pappy when he arrives in Utah. We’ll bring you a fish. A delicious fresh trout.”

“Fishing.”

“Yes, fishing.”

“How much will it all cost?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred. A little more.”

“I don’t know.”

“Take it off what you owe me. I think he’d have a hoot. Look, Aunt Barbara, it’s something he
wants
to do. This is kind of his last fresh breath, his last chance, most likely. Take the money off what you owe me, if that’s why you’re worried.”

Ping!
Levi
, I thought,
you just shot the arrow straight into her
. I could almost sense her backbone stiffening across the cell towers for miles and miles. Her voice takes on the slightly offended air of the nouveau riche. More jangling, and I promise I can smell the creamy, fruity, blossom-of-some-sort perfume that she wears, the stuff that made me think of orange creamsicles.

“It’s not the money,” she says, which pretty much confirmed to me it was mostly about the money. “I’m just worried. He’s my father, you know. What if he falls and breaks a hip or something?”

“From what I’ve seen of your dad, he’d probably say, ‘Levi, I beg your pardon, but it seems I have fallen in the stream. It seems that my hip is broken and my mobility hampered somewhat. May I obtain your assistance to help me to the shore, eh? And from there, perchance, to the hospital, if it is not too much of an imposition? Thank you.’ That’s about what he’d say. Aunt Barbara, he’s the most polite human being I’ve ever been around. He’s from North Dakota. He’s tougher than I am and probably in better shape.”

“Well . . .” And there is a pause. Another
long
pause. I knew I had put more on her plate than she expected. “Go ahead, then. Keep the receipts. I can write it off. And keep the fish, too. Heaven knows I don’t want a three-day-old fish. One hundred dollars?”

“Maybe two hundred.”

“Two hundred. Oh. That much. Oh well. Do it, then.”

“I will.”

“Call me. Let me know how he does. Fishing. Oh my. This is a twist I didn’t expect.”

“It’ll be fine, it’s all good, Aunt Barbara. He’ll be safe. I’ll watch every move he makes, every step he takes, every breath he takes, I’ll be watching him, and I think I’m sounding like an old song.”

“You are. I think you’re nuts, Levi. I wish I knew you were nuts before I asked you to do this. I thought you were more normal than this. More solid. But you’re insane. Just be careful.”

“I will, and actually, I enjoy being nuts. Uncle Loyal kind of brings it out in me.”

“Well, okay. Good night, Levi. And thank you. For what you’re doing for my dad. This isn’t quite what I had in mind, but I know you’ll take care of him.”

“You can count on that. I’m enjoying the trip. The road trip. Uncle Loyal and Little Levi’s most wonderful journey.”

“Good night, Levi.”

“Good-bye, Aunt Barbara.”

Score! Score one for Levi. I’d passed the Barbara stiff acid cynical hardboiled test.
And I got her to pay for it.
I can hardly wait to see Uncle Loyal and tell him the good news. Score one for being spur-of-the-moment. Score one for being impetuous. Score one for all the little people in the world who want to do something crazy and then decide they can’t just because it is crazy, and they wonder what other people will think and say and who will talk about it and how they’ll be judged.
Score one for freedom
. The freedom of humankind. I click off my cell phone and clip it shut in the happy haze of triumph. Just what victory I had won, I couldn’t quite pinpoint, but I knew I had won something, and it was important, and it felt good.
Score!