Road to Bountiful

by Smurthwaite, Donald S.

“Very well, then. Why?”

  “It’s like this . . .”

  And then I couldn’t think of a thing. Not a thing. Other than I am muddy, tired, and lying down in the backseat of a rental car wondering when we’d get out of this nightmare. “Last night I felt on top of the world after talking with Rachel. Now I feel like the whole world has landed on me.”

  “Understandable. We are very harsh on ourselves,” Uncle Loyal says. “You especially seem to have that tendency. You set high expectations for yourself. Look at it this way. Into every life a little rain must fall. We happened to have more than just a little today, eh? We had a flash flood, something I’ve experienced a time or two in North Dakota. I think what you’re feeling is normal and to be expected.”

  His voice, as usual, was soft, calm, and comforting. I think if a nuclear bomb ever went off, Uncle Loyal would look at the mushroom cloud and say, “My. That was a loud explosion. Now. See. Look at that cloud forming. How interesting.”

  I think for a while, maybe five minutes. Levi having quality time with Levi. The gears of my mind engaged. Uncle Loyal seemed to sense (Doesn’t he seem to sense everything?) that I am in deep thought, at least by my standards, and was waiting for me to speak. Finally, I come up with just the right thing to say, something that describes my feelings, my outlook on life, my psychological and emotional profile at that instant. I reach way down, way back. This was important. I clear my throat. I want Uncle Loyal to hear what I am about to say.

  “You see, Uncle Loyal, I have issues.”

  “Oh. Issues?”

  “Yeah. Issues. You know, issues.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I said ‘oh.’ I’m not entirely sure what you mean by issues.”

  “Issues. They are, well, you know. Problems, I guess. But not quite problems. They’re issues. Problems with a mental twist to them.”

  Bet that explanation cleared it right up for him.

  “I see. Or at least I believe that I see,” Uncle Loyal said. “And what might these issues be?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Wait. I do. How I feel about things.”

  “What things?”

  “Everything. Life. Love. Career. What I want to be when I grow up. My struggle with trying to be mature. Those kinds of things. Nothing big. Just those things. Trivial matters.”

  I sit up in the back of the car. The sun, in its last-ditch effort of the day, once again breaks through the gray clouds far to the west, scattering rays of light on the tops of the ridges and partway down to the lake. For a moment, the rock bowl we are stuck in takes on a rosy color and the waters of the small lake appears crimson and gold. The few trees on the other side of the lake take on a dark, dusky shade of green. It is a beautiful sight, and I have a crazy thought: the view at that moment was almost worth the whole misadventure of getting stuck miles from nowhere.

  “Tell me more about Rachel,” Uncle Loyal suggests.

  “I can’t. It’s funny. The truth is I don’t know that much more about her. It’s all a feeling and, I guess, an attraction at this time. She wants to teach elementary school. I know that. She’s from Arizona, where I served my mission, but we met back at school.”

  “A school teacher. A noble profession,” Uncle Loyal says slowly. “Something that Daisy once considered. Tell me this, if you can. How do you feel when you are around her?”

  I think a bit on this. He said “around” her, not “about” her. If he said “about,” that would be easy—she’s pretty, not big, not small, I like her a lot, she’s fun, she has dimples. But that’s not really what he asked. I think about what I might say, what could come tumbling out of my mouth, that I felt happy, smart, handsome, worthwhile, or any other number of adjectives when I was around her. I think about it, and then I say something that surprises even me.

  “I like myself when I’m around her. I feel all right about things. I feel good. I feel content. That makes no sense, does it?”

  Uncle Loyal turns around and looks directly at me. In the dim light, I can barely make out his features—the high, smooth forehead, the arched eyebrows, the folds of skin hanging limp from his chin. But I can see something in his eyes, something that tells me my answer made a good impression on him. I’ve read and heard about eyes that sparkled my whole life, and it never made much sense to me. I always figured it was a writer’s trick because eyes don’t sparkle; they can’t, there’s no electricity hooked up. Or so I believed. But here I am, at dusk, stuck in the mountains in a fairly dark car, about to spend my night in the backseat shivering, and I can see his eyes, and his eyes are definitely sparkling, little flashes that catch the last of the day’s light.

  “A very fine answer, indeed. I always liked myself when I was around Daisy. She brought out the best in me. Little else matters when one is considering matrimony. If you are content and she is content and you bring out the best in each other, then all will be well with you, my young nephew.”

  Content? That’s not what the world would have you believe. I need an appointment with Dr. Phil to talk about this one.

  I had never really thought about being just content around Rachel all the times we hung out. It seemed as though I always had to prove myself around the girls I dated. I had to be and wanted to be more. I wanted them to have more. I wanted to promise them more. And look at what it had accomplished so far. No missus in my life, no diamond ring on her hand, no gold ring on mine, no little sons and daughters of the tribe of Levi to spice things up. I wanted more, but all I had was nothing.

  Is there a message here for me?

  All of the people I knew my age, they all seemed to have prospects, while I didn’t. They all seemed to be on their way to more, but I wasn’t. They all seemed to be on the up escalator for a very long ride, express ticket to the top, while my way up was more a rickety ladder with not many rungs. They knew things I did not. And what I have accomplished, the good things I had going for me, it almost seemed as if I begged to get them. Even my paltry, humbling job as a grocery store bagger came only as a result of intensely begging the store manager to hire me.

  Uncle Loyal, from the gathering dusk, asks me a question, a question that startles me a little. “What does your father do for a living?” We were talking about me and my issues, and then he asks me something off the track. Or so I thought.

  “He’s a photographer. He takes family portraits. You can’t believe how many families have one of his shots hanging above their mantels back home. Thousands. I mean, literally thousands. He’s really good at what he does”—and here I pause, and I think, Yes, he is good at what he does. He’s a fine photographic technician, he works hard, he treats everyone fairly, and he puts genuine feeling into each photo he takes. He is a perfectionist about his photos, not for his own sake, but because he wants his customers to be happy with what he provides them. Just about then, the little guilt buzzer went off about Dad after about a dozen years of relative silence. Okay, I admit it. When the conversation came around to “What does your daddy do?” I tended to gloss over it, and I had since a long time ago, way back to junior high when my dad came to take our class photos. For some reason (and here I pause to insert a note to myself—it was pride, Levi, just plain pride, deal with it.) I tried to get in and out of conversations about him as fast as I could. My dad is not a doctor, lawyer, engineer, dentist, accountant, businessman—heck, he’s a lousy businessman, we all know that—and it seemed a little embarrassing to say, when asked what he did for a living, “He’s a portrait photographer.”

  Uncle Loyal turns around in the front seat and seems to be looking at the dark black hole just to the left of us, the now-still lake bed.

  “Ah. What a beautiful and honorable profession. What a wonderful thing to do with one’s life. To make people happy. To freeze them in a moment of time when they were joyful, when they looked their best, when they were together. That we all could be photographers. Your father, I imagine, is a good and gifted man.”

  I don’t s
ay anything. At least at first. Uncle Loyal’s words were pounding like big ocean waves into my skinny little soul. For some reason, tears well up in my eyes, and all of those times when I was reluctant to talk about what my father did for a living seemed to burn a hole right through me. I’m thankful it’s dark so that Loyal couldn’t see me. I’d never heard my father complain about his job, what he earned, the occasional families who were rude to him or who stiffed him on their bills, and I’m sure he had more than a few of those through the years.

  My dad was just a nice guy who was good at what he chose to do.

  This was starting to sing to me. I didn’t need to beg. I didn’t need to ask for forgiveness or approval for who I am, who my father is, the way we are. It is time to say something to Uncle Loyal, who seems to be staring into the heavens, looking for the first great evening stars. Loyal and his stars. He had to be looking for his stars. He is a man who, given the choice of looking into the heavens or looking into the mud, would always cast his vision upward.

  So I answer. My voice is croaky, and I feel like a thirteen-year-old again, when the first major change of life came. I hope Uncle Loyal chalks it up to the rapidly cooling night air. “Yes. You’re right, Uncle Loyal. He makes people happy. We never went without anything we needed. He is a good and gifted man. I’m proud that I am his son. And my mom is a lot like him too. I have good parents. The best.”

  “Your father need not be a mystery to you, Levi. He must be a content man. A happy man. A peaceful man.”

  “I think he is.”

  “It’s a gift, a skill, the ability to be content. But I am unsure if you are born with it or if it is learned. No. I believe you must learn how,” Uncle Loyal says. “Part of acquiring wisdom, I suspect. There must be a chapter in the book of wisdom about being content.”

  “Yeah. You’ve got a point.”

  How could I have missed it? My parents were right there, always, good people, living a simple, good life, devoted to family, but I didn’t recognize the beauty in who they were and what they did. How could I have missed it? But I did. I had. Until now. Stuck in the mud in Montana.

  And then it seems as though Uncle Loyal peels the skin right off my skull, looks into my brain, my mind, maybe even my heart. He looks inside and sees what I am thinking. He looks at me and knows. He knows. I am convinced it is not just a lucky guess. He knows.

  “I have yet to know anyone who wanted more and was content, who wanted more and was at peace with himself. It’s such a simple thing. But it’s a small bit of knowledge that not many people truly understand and fewer yet embrace.”

  Note to Levi: Significant moment here. What’s he saying? What’s the meaning? The gears in my head are grinding away. It is this: Levi, you can’t always be on the hunt for more things, more stuff, more to do, more power, more authority, more of . . . more of whatever, and be at peace with yourself. It does not compute. It defies spiritual physics. It’s oil and water, Levi. It’s opera and bad heavy metal. It’s home cooking and Scout camp food. It’s lima beans and apple pie a la mode.

  Do the math: it does not add up.

  I roll over on my right shoulder. I think, I could take up the camera. I could follow in my father’s footsteps. Maybe that is the path for me. I don’t know.

  “This sounds paradoxical, Levi. But I have given thought to it for many years. In this old life, you actually gain more by not wanting more. I hope that makes sense.”

  I just say, “It does.”

  Uncle Loyal leans back in his chair. I look out the car window and see the stars, brilliant stars, puncturing the blackness of the summer sky. The storm is over. Tomorrow it would be clear and warm, the sky, that brilliant blue you can see only at high elevations. With daylight, I’d be able to figure a way out of the mud puddle we are trapped in. It was an odd sensation that night, knowing we are surrounded by water, far from anyone or anywhere, no solid plan to get us out. But with Loyal in the front seat, a half tank of gas, and enough chips and jerky to feed us for a week, I stop worrying. There is a way out. We’d find it, and we’d laugh about our night in the muddy red car for years to come. I decide to show myself the same forgiveness that I would bestow on others. What a concept!

  We don’t talk anymore. Uncle Loyal’s words about gaining more by wanting less settle comfortably into my thoughts. I feel peaceful, more than I had in a long time. I begin to think of all the territory we’d covered in just a couple of short days, what we’d seen, and more important, what I had learned. I was understanding the road and what I could learn about life from the people I came across on my travels. I was beginning to recognize how a trip was changing into a journey for me. With Uncle Loyal sitting next to me in the front seat, this trip from North Dakota to Utah was certainly becoming a journey.

  The little slip of the moon rose over the lake. There was no sound. It was still, still.

  I fall asleep more easily than I had imagined possible. A few times during the night, I hear Uncle Loyal turn on the car engine and feel the blast of warm air flowing into the backseat, where I lay curled and, to my surprise, content.

  When the morning comes, red and dazzling, I am amazed at how much of the puddle around us has disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We Escape the Mountains and Roll with Uncertainty toward Our Destiny

  Quite the talk I had with my great-nephew. I hope I did not discourage him. Nor do I hope he took what I said too seriously.

  Levi is an unusual young man. He struggles within himself, but in time, he will figure that out. His sense of humor is alive and crackling; he makes me laugh, which is good for me. I have not laughed often enough these last few years. He shows great promise. He understands life fairly well for someone of his tender years. In him, I see hope; I see the future. I see someone who is not willing to take life in any one particular way because it is expected of him. Obedient, yes. Independent thinker, also yes. The two are not incompatible. Levi could be a plainsman.

  He has the capacity to be wise.

  I did not sleep well. The setting was beautiful as the night draped itself over our little carved bowl in the mountains. The air was strong with scent of the water, I suppose, from the small lake, the spiky aroma of the alpine country. At least it seems like it is alpine country. I am a flatlander and not acquainted with the nomenclature of these high spires of granite. Each time I would think of it—Loyal, you are in the mountains at a high elevation, marooned in a dashing red car with bears on the prowl and the chance to tell tall tales when liberated—I would get excited and find slumber difficult to achieve.

  It was also cold. The cold of the mountains nips at your edges, darts from your head to your feet. It settles upon you in subtle ways—a chill in the shoulder, a stinging at the toes, a shudder down the bumpy spine. Unlike the cold of the plains, it is where the temperature and wind drive through you like a blue, chilled, steel stake.

  Midnight gradually turned to morning. I was happy to see the first gray light of dawn. Levi was still asleep and seemed peaceful. I began to think of ways that we might extricate ourselves from this woeful predicament.

  I did not need to apply much thought to it. Soon after daybreak, when the shadows were still long and the first hope of warmth was manifesting itself, I hear the sound of an engine grinding slowly up the mountainside. In a quarter hour, I can see the headlights from a truck, a green-painted fire engine of some kind, patrol lights mounted on its cab.

  Levi sits up suddenly. He rubs his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair. He cranes his neck and starts to say something, but his words come out as an early-morning slur. His breath is warm and sour, his movements jerky. Then he also hears the engine.

  “Forest Service or BLM rig,” he says. “Probably out on fire patrol. All that water from the storm, and they’re looking for fires.”

  “Will they stop for us?”

  “Oh yeah. Out here in the woods, you always stop for everyone, especially if they look like they could use a hand. It
’s just the way it’s done.” He pushes his hands against his face, looks around, and seems to take stock of our surroundings. “And I think we could use a hand. Call me crazy. But I think we’re still stuck. That much didn’t change during the night.”

  We watch with hopeful anticipation as the truck crawls up the mountain, sometimes disappearing from sight, the noise from its engine fading. I remind myself that this is natural and normal, the flow and ebb of sight and sound at high elevations. Certainly they would not turn away.

  I am on the verge of blowing the car horn or asking Levi to take to his feet and dash down the mountain to flag the attention of the crawling engine’s crew. Then, almost as if by miracle, the big truck lumbers its way into view, not more than one hundred yards from us. It is a moment of pleasure, of celebration. They had seen us. Our rescue is at hand. I swing open the door and crane my head out and wave an arm in the crisp air.

  The engine pulls up to the edge of our wide, muddy puddle. Two young men and a young woman dressed in bright yellow shirts and sturdy green pants hop out.

  “Good morning,” the tallest of the three calls out. “Looks like you’re in a fix. Mind if we help you out?”

  “Not at all. We would be obliged. We got caught in a thunderstorm. It was a calamitous event. Before we knew it, we were in the middle of this pond. My great-nephew heroically tried to free us, but he said the mud was ferocious and unforgiving.”

  “That it can be,” the tall one says, knowingly, affably. “You’re not the first people we’ve pulled out of a jam like this. We’re supposed to be looking for new fires, but after a gully-washer like last night, we’re more likely to find people stranded in mud or water.”

  One of his companions, a short, stout fellow with long red hair and sprigs of a fuzzy red beard, comes to his side. “You took the last one. Sarah the one before. My turn, I guess,” he says with uncommon good nature. “I don’t suppose either of you will want to go play in the mud this early in the day.”

  “All yours, Nate.”