Dave would visit the place again and again in the weeks that followed, hiking eighteen-mile days for a few precious moments of shelter from the outside world.
It was upon Dave’s third visit to the cave that he began to consider and calculate the possibility of leaving his life behind and taking shelter in the inexhaustible wilderness of the North Cascades. Yes, to turn his back on the world was a rash course of action, but what was left for him and Bella down below? Their lives were a smoldering heap of rubble. The only woman Dave ever loved, the only mother Bella would ever know, was two weeks in the grave. And in spite of Bella’s naïve insistence, she wasn’t coming back. The days of his employment at Terminix were numbered. The prospects for future employment were fraught with unknowns. He was down to nineteen-hundred dollars, roughly a third of which would be eaten up by the mortgage payment due in two weeks. Each possibility he contemplated for the future seemed bleaker than the last.
To leave the civilized world behind seemed like a natural extension to the escape Dave had been gradually charting for a decade, a course that had accelerated in recent years. He started tuning out the news cycle before the last election. He shut down his Facebook account shortly thereafter and taped over the camera on his laptop. He stopped engaging in political discourse of any kind. Eventually, he stopped returning calls, or paying social visits, or attending the occasional Sunday service at Saint Barnabus to appease his mom.
Now, with Nadene in the grave, life in V-Falls had become altogether untenable. Dave no longer wished to be around anybody, except for his daughter. And what was left for a child down there but a world that would likely forsake her, a world that would wring the wonder and humanity right out of her, as it sought to reduce her life force to an algorithm? The modern world held no more promise for Bella than it did for Dave. Reverend Hardy had it wrong: It wasn’t third and long. It was fourth and forever. Time to punt.
It only took a matter of days for Dave’s unlikely speculations to harden into a conviction; to live in isolation suddenly seemed like an imperative, and the only future he could bear to contemplate. The decision itself proved to be a morale booster. If not hope, it gave Dave’s life new purpose and direction. Thus began the six supply runs in two weeks; through the steep canyon and over the wooded saddle, thirty-five hundred vertical feet up the mountain, eighteen miles round trip, a third of it in snow shoes, to town and back, packing sixty and seventy pounds per load: vintage hand tools—two saws, a planer, a drill, a mallet, a hammer, a coffee can full of hardware. Fishing tackle, rods, a pair of Winchesters, .22 and .458 Magnum, a hundred and thirty-six rounds. Skinning knife, nylon rope, parachute cord, binoculars, butane lighters, wooden matches, three flashlights, three headlamps, and five pounds of batteries. Topo maps, bear spray, fire starter, ibuprofen, a first aid kit. A pair of old Coleman lanterns to be used sparingly, three gallons of kerosene, a hatchet, a wedge, a shovel, three pairs of work gloves (two large, one small), two sleeping bags, two inflatable Therm-a-Rests, four wool blankets, four tarps, clothing for all seasons, a transistor radio, and every trip, two or three empty water jugs. Oats, flour, rice, sugar, and books, cumbersome, heavier than tools, awkward, backbreaking books. The least he could do was improve himself with all the time he’d have on his hands. He devoted one whole trip explicitly to the printed word: used books, new books, library books, children’s books, textbooks, medical books, survival books. In two weeks’ time, Dave hauled anything and everything a body could think of to survive in the backcountry of the North Cascades.
Almost everything.
One Crummy Backpack
“What about my stuffies?” said Bella. “They don’t weigh hardly anything.”
“I thought you were too old for your stuffies,” her dad said.
“I changed my mind.”
“But baby,” said her dad, kneeling down to eye level, which was his new way of being convincing. “They take up so much space.”
“Not Snorax, he’s tiny.”
“Okay, baby, you can bring Snorax.”
“What about Stitch?”
“Of course, Stitch,” he said, patting her head, and folding her into an embrace. “Stitch is family.”
“I don’t wanna leave all my toys,” she said. “You get to bring a whole bunch of stuff, all those books, and tools, and flashlights, and all I get is one crummy backpack.”
“I brought other stuff,” he said. “I brought some LEGOs, and your Hello Kitties.”
“But not their house,” she said.
“Baby, it’s way too big to haul up there.”
“They won’t have anywhere to live,” she said. “Just like us.”
“Baby, everything will be safe at Nana’s, I promise. You can play with it when we come to town.”
“Why can’t we just leave it in my room?”
Her dad fell silent, freeing her from his embrace to hold her at arm’s length and look her steadily in the eye.
“We’re not gonna have this house anymore, baby. You know that.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not.”
And that, as far as Bella could tell, was the logic of adults. They didn’t need a reason, or at least they didn’t need to give you one.
“But it’s not fair,” she said.
He pulled her into another hug, squeezing her tight.
“I know it’s not fair, baby, I’m sorry,” he said.
Life was never fair. That’s what it meant to be seven years old. You never got to make up your own mind. People dragged you on errands, or passed you off to somebody else to watch. You were a responsibility. You lived by their clock and adhered to their plans and ideas. They made you eat things you didn’t like. They made you go to sleep early and miss all the action. They talked about you like you weren’t even there. Your whole life was following orders and eating cottage cheese. Then your mother died, and everything around you unraveled so fast that you began to miss taking orders. Your dad, he disappeared. He walked around like a zombie. Except on those occasions when he turned to jelly, and he held you close, desperately, it seemed, and he squeezed you so hard you could hardly breathe. And he sobbed and sobbed, and you could feel his tears running hot down the collar of your blouse and feel them drying on your back.
“I love you so much, baby,” he would say with a croaky voice.
“I love you, Daddy,” she would say.
And as badly as she wanted to be strong on those occasions, she could not control her own grief, and she began to sob, too, until both of them were just a big unraveled mess, and there was nobody left to comfort anybody. There was only the two of them, broken and confused.
A Hole in the Sky
Bella could hear her mom’s voice, which was how she knew she couldn’t really be dead. As long as she could hear her mom’s voice, she must be alive somewhere. She must have just run off like she threatened to do at least five times when she thought Bella wasn’t listening.
On Bella’s last night in the nearly empty house, while her dad was still packing, and checking, and double-checking, and quadruple-checking his pack, Bella lay on her bed alone in her soon-to-be old bedroom, pretending her mom was in bed beside her, like she always used to be right before lights out. That’s when she told Bella stories about Raven, and Xa:ls, and Chichel Siya:m. About the old basket woman, and how she stole children, and may or may not have eaten them. About Kulshan and his two wives. About Crow and her son and her daughter. About fair Mouse and ugly Beaver. About how Salmon freed the rivers and saved the world.
“Tell me again, Mommy, about The Time Before Everything Changed,” said Bella.
“That’s before Salmon freed the rivers, when all the Salish Sea was just ice, as far as the eye could see.”
“But there were mountains.”
“Yes, these same mountains.”
“And there were giants,” said Bella.
“Yes, there were giants who walked among the people; fanged beasts that stalked the people by day a
nd haunted their dreams at night. And there were giants who fed the people and clothed them, too: the bison, and the mammoth. But there was no Raven, no Coyote, no Salmon in The Time Before Everything Changed. There was only the Great Provider, who, in her fickleness and cruelty, had banished the people to live on the ice with fire as their only friend.”
“The Great Provider was a ‘her’?”
“Of course she was,” said her mom.
“What were the people called?” Bella said. “Were they Nooksack?”
“The people didn’t have a name for themselves, then. They were just the people. And for thousands of years the people lived in the frozen world, hunting the bison and the mammoth. It was a hard life, but they survived.”
“Then everything changed,” said Bella.
“Yes, the whole world as they knew it began to change. First, the giants began to quarrel amongst themselves, and soon their numbers began to dwindle. Until one day, the giants disappeared without a trace. The people had never lived without the giants. They felt betrayed by the Great Provider. They had grown tired of her cruel and fickle ways. What had the people done to deserve this suffering? It wasn’t enough that the Great Provider had marooned them in a frozen wasteland, then she stole the mammoth and the bison from them and left them to starve.”
“Did the people die?” said Bella.
“Some of them, yes,” said her mom. “But the people that lived, they got together and decided to defy the Great Provider. If you will not provide for us, we will provide for ourselves, they said. We will find a new paradise. So, early one morning when the Great Provider was still sleeping, the people rose, and crept quietly across the ice, and tore a hole in the sky with their spears. And then they passed through the hole in the sky, looking for a new home on the other side.”
“Did they find it?”
But her mom didn’t answer.
“Mommy, did they find it?”
But Mommy was no longer next to her.
“Who are you talking to in there?” called her dad from down the hallway.
“Nobody,” said Bella.
The Only Hospitable Place
If there was one place in Vigilante Falls that Dave would ever miss, it had to be Dale’s Diner, a fixture in V-Falls for years before Dave was born. As a kid, his mom waitressed at Dale’s. She’d come home at night with her smock smeared with ketchup, bringing cold burgers and soggy fries. In high school, Dave and his linemen would crowd into a booth in the evenings after practice, gorging themselves on two-dollar sides of hash browns and toast. They’d loiter for hours, poring over the playbook, drinking Pepsi, and generally horsing around. Even in his waning days with Terminix, Dave ate breakfast at Dale’s at least once a week.
The polished fir countertops had lost their luster over the years, and gone to splinter and tarnish. The vinyl seats had lost their springiness, and the grease-stained wallpaper was as brittle as old parchment. But the storied past abided at Dale’s, the rugged spirit of V-Falls abounded on the walls in black and white photos depicting extravagantly mustachioed men, mud-plastered and grinning, straddling big timber, or squatting on massive stumps; giant crosscut saws, and axes in their clutches. The menu too was a survivor of a bygone era. Dale was still serving chipped beef and chicken à la king and shrimp puffs and cottage cheese with canned pineapple.
But like most V-Fallers, Dave mostly only went to Dale’s for breakfast, and this was sure to be the last time. Travers had been waiting for him with a cup of coffee when Dave arrived with his loaded pack and oversized cat carrier, Bella in tow. A stranger would have never taken them for brothers: Dave, lean and hard in blue jeans and checkered flannel shirt, a week’s growth of beard blanketing his angular face, and Travers, soft around the middle, dressed in a khaki suit of western cut, an outsized, black suede cowboy hat, and boots that had never been within two hundred yards of horse manure. No doubt he had a wallet full of business cards in his jacket pocket, and a phone full of contacts.
It was shortly after the rush. Darla, her unruly black hair wrestled into a defiant bun at the back of her head, still wearing that wrist brace on account of her tendinitis, seated them in an ancient orange-and-umber booth by the window, overlooking the muddy parking lot.
“I’ll warn you, the shop’s a little crowded,” said Dave. “And the ventilation isn’t great, so you’re best off leaving the bay door open if you plan on working in there.”
“This is dang crazy,” said Travers. “This is not how things are supposed to go. Everybody understands what you’ve been through, Dave, but c’mon.”
“Do they?”
“You know what I mean,” says Travers. “Things feel upside down, right now, they must. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. So, why not take a break? Go camping for a few days. Take my fifth wheel, drive to the dang Grand Canyon if you need. But this is not right, what you’re planning here, Dave.”
Dave looked down at Bella, gripping her crayon a little too firmly as she decorated her children’s menu with waxy swirls of black and blue. Like bruises, thought Dave.
He slid the house key, the truck key, and the keys to the shop across the table to Travers.
“You’d be wise to sell off the tools. Otherwise, they’ll just liquidate them when they come for the house.”
Travers stirred two packets of Sweet’N Low into his black coffee.
“This ain’t over, yet, Dave. You can still save this.”
“Save what?”
“Save your house. Save yourself. Save Bella. You’re just not thinking straight, that’s all. It doesn’t make a goddang bit of sense what you’re planning here. You two will freeze to death up there before winter.”
“The hell we will.”
Travers sipped his coffee and shook his head woefully.
“Why, Dave? Why can’t you just grieve like a normal person? Get drunk, cry, sleep all day, eat a whole cake, and go make an ass of yourself down at Doc’s?”
“Travers,” he said. “We’re dying, can’t you see that? It’s not just Nadene; it’s the whole world. We’ve gone past the tipping point. We’re too far gone, little brother.”
“Nothing is gone, Dave. We’re sitting right here at Dale’s like always, drinking weak coffee, and wondering if Darla’s ever gonna pluck that hair on her upper lip.”
“You’d be wise to hunker down yourself, Travers. Maybe start preparing for you and Kris and Bonnie.”
“Dave, you just sound paranoid. And what can I do if the world ends? How is living in the goddang mountains gonna save you?”
Dave looked down at the tabletop and drew a long breath through his nose.
“This isn’t just about saving me, Travers. They already got to me.”
“Then what the hell is this all about?”
“The truth is, I don’t know exactly,” said Dave.
“Well dang, Dave, maybe you ought to know the answer to that one. Otherwise, what the heck’s the good in walking off into the wilderness with a seven-year-old girl?”
“She’s almost eight.”
“Damnit, why don’t you leave her at Mom’s, or with Kris and me? Why are you set on doing this?”
“I want to go, Uncle Trav,” Bella said.
“She’s my daughter,” Dave said. “You understand? I want her to have a good life: a true life, a pure life. There’s nothing left for her here. Nothing but sickness, and greed, and useless outrage.”
Travers pushed the keys back across the table. “That’s not true, Dave. There’s a lot more than that.”
“Like what?” said Dave. “Deals to be made? Hills to be bulldozed?”
“Well, now,” said Travers. “I don’t see where you get off begrudging a man supporting his family. Not everybody wants to live in a cave. Look, I know things look bad right now, but they’re bouncing back, they are. The economy is recovering already. Eventually, you’ll be able to see past Nadene. Pretty soon, things will be better than ever.”
“Keep telling your
self that,” said Dave. “That maniac is gonna kill us all. Maybe what you ought to do is start preparing for certain eventualities.”
“Eventualities?” Travers ran a hand through his hair wearily. “What are we even talking about here, Dave? I’m sorry about how things have worked out, I am. We all are. But none of this is forever.”
Dave took hold of the saltshaker and gripped it tightly, rolling it with his thumb along his palm to his fingertips. He looked briefly at Bella, greasy-haired, nails bitten to the quick, worrying her bottom lip with her front teeth, green eyes piercing the page as she worked her black crayon savagely in circles. A brief but unruly throng of guilt crowded in on Dave, but he chased it away before it could take over.
“Dave, it ain’t no place up there for a little girl.”
“I told you, Uncle Trav, I wanna go,” she said.
“Well, Trav, it ain’t no place down here, either,” said Dave.
Still gripping the saltshaker, Dave looked out the window, across the empty lot, riddled with potholes and food wrappers. He looked out beyond Highway 20, past the veterinarian’s office, past the video store, now vacant and shuttered, past the dingy Chevron, and the little gem shop that was hardly ever open, past The Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant where Nadene got food poisoning, and Dave left his wallet. Farther still, Dave gazed over the wooded bottomlands, beyond the bulwark of checkered green foothills, beyond the power lines, and cell towers, and housing developments, and past his brother’s vacant plats spreading rash-like into the wilderness. And farther still, Dave gazed into the open maw of the great, rock-studded canyon, rising precipitously to the pinnacles of the North Cascades. And it seemed to Dave that it was the only hospitable place left in the world.
Legends of the North Cascades Page 3
