“Good, get it all out,” Aylen says, rubbing his back.
After one more retch, she turns on the shower, the water scalding. She apologizes and cools the temperature as they watch his sickness spiral down the drain. He steps out and she wraps him with a fresh towel, then leaves the bathroom.
He erases the steam from the mirror in the medicine cabinet. Gets a good look at himself. For the first time, he sees a reflection that truly resembles all of him. His past finally rounded, many of the nagging questions eliminated. He is tenacious. He’d known that already, but never how much.
When he enters the kitchen, Aylen’s smoking a cigarette in the dawn light that seeps rusty into the trailer. She’s propped one leg up on her chair.
“You find your gold?” she asks, as two Pop Tarts ping in the toaster and she finds two plates in the sink. She passes the hot sugary treat over.
“Gold and then some,” he says, between munches.
She leaves the cigarette between her lips and hands him his notepad. Flipping through, he notices he’s scribbled in his entire journey in a herky-jerky script.
“I took it away from you when I moved you to the tub, since you were boiling. Never seen anything quite like it. Like you couldn’t get the words down fast enough.”
With the string attached to the notepad, he puts it around his neck.
“Thank you for this.”
“Don’t have to thank me, Wyatt.”
“I’m gonna get this gold and give you some.”
Her expression doesn’t change, but the cigarette burns down and she stabs it against the bottom of a rocky table.
“I’ll be on the edge of my seat.”
“Don’t know what that means.”
“What a surprise.” She removes her tank top, and he covers his face to avoid seeing her nude out of respect. “I have to go to work.”
She slams her thin bedroom door. He goes to put his plate away and spies a pair of military dog tags on the counter. Oxendine, Tohopka. 165-98-7777. B Pos. No prefer-ence. He puts back on his clothes from yesterday left in a pile on a chair, stuffing the dog tags in a pocket. Never hurts to have something over someone else, should he need it.
A car horn bleats outside. It sounds again, lasting longer this time. When he peers through the broken blinds, Trav’s pickup idles right by the trailer.
He finds Aylen sitting on her bed and putting on stockings.
“That’s my ride,” he says, but she chews her lips in response. “Did I do something to make you mad?”
He joins her on the bed, attempting to kiss her cheek.
“How about the next time you see me, it isn’t because you need something,” she says, adjusting herself so his lips catch her hair.
“GunalchEesh, Ax eet ilatUowu,” he says. “Thank you for helping to teach me.”
She whips her face toward him, mouth agape. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a Tlingit phrase. I spent time with your people and the Tagish on my journey.
They taught me many things. They turned me into a wolf. Saved my life more than once.
I’m sorry if I ever made you feel lesser because of who you are.”
“I…” She pulls out the rubber band holding her hair in a ponytail. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m going into the wilderness as soon as I can, but when I return, you’re the first person I want to see.”
He kisses her. This time she doesn’t turn away.
“Wyatt!”
But he’s already out the door, jumping into his boots, his heart thumping soundly with the notion of telling Trav the good news.
“So you know where the gold is?” Trav asks, one hand loosely on the wheel. No other cars passing this early in the morning.
Wyatt presses down his wild bush of hair. “There’s a giant lake in the wilderness attached to Anvil Creek—”
“Yeah, I know it. Stu used to take us ice fishing there. Like nothing around for miles.”
“There’s a cave off of the lake where the gold is.” Wyatt’s about to tell him that’s where he became trapped in ice, but he remembers he hasn’t been completely honest with Trav yet. “I saw it clear as day.”
“On heroin?”
“I needed access to the memory. I’m done with that stuff.”
“Really?”
“Swear. So you’ll come with? Cause I’m aiming to leave as soon as possible.”
“I got work today.”
“Call in sick.”
“Papa’s in the hospital—”
“We leave now, we can be back by tomorrow.”
The proposal sits between them until Trav sports a goofy grin, and Wyatt knows he’s in. “Ah hell, gotta tell Callie first before she leaves to take Eli to Miss Evelyn’s.”
Wyatt rubs his hands together in delight. “Fizzing!”
Callie proves tougher to convince. Eli’s throwing a tantrum and it’s not the right moment to ask. Wyatt stands by the front door. He’s out of sorts, since he’s interrupted a private family time. He doesn’t like feeling this way.
“You want to go into the wilderness to search for gold?” Callie asks. She’s trying to put on Eli’s coat. “C’mon, Eli, work with me.”
“Coats are for boogers,” he screams, tearing his arm out of the sleeve and running into the kitchen. She’s left holding the coat as if it belonged to a ghost.
“That child is on my last damn nerve this morning.”
“Gimme it,” Trav says, in his most calming tone possible. “Wyatt, you sell her. I’ll take care of Eli. Honey, just think of it like an overnight camping adventure.”
“What about work?” she yells at him, but he’s already around the corner. She gives Wyatt a pleading look. “Is this really necessary now? With his grandfather in the hospital?”
“Trav is under duress.”
“Duress?” She blows the bangs from her eyes. “Yeah, that’s true I guess.”
“I’ll take good care of him, Mrs. Barlow.”
“You’re so weird,” she says, and then bites her tongue. “I’m sorry. Mornings are crazy’round here.”
“I can recall.” He clenches his fists. “I mean, it’s been some time, but I remember how it is.”
She leaves her hand on his arm. “Okay, Wyatt. You two go and have your boys’ adventure.”
“Trav sure is a lucky man to have such an understanding woman as you.”
“Yes, me good woman, good wife,” she grunts.
Wyatt tilts his head, confused.
“Coat’s all set,” Trav calls out, holding up a giggling but bundled Eli upside-down from his ankles. He spins him right side up and pats his butt as he shoots out the door to their car.
“Okay, you can go, babe.” Callie kisses Trav and chases after Eli. “Eli, stay right by the house. Don’t dart out into the road.” And turning back to Trav, “You better bring me back some of that fine gold so we can live like kings and queens. I’m getting tired of this aluminum siding décor.”
Trav pats a drumbeat on Wyatt’s shoulders. “Let’s grab our gear and get to it!”
Wyatt watches Callie’s car pull away, in awe of her tough nature, her unpredictability, and how every time he interacts with her, he falls in love a little bit harder. He squelches a dark thought that lies dormant at the base of his mind. One he’s afraid will fester and spread.
39
Wyatt hears Trav calling Smitty to tell him he’s under the weather before they reach Anvil Creek, knowing his cell would have no reception that high up. It’s the first day he’s missed since starting the job so Smitty doesn’t question. They take some barebones camping gear in case they’ll need to spend the night. Trav turns on some country tunes, affecting his twang as he croons to the radio. Wyatt bobs his head, in awe of the music coming from the vehicle and sounding as if it’s being played live just for him. The modern world never ceasing to amaze.
Trav tells him he can’t remember the last time he’s been so excited. Had to set a
side the fish shack but the chance of gold could allow it to revive. It’s not as if he isn’t happy on the Cutthroat, simply that he wants to be working toward a goal, something to really make Callie proud.
Part of Wyatt feels overjoyed too, deserving the gold after it eluded him for over a century. But he can’t deny becoming affected by what he learned from his past. Its vivid highs and lows. If Kaawishté was able to mail his letter to Adalaide, the last thing she heard from him would’ve been that he found gold and everything was peachy. Then when he never returned home, she might’ve assumed staying in Alaska with the gold became more fascinating than returning home to be with her and Little Joe.
“Why so down?” Trav asks, lowering the song.
“Thinking about my wife now that the gold is close.”
“Maybe finding it’ll wind up bringing you two back together?”
“’Fraid that’s an impossibility. Callie, she reminds me of her in some ways. Your son is like mine as well. But more so the idea of a tight family.”
“Hey, buddy, hang in there. You got a long life ahead of you. Plenty of time for a new family if that’s in the cards.”
When they reach Anvil Creek, Wyatt experiences a dual sense of déjà vu from being there a century ago and returning only yesterday in his mind. Since summer’s closing in, the creek isn’t full of ice chunks but runs crisp and smoothly into the giant lake that’s still iced over.
“We’re at such a high altitude that lake always stays frozen,” Trav says. “This is as far as we can go by car.”
They exit the vehicle, each with a pack on their backs. Trav taps his foot against the lake.
“Just making sure it’s solid and we won’t fall through.”
They trek out to the middle where they take a break and set their packs down. Wyatt smells the air, as if it could tell him which direction to head. A forest still hugs the lake’s edge, all of it looking the same.
“Do you remember where?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “When I was here last, I got more of an intuition that led me there.”
“Why don’t we fish and catch some dinner? Maybe your memory will spark?”
Trav removes an ice saw from his pack to cut a circular hole. Then he hands Wyatt a light fishing rod with a small brightly colored jig and wax worms as bait.
“A lot of it’s the waiting game,” Trav says, using his pack as a seat and motioning for Wyatt to do the same. “Often, when I’d go with Stu it wasn’t about catching fish, more like experiencing the wilderness. To quiet our minds. Maybe it could still yours?”
“My mind races like you wouldn’t believe, Trav.” He picks at his cold nose. “Your father really doesn’t like me.”
“He’s fucked up. Bobby did that to him. And in an odd way, you probably remind him of my brother. He had a beard like yours and a similar wild look in his eyes.”
“You think your father will ever find out who killed him?”
Trav gets a small tug on his line, but it turns out to be an ice chunk. “I certainly hope so. I fear it eats away at him. You have to remember, he’s the sheriff. He’s supposed to shut open cases.”
“What do you think happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Naw, it’s cool. It’s like good to talk about it, ’bout Bobby. I’ve bottled him up for too long. I think Bobby got mixed up with the wrong people and got in over his head, but he was ingesting a lot of substances and stupidly went swimming high in the dark and drowned. Every night I went to bed thinking I’d be awakened with news he died. My folks weren’t living in reality, they thought he could be cured. But not when you’re that addicted. It’s why I was so concerned about you doing heroin, Wyatt.”
“I told you I’m done with that junk.”
“Many have said that before and relapsed. It’s a tough drug to kick. Bobby was on it.
Had marks all up and down his arms, even between his toes.”
“It was the only option I had to go back so far in my mind.” He gnaws on his lip, bristles of beard caught in his tongue. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been to this area before, but you don’t understand when I was last here. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Wyatt, if I haven’t already thought that nothin’s gonna change. We’re out here hunting gold, for Chrissakes.”
“Okay…” Wyatt’s nervous but wants to be forthright with Trav, the best and only friend he’s made since George and Kaawishté. “I was frozen right in the cave that I found gold.”
Trav’s smile drops. “I’m confused.”
“You know like how you preserve meat? That caribou you caught, put it on ice, right?
Well, same thing happened to me. ’Cept it lasted a century.”
Trav cackles, nearly losing his grip of the fishing rod. “And here I thought you were about to be serious.”
“Oh, I am. In 1898, I came to Alaska searching for gold. I traveled on the G.W. Elder from Washington State, to Sitka and Juneau, stayed in Tlingit and Tagish settlements, saw Dawson City at its peak, fought a bear around the Yukon Mountains, and then a wolf led me to my treasure where my traveling partner tried to gun me down, and I became trapped in a pile of gold only to resurface in present time.”
“You’re fucking with me. Now I thought you were serious…”
“Trav, I am gosh-darn serious as I’ll ever be,” Wyatt yells, his voice trapped in the echoing silence of the lake, lingering. “I’m not cut from the same cloth as you, or your wife, or your family. It’s because a century separates us.”
Wyatt’s about to go further and tell Trav he’s his great-great grandfather, but that would be too much information too soon. Dole it out in pieces.
“You think I should be in an asylum?”
“You’re really not fucking with me?”
“Don’t really understand the use of that term. Half the time, don’t understand what most of you are saying. And lots of things are strange. I see people around town glued to things they call cells? It’s like an extension of their arm. And the women are so different.
The men too, but the woman more. Back in my time, they’d be completely covered up. I didn’t see Adalaide in the flesh until our wedding night.”
Trav gets a tug. “Shit, got a fish.” He reels in a baby Arctic char, takes it off the line and puts it out of its mercy by crushing it against the ice. “Wyatt, I don’t know what to fuckin’ say.”
“I wanted to be honest with you.”
“But it’s impossible, get it? We preserve meat from spoiling, but once you freeze something that’s alive, it’s kaput.”
“Not me,” Wyatt says, thumping his chest. A lull sweeps between them. “You’re looking at me differently.”
“I think you believe this. Really, I do. I get you’re not messing with me. But as for the truth? Sometimes we want to believe things that can’t be. Because it may be easier than dealing with what actually is.”
Wyatt sniffs a frozen ball of snot up his nose. “Meaning?”
“You’ve spoken about being separated from your wife and son. Maybe you’ve created—now don’t jump down my throat—you’d made up this fantasy to avoid the hard truth?”
Wyatt’s pupils go wide. “Wyatt? Wyatt, man, you with me?”
“Wolf.”
“What?”
“Wolf,” Wyatt growls, indicating across the lake to a wolf that watches them from a point at the far edge.
“It’s too far away to pose a threat,” Trav says.
The wolf’s ice-blue eyes glimmer from the reflection of the high sun.
“It’s calling us. The gold is this way!”
Wyatt jumps up, gliding across the iced lake toward the wolf.
“Wyatt! What the fuck, Wyatt?”
Past the lake, the wolf gets spooked, darting past a fence of a trees. Wyatt blocks his face as he breaks through as well, Trav close behind. Once Wyatt’s through, the wolf paces in front of a ca
ve. Wyatt has his palms out, attempting to calm the wolf, who licks his chops.
“Careful, man,” Trav whispers.
“He is not our enemy. He is no different than me.”
The wolf nudges the cave with his nose, signaling for them to enter.
“Come,” Wyatt says, walking past the still wolf as it makes no attempt to attack.
“Jesus H.,” Trav murmurs, tiptoeing past the wolf too.
The darkened cave appears much like in Wyatt’s vision. Unable to see your hand in front of you the further you descend. But then a tiny orange glow, nothing more than a few dots puncturing the blackness, until the glows spreads, blinding like a brushfire. And
before them, a wall of gold, not as massive as Wyatt previously encountered, possibly due to erosion and earthquakes and avalanches that may have moved large chunks of gold to another area.
Wyatt dislodges a shimmering brick, heavy in his hand, passing it over to Trav who stands there slack-jawed.
“Believe me now?” Wyatt asks.
A grin emerges from Wyatt’s thick beard that had trapped it for so long.
40
Wyatt stays watch over the gold while Trav goes back across the lake to get the car. No way to carry that many bricks for such a long distance. The plan is for Trav to drive around the edge of the lake until he comes across a marking Wyatt has left on the pathway leading to the cave. They sawed down a small tree shaped like a fork and stabbed it into the earth, which will be tough to miss.
While Wyatt waits, his mind travels to sinful thoughts. The last time he was in this cave, Frank betrayed him. Not that Frank ever proved trustworthy, but can anyone really ever been trusted? Sure, George and Kaawishté hadn’t turned on him, but maybe that’s because they never had the chance. Should he have traveled with them longer, they could’ve backstabbed. But then the good side of his conscience directs him back. How much gold could he possibly need? And none of these other men was kin like Trav, who’s been nothing but kind and welcoming into his brood. He wasn’t even judgmental when Wyatt recounted his frozen tale. Still, they’re far enough out in the wilderness that neither man would ever be found should the other get greedy. A terrible thought, but one nonetheless.
The Ancestor Page 25
