Backwater

by Joan Bauer

  “I only use these things when I have to,” she complained.

  I lumbered forward like the Abominable Snowperson.

  She was talking about chapter five—Focusing on the Goal Ahead. This, Mountain Mama explained, got you through the rough parts—remembering why you were out there in the first place.

  “How are you in the focusing department, Breedlove?”

  I grinned confidently. The Breedlove focus has been documented through the ages—from Buckminster Breedlove’s ability to shoot skeet peacefully in the middle of an electric storm, to Elouisa Breedlove’s attempt to swim the English Channel in the presence of a shark that she kept whacking on the nose until a passing fisherman saved the day by throwing his net over her and dragging her aboard.

  I became famous at my school for writing three drafts of an essay during the Homecoming football game last fall that went into overtime. It helped that I’m not a big fan of the game.

  “I’ve got it in my blood,” I said.

  “I want you to look over there in the distance, Breedlove.”

  I looked to gray clouds circling a high peak.

  “I want you to focus your mind on one thing and one thing only—that’s our destination. That’s where your aunt lives.”

  “Wow. That’s high.”

  Mountain Mama slapped my back and sent me sailing into a snow drift.

  I got up, brushed myself off, focused on the snowy peak in the distance.

  She slapped me again, but this time I held on to a tree.

  I gazed at the high peek, keenly aware of the historical privilege of being the first to connect to the missing link in the Breedlove family tree. Of course, writing about history is a great deal different than experiencing it. I felt like an explorer who was about to step into a new world and culture and I thought of Christopher Columbus discovering the new world, except, like me, he had a bad sense of direction—thinking he was in the outer edge of Asia instead of in the Caribbean. Then I thought of how he really treated the island natives, as opposed to what some of the less enlightened history books said.

  Mrs. Espry, the best history teacher I ever had, wasn’t afraid to go beyond the statements of fact in the textbook that other teachers treated like gospel. She showed us how historians were battling over what actually happened at different events; she’d pull out popular history texts to give us facts and primary sources so that we could draw our own conclusions.

  Mrs. Espry said if it wasn’t for historians showing how women and minorities played such a significant role in history, we’d still think anything important that happened on this planet was the result of a long string of rich, white, over-achieving males. When Mr. Leopold, my history teacher, mentioned the “founding fathers” in his first lecture of the year, my hand shot up and I said, “From where I come from, you can’t have a founding father without a founding mother who was there doing the serious labor.”

  He apologized and gave me extra credit for insight.

  I wondered what the truth was about Josephine. I wonder a lot about what’s true, but you have to do that as a historian. Tib said If you’re looking for truth, you’ve got to understand the human gift for distortion. “People need to make things bigger than life. That’s how stories grow into myths, Ivy. You’ve got to watch that tendency to fabricate when you’re doing a family history and anything else. You’ve got to find things out for yourself when you can.”

  “Are you focusing, Breedlove?”

  I shook my mind clear.

  “The mountain,” I assured her, “is my destiny.”

  She slipped her snowshoes off and motioned me to do the same. I did.

  “All right,” she shouted, pressing ahead, “let’s take the ledge.”

  I stepped back. “Ledge as in a narrow, flat surface that projects from a wall of rock?”

  “It’s a bit narrow,” she said. “Put your feet exactly where I put mine, take your time, and don’t look down.”

  “I’m not personally ready for a ledge.”

  Mountain Mama turned to me, her eyes bright with the joy of knowing she had a best seller in her future.

  “What you’re really saying, Breedlove, is that you’ve never done this before and have no experience to pull confidence from.”

  “What I’m saying is that I’m not personally ready for a ledge.”

  “Breedlove, Breedlove, you’ve lost sight of the goal so soon.”

  Mountain Mama took my trembling hand and led me to the top of the snowy rock. Below us was a sheer drop.

  I was petrified.

  She rammed her axe into the ledge and cleared a huge piece of ice.

  “We’ll just give you a few minutes to get used to the idea. Think of the ledge as a way to get to your destination, like a bridge or a tunnel.”

  “I hate tunnels.”

  “Think of the ledge as the only thing standing in the way of you and something greater.”

  I looked at the ledge, thought of my bedroom back home with my purple quilt and my soft mattress, my two down pillows that were like sinking into little clouds.

  “I can’t do this.”

  Suddenly, a big piece of ice came crashing down inches from my feet.

  I moved toward the ledge. Mountain Mama attached a thick rope from her belt around my waist. I pictured myself hanging perilously in mid-air.

  Slowly, Mama guided me on the ledge. I watched her scuffed boots jam into jagged rock. I followed, not looking down.

  “One step at a time,” she said. “That’s how you cross it.”

  I followed, gaining inches, feet. At one point I slipped slightly. She yanked the rope tightly and I hugged the side of the mountain, clinging to rock face.

  She was strong. “Nice rebound,” she said.

  My face and head were sweating despite the cold.

  My breath came in quick gasps.

  “You’re making it happen, Breedlove.”

  My pack felt like it weighed five hundred pounds.

  “Almost to the other side.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “A little bit more.”

  “I can’t move!”

  “Three more steps.”

  Mountain Mama leaped over to flat, ledgeless mountain. And the knowledge that I was on the ledge alone caused me to absolutely freeze.

  “You’re there, Breedlove. Just reach for it.”

  “I can’t.”

  She reached out her strong hand to me. I was afraid to let go of the rock.

  “Come on.”

  Slowly I held my trembling hand out to her.

  My movement was more of a pitiful lurch, but I took three small steps and landed face down in a snow drift on the other side.

  It wasn’t pretty, but I was alive.

  I took off my wool cap. My hair was soaked and matted, dirt and snow clung to my coat and pants. I kissed the snowy ground.

  “That’s a rough one to cross,” said a male voice.

  I looked up as a medium-sized male, about eighteen, with a few days growth of beard and wearing a bold blue arctic parka walked toward me. He had brown eyes that crackled with intelligence. He had an eclipsing smile and dark curly hair. He was smiling at me now. As I began to grin back I realized I looked worse than any other time in my life. A person who didn’t know me might think I’d been raised by wolves.

  “I’m Jack Lowden.”

  “Ivy Breedlove. I don’t usually look like this.”

  “You look like you’re having quite a time.”

  I grinned adventurously. I was now.

  “Are you headed toward the summit?”

  “I’m sure we are.”

  If we weren’t, we should be.

  “You can come with us for a stretch if you want,” Mountain Mama said to him.

  “I’ll hike with you a while,” Jack said. “I’ve been out here two days solo.”

  He said solo like he wasn’t having fun.

  “You’re the first people I’ve seen,” Jack mutte
red.

  We crunched along in the snow. Walking with Jack gave me more energy. He walked lightly over the snow with an easy gait, hopped quickly over snow-covered rocks.

  “I’ve got four more days to go,” Jack told us. “I’m doing this for my outdoor survival course—extra credit.”

  Mountain Mama asked him if he’d just started at the local ranger college.

  He bit his lip. “I guess it shows, huh?”

  “Lucky guess,” she said.

  “I’m trying to figure things out,” he said.

  “Mountains are the best place to do that,” Mama offered.

  “I’m trying to figure out if I should be a ranger. I’ve always wanted to be one, I …” he trailed off.

  Mountain Mama said rangers aren’t born, they’re made.

  Jack said he was counting on that. I waited, but he didn’t explain. Mountain Mama forged ahead, which I thought was insensitive. It was clear that Jack needed company and understanding. Jack saw my NO YIELD button and laughed.

  “She put it on me,” I said. “I haven’t got the hang of the sentiment yet.”

  “Where you heading?”

  I told him about Josephine—how we were going to find her, how I was afraid of what I’d find, what I’d learn.

  Jack said I was brave to go over that ledge.

  “I’m not brave,” I assured him. “I was terrified every second. You’re brave to be staying in the mountains alone for so long.”

  “I need the extra credit,” he said quietly.

  Don’t we all.

  “You need a B-minus average to stay in the program,” he explained.

  I thought it should be an A-minus. Rangers are supposed to know what they’re doing. Lives are at stake.

  “I got a D in Search and Rescue.”

  “What happened?”

  Jack looked down. “Every person I tried to rescue died.”

  I backed off. “That’s awful!”

  “They weren’t real people, they were dummies to learn on. But I either got there too slowly or administered the wrong first aid. I’d get so nervous, I’d mess up. I did great in Flora and Fauna, Orienteering, and Wild Animals of the Far North.”

  “That’s something,” I said.

  You don’t think about these things when you see a ranger. They should have their grade point average sewn on their sleeves so the public would see their strengths and weaknesses. If I need to be rescued, I want the person who aced the course, not the goof-up who sailed paper airplanes in the back of the room.

  We kept walking, crunching snow beneath our boots.

  Poor Jack.

  Most guys have so much bravado about all the things they do well. Here was an honest one who was acquainted with his weaknesses and not afraid to talk about them.

  “They weed us out in the first year,” Jack said slowly. “That’s why I need the extra credit.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make it,” I said.

  Jack shouldered his pack. This was a male you could trust—unless you needed searching or rescuing.

  8

  We parted company with Jack mid-afternoon when we began to make camp half way up the mountain ridge. I gave him three Hershey bars with almonds, which meant I had only seventeen left.

  “It was really great meeting you, Ivy. I hope everything goes well with you and your aunt.”

  My heart sank as he shouldered his pack and hiked off into the black wilderness to face his true self amid the jagged jaws of death.

  The one decent male I’ve met all year and he needs extra credit because he almost flunked Search and Rescue.

  Octavia has much better dating luck than me. It helps that she isn’t as fussy. Octavia tries to see the good in all mankind, which is one of the things I appreciate about her, but it clouds her vision for boyfriends. Her recent flame is Gib Palumbra, an insolent, unappreciative clarinet player who walks around school with a clarinet reed in his teeth.

  There should be a place in the wilderness for sensitive rangers who can walk the trails and pat the flora and fauna. Other more caustic rangers could do the searching and rescuing.

  How much rescuing did a ranger have to do anyway?

  Mountain Mama clapped her hands, breaking my reverie.

  “The perfect campsite, Breedlove, is on level, sheltered ground with as little wind as possible.”

  “Got it.”

  I hoped Jack knew this. I don’t know how his grades were in Making Camp. Maybe he hadn’t even taken that yet!

  We put on snowshoes and walked around the campsite packing down the area where we would put up the tent. Mama showed me how to erect the cooking platform, which was basically a raised table of snow to break the wind around the stove. Even though we had some water left, she told me to light up the small gas stove and start melting snow for drinking water. This was trickier than it sounded, beginning with getting the stove to light. My hands were freezing and pumping canned gas into the stove tank to light was close to impossible. When I finally got a flame, it took three pots of melted snow to get a half glass of water and when I complained about it, I got another of Mountain Mama’s outdoor precepts for living.

  “The wilderness teaches patience, Breedlove.”

  I massaged my half-raw fingers and said I’d noticed that. Then I “established” the latrine, which is a nice way of saying I found a windless place where we could go to the bathroom and bury our labors deep in the frozen terrain—the burying part required an ice pick. Going to the bathroom outside in the middle of winter makes you think about life in a new way.

  I was sick of being cold. Mountain Mama pulled out a slab of deer jerky, sliced off a hunk with her knife, threw it to me. I held it, recalling Bambi. But hunger rules all. My stomach growled. I ripped the jerky apart with my terrifying teeth. It was good, salty.

  Bye-bye Bambi.

  “I give that young man real credit for facing his weaknesses,” Mountain Mama said.

  “I hope his teachers do.”

  “The wilderness has a way of separating people, Breedlove. It’s a life that demands two things of everyone: toughness and truth.”

  She sliced another hunk of jerky.

  “I guess you’ve seen a lot of people who can handle it and who can’t.”

  “I’ve seen my share.” Mountain Mama looked off sternly into the distance. “I’ll tell you what frosts my shorts, Breedlove. It’s when smart, strong women convince themselves they’re not tough enough to try.”

  I made a mental note to not do that in her presence.

  Mama wiped her knife blade with a rag. “My mother was afraid of adventure. My father and I would go off on climbs and she’d sit home. We’d come back and tell her she could do it, too—she could climb a mountain, pitch a tent and listen to the forest sing her to sleep. Pop and I would tell our stories about the bears we’d seen or the coyotes we’d heard howl and my mother would get angry that we’d gone, angrier still that we’d enjoyed ourselves, and downright hostile that we loved something she thought was stupid. She left us because of it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Life is tough, Breedlove.”

  “I know, but that had to be so hard for you.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I vowed to not let women give up like she did. There’s more wilderness in most women than anyone realizes.”

  She spat in the snow.

  “Are you going to say that in your book?”

  “I’m going to shout it.”

  Mountain Mama slapped more jerky in my glove, marched to her pack, and started unfolding the tent.

  “Let me help, Mama.”

  She waved me off.

  I guess everyone’s got a deep hurt somewhere.

  I went over and helped her put up the tent anyway—pounded the special snow stakes deep into the ground. Mountain Mama said without snow stakes, a strong winter wind could send the tent sailing.

  I was cold and tired as we made the rice and beans and ate raisins and cheese.

&nbs
p; I thought we had night in the suburbs, but there’s always something you can see. In the mountains, night is serious. Everything is. I felt small and big at the same time.

  Mountain Mama told me about how her father took her hiking as soon as she could walk. She did her first solo overnight camp-out at eight years of age.

  “I just always loved it out here, Breedlove. Always felt more like myself than at any other moment.”

  “Why do you love it, Mama?”

  “It’s taught me to not be afraid of the unknown—that’s my definition of what makes a person free.”

  * * *

  I had trouble sleeping even though I was exhausted. It didn’t help that I had two bottles of drinking water in the bag with me—this kept the water from freezing.

  I pictured marauding wild animals tearing apart our tent.

  Thought of falling off the mountain.

  Thought of something happening to Mountain Mama and how I would be left alone to die slowly.

  I thought about Jack, remembering his smile.

  I thought of Josephine in a cave with hair down to her ankles.

  I thought of the ancestral clan moving west from New Hampshire to New York, settling in Farmington by the river, not for the view as much as for the soft green grass on the bank. Comfort Breedlove, pregnant with her ninth child in as many years, sat down by the shores of the Blue Mountain River and said that was it; she wasn’t going any further.

  “Thou canst ride the wagon over my bones and slay me if thou must,” she is reported to have told her husband, “but I canst not find it within myself to journey further.” And she lay down and had her baby. Breedlove women were always opinionated.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to go farther.

  I felt the wilderness wrap around me in frigid darkness.

  Somehow, I fell asleep.

  * * *

  “Hut, two, Breedlove, we’re moving out.”

  A hand slapped my sleeping bag. I was still in it. I moved inside my warm bag, opened one eye at the pitch black and groaned.

  Mountain Mama was a study in enthusiasm, rolling up her bag, putting supplies in her pack.

  “What time is it?” I muttered.