Something to Hold (14 page)

She rolls her eyes. "Pete. You don't want to come in."

Pete is Pinky's older brother, the one who works in the Roads Department maintenance yard next door. He is way past the age when you have to live at home, but he does.

"Pete was out on the fire line with the bulldozer until late," she says, standing up. "He's asleep."

She leans in close and lowers her voice. "You wanna go rock the culvert?"

"Huh?"

"C'mere." Pinky tugs me over to her back fence and points down into the maintenance yard, where the Roads Department keeps the bulldozers and road graders and dump trucks.

I can't see what she's so excited about. "Yeah, so?"

Then I follow her patient finger. In the corner that backs up to Shitike Creek, something glints in the sun. Through the bushes, I finally make out what looks like a giant open can of peas on its side. It's a culvert, ready to be hauled off into the woods and installed under some new logging road.

I don't know what Pinky has in mind. I'm pretty sure that our moms would kill us for going into that yard. But I bet it'll be fun.

The gate's open. The fire crews drove the lowboys loaded with bulldozers through here on their way out to the fire. Now nobody is around. "All clear," Pinky says, and leads me down the driveway and through the gate.

The Roads yard is cluttered with heavy machinery, mostly broken down and rusted. All the good stuff is out at work on the fire.

I follow Pinky as she threads her way across the yard to where the culvert rests up against the fence. She gestures for me to stand beside her inside the echoing metal tunnel. It is barely big enough for me to stand up straight.

"Go!" she shouts.

Pinky stretches her arms out toward the upward-curving ribs of the culvert, then throws her weight against the wall. I quickly get it that I've got to move with her, that we have to pump back and forth, pushing on each side, just like getting a swing into the air.

We hit the cold metal together, then turn and push the other side. If we can get the right rhythm going, we can rock the culvert—maybe even roll the whole thing all the way over.

It takes some sweaty teamwork before the culvert moves even slightly. But it slowly begins to rock. I'm on the inside with my eyes closed, and with every push, I feel the culvert roll a little bit more.

And then Pinky goes, "Uh-oh."

"
What in the heck do you think you're doing?
"

I open my eyes to see that Pinky has turned to stone. Her brother, Pete, has appeared without a sound. He stands on the gravel, his arms crossed.

"Get on out of there," he orders.

Pinky steps out from the shadows, pulling me with her. Then she grasps my arms and edges in behind me.

"
Answer
me," he says. "What are you two doing down here?"

Pinky doesn't speak.

"We know it was dumb," I blurt. I don't know if I'm more scared of him or more ashamed about getting caught.

"You," he says. "Go home." And then to Pinky, "In the house."

I'm afraid not to do what he says. Without a word, Pinky and I step around him. As we scoot back up the hill toward the gate, I hear his boots crunch the gravel behind us.

"You wanna come home with me?" I whisper.

"He barks, but he doesn't bite."

Pinky ducks into her yard ahead of Pete, and I hurry on home, afraid the phone will ring before I can get there.

I
spend the whole afternoon waiting for Pete to call and tell on us. But the waiting is as bad as any trouble that's going to come, so I escape outside with my book.

It's not so hot in the shade of the locust tree, but out in the sun the heat shimmers. The green campus is quiet, and so are the basketball court and the swings at the far end. Just the steady
tick-tick-tick
of the big sprinklers out on the grass. Now and then a car or truck passes on the street, raising dust.

I'm on the last few pages when Dad's truck wheels into the driveway. He waves at me from the cab, and I get up to help him haul his gear out of the back.

"Hi, honey," he says, giving me a sweaty, smoky hug.

"Is the fire out?"

Dad kisses the top of my head. "Pretty near, if the line and the weather hold."

Joe bursts out the back door, Mom close behind. Joe and I lug the fire gear down to the basement by the washer. Mom will sort through it later.

"The mop-up will go on for a couple of days, but it looks good out there," Dad's saying as I come back upstairs.

"What happened to the guy on the bulldozer?" I ask.

Dad puts his arm around my waist. "He's in the hospital. The cage saved him when it rolled over. Went real fast, and he didn't get thrown out. Everybody was very lucky this time."

"Did the bulldozer get burned up?" Joe asks.

Dad shakes his head. "You should see it—what a mess. They hauled it down to the Roads yard."

I head back outside but stop short when he says, "I gotta find out if Pete thinks we can salvage it."

Pete will be happy to tell him. And then some.

***

After supper, Mom opens all the doors and windows, funneling the cooling breeze from outside. She and Dad sit on the front steps with tea. Inside, on the padded bench on the porch, I start on my next library book. I can hear the low hum of their voices through the screen.

My eyes are on the book, but my mind goes back to Raymond. I used to be afraid of him. Now I picture him in a cold jail cell with murderers. He must have been really scared.

I couldn't say anything to Mom when I got out of that deputy's office at the police station. And she didn't press me. She just hugged me, and then we came home.

I tried to help, but it didn't work. And I'm not saying anything else about it. To anyone.

Bill and Joe come in as it is getting dark. Practice must have run late. Through the house, I hear the the screen door creak and the wood banging against the doorframe. Bill comes out onto the porch, dust all over his jeans. He rubs an apple on his T-shirt, then takes a big bite. "Mom and Dad?" he asks.

I point to the open front door without looking up from my book. "On the steps."

Bill flops down beside me. He radiates heat and sweat.

"How'd it go?" I ask, scooching away from his tangy smell.

"We had some pretty great pitching, if I do say so myself."

"Is this for good?"

Bill shrugs. "Maybe. Sherf didn't say a thing about Raymond. Or about the Metolius game."

Joe comes out on the porch, mud splatters on his bare legs. Outfield practice again. Then Mom walks in dangling an empty cup, Dad behind her.

"Bath time," she says to Joe, and points into the house. "You first." She follows him through the doorway to the living room.

Dad settles down on the empty seat. "Mr. Wewa came to see me today," he says. He pulls his pipe out of his pocket and holds it unlit between his teeth.

"He told you?" I ask, keeping my eyes on my book.

"Yep. That must have been hard for you."

I really don't want to talk about this. But Dad doesn't sound like he's in a hurry. I have to say something or he'll keep coming back to it.

"Raymond's going back to jail."

Dad shakes his head. "Not necessarily. His grandmother took him home, and Mr. Wewa thinks he can work something out."

I know that this would be the time to speak up, to tell him that the family has gone into hiding. However, I didn't tell Mr. Wewa the truth yesterday, and now I can't tell Dad, either. So I keep my mouth shut.

Dad sucks air gently through the empty bowl of the pipe. We sit in the cool quiet as the porch grows shadows. Then he says, "I got a call from Pete."

Yikes.
I'd thought maybe I had escaped.

"You and Pinky—"

"We didn't mean to!"

Bill lets out a disgusted snort.
Never admit anything!

"What?" Dad cocks his head.

"The culvert. He told you, right?"

Bill slaps his hand hard on the cushion.
Shut up already.

Dad takes the pipe out of his mouth. "No," he says in a tone that means,
But
you're
going to.

"We were only playing." So dumb. I can almost feel Bill rolling his eyes beside me.

"Playing
where?
" Dad asks, even though he knows. I gave it up when I said "culvert." This is what parents do—they make you say it. One minute they feel sorry for you; the next, they sweat you under hot lights.

I spill it out in one long breath. "We were playing in the culvert at the Roads yard."
There.

Dad sits up straight. I wither down into the bench cushions.

"Are you supposed to go inside the Roads yard?" he asks in that quiet way parents get when they're mad.

"No," I say to my knees.

"
Ever?
" The disappointment in his voice makes my throat tight.

"No."

Beside me, Bill moves his arm a fraction, touching my shoulder.
You 're an idiot, but I'm here.
That pushes me over the edge, and I put my hands up to my face and cry hard. "I'm sorry, Dad," I blubber. "I know it was wrong."

He puffs out a big breath, leans back against the cushion, and puts his arm around my shoulders. "It's so dangerous down there. You girls have no idea."

Mom steps out onto the porch. "Bill, your turn for the tub," she says. Then she hesitates. "Everything all right?"

Please don't tell her,
I beg Dad inside my head.
I'll never do it again.

"Just fine," he says. "We'll be along in a second."

Bill gets right up and goes with her. Later, he'll tell me what a stupid dope I am, but he's on my side for now.

Dad sucks on the pipe and keeps his arm around my shoulders. I blow out a couple of times to stop crying.

"You know that work areas are off-limits," he says.

"Yes."

"And you know why."

I nod. Of course I do. "They're dangerous places for kids, and people need to work there."

"OK." He takes his pipe out of his mouth and kisses the top of my head. "Let's leave it at that."

It is now almost dark on the porch. Through the windows, I can barely make out the poplars waving in the evening breeze. That's the only sound that comes through the screen door.

"Pete called to ask if you could go back up to the lookout with Pinky," Dad says.

"He didn't tell you about the culvert?"

"Nope." I can feel him smiling. "You would've gotten clean away." He stretches out his arms and yawns. "Now that the fire's under control, it's safe for Pinky to go back up there. Mrs. Wesley radioed in to see if he'd bring her. She thought you might want to spend a couple of days up at Sidwalter to keep her company."

"Can I?"

Dad stands up, pulling me to my feet. "It's already cleared with Mom," he says. "Pete's picking you up in the morning."

T
HE
journey to Sidwalter Lookout begins at the highway that links Warm Springs to the outside world. To the north and west is Portland—up the steep, winding canyon, out across the broad flat of sagebrush and juniper, and then into the deep woods at HeHe Butte. Up on top, the snow-crested heads of the Cascades spread to the south and the grizzled brown Mutton Mountains to the north. The city sprawls on the other side of the mountains, a hundred miles and two long hours away.

If you turn right at the main entrance to Warm Springs, you go south and east—off the reservation at the Deschutes River, up another twisted canyon grade, then across the wide-open mix of mint and scablands to Madras, Prineville, Redmond, or Bend. Go straight at the stop sign, and you end up on the hot, dusty road to Simnasho, and if you go far enough, the Columbia River. Whichever way you go, the road climbs to higher ground.

Pete rumbles over the cattle guard, pauses at the stop sign, and cranks the steering wheel hard to the left. In seconds, we shoot past the boys' dorm, the school and its playground, the curved row of teacher houses at the edge of the community. Pete works the gears as we begin the long climb to the top of the canyon. He has to work around Pinky's short legs. She moves them over closer to me, leaning to get away from his elbow.

Our stuff is behind us in the pickup bed, covered with a tarp and tied down to keep the dust out of the sleeping bags and knapsacks. Mom tucked a sack of peaches for Mrs. Wesley under the tarp. She told me to be good, have fun, and do what Mrs. Wesley tells me. Then she waved goodbye, never letting on that she knew anything about the culvert.

Even in the early morning, the air blasting through the open windows is hot. Pressed against the door, I lean my elbow into the wind and hold my hair out of my face. The flat open plain, dotted with sagebrush and deep green junipers, is beautiful in a lonely kind of way. Unexpectedly, I'm filled with happiness. It strikes me how much this landscape feels like home.

Pinky leans away from her silent brother and says behind her hand, "He's mad that he has to use his day off to take us." She smiles, careful not to let him see.

"How far is it?" I ask her. I've never been to any of the lookouts. The only one I've seen is the long-legged spire that sits on the bald knob of Eagle Butte and is easily visible from the road to Simnasho. All I know about Sidwalter is that it's up in the woods, a long way off the highway, somewhere over near Mount Jefferson. That part of the reservation is closed to non-Indians, and though Dad has a permit that would allow him to take us, he never has. Too busy in the summer. And in the winter, snow chokes off the roads that lead into the woods. I'm excited to get to go as Pinky's guest.

"We turn off up here a ways." Pinky points through the front window down the long, straight stretch of highway.

Pretty soon, Pete slows down and signals with his arm out the window, then downshifts to make the turn. Sidwalter Road is ridged like a washboard and caked in dust. We spew a cloud behind us and shimmy across the road before the tires take hold. The rough, open flat spreads out toward the foothills of the Cascades. The farther we get from the highway, the more the sagebrush and juniper give way to Ponderosa pine and then to deep fir. The rounded, tree-covered knob of HeHe Butte rises out of the woods to our right, and pretty soon we're in the woods ourselves, leaving the gravel for a winding dirt road. Instantly, the air fills with shadows and the sweet smell of pine.