Pathways (9780307822208) (2 page)

She pulled out the life jacket, pausing to flick off a rather large spider, then put it on and reached for the paddle. Just then a bald eagle swooped low, his long wings spread wide, almost touching the surface as his thick talons clutched a trout from the waters across the lake. “Wow!” Bryn said.

“Isn’t it something here?” Peter replied. “I never get tired of seeing things like that. If only your mother would share it with me …” His voice trailed away, as if the admission were too painful to tell his daughter.

“You always wanted to live here, didn’t you, Dad?”

“Summers anyway. Your mother wouldn’t hear of it. Wouldn’t even come and see it.” There was a shiver of anger in his tone, frustration, as well as pain.

“It is a bit … isolated,” Bryn said, wondering why she felt compelled to defend her mother. She considered her father’s words as she dug her paddle into the water. She had to admit that it felt good to be out on the lake, out from the dank little cabin.

“The solitude is part of what I love,” Peter said, finally breaking the silence. “The first day Jed brought me here, I knew it would be a part of my life forever.”

Bryn looked about them at the small, shallow lake, edged here and there by thick, swampy areas full of reeds, with thick-treed snow-covered mountains that shot up on all three sides. A river fed into Summit from the mountain streams to the south. “This place is
wild
,” she said, shivering. “Mom would not like it.”

He was quiet for a moment, paddling. “I know. There’s something about being here—it’s so … primary, basic. Not your mother’s style at all. Reminds a person of who he is and who he wants to be.” He dug in his paddle again, and Bryn remained silent, waiting for him to go on. “Jedidiah said to me once, ‘The bush teaches a man about what he wants and what he needs, and the difference between them.’ Every time I come here, I remember. And I leave rededicated to discovering it in Newport, too.”

Bryn’s mind flew from this thin-aired, low-maintenance hide away to their rather ostentatious home in Newport. Her mother had made a career out of volunteering with the Junior League and decorating their home with only the finest furnishings and accessories. “How did you and Mom ever get together?” She looked over her shoulder to see his rueful smile.

“We were more alike once. In college, I thought …” His words drained away like the water off of his paddle. “At some point, your mother changed. I changed.” He halted, as if trying not to say too much.

“She’s been pretty mean lately,” Bryn said, digging her paddle into the water again. “Are you two okay? I mean, your marriage and everything?”

He was silent for a long moment. “Sure, Bryn. We’re fine.”

Bryn licked her lips and kept paddling, searching the approaching shore for the Pierces’ cabin. The sounds of sharp axes cutting through soft wood carried across the lake, as they had since morning, and she caught sight of Eli and his father as they stood around an old, dying tree. Built the same year as the Baileys’, the Pierces’ cabin had been completed first, then Jedidiah and Peter had moved on to finish the Bailey abode. All in one summer. “We were young then,” her father would say wistfully. But there was something in his eyes, in the way he held his shoulders slightly back, as if still proud of the accomplishment, that made her ask him to tell the story again and again.

Peter Bailey had met up with Jedidiah Pierce, born and raised in Alaska, in the summer of ’62, backpacking through Europe. In Germany, the pair had stayed at a youth hostel overnight and went out the next day to try the locals’ fabled Gewürztraminer. Frequently wineries set up tents along the road, and the duo stopped at the first one they saw. It was only much later that they learned they had crashed a wedding party, and the father of the bride had them tossed out.

From then on, the men were like blood brothers, and Jed, having spotted the pristine site on a hike years before, brought his new friend to Summit Lake the following summer. Both purchased several acres from Ben White, who owned much of the land surrounding the water. Ben was an older man who had been living alone on Summit since 1953, when he was discharged from the army. His home was at the northern tip of the lake. No one else owned land on the lake or lived in the small mountain valley.

“There she is,” Peter said from behind Bryn. “I’m always amazed
that I can’t see their place from the water until I’m nearly on top of it.”

Deep in the shadows, the cabin did blend wonderfully with the trees, hidden behind a copse of alder and white spruce.

Jedidiah stood up with his son, ax in hand, panting. They had been working on felling an old-growth, rotten spruce that threatened their roof in the next winter storm. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip and took a step closer, grinning. “I knew that must be Peter Bailey who flew in,” he said. “And he’s got Bryn with him. Man, what a beauty!”

Eli met his father’s knowing eyes.

“She was always like catnip and you the tomcat,” Jed said in gentle warning. “Watch yourself.”

“I don’t think she’s interested, Dad. The girl couldn’t even manage to say hello last time I saw her.”

“She was a kid then. Now you’re adults. And that makes your dance a little more dangerous.”

“What’re you talking about?” Eli asked crossly.

“Can’t you see it? Trust a father’s intuition then. Just watch your step, Son. Listen to the Spirit’s lead,” he said, looking upward into the sunlight filtering through the dense alder and spruce boughs. He slammed his ax into the tree trunk and left Eli’s side to greet his old friend.

After a moment, Eli began to follow. As he walked down the path, he tried to get a covert look at Bryn. When he saw her grin up at his father on the bank, it made him pause and almost trip. The girl, who had been a fox at fifteen, had grown into a classic Greek goddess, with long, lithe limbs and dark, swinging hair—an uncommon grace in every movement. And when she smiled, sweet heaven,
it made his heart hurt and sail back to the year he was sixteen. The year she wouldn’t even speak to him. Too good for him, he had supposed. Their childhood friendship plainly dissolved.

Forcing himself to leave the cover of the trees, he approached his father, keeping his eyes on Peter Bailey, not risking a fall on his face in front of Bryn. Eli shook Peter’s hand firmly, noticed the look of admiration in the man’s eyes, his glance down to his daughter. And then Eli had to. Had to turn and look at her, greet her. Like an adult, just when he felt a keening teen shyness he hadn’t encountered in years.

Eli reached up for his grandfather’s airman’s cap and pulled it off his head, slipping it under one armpit. He forced himself to smile and look into her eyes—the color of a beaver’s tail in water. “Hi, Bryn,” he managed.

“Eli,” she said with another smile and a short nod. “Your dad roped you into a trip to Summit too, huh?”

“Every summer,” he said, wondering at her words.
Roped?
This place was heaven on earth. The kind magazine crews scouted for catalog shoots. Thoreau would have died a happy man after he’d seen a place like this. He glanced out at the honey glaze on the water, the deep forest green of the mountains, the snow at the peaks that was almost lavender. “What’s it been, four, five years?”

“Five years,” she said, confirming what he already knew. “Dad can only make it two years between visits here. Every five years is right on track for me. I mean, it’s pretty … 
rustic
.”

“Ah, I get it,” Jedidiah said, giving her a warm hug. “Californian would rather be at the beach? You’re a sight, Bryn. Pretty as a state fair queen. You must be proud, Peter.”

“Couldn’t be prouder. And she’s smart as a whip too.”

“Dad—,” Bryn tried, obviously embarrassed.

“Straight A’s, at the University of California.”

“
Dad—
”

“So focused on her studies she won’t even look at the guys,” he said, punching Eli on the shoulder.

“Dad!”

“What?” Peter asked innocently.

Bryn sighed and passed her father, shaking her head. “Dad still thinks I’m a deaf teenager,” she said under her breath to Eli, “so that he has license to say anything that passes through his head. Sorry.”

“No problem,” he said, watching her go by, catching the scent of vanilla and green apples. Her shampoo? A lotion? She sat down on a chair on the porch and looked out at the lake.

“My boy has his pilot’s license,” Jedidiah said to Peter, clearly not wanting to be one-upped. “Has his sights set on his own operation out of Talkeetna.”

“Great,” Peter said in wistful admiration, as if he wished he were the one starting a company in Alaska. He clapped Eli on the shoulder. “That your de Havilland?”

Eli looked past him to the old, restored Beaver on shore, knowing full well that it was the only plane in sight. “She’s mine.”

“A beaut!” Peter said. “I would’ve had you fly us in had I known you were looking for work. Your operation will be all floatplanes?”

“Float
plane
, in the singular form,” Eli said, following his father and Peter up the path to the cabin. “Maybe someday I’ll have one outfitted with skis, take the tourists to land on the glaciers, up around Denali, that sort of thing.”

“Talkeetna’s hopping. Must be twice as many people in town this summer as compared to ten years ago,” Peter said, as if hoping he was wrong.

“Yeah,” Jedidiah said. “Have a seat, everyone. I’ll get some coffee on.” Through the open doorway, over his shoulder he said, “Princess Cruises bring busloads of tourists into town now. You should see them, walking through, completely oblivious to the locals trying to keep on with everyday life. It’s as if they think they own the place. And the trash they leave behind!”

“You know what they say,” Eli interjected. All eyes turned to him. “An environmentalist is someone who already has their own cabin.”

Peter laughed. “That’s a good one. It’s true.” He looked back out to the lake. “I never want Summit to be discovered, changed. This is our place. Ours.” He almost whispered the last word, and Bryn studied her father as if confused. She clearly was not as enamored with the pristine Alaskan valley as were their fathers or Eli. But the way she leaned back against the Adirondack chair, her hair falling out of its knot like a curling oil slick along the Kenai peninsula … She looked as if she belonged there. At Summit Lake. In Alaska. Whether she knew it or not.

“Where’s Meryl?” Peter asked as Jedidiah came out, a tray of coffee mugs in hand.

“She’s taking this summer off. Said us boys needed some man time.” He smiled and offered the tray to each before setting it on the porch floor. “Truth be told, I kind of like our reunions after a little time apart.” There was a twinkle in his eyes. “So how long you stayin’?” he asked, directing the question to Peter.

“A month, if I can keep her here that long,” Peter said, nodding at his daughter.

She paused for a telling couple of seconds. “I think I can last.” She paused, obviously thinking. “You know, Dad, a porch like this would help a lot.” Bryn looked around at the overhang that extended
from the roof. “Allow us to be outside more. Keep us from getting cabin fever.”

Peter nodded, looking around at it too, walking over to touch a post as if already doing measurements in his head. “Been a while since we’ve made any improvements to the old place.”

“I could bring you some supplies,” Eli offered. “Headin’ out tomorrow.”

“We could harvest the poles and crossbeams ourselves,” Peter said, throwing Bryn a cocked brow of challenge. “I think the boards for the roof would have to be flown in,” he allowed, gratefully accepting a refill from Jedidiah. “Not as young as I once was.”

“Not ready to hew your own lumber?” Jed teased. “Gettin’ soft there, city boy.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not soft, just smarter. I’d rather spend my month building and hunting and hiking and canoeing, rather than harvesting wood. We’ll maintain the integrity of the cabin with a few native elements,” he said, looking at Bryn again to see if she was in on the idea, “and buy us some relaxation time by getting Eli to fly in the rest.”

“You can do that?” Bryn asked of Eli, forcing his eyes to hers. “Fly in a load of lumber?”

“Sure. I’ll strap it to the Beaver’s belly, compensate for the weight, and bring it right to your door.”

“Can I go with him?” Bryn asked suddenly, casting the question toward Eli as much as to her father. “To mail my letters, pick up some supplies I forgot?”

“Bryn, we just got here—”

“Please, Dad. I’ll just be gone a day. And you said yourself this would be a good project.”

Peter cast anxious, narrowing eyes from Bryn to Eli to Jedidiah. “He’s a good pilot, your son?” he asked of Jed.

“You know as well as I do that bush pilots are the best of the best. And he was trained by a couple of old-timers.”

Peter sighed. “All right.” He looked to Bryn and shook his finger at her. “But you ever tell your mother of this and there’ll be you-know-what to pay.”

“My lips are sealed,” Bryn agreed.

“It’s not you, my man,” Peter said to Eli. “My wife was very explicit about her desire to keep Bryn out of small planes as much as possible.”

“I understand,” Eli said. “Tomorrow then, Bryn. At eight?”

“I’ll be ready,” she said, and Eli wondered at the glint in her eye. Had she changed so much in five years?

A
t least you’re talkin’ to me this year,” Eli said, unable to hold it in any longer.

From his side view, he could see her lips moving and he motioned to his headset, reminding her that over the noise of the de Havilland’s engine, little could be heard without the headset. Her face turned red at having forgotten his instructions, and she pulled the microphone down and said, “I could say the same thing.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he had to concentrate on the plane as he ran through a quick flow check and eased the throttle forward, heading toward the north end of the lake. There was a slight chop to the water, perfect for taking off and landing. He turned the plane into the wind. The Beaver shot along the length of Summit, picking up speed, swaying a little, and then they were aloft, clearing the riverbed below by a couple hundred feet.