The Year We Were Famous (12 page)

Ma shook her head. "It goes beyond sad. I don't know if there's even a word for it."

"Melancholy, depths of despair, despondency?"

"Stronger yet. It's more like—like an elephant sitting on your chest. No amount of willpower is going to make that elephant move. You just have to suffer until the elephant takes a mind to get up and leave you alone for a while. But you know he'll be back. And you won't be able to do anything about it the next time, either, except wait for him to go away."

"The trouble is, when your elephant comes to call, I have to take over for you. And besides those times you can't help, there are all those times you trot to Spokane to sip tea and talk votes." When I realized I was standing with one hand on my hip and one finger pointing at Ma—mirroring her pose—I jerked my arms down to my sides.

"And another thing," I said. "You would never make it on your own to New York, but I let you get all the attention in the interviews, since getting your name in the papers seems to be as important to you as winning the bet. I didn't even complain about not getting my name on your hoity-toity
cartes de visite.
"

Ma huffed. "You don't want to talk to the reporters, anyway. Unless," she added, "they're under thirty and let you ride their bicycles." She smiled, trying to coax a smile from me.

I turned my back on Ma and headed on up the tracks into the gorge.

Ma followed, continuing her side of the argument. "You wouldn't have made it on your own, either. I have had to talk us into a bed and a meal every night. If it weren't for me you would have starved to death by now. Anyway, I should have my name on the cards. It was my idea for the walk."

I stopped and whirled. "I gave you the idea!" My voice squeaked in indignation. "I was talking about Nellie Bly and her trip around the world and that's when you said you'd see if you could find someone to pay you to walk."

By now there was no longer room for us to walk side by side, so I crossed the tracks to find space for my feet on the other side.

"But you didn't do anything with your idea, did you?" Ma said. She looked up from treacherous footing in the broken rock long enough to shoot me an accusing glance.

I had to admit to myself that I hadn't.

"And if it weren't for me, you'd still be back in Mica Creek, marrying Erick because you didn't have the gumption to tell him no outright and figure out what you wanted to do with your life. I'm trying to teach you some gumption and you just whine about not getting your name on the cards."

"But..."

"Listen here, Clara Estby. Show some respect to your mother."

"How about showing some respect to me? Didn't it occur to you I might be right about not taking the shortcut in Idaho?"

Ma stopped, dropped her arms, and looked to heaven for forbearance. I followed her glance upward. The clouds were dark now, and scudding fast.

"I knew you wouldn't let me forget that. You've just been stewing on that for a thousand miles until you couldn't stand it anymore. We all make mistakes. And anyone with an ounce of curiosity or courage knows that making mistakes is better than living in a padded room your whole life, afraid to try anything new."

I shivered as the wind picked up and whipped through the trees. "Who are you to give me advice? I'd never throw away my future by having a child at fifteen and sentencing myself to a life like yours."

At Ma's shocked expression, I almost slapped my hands over my mouth. I shouldn't have said that. What's more, I hadn't just said it; I had yelled it to be heard over the wind, which had picked up from a pleasant breeze to a yowling gale.

"I'm sorry..." I started, then held my breath when the wind halted abruptly. The air felt heavy. The birds went silent. The hair on my arms rose with a tickle. Then—
crack!
—the sky lit up and thunder exploded almost beside us. Lightning flashed again with simultaneous thunder like a gunshot. Barely thirty feet away, atop a crag on one side of the channel cut for the tracks, a tree split open and began to burn.

We looked right into lightning bolts flashing on every side. Thunder bounced off rock walls on either side of us, and the echoes made it impossible to tell which rolls of thunder went with which flashes. Thunder rattled my rib cage and set my eardrums ringing. Thunder mocked the puny anger I'd let loose on Ma.

"Lie down!" she yelled as she threw herself down as far from the tracks as the narrow passage between walls of rock allowed.

I continued to stand, clenching my carved owl in my pocket. Cinders floated around us like snow. The wind roared through the pass again, blowing fire and cinders uphill beyond us and sweeping in a fresh bank of clouds. The wind shrieked through the trees above us, bending them, breaking them. The wind could have picked me up like a dry leaf and blown me to the next county. As the clouds were pushed higher up the side of the mountain, they loosed their water, dousing the fire and drenching us. To stand against the wind as I struggled into my poncho, I imagined my feet sending down strong tap roots to anchor me to the rock.

Rain fell by the wagonload. Water cascaded down the rocky slopes in waterfalls that created a stream that swept first over my toes, then ankles, my shins, and over my boots. We had walls of sheer blasted rock on either side. There was no escape.

After Ma pulled on her rain gear, we waded haltingly against the current, encumbered by water-weighted skirts. With wind roaring up through the pass and water rushing down, I felt like I was being stretched between two horses galloping in opposite directions. I gripped my satchel and reached out to one side of the canyon walls to steady myself against the racing river. Who would believe we could drown in the mountains? Five minutes ago I had been worried about not getting to New York by the end of November. Now I just wanted to stay alive until tomorrow.

Rain and spray blurred my vision, but I made out Ma's meaning as she jabbed her chin to the right. Twenty-five feet beyond us, a shallow, two-foot-wide channel in the rock sloped up like a water-swept grain chute leading to a ledge above the torrent. If we could reach that ledge, we might survive.

I grabbed a bush to steady myself against the power of the water, but the bush broke away with a jerk. I stumbled backward, touching bottom with my seat as my poncho floated like a lily pad around me. Ma heard my yelp above the roar of the water and turned to help me stand. Holding hands, we pushed together against the rising water toward the base of the upward channel.

I put the rope handle of my satchel over my shoulder and shifted it to rest on the back of my hip. Water cascading down the chute made it feel like I was climbing a river to get to the ledge. I clutched at small slippery knobs of rock with my right hand and braced my left forearm against the other side of the channel. For the first few footholds, I felt Ma's hands guiding my boots. Then she shouted something, which I couldn't hear clearly over the rumbling thunder and tumbling water. She shouted again, "I'm sorry, Clara!"

I searched for her hand with my foot, but there was nothing but air. Was she sorry she could not reach my feet to help me? Was she sorry we had ever left Mica Creek? I searched blindly for places to brace my feet and knees and clambered up the last few feet.

Fifteen feet above the new river, the chute leveled out and I pushed myself onto the ledge and looked down. "I made it, Ma!"

Seeing me safe on the ledge, Ma smiled. Her hair had come undone and separated into wet seaweed strands down her shoulders. Her face was streaked with rain—or maybe tears. I would have expected her to look panicked or angry, but her face melted from a smile to a mix of surprise and resignation. "I can't make it," she said.

I crouched on hands and knees, still panting, staring down at the water, sensing its power and pull. For a moment—just a moment—I imagined sliding down to Ma. If we stopped fighting the current, it would be over in minutes. Our bodies would be dashed against the rocks; our lungs would fill with water. I might catch one last glance at Ma's battered body as it was tossed from boulder to boulder, and then—nothing. What kind of hubris had made us think we could cross a continent? Our pride would be the death of us.

No, it wouldn't. Not today. All I had to do was help Ma up to the ledge. I shouted over the roar of wind and water. "At least try!"

I watched Ma loop her satchel handles over her forearm and attempt the first foot- and handhold, but the bulk of the grips kept her from firmly bracing her arm against the side of the chute. She lost her tenuous hold and slipped back down.

"Let it go, Ma," I said. I motioned tossing her satchel into the river so she could climb unencumbered, but she shook her head. She lifted the bag toward me, indicating I should catch it.

I shook my head, but she nodded again. She was so gosh-awful stubborn. I'd just have to get her bag and hope to get her up here, too, before she was swept away. I lay down at the edge of the ledge, water streaming under my poncho and skirts, and stretched down my arms. She shifted her position several times, apparently feeling with her feet underwater for a place between rocks to wedge her feet while she got ready to throw.

She lifted her satchel two-handed behind her head for an overhand throw, still fighting for her balance in the river. The satchel sailed up toward me and my fingertips grazed one rain-slicked end, but it slipped away from me like a greased pig. Ma threw her hips forward to trap the bag between her body and the rocks and snatched a handle before it could be washed away in the river, still rising minute by minute.

She rested her forehead against the wall, her back heaving as she gulped in air. Then she clutched her bag for another try.

"Forget the bag, Ma!" I wasn't sure she could hear me, so I mimed again throwing the bag into the river. "Just get yourself up here."

She shook her head and flung the bag again. This time I hooked two fingers on the handle long enough to get a two-handed grip on it, and rose to my knees to shove it to the back of the ledge. Now for Ma.

She made a weak try at the first foothold and slipped down again into the water.

"You just have to make it the first few feet on your own, Ma. Once you're partway up, I can help you from here." I waved a loop of my satchel's rope handle over the edge. "See, Ma?" I began to fumble with the knots that connected the rope to my satchel, but rain had swollen the knots into place like glue. I sobbed with frustration. Then I remembered Arthur's penknife. "Hang on, Ma! I'll have a rope for you in a minute!" I sawed frantically at the rope with the little knife, but it was so dull that I despaired of slicing through in time to save Ma.

She made it up one handhold, two, three, while strand by strand the fibers on the rope snapped. Her fingertips were white with the cold and pressure of clutching at the merest knobs of rock. "Clara, I can't!" she wailed as one foot lost its purchase on the rock and she started to slide down the chute.

"Don't you dare leave me alone here!" I shouted, still sawing at the rope. I jerked once, again, and ripped the last few strands of rope from the short leather handle. "Here, Ma!" I leaned over the ledge and dangled the three feet of rope toward Ma as she started to slip another foot down the slide.

Her feet were just inches above the churning rapids. An uprooted twenty-five-foot pine, tossing like a twig in the river, hurtled toward Ma and threatened to sweep her off her slippery hold.

I cautiously edged another two inches forward. "Up, Ma!" I screeched. "Handhold six inches straight up with your left hand." Her left hand groped the rock like a blind crab and found the wedge of rock to cling to. Just as she shifted her weight to her higher handhold, the pine tree swept past, brushing Ma's skirts and dousing her with spray. Ma seemed oblivious to her near miss with death and continued her tortuous climb.

Right foot searching, finding. Left foot searching, finding. Right hand reaching, reaching. Fingertips finding the frayed end of the rope. I tried to look only at Ma and not the rapids below as I slithered another four inches toward the edge and locked my ankles around the base of a scrub pine behind me.

When Ma grasped the end of the rope, I felt the pull from my hands to my ankles. The intense pressure abated as Ma found a place for one foot and took most of her weight off the rope. "One more and you're up, Ma!"

Ma took two shuddering breaths and tightened her grip on the rope. "I'm pulling on three," I said. She nodded.

"One." Check ankle grip. "Two." Check grip on the knot. "Three!" I tried to flex my knees toward the tree as I pulled hand over hand on the rope to bring Ma closer to the ledge. My temples throbbed and my arms and knees shuddered with the tension as I finally reached Ma's hands and dragged her up beside me. Her knuckles were bloody and she'd ripped the front of her poncho as she slid up on the ledge, but we were together, above the water. Gasping and shaking, we pushed ourselves back on our seats as far as we could, wedged our satchels between our feet, and collapsed against the rock wall.

I leaned my head back and let the rain cool my flushed face. We were still alive. I tried to laugh. "This will be another chapter for your book, Ma." I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned my head against hers to reassure myself that she was still here, with me, and not swept away. She nudged her head against mine in answer.

"You can write this chapter," she said.

I
WOKE
to swooping and chattering siskins and finches. Was there anything more beautiful than sunrise when you thought that you would die before another morning? My teeth ached from chattering all night. My shoulders and hands throbbed from clutching the tree. I was starving. But the sky was clear and we were still alive.

The only proof of yesterday's maelstrom was the charred stump of the tree struck by lightning and the flotsam of uprooted bushes left behind by the receding water, reduced by now to an innocent trickling stream. Compared to yesterday's ear-numbing thunder, roaring water, bruised muscles, terror, despair, hope, and relief, Mica Creek was just an imitation of real life. I felt like I had not been totally alive before this day.