The Mountain Can Wait (2 page)

A few
weeks after Tom buried Rocky, Curtis came home. Tom was at the barbecue in front of the garage when Curtis pulled into the driveway in his Suburban. When he cut the engine it sputtered and whined. Surprised to see his son, Tom squinted at him through the cooking smoke.

“Shouldn't you be at work?”

“I asked for a few days off.” Curtis peered around the lid of the barbecue at the grill.

“Why'd you do that?”

“Wanted to see you before you took off to the bush, and you know, Rocky. Sorry I couldn't make it earlier.” He stretched his arms up behind his head and twisted his body side to side. “My back fucken hurts, though. I drove straight through.”

Tom eyed the vehicle. “You take the Duffey Lake Road in that thing? There any snow left?”

“A bit on the switchbacks. No hassle, though.” Curtis's face turned soft and sympathetic. “But how are you, Dad? That must have been pretty bad, doing it yourself.”

One of the pieces of meat was stuck to the grill and Tom worked at it with a pair of tongs. He shrugged. The shot had been clean. “Had to be done.”

“You could have taken him to the vet.”

Tom pointed toward the Suburban with his tongs. “How long has your truck been making that noise?”

The three of them—Tom, Curtis, and Erin (the girl out of her room for the first time that day)—sat elbow to knee at the kitchen table. To make the food go around, Tom rustled up a pasta and cucumber salad and shared the meat between them. They ate in silence until Erin reached across the table for the ketchup, revealing a blackened thumbnail.

“What'd you do to your thumb?” Curtis asked.

“Unlucky with the hammer. I was trying to put a shelf up in my room.”

“You what?” said Tom.

“Why didn't you get Dad to do it?” asked Curtis.

Tom got up with his plate and scraped the bones into the garbage, hiding a smile that Erin would mistake for sarcasm, spurring her to bolt like a deer to her room. In spite of the injury, he was glad that she had identified something she needed and hadn't asked for help. And when he thought about it, she hadn't asked him to do anything for her in a very long time. Even if it was only because she didn't want him around, he welcomed this hardening, this growing of teeth and claws.

Tom appreciated having Curtis home; it had been a rare thing in the few years since he'd gone. But his bag in the hallway, the emotional hang of his face—it was too much. His turning up unexpectedly brought a strangeness to the house, the feeling of something being different. After dinner, in search of a job that he could do with precision, with an empty head, Tom went into the basement and got his long rifle out of the gun cupboard so he could clean it.

Mixed with the hollow hum of television chatter, the comfortable rhythm of Curtis and Erin's conversation floated down to Tom through the vent under the ceiling.

He removed the bolt and clip, then secured the rifle to the table by tightening the barrel in a vise and supporting the buttstock on a rubber block. From a cabinet under the stairs he took out a neatly packed tackle box that contained cleaning instruments and cans of Kroil oil. He laid an old towel on the table next to the rifle and placed the instruments on it, one by one.

Erin and Curtis were laughing up there, hard. Maybe even at Tom's expense. They were so easy together, could hurl mean jokes at each other and not get hurt. Curtis could behave with her in a way that Tom would never dare—could pull her up when she was doing something stupid and she wouldn't hate him for it.

He laced a small patch of white flannelette with cleaning solvent, folded it over the pointed tip of a jag rod, and pushed the rod through the barrel. Now a grayish blue, the flannelette popped out of the muzzle and fell off the end of the jag. He repeated this with squares of clean flannel until the cloth came out white, unsoiled by residue.

He taught both of his kids to shoot when they were young. Curtis didn't have the grit to kill an animal, but even when she was twelve Erin could pick a marmot out of a tree without a trace of sentimentality. She hadn't gone hunting with him in a few years, but maybe this fall, when he was home from the bush, he would try to get her out for a weekend. Take her up to the cabin he had his eye on in Smithers, see what she thought of it. Both his kids knew he'd been thinking about it, but he hadn't told them yet how close he was to buying the place, and maybe the news would go down better if they could actually see it. Walk the land with him, sit on the porch, eat the pheasant they would shoot themselves, the fish they would catch.

With a brass brush, he pushed more solvent through the barrel to retrieve the last specks of fouling and then dried the barrel carefully with a flannelette. He dried the muzzle and, using a flashlight, inspected the bore for any traces of metal fouling. He lubricated the inside of the barrel with oil and rubbed down the metal components—inside the chamber, in and around the trigger mechanism, the rear and front sight apertures—with a clean rag doused in oil. Clean as a whistle.

What the hell were they laughing about? He leaned on the table with both hands and listened hard with his head cocked toward the vent. If he went up there, right now, would they let him in on the joke? This was the way it was, every time those two got back together, like lifting a folded corner from a page in a book. A loud thump vibrated through the ceiling, as if one of them laughed themselves right off the couch. He shook his head and looked down, dismayed, at his towel and cleaning instruments, now shining with a slick of Kroil oil glugging from a can that had been knocked on its side. He mopped up the mess with a rag.

The following night, home alone with Curtis, Tom cooked a pot of chili. Erin was out babysitting twins who lived at the end of the road. She'd been doing more of that lately and saved her cash in a small wooden box of Tom's that had once contained nails.

After Tom and Curtis ate, they went out to the driveway and Curtis smoked a joint.

“So you think you'll ever get another dog?” Curtis asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, dug one hand deep into his armpit, and dangled the joint in curled fingers by his chin.

Tom shrugged. “Haven't thought about it.”

“I was trying to remember when we first got him. Wasn't Mom threatening to give him away?” He took another long pull from the joint. As he exhaled, he said, his voice pinched, “He kept pissing in the house?”

“We got Rocky just after your mom left, when we were staying with Grandma. She was the one who wanted to get rid of him.”

“You sure it wasn't my mom?”

“She was gone.”

Curtis squatted down and picked up a handful of small stones, and skipped them one by one down the length of the driveway. He had become so broad across the back. A strong, perfectly curved spine, defined lateral muscles in a Y shape that rolled and flexed and shifted with every stone he tossed. A man's back that would one day begin to tire, would soften and sink like land without trees. And his neck, with fine, golden hairs, rolled with the strong ligaments underneath his skin.

“Did you fix that thing at work?” Tom asked. “Those shifts they didn't pay you for? No one's going to do that for you.”

“Yeah, it's fine,” Curtis said, and scooped another handful of stones. He stood up and sifted them through his fingers, letting them drop to the ground.

“Have you thought any more about that carpentry thing?”

“Can't afford it.”

“Not washing dishes, no. Find some work on a site.”

Curtis ground out the joint on the stoop and put it in his pocket, rubbed his bare arms. “It's fucken cold.”

Back inside, Tom made a pot of strong coffee and settled into the couch next to Curtis, put two mugs on the table at their knees. He reached down to the floor for a wool blanket that lay at his feet and threw it over Curtis's legs.

“I could lend you the money for the apprenticeship,” Tom said.

Curtis shook his head, his nostrils slightly flared. He pulled the blanket off his legs and reached for the remote control. They watched half an hour of news.

“So, hey,” Curtis eventually said. On the television, the weatherman stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

“So, hey what?”

“I've been sort of hanging out with this girl for a bit. For a few months.”

“Oh yeah? Only one girl?”

Curtis looked at him with a partial smile. “What do you mean by that, old man?”

“Usually there's more than one.”

“Bullshit.”

A commercial came on and Curtis turned down the volume.

“So what's her name, then?” Tom asked, because it seemed that Curtis was waiting to be asked.

“Tonya.”

“She your girlfriend?”

Curtis shrugged. “She's why I didn't make it up here before.”

Tom shook his head. “Be careful with that.”

“You still haven't seen my place. I was going to ask you to come down, maybe meet her.”

Tom sat back and stretched deeper into the couch. “I'd come down to see you, check out your place.”

“And her?”

“If she's still around.”

Curtis turned the volume back up on the TV, his face flat.

May came
and with it the earthy smell of new growth after long months of cold, sun warm on exposed skin. Tom's foremen started calling with problems and requests. They would be leaving for the Takla Lake camp in two weeks, and he still had to make arrangements with the rental place for the shower and outhouse facilities; the generator needed to be serviced, the crew vans hauled over.

He was about to begin the second phase of a three-year contract for the spring and summer tree-planting season, and if he delivered again, the name of his outfit would be held in high regard. It would be worth enough that when he sold it at season's end, with one year's solid work remaining on the contract, he could buy the land in Smithers, and there'd still be enough left over for Erin to go to the university. And there'd be a good chunk for Curtis too, maybe for a down payment on a place of his own, or for the apprenticeship.

The day before he left for Takla Lake, a Sunday, Tom mulled over all this again while bent under the hood of his truck, gently wire-brushing the contact points inside the distributor cap. After every few strokes, he took care to blow the corrosion dust off the cap before it fell back into the distributor. The kitchen CD player was outside as far as the cord would stretch; punk music jumped thinly from the speakers. Erin sat on the cement stoop outside the kitchen door, a pair of old jeans lying across her knees. She pulled roughly at a needle and thread, sewing a patch onto the seat of the jeans. Every now and then she stopped to watch him work.

Her legs were even longer than they had been the last time he looked. She was taller than most of the boys her age, and skinny as a rod, as Elka had been. Even before she was twelve, her little-girl roundness had begun to morph into awkward angles. Her nose grew a fraction too big for her face; her shoulder blades popped out like wings. When she was thirteen, her forehead and chin shone with oil. She knew everything there was to know about zit cream. She spoke to her friends on the phone and sounded like the TV, using words like “astringent” and “blemish.” The cupboard under the bathroom sink became off-limits to Tom, stacked neatly with Tampax, absorbent pads, bottles of clear liquid. Tweezers and clippers and files. This knowledge, this under-the-sink arsenal (as esoteric as anything he possessed having to do with silviculture or mechanics), was collected secretly. While he never found out how she'd learned all this, or who from, because it sure as hell wasn't him, it was a load off his back to know that she could take care of herself. He had watched her closely, most of her life, for any signs of the dark thing that had afflicted her mother. He kept his vigil from a distance, as if through binoculars, so as not to scare her away. Had been wary of how long she kept her bedroom door closed, of what she ate, of what she stored in her closet. And now, at seventeen, she was strong and sleek as a boat, ready to pull anchor.

He asked her if she wanted to help him replace the fan belt or, because she had a knack for it, get her hands into the wiring loom and try to fix his heater.

She gripped a fistful of hair in one hand and inspected the tips so closely that her eyes crossed over the length of her nose. When she found a split end, she bit it off and spit it out. Without looking away from the tips of her hair, she shook her head no.

The day Curtis and Erin's mother left for good was the hottest day of the summer. That morning, Tom found her note propped against the bathroom mirror. He read it, folded it neatly into quarters, and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. He drove Curtis and a three-month-old Erin to his mother's house.

When they arrived, Curtis, five, was upset about something, the wrong t-shirt, and refused to get out of the truck. Tom ignored him and lifted Erin out of her car seat. Holding her in the crook of his arm, he touched her cheek with the edge of his calloused thumb, his skin so thick he couldn't feel hers.

His mother was at the far end of the backyard, pushing a lawn mower twice her size with her wiry arms. She finished the last two rows of lawn before greeting Tom where he stood by the back door. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and walking up the grass toward him, she said, “You need me to have the boy today?” She looked over Tom's shoulder, squinted into the darkness of the house. Then, with a sigh, her tone flat: “Where's Elka?”

He moved the baby to his other arm and dug the note out of his pocket. She read it with a grim smile as if this were something expected.

They took the sleeping baby inside and laid her on a blanket on the floor. Tom took his usual place at the kitchen table, with legs outstretched into the middle of the floor. Fruit flies were settled into a bowl of peaches on the table. He waved his hand over the bowl and the flies rose, scattered, then settled again.

“Curtis eat anything yet this morning?” Samantha said.

“I told him we'd camp out in the backyard tonight. He's too excited to eat.”

She cracked eggs into a glass bowl. “She always comes back,” she said, whipping the eggs with a fork.

“Not this time. I don't think so.”

Curtis came in then, his t-shirt off and his hair sweaty from the time he spent sitting in the truck. He stood by the kitchen door waiting to be noticed.

Erin woke up and, after rolling her head and stretching, started to bleat.

“Will she take a bottle?” Samantha asked, picking Erin up. The baby was calm for a moment, bouncing her face off Samantha's chest, nuzzling, her mouth puckered for Elka's breast. When she realized there was nothing, she started hollering again.

“Can we set up the tent now?” asked Curtis.

After two circuits of the drugstore, Tom located the section for baby feeding. Faced with a wall of powders, plastic bottles, and rubber teats, he randomly grabbed several types of each. Better to figure out the process himself than to ask the girl behind the till. He'd gone to high school with her, and she knew Elka. A long line of people stood at the counter. Each one of them, he figured, accounted for another few minutes his baby would have to wait.

“How's it going, Tom?” the girl behind the till asked when it was finally his turn.

He nodded, licked his lips. His cheeks felt hot.

“Kids okay? Elka?”

“All fine,” he said, spilling cartons and packages from the crooks of both arms onto the counter.

She inspected each item as she rang it through and stopped when she got to one of the egg-shaped packages containing two rubber teats. She looked at him. “You sure you want these? They're for twelve months plus, see?” She pointed out the numbers on the packaging.

He shrugged and tried to laugh. “Elka didn't tell me what to get. What about these other ones?” He fished through the items for another, similar package with a different label.

“Well now hold on a sec,” she said. “Wait here.” She squeezed through the gap in the counter and went down the aisle. A man directly behind him in line shuffled his feet, cleared his throat.

“Them ones there don't go with the bottle you've got,” she said, squeezing back through the gap. “These are the ones you want. Right age, right bottle.”

He scratched the stubble on his chin. “I'm clueless with this stuff,” he said.

“Aw, sweet.” She scrunched her nose, made eye contact cautiously. “Now, you know you have to sterilize these first, eh?”

As he rushed out, catching his plastic bag on the door, she called after him to say hello to Elka.

Erin refused it. Turned her head away from the bottle as if the formula were laced with skunk piss. Samantha and Tom passed her back and forth, each suggesting that they might try something that the other hadn't thought of yet, like two people trying to coax a truck out of a muddy ditch. They even tried to spoon the formula into her mouth. By the middle of the day, Erin's throat was so hoarse that her crying was more like a wheeze; her thin hair was plastered to her head. At one point Tom took her out back to walk under the trees. In calmer times this was something she seemed to like, to watch the leaves fluttering, and the soothing sway of branches. But she was too angry to be distracted, so he bounced her off his forearm and watched Curtis run naked through the sprinkler.

Around midnight, she stopped crying and became difficult to rouse, so Tom took her to the hospital. The triage nurse asked him how long it had been since the baby had eaten, or taken any fluids at all. He wasn't exactly sure. Elka had woken up with her that morning, maybe seven o'clock? She fed her in bed, like she usually did, then got up to have a shower. Then she was gone.

“Let's have a look at her fontanel,” the nurse said, pulling the blanket away from Erin's head. The soft, vulnerable patch at the top of her head, the place that had scared Tom when he first explored the anatomy of his babies, was sunken in, a rounded triangle. It pulsed deeply and rapidly. “Okay, then,” the nurse said casually. “So, not surprisingly, what with this heat, she's a little dehydrated. Let's just take you through and get some fluids into her.”

Erin was taken from him and he watched while a young, tired doctor worked slowly and calmly, inserting a drip into a blue, tributary-like vein in the back of her small hand, a vein so faint it almost wasn't there. Blood clouded back up the tube and the doctor secured it to Erin's hand with white tape and a splint. He then filled three small vials with blood from the crook of her arm, her protests weak from a dry, round mouth.

Later, formula disappeared into her nose through a feeding tube, stimulating her lips to make little kisses in her sleep, now peaceful. Once Erin had been given what she needed, Tom became aware of his surroundings. They were alone in a tightly spaced, curtained cubicle. Erin lay in a crib and somewhere close by a machine beeped. There were no chairs, so he stood.

At six in the morning, a square-shouldered nurse with a cigarette-lined face came in through the curtain. “Is this baby Erin?” she said. She brushed Erin's cheek with the backs of her fingers, leaned over the cot, and smoothed Erin's thin, moist hair to the side of her head. Continuing in a deep, soothing voice, she looked at Tom and said, “Where's her mother?”

At first he thought he should lie, cover for Elka, but his mind was all twisted and tired. I don't know, he thought, and may or may not have said the words aloud.

The nurse's eyebrows raised slightly and she jangled a bright toy just out of Erin's reach. “Okay, so we're going to move you guys to the ward. We want to keep her here for twenty-four hours, make sure she starts feeding properly. She looks fine, though, don't you, baby? Don't you? I'm going to take this nasty tube out, and we're going to give you a lovely warm bottle.” She turned to Tom. “She was just too upset yesterday. She's calm now. She'll take it without too much hassle.”

On the ward, the nurse came back and coaxed and coaxed until eventually, with all the tumult and loss she seemed to sense was now ahead of her, Erin stubbornly, abjectly, drank from the bottle.

He reported Elka missing to the police and wrote to her mother, who still lived on Aguanish, the island where Elka grew up, and spent the next months searching. Motels and dark bars in places like Quesnel, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, 100 Mile House. He never expected to find her, but because it was the right thing for his kids, and because he was bound to her whether by love or by obligation, he looked.

Eighteen months after she left, a guy Tom had known at the mill called him from Toronto saying that he was pretty sure he'd seen her in a pool hall. She'd cut her long hair to the neck and was a lot skinnier than he remembered, but either it was her or a cousin at least. She was acting pretty drunk, he said, but it seemed an awful lot as if she was pretending. When he asked her if she knew anyone in Prince George, she got up from the stool she was sitting on and walked out.

And even though it was a long shot, Tom got on a plane. Like turning over the last stone. It was the first time he'd been east of the Rockies, and on the drive from the airport into Toronto, what he noticed was the flatness. The landscape was bone gray and leafless and cold enough to hold on to the thin flurry of snow that blew darkly out of the iron sky.

He checked into a hotel just east of downtown and the next morning he found the pool hall. It was closed until later in the afternoon, so with Elka's worn-edged photograph in his palm, he started up the block. A doughnut shop, corner grocery and florist, a video rental place. The morning was sunny and cold, the previous day's snow a dry powder that puffed out from under each boot step, leaving a cloudy set of tracks on the sidewalk. A shoe repair and key cutter, pizza by the slice, a barber's, bank. For lunch he ate soup with dumplings in a Chinese restaurant and then continued systematically up and down each street, fanning away from the pool hall. He showed Elka's picture to street cleaners and shopkeepers and a couple of women pushing their kids on swings; they eyed him pitifully and he moved on. By three o'clock, he went back to the pool hall and showed her picture to a guy who was lifting upturned chairs off the tables. He had never seen Elka but said it was worth hanging around for other staff members to come on shift. Tom ordered a soft drink and sat at a round table in the corner. A man and a woman played at one of the half-dozen pool tables, and the music was low enough that he could hear the soft clacking of their game. They shared one cigarette between them, passing it back and forth between shots.

If he had found her, she would have gone back with him. She'd told him enough times that for her, he was like some kind of shelter. If it could have been that easy, if someone in that pool hall had looked at her picture and said, “Course I know her. I'll show you,” he would have dug her out of whatever hole she'd crawled into, brought her home, and settled her back in. And maybe she would have even been able to love their kids for a while without turning to mulch, like tissue paper in water.