Bright Angel Time

by Martha McPhee

  ♦

  But this is how it happened: Camille stands in front of Dad. She’s thin but fleshy, and her skin is pale and pinkish and her pubic hair is ginger like the rest of her hair, which falls over her shoulders. Her breasts are pert and her nipples erect.

  Dad’s laid a tarp down in the woods because the ground is wet. The men are about to land on the moon. On top of the tarp is a wool blanket and on top of the blanket is Dad. His arm stretches out to Camille, who wants an answer. Her hands are on her hips. She tells him that Brian has found their letters. That he’s drunk, gone mad, has a gun. The expression on her face challenges Dad: “Are you going to leave?” The tall trees hide them. At once the air is both warm and chilly and though the birds have been chirping all along it’s as if someone has suddenly turned on a switch and Dad and Camille can now hear them, as well as all the sounds of the woods, and they can see the overcast sky. Dad decides. He sees us slipping away, as if being pulled by suction, the suction of water pulling more water down a drain. Swirling. Gone. He cares and he doesn’t care. This is his life. He wants his happiness. He cries. Camille comforts him. Her ginger hair, silky, all over him. He cries hard because everything is wonderful and horrible.

  ♦

  At the pool at the Desert Princess I watched kids. Little kids, younger than I, who didn’t need to be in school. I’d see a mother go away for a moment and leave her child with a friend and the child would cry and cry until it was annoying and you wished the mother would hurry up and return. I saw fathers return from a day on the golf course and I saw the little children throw themselves at their fathers, hugging them, strangling them as if they’d been gone forever. A day is a long time then.

  The night Dad didn’t come home we didn’t turn on any lights and the house became very dark and my sisters and mother had pillows over their faces and they cried into the pillows and I didn’t know what it meant. At first I just watched and then I took a pillow from the couch and pushed it into my face and tried to understand, but couldn’t.

  While Mom and my sisters cried, the men were walking in the silence of the moon and I kept looking up, straining to see it, thinking if I strained enough I’d be able to make out the tiny figures of the men. Thick clouds crossed the moon’s path, blotting it out, but then suddenly it reemerged, blasting through the darkness. It was silent because there is no air on the moon, an incredible silence, like the silence you can only come vaguely close to in the desert. But in the desert you hear the wind and you hear planes overhead and the ubiquitous dog and you hear each other.

  “When’s Dad coming home?” I finally screamed. I screamed it a few times like a brat. “I’m not going to bed until Dad comes home.”

  ♦

  The men went to the moon to conquer the impossible. They went because it was there and they’d figured out a way to get to it. Behind them they left an earth that was decaying and at war. Sometimes it is easier to tackle the impossible than to fix the possible.

  “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

  ∨ Bright Angel Time ∧

  The Great Unconformity

  God was all over the place. As far as the eye could see and beyond. I looked down on a thousand painted layers. Burgundy. Black. Red the color of blood. Above, a rose sky was broken with lakelike spaces of blue. It was morning and we didn’t have the clothes for this cold so we bundled into all the clothes that we had, all twelve of us, with Cynthia Banks yawning, “Simply divine.” As the sun rose it seemed to lift pyramids of stone into the air, revealing gulches and plateaus and more pyramids and pinnacles. A dusty cinnamon path snaked its way into the Grand Canyon.

  Anton said he’d been to the canyon before. He lifted his cowboy hat to wipe his forehead. He cleared his throat and spit. “Almost died when I was here last. It’s true. Some friends and I got lost hiking. Had no water. My friend’s tongue turned black. Almost died,” he repeated proudly, setting his hat back on his head. He squinted and winked.

  Timothy yelled to hear his echo. His voice bounced around and then was swallowed up. Solomon Temple. Shiva Temple. Krishna Shrine. Vishnu Temple. Apollo Temple. Venus Temple. Jupiter, Juno, Thor – out to eternity and farther.

  There was a stiff breeze and the strong scent of pitch pine. We were quiet. Other tourists, two elderly couples, arrived. They were noisy and then they too were quiet and then they left.

  ♦

  We’d arrived the night before. At the last moment Anton had decided we should in fact see the Grand Canyon, that it would be educational. He said we’d just have a ‘little’ look. Since we were so close it would be a shame to miss it. We were just into New Mexico when he turned around. I was afraid we wouldn’t catch up with Jane if we didn’t keep driving. Everyone had an opinion. We pleaded, but Anton had decided, in charge again.

  A Bordeaux sky reigned on the horizon and we drove into it until dark. We drove all evening, arriving late. All of us asleep. The sound of cars suddenly silent, all motion stopped. Outside Anton spoke with someone. I heard only voices. No words. One by one we awoke and emerged, our figures in silhouette in the dark. The screen door clapping. It was colder than it had ever been on our trip and I wrapped some dresses around my shoulders and slipped into a pair of Julia’s jeans that were too big for me. There was a vast and moonless sky, very dark and very cold. All around was the smell of pine and the air was thin and breathing it in felt good, like drinking ice-cold water in the desert.

  Anton spoke with a ranger, a skinny man with a huge ranger hat on his pinhead and big eyes that shone in the dark like a cat’s. His chin was sharp and he kept fingering it while talking. He seemed to like talking and talked for close to an hour.

  “How many of you are there?” he asked with a friendly and astonished voice. We stood all over the place. Caroline came up and hugged me, trying to keep warm. Her hair fell over me. It smelled clean. The ranger was tall and wore a parka. I had bare feet. Mom was asleep in the cab and Cynthia Banks stood by Anton’s side, pretending to be his wife.

  “Now let me see a second,” Anton said. He counted us up in his head. “We’re thirteen.”

  “Boy,” said the ranger. That’s all he said for a minute until Cynthia corrected Anton’s figure to twelve and reminded him that Jane was gone.

  “Boy, that’s swell. Twelve of you?” He stopped to think, searching for something more to say but only said ‘swell’ again.

  A wind was in the trees and the cars made settling sounds. The ranger drove a truck and he’d left the engine running and the lights on in the cab. I shivered in Caroline’s arms. I was happy she was holding me.

  “You see out there,” she whispered and pointed in the direction of an even deeper darkness that I hadn’t yet paid attention to. My eyes were still adjusting. “That’s the Grand Canyon.”

  “The fucking G C,” Dwayne said.

  For a moment I felt large being there simply because we’d finally gotten somewhere we’d planned to go. Caroline linked her arm in mine and we walked to the edge of the parking lot. I stared hard trying to make my eyes see through the dark, but only the vaguest forms appeared. Since I didn’t know the shape of what I was looking at I had a hard time discerning it, but I could feel it somehow and the feeling made me momentarily afraid because it was so big and infinite and dark. There was no moon, no stars. The black pit and the night blended together into one great void, and you couldn’t tell where land ended and universe began. I was frightened. This was what I had been wanting to get to for so long. This was what Dad had wanted to bring us to. Caroline wrapped my dresses closer around me and pulled me into her. Her body was warm. My teeth chattered. We moved away, back to the others.

  “I don’t recommend it with kids that little. You really have to be expert hikers,” the ranger said. He chewed on something and spit. I agre
ed with him. Usually I didn’t like to be referred to as too little, but this time I agreed. I was too little. “Some of them trails haven’t been hiked on too much and there’s slides and such.” He paused. “Say, we have mules. You could go down on mules. Or if you wanted to hike, you could go partway down and explore a little. You could go to Horseshoe Mesa say, or Plateau Point. But I don’t recommend going the whole way down or on an extended hike with eight- and six-year-olds. Besides, this time of year storms aren’t too predictable.”

  “Nah-nah-no,” Anton stuttered, determined. “The kids are tough,” he said. “I’ve been down before. They can do it.”

  “I don’t know if you’re impetuous or adventurous,” Cynthia said.

  “We’re not going in there,” I said. Suddenly I had a premonition, I saw us getting lost.

  “Looky here, babe,” Anton said, his body beginning to swell. Then everyone started giving Anton their opinion – James and Dwayne and Caroline and Nicholas and Cynthia and Sofia. James was easy on Anton now, after the El Mojave bar and Anton’s decision to go home. James had decided to go back to England once we returned East. Everyone speaking at once. Anton told us to quiet down, but Sofia continued.

  “I’m warning you, babe.”

  “The trails are rustic,” the ranger said. A quick smile flitted across his lips. He seemed to like the fact that he was causing a commotion. “And there are scorpions and coyotes and rattlesnakes and even cougars down there. I don’t mean to be so cautious, but it’s me that’s gonna have to come in after you all if there’s any trouble. And let me tell you that ain’t easy. We lose a lot of people down there. More than you’d think. Just this summer we lost a girl, only twenty-five years old, and she was hiking on an easy trail. But there are no easy trails in there.” He shook his head. “She must have tripped on a bootlace or something, but she fell. She fell a good five hundred feet and splattered. Well, okeydokey.” The ranger tipped his hat, backing away. “Make sure you bring plenty of water.” He flashed a smile, got in his truck and left.

  ♦

  It was spooky descending all that way, as if the trail would never stop and you’d never come to a bottom. You’d keep sinking, so deep you’d never be able to get out. My knees ached. I kept thinking about hell and prayed to God, descending into hell, but the canyon was too beautiful for that.

  Sheer rock faces dropping hundreds of feet. The rim scalloped with side canyons and terraces, amphitheaters and promontories. I was dazzled, understanding, absolutely, why Dad had wanted to bring us here. And then I understood too why Anton had had to come here. All chaos and beauty. Temples soaring above us. The colors changing constantly. We’d be wandering through a passage of rose and then suddenly a cloud would cover up the sun and the whole world would become beige and blue and you couldn’t hear anything except maybe the river or the wind if the wind were blowing or a jet sailing past overhead, leaving a wake like a boat and sometimes you could pretend you were deep beneath the ocean looking up at the world. This was the world, the most exquisite I had ever seen.

  Some days we’d hike together, the big kids taking the lead. The little kids, Mom and Anton lagging behind. At first we had plenty of everything, but the hike lasted longer than we’d anticipated. Cynthia Banks had bought out a camping equipment store, stocking us up with freeze-dried foods and things we needed for our packs, for the nights. Boots for those of us who didn’t have any. She bought a backpack and all the appropriate equipment and anything Anton said we would need.

  When the sun was at its highest and the shadow of the rim vanished we’d find spots in the shade to hide and we’d eat some food. In these nooks the air was still, but you could hear the wind racing through the canyon. In the afternoon we’d hike on. The twelve of us marching, spreading out, into the land.

  ♦

  We hiked backward through time, traveling two billion years to the river. I loved that idea. Time with those wonderful names my father had loved to list, repeating them like a mantra or a song: Kaibab, Supai, Muav time, Bright Angel time, Tonto and Vishnu time. The trail dust on our boots changing from beige to red to white to gray, depending on the color of that time. I thought about Dad talking about time and the slate being wiped clean. I tried to remember everything he’d taught us about the canyon, as if somehow through his words I could understand him. This land didn’t feel very clean, with two billion years of the earth’s history recorded here in the canyon walls. You could see it in the layers of rock, the beds of limestone, sandstone, shale hundreds of feet thick. Dad had said that the Grand Canyon itself was an infant, younger than I was, it had been cut in the rock so recently. He’d told me this a year ago, when I was seven, but I’d known what he meant. He said some geologists believe the canyon is so young that human beings, standing upright, walking on the earth, could have seen it being carved. So young and fresh, “like a scalpel cutting through skin,” he had said. Now I imagined man standing upright there on the rim, watching the river cut through all that rock and time like a knife. I imagined Dad standing up there too, at Thanksgiving the year before, waiting for Julia and me to arrive. Five months had passed since we’d last seen him.

  Dad had said that the famous time in the Grand Canyon was more interesting for the time that wasn’t there than for the time that was. The Kaibab plateau of the canyon’s rim was from the Paleozoic era and 250 million years old. “The Grand Canyon quits in the Permian. Where did the Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations go?” he’d asked. “Did they erode or were they never there?” As if 250 million years both had and had not happened in this one spot on earth. Time like a thief outmaneuvering time.

  Dad had said that the Great Unconformity of the Grand Canyon’s inner gorge represented one of the most extreme examples on earth of that famous missing time. He said that two rocks of vastly different ages meet there, indicating a gap of close to one billion years. “Imagine a multivolume set of encyclopedias missing everything from Carthage to Harvard. The remaining volumes are standing next to each other, but even so the gap is there. A lot of information that should be there is not. Where did the time between those two rocks go?”

  For a long while after my father left, I thought time had stopped for him, that he was back there on that day when the men landed on the moon. Frozen. His life static as our lives moved forward.

  And whenever we saw him, on the weekends or holidays that belonged to him, we would go back and meet him in that frozen time. Time that both did and did not exist. It was easier to imagine this than to know his life had moved ahead.

  I wondered if it were the same for Dad, if our lives remained frozen, static because our time didn’t exist for him.

  ♦

  We got lost slowly. Julia, Sofia and I. On the fourth day of our hike, when we had nearly run out of all of our supplies. We got lost after starting the ascent from the river, on the plateau above the inner gorge. Lost in the Grand Canyon Super Group somewhere near the Great Unconformity, one level below Bright Angel time. It was late afternoon. The sun and the moon were up there together, brilliant in the sky.

  “We’re nearly out of the Precambrian,” I said. I had a field guide I kept referring to that Anton had bought for me.

  “Oh Kate, shut up,” Julia said. She had a baseball cap on. Sweat beaded her face. We had been looking for the trail up for a few hours. The trail we were on was several hundred feet above the river, but ran parallel.

  “It means we’re making progress,” I said. “We’re out of the Vishnu Schist and into the Tapeats Sandstone.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Julia snapped. “We’re lost.”

  “We are not lost,” I said. I wanted to cry. It was my fault we were lost. I had had a knee ache. A terrible one that involved my entire leg. I was stiff all over and it was hard to walk. Julia and Sofia had stopped to rest with me while the others went on ahead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking. Julia and Sofia walked in front of me and I looked into their backs. Julia said nothing. Sofia sa
id nothing. The path was narrow, and to our right there was a cliff and to our left a drop and below it the river. I could only hear the river. We were hot. Our boots crunched the ground. The straps of my pack sliced into my shoulders. The bottom of it chaffed my hips. The path climbed and descended, endlessly. Each time we went around a bend, we got excited, hoping for some path up to be revealed, but there was nothing. We’d be walking toward nothing forever. The world felt empty, and though I was with Julia and Sofia, I felt entirely alone and that feeling frightened me. We were tiny down there, microscopic, with the monuments rising all around. A wind blew.