Mink River: A Novel

by Doyle, Brian

  27.

  And there is a moment there, as Sara stands by the fence humming, when everyone in town is singing: Sara is humming Tosca’s part with her daughters, and Michael is singing Cavaradossi, and No Horses, back from the beach, is humming in her studio and Owen in his shop, and Declan and Nicholas are trying to remember the fight song from their high school, of which no one can remember more than the first two lines, and Worried Man is humming a war song his grandfather taught him from the time the People went to war with those crazy Cheamhills, and Maple Head is teaching her class a song in the key of C as they study harmony and melody, and Daniel and Kristi and the doctor and the man with seven days to live are singing a song about the sea that the doctor learned from the old Navy sailor who had been twice lost at sea, and Moses is croaking along with them, and the priest is humming William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem,” and Stella the bartender is humming as she swabs and swipes the bar, and Grace is singing cheerfully as she goes back to work slicing apart the car in the field with her blowtorch, and Timmy is humming into the back of Rachel’s neck, and Rachel eyes closed is humming with pleasure, and Anna is standing knee-deep in the river and singing with the baritone groaning of the river rumbling rocks, and George Christie is singing a lewd logging song into the telephone, and the man who beats his son is walking along the beach humming the song he used to sing to Nicholas when Nicholas was a toddler and could not sleep for fear of the dark. Even the young female bear is singing, or humming, or making a music deep inside her, a long contented basso throbbing thrumming that fills the tiny cave where she has curled around her two new cubs; and they are singing too, two high sweet new notes never heard before in all the long bubbling troubled endless bruised pure violent innocent bloody perfect singing of the burly broken mewling world.

  28.

  No Horses stops humming suddenly and sits down on the floor of her studio amid the wood chips and bows her head into her lap and puts her arms over her head to fend off the black snow she feels falling faintly and faintly falling. She begins to weep, but she’s dry as a bone, not a tear left in her head, and after a minute she stops sobbing and kneels on the floor her forehead pressed into the wood and her hair filled with alder chips and sawdust. Her mind spins and careens. Too much snow. It’s in my hair. What’s happening to me? I can’t get out of this place. I am so sad. Snow should be white. Alder is red. Fearnog is the Gaelic word for alder, Owen says. Owen will help me. Alnus rubra is the Latin name for alder. Owen can’t help me. The birds associated with alder are crows and gulls. I have to help myself. Alder resists water. Why am I so sad? What’s happening to me? Alder is white when first cut but from it comes a sap that runs like blood. I’ve lost the me of me. Alder is usually found near running water and will not thrive on dry ground. I am so dry. Alder heals doubt. I need water. I feel withered. Alder blooms at the equinox. My seasons are turning. The catkins are female. I have been daughter and wife and mother. Alder is rebirth. The wood when young is easily worked. Alder is resurrection. Alder is healing. The bark when decocted cures swelling and inflammation and sore throats and ague and rheumatism. The wood when older is veined. The catkins are female and the sap is as red as blood. Alder is steadfast. It endures under water for many years. Alder is true. Alder is healing. Alder is rebirth. Sap as red as blood.

  She stands up suddenly and shakes back the river of her hair and the alder chips float to the white floor like red snow.

  29.

  Owen takes Worried Man for a dry run to the holy mountain. From Neawanaka they head east along the river through endless marching lines of enormous cedar and spruce, past Panther Creek, past Rose Lodge. They stop to pee and collect hatfuls of salmonberries for the ride.

  Past Boyer, past Fort Hill. Talk of forts leads to talk of soldiers, which leads to Owen singing a song Union Irish soldiers sang to Confederate Irish soldiers and vice versa at night as campfires flickered through beech trees during the Civil War and then in the morning they slaughtered each other without mercy or remorse.

  Past Gold Creek, past Willamina. They emerge from the forest into open country where every tenth fencepost has a glaring hawk. It’s sunny on this side of the Coast Range hills and they stop for a minute to stretch. This is the Cheamhills’ place, says Worried Man. All the way from the forest back there to the big river ahead. Those crazy Cheamhills. They’re all gone. They liked this country because it was open. Lots of berries grew here. The berries are still here and the people are all gone. That’s what happens.

  Past Sheridan. Named for another Civil War soldier, says Owen, Phil Sheridan. The Cheamhills hated Phil Sheridan, you know, says Worried Man. You could always get a rise out of them by saying something admiring about Phil Sheridan. Touchy people, the Cheamhills. Your boy’s great-grandmother was a Cheamhill woman, you know. Wocas, the bright lily. Bright woman. Touchy.

  Past Dundee.

  Do you think about your mom much? says Owen.

  More at certain times than others, says Worried Man. When the first forsythia comes out, when the salmonberries flower, when the pond lilies open. Then again when the leaves fall. Beginning and ending times, that’s when I think of my mother. I don’t know why. She died in the autumn, maybe that’s why.

  Past Six Corners and Frog Pond and Pulp and into the city of Portland, past the old train station. That’s where Cedar got on the train that took him to the world war, says Worried Man.

  Cedar was in the war?

  Yes.

  I didn’t know that.

  He didn’t like it.

  I’ll be darned. I didn’t know that.

  Past Boring and Kelso and Sandy and now both men feel the mountain rising beneath the road, feel the air crisper, feel a stony intelligence somewhere ahead behind the rows of screening trees.

  Past Shorty’s Corner, Cherryville, Marmot. Both men are silent, savoring the cold air, the sugaring of snow amid the trees, the unbroken ocean of fir sweeping away east as they round a turn.

  Past Alder Creek.

  I think your daughter has finally settled into that alder log we hauled in there, says Owen.

  Alder was always her wood as a child, says Worried Man. Her crib was alder, her bed, her first little canoe. Even her hair was red when she was small.

  Past Salmon and Welches and Wildwood and Brightwood and Rhododendron and just there as they passed over the Salmon River bridge Worried Man saw the bright white mountain and a shiver went through him from the top of his imperious white head to the tip of his toes.

  Past Zigzag, past Government Camp. Also named for soldiers, says Owen. Funny how many places remember warriors.

  They turn off the main road after Government Camp and take the spur road to Timberline Lodge and walk up past the old stone and fir building, past gaggles and straggles of teenagers and tourists, and sit for a moment in the juniper scrub behind the lodge so Worried Man can catch his breath, and then they walk up the mountain as high as they can, their boots caking with dust. Owen quietly falls behind his father-in-law just in case.

  Worried Man stops to point out places. That’s Palmer Glacier, which opened in 1924 and swallowed a horse. Those teeth there are the Hawkins Cliffs, and there’s Crater Rock, right in the center of the ancient mouth of the mountain. Zigzag Glacier starts right there. Joel Palmer walked on that glacier barefoot because his moccasins gave out.

  Where’s the summit?

  Just there to the right, above that sheer cliff face.

  That’d be quite a climb.

  It’s more than eleven thousand feet above sea level, Owen. People get dizzy on the peak. Hard to breathe. Sometimes people bleed from the eyes and ears. But we are not going to the summit.

  Where are you going?

  To the northwest side, above the Sandy Glacier. There’s a huge area there that is remote and isolated, so much so that there are no records of any climbers or exploration or survey parties in that area. That’s where we have to go.

  That’ll be dangerous.

  I su
ppose so.

  Even for experienced climbers.

  Yes.

  Certainly for amateurs.

  Owen, says Worried Man, we might as well be straight with each other. I have always liked you very much. You love my daughter with grace and patience and I love her more than I could ever explain to you or anyone or even myself. You work hard, your humor is a pleasure, your heart is large, you gave me my grandson. You are a good man, a real man, not a boy in a man’s body. And I too am a man and not a boy. My body is old. I am not stupid. I see the danger. I know what might happen. But this is crucial to me. This is the end of a dream. I have worked for years to be here, and I know deep in my heart I am right. To not go would be to surrender to age, to frailty, to time, and if there is one thing I will not do on this green earth it is surrender to time. So we will go, Cedar and me. Do you see? It would help me if you understood. It would matter very much to me. I love you like a son and I want matters to be clear between us. Sometimes you have to make journeys that are hard. There are all kinds of hard journeys. This one isn’t as hard as most. Your greatgrandfather walked through a vast hunger. My grandfather watched his people vanish before his eyes. Your son will have a hard journey. My daughter is on a hard journey. But we make our journeys. We have no choice. We can’t hide from who we are. That’s no life at all. You know that.

  I do, says Owen.

  They stand silently for a minute looking at the mountain and then Worried Man says, we’d better get home and they turn and start back down and Owen speeds up a little without seeming to so he can walk in front and after a couple of minutes when they hit a particularly steep patch Owen feels Worried Man’s hand on his shoulder for support but he doesn’t say anything and neither does Worried Man and all the way home in the car they talk about journeys and voyages and voyages and journeys.

  30.

  These things matter to me, Daniel, says the man with six days to live. They are sitting on the porch in the last light. These things matter to me, son. The way hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife’s voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers. Her hair in my nose as we slept curled like spoons. The sinuous pace of rivers and minks and cats. Rubber bands. Fresh bread with too much butter. My children’s hands when they cup my face in their hands. Toys. Exuberance. Mowing the lawn. Tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Tears of sorrow, which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. Pay stubs. Trains. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of a soprano. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. A spotless kitchen floor. The sound of bagpipes. The way horses smell in spring. Red wines. Furnaces. Stone walls. Sweat. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in a signature. Opera on the radio. Bathrobes, backrubs. Potatoes. Mink oil on boots. The bands at wedding receptions. Box-elder bugs. The postman’s grin. Linen table napkins. Tent flaps. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. Raccoons. The way a heron labors through the sky with such vast elderly dignity. The cheerful ears of dogs. Smoked fish and the smokehouses where fish are smoked. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after a haircut. Handkerchiefs. Poems read aloud by poets. Cigar-scissors. Book marginalia written with the lightest possible pencil as if the reader is whispering to the writer. People who keep dead languages alive. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen’s mitts. Dish-racks. My wife’s breasts. Lumber. Newspapers folded under arms. Hats. The way my children smelled after their baths when they were little. Sneakers. The way my father’s face shone right after he shaved. Pants that fit. Soap half gone. Weeds forcing their way through sidewalks. Worms. The sound of ice shaken in drinks. Nutcrackers. Boxing matches. Diapers. Rain in every form from mist to sluice. The sound of my daughters typing their papers for school. My wife’s eyes, as blue and green and gray as the sea. The sea, as blue and green and gray as her eyes. Her eyes. Her.

  31.

  After Michael the policeman brought Kristi’s father to the police station, Kristi’s father was photographed and fingerprinted, interviewed at length by two detectives in an attempt to elicit inculpatory statements, and finally released, still wearing his big brown coat. He denied all wrongdoing adamantly and threatened legal action against both detectives as well as the arresting officer. The detectives issued a no-contact order, informed him clearly that he would be arrested again if he made contact or sought to make contact with his daughter, and sent the case on to the district attorney’s office. Both detectives reported to their chief that although they had both developed a dislike and distrust of the suspect almost immediately, they could not in their professional opinions find enough evidence to keep him in jail pending review of the case by the office of the district attorney.

  Two days later the district attorney’s office reviewed the case and, finding sufficient cause for further review, sent it on to a grand jury. One day later the grand jury, composed of nine citizens of the county impaneled for thirty days, did find probable cause of crime, and instructed the district attorney’s office to issue a felony indictment. Warrant for the arrest of Kristi’s father was issued the next evening by teletype and by direct phone call to all police stations in the county. Michael’s shift supervisor presented him with a warrant sheet in the morning at roll call, which is why Michael is now cruising Trailer Town looking for a man in a big brown coat.

  Three days, thinks Michael. Three days have passed and he could be in Mexico or Canada by now. He could be anywhere. I had him in the car. I had him in cuffs. I had him. Now he could be anywhere. He didn’t seem like a runner to me though. He seemed like a badger, not a deer. He’d hole up. He wouldn’t run. He’d hole up. He’d want revenge. He’d hole up.

  But where?

  So he cruises the town: Trailer Town, the beach road, the old quarry road, the back of the railyard, the fringes of the woods, the empty summer rentals, the alley behind the old hotel, the sheds and shacks at the sawmill, the alley behind the shingle factory. The veins and arteries of his town, through which his black and white car moves unhurriedly, sharp-eyed, worried.

  32.

  Cedar hears No Horses scream in her studio and he comes running. For once the door between her studio and the cavernous central work area is unlocked. She is still shaking the alder chips from her hair onto the floor.

  Nora!

  Cedar.

  Are you okay?

  No.

  What’s …

  I can’t bear it anymore. The black snow.

  Nora?

  Everything’s sad. Everything’s empty.

  He reaches to take her in his arms, as a grandfather would embrace a granddaughter, but her face is so gray and gaunt that he is startled and his arms stop on their way toward her shoulders.

  Nora, are you ill?

  Uncle, I feel nothing. I can’t feel anymore. I can’t think. I can’t work. I can’t see straight. I’m so afraid. I don’t feel anything. I poke myself with the chisel sometimes to make sure I am here. There’s a snow. I can’t sing. I am so afraid. I’m lost. I’m lost at sea. Will you help me? I’m so afraid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any more hope. I ate the hope. I used it up. No more hope. Where is the hope? Will you help me? Will you hope me?

  I have seen this face, thinks Cedar. I have seen that face. That boy in the war. That woman on the beach one day. The man on the train.

  Nora, he says quietly, come walk with me. We’ll take a walk.

  A walk, she says dully.

  Take my elbow, he says. Here we go. Lovely day. We’ll take a break.

  A break.

  One time, he says—wanting to keep words in the air between them, words to lead her out of the chip-str
ewn room, down the hallway smelling of oil and paint, through the cavernous central work area smelling of dirt and wood and burst fuses and turpentine, and out into the newborn air—one time when I was in the war there was a guy who lost his way.

  You were in the war?

  I don’t like to talk about it.

  I’m sorry.

  It’s time to talk, I guess. This young man was named Harry or Barry or Larry. He had been on an island in the Pacific. I disremember the name of the island. This guy was young. He was just a kid really. He’d been under fire for weeks and weeks. We went to get him and his friends off that island. Most of his friends were dead. He lost something on that island. Something in his head. The thing that makes you you. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t say anything for days after we got him off. He just stared. The thing that got him talking finally was a cigarette. We were on the next island over from the one where we got him. I asked him if he wanted coffee and he said no. I asked him if he wanted food and he said no. I asked him if he wanted fresh fruit and he said no. But when I asked him did he want a smoke, well, you should have seen his face light up, Nora. I had to light it for him and put it in his lips. His arms didn’t work very well. I lifted up his helmet and tucked the butt between his lips and he took a drag like it was the most nutritious and necessary air. After that he started to come back a little. It took an awful long time but he came back, Nora.

  He came back?

  He came back. Funny the things that bring you back to yourself. Somehow that cigarette got him started back on the road. I knew another guy that a song brought him back from darkness.

  I’m afraid. I’m so tired, Uncle.

  That young guy on the island, Nora, he told me he ran out of bullets and hope on that island. He wanted to die. But he got himself back, Nora. He started again clean. He was born a second time. He used to say that his old self died on one island and his new self was born one island over. I disremember the name of the second island but he used to call it Resurrection Island. He used to wonder if there were lots of resurrection islands. I think maybe there are. I think maybe they are all over the place. I think maybe we don’t even see the half of them. They are invisible maybe. They are tiny maybe. They’re all over the place. That’s what I think.