Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Dana Stabenow

  Tim looked proud and confident, with no hint of the swagger so common among adolescent boys after their first score. Held together for the first terrible years of his life by some inner, unplumbed strength all his own, rescued by Wy in what sounded like the nick of time and given a home, regular meals, rules by which to abide and, above all, unconditional love, Tim had the makings of a truly good man.

  “Amelia,” Moses said.

  Amelia looked up, her olive skin flushed with laughter. “Yes, uncle?”

  “It’s Sunday,” he said. “We go home tomorrow.”

  Her smile faded. “Yes, uncle. I know.”

  On the floor Tim straightened.

  “Do you go back to your husband tomorrow?”

  Amelia sat up and pushed her hair behind an ear. A log split in the stove and hissed and spit when the flames hit sap. The damper flapped when a gust of wind tangled itself in the chimney. Boughs creaked outside.

  “No, uncle,” she said. “I won’t go back to Darren.”

  Bill felt Moses stiffen, she thought with momentary surprise, and smiled to herself. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “I am.” She said the words as if she were taking a vow.

  It was amazing what four days of tai chi, sweats and fishing would do for the self-confidence, Moses thought complacently. The voices whispered a warning. He ignored them. This time they would be wrong. It had happened before, not often, but often enough to allow him to retain some hope in the face of unrelenting forebodings of death and disaster.

  Bug off, he thought, and somewhat to his surprise, they did. And he wasn’t even drunk.

  Across the room Moses murmured something in Bill’s ear, and she laughed. “Do you think they know we saw?” Tim whispered.

  Amelia looked at the older couple. “I hope not.” But she wondered. She’d seen Bill looking at her with a speculative glint in her eyes, and when she came back from the outhouse this evening her knapsack had been moved and the pills inside had shifted location. She didn’t mind; she didn’t want to be pregnant, either. She didn’t know what she wanted, exactly, but then it had been so long since she had felt the courage to want anything.

  Five months ago she had married Darren Gearhart with no desire other than to be a good wife and the mother of his children. She had wanted to sleep with him, too, and she now knew enough to know he had wanted to sleep with her. If he hadn’t, he would never have married her. The realization didn’t hurt as much as it once had.

  A good wife, she had thought, meant keeping a clean, neat house, serving good meals on time, keeping the checkbook balanced. The second shock, after her wedding night, came when he told her to close her bank account, one she had been building since she first began to earn money as a baby-sitter at the age of twelve, and deposit its holdings into his own. She asked, timidly, if he would put her name on it, too. That was the first time he had hit her. It didn’t hurt much, not like later, but it was the third shock, and then the shocks piled up so thick and fast that she lost the ability to differentiate between them.

  She no longer had money of her own, there was only his money, doled out a few grudging dollars at a time. If she couldn’t stretch them to cover the purchase of food and the maintenance of the trailer they lived in, she had to ask for more, and she learned quickly that she didn’t ever want to ask for more. She learned not to visit her mother, too; he would either accompany her and be so rude that she would leave before she was too embarrassed, or on those few occasions when she managed to slip her leash and go off on her own, he would track her down and take her home.

  Her mother knew, though. Amelia remembered her father. Oh yes, her mother knew, all right.

  If Darren wasn’t yelling at her, he was hitting her. If he wasn’t hitting her, he was fucking her. It never stopped. She had thought he would be gone fishing most of the summer, but he’d been fired off theWaltzing Matilda practically before the season began. The skipper of theMatilda was Amelia’s uncle’s oldest son, and he had sought her out afterward, to apologize, she thought, but Darren had picked a fight with him and run him off before he could say so.

  The five months had seemed like five years, and there had seemed no end to them. She could no longer sleep through the night, starting at noises when he wasn’t next to her, and under constant assault of one kind or another when he was.

  She’d been sleeping at fish camp, four dreamless nights of uninterrupted unconsciousness, in a bunk with clean sheets and a soft pillow all her own. She looked at Moses and felt something as close to love as she’d ever felt for a man. She thought how wrong people were who said he was an evil spirit. Even her mother, an elder who should have known better, had warned her children against him.

  Tim’s hands stopped shuffling the cards, and she looked up to see him watching her with grave eyes. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  She smiled. “Oh yeah,” she whispered. “I’m perfect.”

  You sure are, he thought fervently.

  To him, she was beautiful. The bruise on the side of her face had faded to a faint yellow and the dark shadows beneath her eyes were gone. Her hair, which she hadn’t combed until her second day at fish camp, hung in a sleek, shining, black fall. Her olive cheeks were darker after three days spent outside and she moved with a new assurance. She looked him straight in the eye and smiled, and he had a hard time not ducking his head. He couldn’t stop the flush that rose to his own cheeks.

  “It was so good,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she said. She stretched a little in memory, her breasts pushing at the front of her shirt. “Yes, it was. The second time especially.”

  He swallowed. “Yeah.” He shuffled the cards and they went all over the place. He bent over, picking them up, glad of the opportunity to hide his expression. “Amelia?”

  “What?”

  He gathered together all his courage and whispered her own question back at her. “Can we do it again?”

  He heard her inhale, her involuntary, delighted and slightly surprised chuckle, and then Moses got to his feet, giving Bill a surreptitious tickle on the way up. “Come on, boy, time to bring in some more wood.”

  The last thing Tim wanted to do was leave before his question was answered, but he rose obediently and followed Moses into the storm. A gust of wind ripped the door from his hand and slammed it shut. “Moses!”

  “What? And come on, let’s get that goddamn wood before we both freeze our nuts off.” He nudged Tim, his grin a white blur in a dark smudge. “Especially now that you know what they’re for.”

  Tim was glad the darkness hid his flush. He should have known the old man would see, would know. He turned his head into the wind, feeling drops of moisture cool his cheeks. “Is that snow, Moses?”

  “Feels like,” the old man said, allowing the change of subject, much to Tim’s relief. He rooted through the woodpile, going down a layer in search of the dry stuff, and stacked Tim’s arms full.

  “It’s too early for snow,” Tim said.

  Moses added another piece of wood, and Tim could no longer see the blur. “It’s never too early for snow out here.”

  A bird called, barely audible over the wind, a low note, followed by clicking sounds, the sound of bare branches rubbing together.

  Moses, his arms full of wood, stood still, looking to the west.

  “What?” Tim said.

  “I thought I heard-”

  “What?” The snow stung Tim’s cheeks and he shivered.

  Moses looked at him. “Go on, get back in the house.”

  Tim went inside ahead of him. Moses stood on the front porch for a minute longer, listening, but the raven didn’t speak again.

  They built up the fire and Amelia made more cocoa, lumpy, just the way Tim liked it. He looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

  She looked up and saw him. The color in her cheeks deepened, and her smile was part shyness, part mischief and part warm wealth of shared knowledge.

  Moses shoved the table in
to a corner and tossed blankets and pillows down on the floor. He turned down all the lanterns and opened the fire door. They gathered in a half circle around the flames, light flickering across their faces. “Story time,” Moses said with that evil grin.

  Bill settled down next to him. “Which one?”

  Moses sampled his cocoa. “No contest. On a night like this, Uuiliriq.”

  “The Hairy Man? Oh brother.”

  Tim jumped. Amelia gave him a questioning look.

  “Quiet, woman.” Moses fixed a piercing eye on the two younger members of the group, and began to speak.

  It was hard to say, afterward, just what it was about his voice that so compelled the attention. It dropped to a low tone you had to strain to hear, it fell into a cadenced rhythm that had your head nodding in almost hypnotic attention. He donned finger fans, made of woven straw and trimmed with caribou ruff, and used them to help tell the story, palms out, forefingers crooked around the tiny handles, hands moving in minute, precise jerks back and forth, up and down, side to side, expressing joy, fear, laughter, pain. Once Tim thought he heard drums sounding faintly in the background. Once Amelia looked around for the other singers. Even Bill was seduced, hearing the stamp of mukluks, the rustle of kuspuks, the cheers of the crowd.

  It was an old story, never written down, known only to those who told it and those who listened, deep in the tiny settlements and villages of the Yupik. It was a story your grandfather told your father, and that your father told you, and that you would tell your children, in hopes that it would keep them safe inside after dark. It was a story that gave meaning to otherwise mysterious disappearances when it did not.

  And it was a way to maintain a sense of cultural identity in a world increasingly white and Western.

  “Uuiliriq lived in the mountains,” Moses began.

  “High in the mountains he lived.

  “High in the mountains, in a dark cave.

  “High in the mountains, in a dark cave.

  “That cave so high, nobody climb there.

  “That cave so high, nobody see it.

  “That cave so high, nobody find it.

  “Only Uuiliriq.

  “All alone he live in this cave.

  “He have no mothers.

  “He have no fathers.

  “He have no brothers.

  “He have no sisters.

  “All alone he.

  “All alone he sleep.

  “All alone long he sleep.

  “Sometime he wake up.”

  Moses’ voice deepened. “Sometime Uuiliriq he wake up.

  “Sometime he wake up hungry.”

  Something not quite a shiver passed up Tim’s spine. “Are you okay?” Amelia whispered.

  He managed a smile and nodded.

  “Sometime he wake up so hungry, he go get food.”

  The beat quickened.

  “Sometime he leave that cave so high up in the mountains.

  “Sometime he come down from those mountains.

  “From those mountains sometime he come to village.

  “One time he come to our village.

  “Our little village by the river.

  “The river she is wide.

  “The river she is deep.

  “The elders tell children to stay inside after dark.

  “Children stay inside or the river will get them.

  “But this one young boy he don’t listen.

  “This boy he wait till everybody sleeping.

  “Everybody sleeping he go outside.

  “Go outside he go down to the river.

  “Can’t catch me! he yell to her.

  “Can’t catch me! he yell to the lights in the sky.

  “Can’t catch me! he yell to the mountains.

  “He yelling so loud.

  “So loud Uuiliriq creep up behind.

  “Creep up behind and grab him.

  “Grab him and take him up the mountain.

  “Up the mountain to that cave he got there.

  “That cave so high, nobody climb there.

  “That cave so high, nobody see it.

  “That cave so high, nobody find it.

  “The village it wakes.

  “It wakes and that boy gone.

  “The men they light torches.

  “Light torches and climb those mountains.

  “Climb those mountains and search all night long.

  “All night long they see the torches from the village.

  “From the village they see the torches go far away.

  “Go far away and come back.

  “Come back without that boy.

  “Without that boy and his mother cry.

  “His mother cry and his father cry.

  “His father cry and his sisters cry.

  “His sisters cry and his brothers cry.

  “His brothers cry and his aunties cry.

  “His aunties cry and his uncles cry.

  “That boy gone.

  “That boy long gone.

  “That boy gone forever.”

  The fans slowed again, beating a dirge against the air. Moses’ voice dropped to the merest breath of sound.

  “Some nights.

  “Some night when dark outside.

  “Some night when dark outside that village wake up.

  “That village wake up and hear something.

  “Hear something crying

  “Crying far off in that night.

  “Maybe that boy.

  “Maybe that boy he crying for home.

  “Crying for home.

  “Those people they lay in their beds.

  “They lay in their beds and they listen to that crying.

  “They listen to that crying.

  “But they don’t go out.”

  The fans beat the air, the white strands of caribou fanning the air in precise, graceful arcs.

  “Stay inside after dark.

  “After dark stay inside.

  “Stay inside after dark or Uuiliriq come.

  “Uuiliriq come.”

  The fans stopped in midair. The room was still, the wind only a faint howl outside, the lamps the merest hiss of sound. Did a dark shape shift in the shadow near the door?

  “AND GET YOU!”

  Amelia screamed and grabbed Tim. Tim, to his everlasting shame, yelled and jumped. Bill spilled the rest of her cocoa and cursed roundly.

  Moses fell backward laughing, a deep bellow of a laugh that rolled out of his chest and reverberated off the patchwork ceiling.

  “Uncle!” Tim said. “You’re scaring the women.”

  “Yeah, like you weren’t peeing your pants afraid,” Amelia said, and patted her chest as if reassuring her heart that everything was all right. “Uncle, you sure know how to tell a story.”

  Moses sat up again, still laughing, and stripped the fans from his fingers. “Gotcha,” he said.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Bill said, rising to her feet. “Story time’s over. Everybody hit the rack. And as for you, old man.” She leveled a glance at him. He grinned back at her irrepressibly.

  “You’ve got to sleep sometime,” she warned him.

  She stoked the stove while Moses turned out the lanterns. A lecherous murmur and a reproving slap came from their bunk, followed by the sound of a long kiss and a rustle of covers as the two elders nestled together like spoons and settled in for the night.

  Tim stretched out in his sleeping bag, arranging things so his head was near the head of Amelia’s bunk. He wished he could crawl in with her, but he hadn’t been invited. Besides, he didn’t know how Bill and Moses would feel about it.

  The howl of the wind, held in temporary abeyance by Moses’ voice, was back with a vengeance, snarling and snapping, making the trees outside creak and the cabin shudder.

  “I’m sure glad I’m not outside in this,” he said unthinkingly.

  “Me, too,” Amelia whispered.

  “You awake?”

  “Yeah. You?”
<
br />   “Yeah.”

  She was silent for a moment. “How come you jumped?”

  “What? Oh. You jumped, too. So did Bill.”

  “Not then. Before. When he said the story was about the Little Hairy Man.”

  “Oh.” Caught in the spell of the old man’s story, he’d forgotten his initial reaction.

  He was silent for a long time, so long that she thought he had fallen asleep. “In my village, there was this girl,” he said finally. His head twisted on his pillow and he looked up at the face pressed against the side of the bunk. “She was teaching me Yupik.”

  “You didn’t grow up speaking it?”

  “My birth mother wouldn’t. She said it was a dead language of a dead people, and if I wanted to get anywhere in life I had to speak English. She spoke only English at home.”

  His voice was matter-of-fact, but the undertone of bitterness betrayed him.

  “But in school, you had to be fluent in both. So the teacher got a girl from the high school to teach me. She was really nice, so nice. She showed me how to learn. I never knew I could learn anything before her, but I could. She gave me that.”

  He stopped.

  “Did you learn Yupik?” she said.

  “Some. Before she went away.”

  “Went away? Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody knew. One day she just wasn’t there anymore.”

  “Did she-how did she leave?”

  “Nobody knew,” he repeated.

  “Nobody found her?”

  “They looked. But nobody found her.” He looked up at her. “Some said it was the Hairy Man. That he came down from the mountains because he was hungry. And he took her.”

  They were both silent. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “Her name was Christine,” she heard him say just before she slid into sleep. “She was pretty.”

  And then, words so indistinct she might have dreamed them, “She looked like you.”

  Newenham, September 6

  “I’m willing to try it if you are,” Prince said hopefully.