His Bella.
And now she was out there alone, beholden to the only force whose cruelty could rival God’s, or the condition of humanity itself—the whim of nature.
As the hours wore on, the fire began to die out, until there was nothing left to feed it. At some point, Dave lost consciousness for an indeterminate period of time, which amounted to a half-inch of fresh snow blanketing him when he awoke. The world was still dark, his entire body was numb, the wind continued howling up the canyon, and the snow played havoc.
At some point, Dave swept the snow off his blanketed torso and checked his right leg with the headlamp. The wound looked no worse than upon his previous examination, which might have been consolation, were it not for the fact that he was bound to die of exposure anyway. It hardly seemed to matter if his leg went first. All that mattered was Bella, and yet, moment by moment, he felt his control slipping away.
Eventually Dave surrendered to his fate, and a warmth suffused his body. It came as a profound relief to relinquish control, to let the fear and anxiety drain from him. All that remained was grief and anguish for the world at large, a sad sense of the inevitable disappointment that awaited the individual in a wilderness beyond measure.
When the numbness took over completely, Dave’s torrent of thoughts slowed to a trickle, and was replaced by memories that came seemingly out of nowhere, shards of moments, sprite flashes like snowflakes in the headlights.
Thirteen-year-old Travers, clutching the fence at Dave’s varsity practice, unable to conceal his admiration as he watched Dave ball out.
Dave’s mom, senior year, asleep in her La-Z-Boy, her achy feet propped up after a double shift working the register at Vern’s, the TV on, but unattended.
Coach Prentice, late at night, scheming on the whiteboard in the glaring overhead light of his office, a half-eaten sandwich on his desk.
Bella, weeks after Nadene’s death, clutching him desperately in the darkened living room, refusing to let go.
Pope in the dusty outskirts of Mosul, his kind eyes smiling out from beneath his helmet.
The images flooded Dave’s mind arbitrarily, with no discernible pattern. Not at first, anyway. But then a pattern did emerge: people. All of those flashes, every one of them, was a person who loved him, who protected him, and supported him, and sacrificed for him. A person who depended on him, whatever that might mean. In coming to this remote place to wallow in his isolation, Dave had turned his back on every single one of them, even Bella, whom he had failed in almost every way.
The whole rickety bulwark of Dave’s defenses were crushed to splinter beneath the realization that even if he could manage to survive his current conditions, he still could not guard Bella from grief or harm, any more than he could deprive her of love and meaningful connection. Bereaved, we were but orphans, dispossessed, impoverished in our solitude. Our only buffer against the cold, cruel world was one another.
The snow began to come even faster now. His heart beating sluggishly, his blood beginning to slow, Dave watched the flakes appear suddenly out of the darkness, three feet above him. He felt them settling upon his face. Never had he tasted the fruits of such loneliness.
Then something completely incongruous disrupted his lull. Dave left off his sobbing abruptly, and with all his strength propped himself up on his elbows, suddenly alert. It was not a sound exactly. It was more of a sensation. It fluttered in his chest, though its source was nowhere close at hand. His first thought was an avalanche. But as the thing grew closer, its flutter revealed a sharply punctuated arrangement, and the din of it began to rattle Dave’s bones. In an instant, he was besieged by a mechanical whirring, as the world all around him exploded in a flurry of snow. And filtering through the shroud of white, came the inescapable glare of light.
A Prayer
Half-asleep in the back seat of Nana’s car on the drive home, Bella basked in the forced-air heat as much as her guilt would allow her, knowing that her dad was still out there freezing.
“They’ll save him, Nana,” she said.
“They will,” said Nana.
“It’s not too late.”
“That’s right, sweetie,” said Nana. “All we can do is have faith.”
Bella took comfort in the idea, though faith, like luck, had never served her particularly well.
“What about the cats?” she said.
“The cats will be fine,” said Nana.
And Bella supposed she was right. If anything could take care of itself it was a cat.
When they arrived at Nana’s house, Bella ate two bowls of Raisin Bran and an English muffin with raspberry jam. Then Nana ran Bella a warm bath and kneeled by the tub as she washed and conditioned Bella’s hair, combing out the snarls while it was still wet.
“Gracious, what a mess,” Nana said.
But for the fierce tug of the brush when it snagged in her hair, Bella could hardly stay awake.
“You poor dear. You’re falling asleep,” said Nana, blow drying her hair.
“I’m sorry,” said Bella.
“Sweetie, who can blame you after what you’ve been through? We’ll get your jammies on and put you straight to bed.”
“Do you still have my polar bear jammies?”
“Of course,” said Nana. “If you can still fit into them.”
“I can fit,” said Bella. “Can I sleep with you tonight, Nana?”
“Of course, sweetie,” she said.
After Nana finished blow-drying her hair, she fetched Bella the clean fleece polar bear jammies. Though the jammies were indeed too small, they were still cozy, and Bella loved the way they smelled like Nana’s house.
“Goodness, you’ve grown,” said Nana. “Looks like I’m gonna have to make a trip to Target for new jammies.”
“I like these ones,” said Bella. “I don’t care if they’re tight.”
Bella climbed under the covers with Nana, and Nana turned off the light.
“Nana, can I hold your arm?” she said.
“Of course,” said Nana, rolling over on her back, so Bella could take hold of her arm.
The soft flab of Nana’s arm was a comfort, and Bella not only clutched it, but pressed her face to the warm, mole-speckled flesh, drinking in its familiar scent of old lady soap.
“Can we say a prayer for him, Nana?” she said.
“Of course we can,” said Nana.
“Will you say it?”
“Of course, sweetie,” she said.
Nana lay there quietly in the darkness for a moment, gathering up her prayer.
“Dear Lord,” she began, finally. “Please protect our Davey, the father of this precious child. Lord, they’ve both seen so many trials.”
Nana’s familiar voice was a salve. As much as Bella wanted to hear her prayer, she fell asleep before Nana got any further. And she slept straight through the buzzing of Nana’s phone three hours later when the Sheriff’s Department called with the news of her father.
In her dream that night, Bella sat in the grassy meadow below the bluff one final time. It was summer, and there were only a few puffy clouds in the sky, drifting lazily south. The grass was high, and winged life flitted about in the sunlight.
Though Bella thought at first that she was alone beneath the willow, she soon sensed a presence beside her. And when she felt a cool hand upon her bare knee, she found that the hand, slender-fingered but rough, and as dark as her own, belonged to Bayla, the green-eyed girl.
Sean Halligan; Bartender, Doc’s
“I was getting ready to start closing up shop the night they went up there after Cave Dave. The snow here had finally let up by then, and the roads in town were mostly plowed. There were more people in here than you might expect at that hour on a Wednesday night—about ten, I’d guess, more than half of them regulars.
“Brady from the Sheriff’s Department ducked in just in time for last call, which made a few of my regulars nervous, if you want to know the truth. Brady ordered a Coors and a bourbon, th
en took his coat off and draped it on the empty stool next to him and set his hat on the bar.
“When I brought Brady his Coors, he told me they’d just brought Dave Cartwright in, and then sent him on an airlift to the trauma center in Bellingham. Brady wasn’t sure whether he was gonna make it, or what shape he was in exactly, but it sounded kind of rough. One way or another that was the end of Cave Dave.
“‘What about the girl?’ I said.
“‘It was the girl that saved his butt,’ Brady said. ‘You know the man?’ he asked me.
“‘Not personally,’ I said.
“‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘My kid thinks he’s some kind of bogeyman, my boss thinks he’s a nutter, and my neighbor thinks he’s a goddang folk hero. I don’t know what to think.’
“‘Guy had some moxie,’ I said. ‘That’s for certain. Livin’ in a damn cave all year long.’
“‘Maybe so,’ Brady said. ‘But not half the moxie of that little girl.’”
A New Coat of Paint
Pink wasn’t Bella’s first choice for the walls. In fact, it wasn’t even her tenth choice, but she didn’t have the heart to tell Nana. It was enough just to have her own room again, with a ceiling high enough not to bump her head on, and flat, carpeted floors, and a mattress that didn’t feel like there were rocks piled underneath it. All of her old stuffies lined the window sill, though some of them, like Teddy Ruxpin and Mr. Beaver, now seemed to Bella a bit infantile for a going-on-nine-year-old. Still, the familiarity of them was a comfort.
Though Bella had slept in this very room at least two hundred times before, the new paint was intended to make the room Bella’s own, and for that she would endure pink walls, and frilly curtains, too. Maybe in time she could make some changes without hurting Nana’s feelings. But even if she didn’t, she knew the room would eventually feel like her own.
She was back in Miss Martine’s class, and she was only with the specialists for half the day on Tuesdays, which wasn’t so bad, except for Mr. Caruthers’ breath. Sometimes Bella still drifted off in class, but never for long, and never very far, not so far as the icy, ancient past. Somehow, the otherness was beyond her reach now. Maybe it no longer needed her, or maybe Bella no longer needed it.
Bella made friends in class with a new girl named Jonnie. Sometimes they read the same book at the same time, and sometimes at recess they played What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? with Aria and some of the other girls from Mrs. Darling’s class. Jonnie and Bella both agreed that What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? was a bit infantile, but it was still something to do under the play shed when it was raining.
Bella also made friends with a native boy named Jacob, from Mr. E’s class. Jacob wasn’t loud like the other boys. He also didn’t make things up just to impress her. What Bella liked most about Jacob, though, was his calm energy, and his holey shoes, and the fact that he was just himself.
Only a few times did anybody ever tease Bella about her dad, or about having lived in a cave, and having her dad cut her hair, or having pretended to be a cat. And anyway, it was usually just the fourth grade boys who were talking, and they were not half as clever as they thought they were.
On the bus ride home, Bella usually sat alone, but that was okay, too, because sometimes she liked it that way.
No Place Like Home
Dave was plating Bella’s waffle and fake-sausage patty when she walked into the kitchen and plopped down at the breakfast table, groggy-eyed, her sleep-tousled hair grown down past her ears.
“Good morning, baby,” he said, wheeling around ninety degrees to table her plate.
Niftily, he spun back around on his rear wheels and opened the fridge door and fished the syrup out of the door rack. Then, wheeling with his left hand while holding steady with his right, he pirouetted back toward the table, setting the bottle in front of Bella.
“Where’s Nana?” she said.
“She’s at church.”
“It’s only Thursday,” said Bella.
“She’s getting ready for the bazaar this weekend. Now, eat up, baby, you’re gonna miss the bus.”
“Can you walk me to the stop?”
“I don’t have time this morning, baby. The van’s on its way.”
She made a pouty face, stabbing at her waffle.
God, but it was good to see her pout, good to see her admit to any disappointment, any imbalance in the universe, because life on that mountain had just about frozen it out of her. If nothing else, he’d made a stoic out of Bella, a fact he was not proud of. That she forgave him for it was almost miraculous. The sad reality of the world was that nobody was quite as resilient as a child, and nobody paid a higher price for it.
“Will you still be at work when I get home?” she said.
“I’ll be home around 5:30, like usual.”
“Can we watch a show?”
“Of course,” he said. “Make sure you eat your whole sandwich today. And your carrots.”
“What kind of sandwich?”
“Ham.”
“Aw,” she said. “Can’t I just buy for once? Aria always buys.”
“I checked the schedule, today is beefy nachos, and you don’t like them,” Dave said.
“The meat is like cat food,” she said.
A moment later she stood abruptly, leaving her waffle half-eaten on her plate. Still clutching her fake sausage, she hoisted her pack off the counter.
“Bye, Daddy,” she said, and scooted out the kitchen door and down the wooden ramp before he could kiss her, before he could tell her for the two-hundredth time—in a gesture, at least—how sorry he was.
“You didn’t brush your teeth!” he called after her.
“I’ll brush them twice tonight,” she said.
“That’s not the same thing!” he said.
Not two minutes later, as he scraped the remainder of Bella’s waffle into the garbage and stowed the plate in the dishwasher, Dave heard the access van pull up in the driveway. Snatching his own pack off the counter, he straightened his empty pant leg before wheeling out the kitchen door and down the ramp.
Arnie was already lowering the lift as Dave rolled down the drive.
“Mornin’, Dave,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Dave said. “Lived to see another.”
“I hear that,” said old Arnie, flashing a long-toothed, tobacco-stained smile.
Dave’s heart beat just a little bit stronger as he buckled himself in. He never would’ve believed it three months ago, but sometimes people really were made stronger through suffering, and sometimes losses actually could make them whole again.
On the bus ride to town, Dave looked out the window as the clouds began dispersing and the sun crested the mountains, spilling orange and yellow into the valley. In six months or so, they could afford their own house somewhere closer to town. Though it was awfully nice of Travers to offer Dave and Bella his rental, Dave wanted to build his life back on his own as much as possible. He had learned, though, finally, that nobody could ever do anything all by themselves, and that they ought not to try. But his pride was still too strong.
Arnie dropped him behind Ace, and Dave wheeled off the lift into the sunny morning chill. Out in front of the store, Joe Wettleson, his manager, and a heck of a pulling guard in his day, was already busy carting out the barbecue grills, and placing the signage. Dave started across the lot in the sunlight, his pack dangling off the back of his wheelchair, ham sandwich and carrots inside, same lunch as Bella, his red work apron rolled up in his lap.
Halfway to the garden center, Dave waved to Angie as she carted out the perennials. Angie, who had two teenagers, also worked weekends at the Lowe’s down in Lundgren. Angie, who was going to be a naturopath if she could ever finish her online courses. Angie, who was going to get an FHA loan and buy a four-and-a-half-acre Christmas tree farm once she got out from under her credit card debt.
Just in front of the handicapped spots, Dave paused to look up at the mountains in the light of morning, ghostly streamer
s of mist clinging to their wooded faces. Somewhere invisible to the eye the river was burgeoning with the thaw, rushing forth from beneath the frozen ground, gathering force as it wended its way down the green valley and into the yawning canyon, still mired in shadows.
Mountains and valleys, shadow and light, the pitiless freeze and the merciful thaw. Change was ceaseless, the seasons countless, the outside forces of the world relentless, and yet nothing was permanent, not Ace Hardware, not Vigilante Falls, not even the North Cascades.
Dave slipped into his apron. Leaning forward in his wheelchair, he tied it off, cinching the knot firmly in back. Puffing up his empty pant leg once more, he straightened his name pin before pushing through the double glass doors.
Just another day in the life of a legend.
Acknowledgments
I would be remiss in writing a book set in the North Cascades without acknowledging the legacy of the people who inhabited the region long before the arrival of European Settlers: the Chilliwack, the Nooksack, and the Chelan, as well as the people of the Upper Skagit, and many other groups from the Columbia River Basin to the western lowlands of Puget Sound. Before we had Mt. Baker, we had Koma Kulshan; before Mt. Ranier, Tahoma. Being a Washingtonian, this is something I never forget.
I would be also remiss in writing a book concerned centrally with childhood trauma without acknowledging those who have had to endure such circumstances. I extend my gratitude as well to those of you who have put your lives on the line in service of your country, and those of you who may have lost part of yourselves in doing so. And God bless those who never found their way back, and all the rest who made it back but could not find the help that they needed. As much as it may seem, you are not forgotten.
Legends of the North Cascades Page 29
