The Mountain Story

  “One of us has to be the adult here. I have the most experience,” Vonn said.

  “You’re eighteen, Vonn,” Bridget said. “What do you know about being an adult? You think you’re grown up because you’re running around Tin Town?”

  Tin Town?

  “Not now, Bridget,” Nola said.

  “Because you’ve been hanging out with some biker in Tin Town.”

  “What biker? Who said anything about Tin Town?” Vonn said, turning to Nola for translation.

  “I heard you talking about him on the phone,” Bridget said.

  “You’re insane,” Vonn said.

  Vonn didn’t look like a Tin Town type to me. But then she didn’t look like a Santa Sophia type, either. I wasn’t so sure about Bridget.

  “You were coming to the desert to help Mim,” Bridget said. “Remember? You came to keep her company.”

  “I am here to help Mim.”

  “Vonn’s been good company,” Nola protested.

  “Running around Tin Town?”

  “Who’s running around Tin Town?” Vonn asked. “What is she talking about?”

  “I know bikers are trouble,” Bridget said.

  “What are you all talking about?” Vonn was genuinely bewildered. “Whatever you think you heard—you’re wrong.”

  “Not every person that rides a motorcycle is a criminal, Bridget,” Nola said.

  Some of my favourite people rode motorcycles. Byrd’s uncle Harley, ironically, had a Honda, and his cool uncle Dantay had a Harley, an entire collection of Harleys, actually. His cousin Juan Carlos had a dirt bike. My cousin Yago rode a Shovelhead Classic, but then again he was a criminal.

  “You came together,” I said. “It didn’t seem like that.”

  “We’re the Devines!” Nola said it as if I should have known. “Vonn is my granddaughter. Bridget is her mother.”

  It hit me then that Vonn hadn’t been staring at me earlier on the tram. She’d been watching Bridget with her big blond clip-on ponytail, probably wondering what her mother was telling the tragic boy-man in the Detroit Tigers cap.

  “Bridget has a home in Golden Hills. Do you know it?” Nola asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh, it’s lovely.”

  “Near the coast,” Bridget said.

  “Really just as close to the valley as the ocean,” Vonn said.

  “Sure.”

  “Vonn’s been staying with me at my condo in Rancho Mirage,” Nola said.

  “Are you a local?” Bridget asked.

  “I’m from Michigan,” I said.

  “Michigan? But how are you a mountain guide here?” Bridget asked.

  I realized I was digging a deep hole with my sins of omission. “I have a friend here. That I visit. I come here a lot. Hiking.”

  “That’s a long way away.”

  “It is.”

  After that came a long stretch of silence, which Nola broke by whispering, “I keep reaching for him. Isn’t it funny that I’d still be doing that?”

  Bridget and Vonn sighed in sympathy.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. I said it because it was the thing people say but I meant it too. I could feel the vibration from their collective grief.

  “It gets cold in Michigan,” Nola said. “Ohio, too. I grew up in Ohio.”

  “Even Malibu’s too cold for me,” Bridget said.

  “Once, when I was a kid, it went to twenty below in Macomb County,” I said. “Six people died of exposure in one night.”

  “Why are you telling us that?” Vonn asked.

  “I’m saying it won’t get that cold here,” I said, covering. “I’ve spent dozens of nights on the mountain. Nights way colder than this. We’ll be fine. Just stay close together.”

  The women seemed relieved, which had been the purpose of my lie. The truth is I’d spent only one night on the mountain. One disastrous night.

  Byrd popped into my head. He was never really far from my thoughts—especially on the mountain.

  The Gremlin’s tank was still more than three-quarters full when we passed the Welcome to Santa Sophia sign in the dark morning hours.

  Frankie was humming softly along with the Beatles while I stared out the window, the mountain looming somewhere in the night. Instead of driving straight to his sister Kriket’s house after eight days on the road Frankie found the Santa Sophia Gas station/convenience store.

  “Remember we’re going up the mountain tomorrow. Right? We’re going to climb to the peak. First day there,” I said.

  Frankie started coughing. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

  A rusty cowbell clanged when we entered the store, which appeared to be empty, the cash register unattended. “ ’lo?” Frankie called.

  Figuring the clerk was in the restroom I took a cold grape pop from the fridge and drank it in three loud gulps, then guzzled two more cans, belching thunderously, while Frankie discovered a surprisingly extensive magazine selection on the rear wall. I tossed the pop cans in the trash.

  “I had three pops, Frankie. Don’t forget to pay for them.”

  Frankie nodded. “They carry everything here,” he called out. “Look at this selection! Comics. Travel. Hobbies. Ascent? Field and Stream?” He plucked a comic from the shelf and planted his feet to read.

  I’d worked out by now that my aunt Kriket’s house was not a place you wanted to race to. My father hadn’t once telephoned her while we were on the road, and I wondered if she even knew we were coming.

  “Hot as shit,” Frankie complained.

  It was, I supposed.

  Frankie headed toward the bank of refrigerators and took his time selecting a six-pack of his usual brand. “If it’s hot like this at night what must this shithole be like during the day? Who the hell’d go outside?”

  “Golfers,” a voice responded from the shadows behind the cash register.

  A boy, about my age, who had been out of sight, reclining on a lawn chair in the office behind the counter, rose and shuffled toward the register. He was my height, in fact strikingly similar in physique, facial structure, haircut, style. “Old dudes mostly,” he added.

  We might have been brothers or at least cousins. The bridge of his nose was slightly broader, his hair darker and thicker, his eyes black, his complexion olive. The differences were defining ones, for I guessed he was Native American straight off and he did not guess so of me.

  “Michigan plates,” the clerk said, gesturing to the green Gremlin in the parking lot. “I was born in the Detroit area.”

  “Mercury,” I said. “Ways up from Mount Clemens.”

  “I grew up in Hamtramck,” he said. “You know Brodski’s Polish Deli?”

  “No.”

  “My grandparents owned it. Best kielbasa. Best perogies.”

  “Cool.”

  “I’m going back there someday. Open the restaurant up again,” he said. “You like the Tigers?”

  “What d’ya think?” I said, reaching to touch my baseball cap, deeply sorry to find I’d left it in the car. “Left my Tigers cap in the car.”

  “I believe you,” he said.

  We nodded in sync, our Michigan connection feeling like more than mere coincidence.

  My father joined us, setting his beer and a magazine on the counter, and stared at the boy for a long moment before he said, “Cahoola?”

  The clerk jerked his head toward me, expecting I’d interpret, but I was pretty sure Frankie was having a stroke, aphasia being one of the warning signs. It scared the hell out of me when he said it again. “Cahoola?”

  The clerk stared.

  “I’m part Cree,” Frankie said. “That’s a northern tribe. I figured if you’re from here you must be Cahoola.”

  Not a stroke. It was worse. “Cahoola.” The clerk glanced at me, wearing the merest grin as if to say, Is this guy for real?

  “I did some reading up on the area, Wolf,” Frankie said. (I hated my father when he tried to show off.) “Cahoola’s the
name of the local Native Americans, of which I am one, well, one-eighth. Cree. I’m one-eighth Cree.”

  I’d done some reading up about the area too, and I knew that the tribe’s name, Cahuilla, was pronounced Kah-wee-ah. I was careful not to meet the clerk’s eyes.

  Frankie went on. “The Cahoola Indians have been here for millions of years, Wolf, hunting up on the mountain, fishing down in the desert. The mountain is a sacred place to the Cahoola.”

  The boy nodded. “Still see some rock paintings up there. Mortars from acorn grinding. Shaman’s cave.”

  “You go up in that tram?” I asked.

  “I ride the tram all the time, dude.”

  “I don’t want this.” Frankie stopped the clerk from ringing up the magazine. “Just wanted to see what it said to do about snakebites. Their venom makes pudding out of your blood.”

  If there was a snakebite cure I wanted to know it. “What do you do?”

  Frankie’s tone mocked the expert advice. “Be still. Remove jewellery. Don’t use pressure. Don’t use a tourniquet. Don’t apply ice. Above all, don’t panic!”

  “You know better, Frankie?”

  “First thing you do with a snakebite? Piss on it,” Frankie said.

  “Piss on it?”

  “I read a thing.”

  “Don’t piss on me, Frankie,” I warned.

  Frankie said to the clerk, “You mind if I drink a beer in here?”

  After glancing out the store’s windows at the quiet dark parking lot, the clerk tore a can of beer from the foggy six-pack and tossed it to Frankie.

  “There’s a bush that grows on the mountain,” the clerk said slowly. “We make a paste from the leaves. It cured my grandmother’s skin cancer. Burned off my uncle’s wart. Made my rattler bite look like a flea bite.”

  “Rattler bite? From a rattlesnake?” I was spellbound.

  The boy pulled up his sleeve to reveal a minuscule pimple on his arm. “Everyone I know makes paste from the bush.”

  Frankie whistled. “There’s a cash crop right there.”

  “We don’t exploit nature for profit,” the boy said, unblinking.

  “No,” Frankie agreed. “But if I needed it. For snakebite or cancer? How would I find it?”

  “I only know the Cahoola name,” the boy said, then uttered a collection of guttural syllables that we clearly did not understand. “I’ll break it up,” he offered. “Repeat after me. Ken eye.”

  Frankie did, taking great care with the inflection. “Ken eye.”

  “Pretty good,” the clerk said. “Ee it,” he continued, pushing out a long throaty gurgle.

  “Ee it,” Frankie repeated, imitating the sound perfectly.

  The clerk seemed impressed. “You’ve never spoken a native tongue?”

  “Swear to God,” Frankie insisted.

  “Yo pu,” the clerk said slowly.

  Chuffed by the encouragement, Frankie repeated, “Yo pu.”

  “Say,” the clerk finished. “Now say it all together slowly.”

  “Ken eye ee it yo pu say,” Frankie said.

  My head snapped toward the clerk, whose nod to me was barely perceptible.

  “That’s uncanny,” the clerk told Frankie. (Who says uncanny?) “Dude, you sound totally Cahoola.”

  “Say it again, Frankie,” I said, fearing I’d bust out laughing. I’d never been the guy in on the joke before. I liked it.

  “Ken EYE ee it yo pu SAY,” Frankie sang loudly.

  The clerk nodded sagely, glanced around, and even though we were alone in the store, he lowered his voice to instruct, “There’s this nasty old woman who owns the gift shop at the visitor centre. She’s one hundred and seven years old. She knows everything. She can tell you where that bush grows,” the clerk said.

  “Right on,” Frankie said.

  “But you have to say it exactly right. First—this is important—you have to tell her that you’re looking for ‘the hairy bush.’ ”

  “I’m looking for the hairy bush,” Frankie said confidently. “Ken EYE ee it yo pu say?”

  I had to turn away.

  “There a local paper?” Frankie asked and nodded his thanks when the clerk sent him back toward the magazine rack.

  “Keep practising,” the clerk called.

  Frankie took the cue, dancing himself back to the magazine rack, repeating the phrase all the way.

  “Your old man’s a trip,” the boy said when Frankie was out of earshot.

  “Is there really a miracle snakebite cure, though?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “My cousins use sterasote—it’s like creosote but it grows at higher elevations. They use ephedra, ocotillo, cottonwood—all kinds of herbs.”

  “Which one did you use? That rattlesnake bite does look like a flea bite.”

  “That’s because it is a flea bite.”

  We laughed.

  “I live in the apartment out back if you need more information about the native flora and fauna.”

  “You have your own apartment?”

  He stared hard at me. “No one’s supposed to know. So don’t tell anyone. My uncle Harley owns this place. He lets me stay here.”

  “Cool.”

  “I have problems fitting in.” He said it with a grin, like somehow he knew that I did too. “I’m Byrd.”

  “Wolf.”

  “Byron,” he offered.

  “Wilfred,” I matched. So quickly we fell into shorthand. So instantly we understood each other.

  Just then the cowbell clanged to herald another arrival, playing out like a scene from those corny old teen movies, in slow motion, with heavy metal rock blasting from the stereo of her car. It was she—she of the silken black hair and the deep green eyes and the plush pink lips. She caught me staring open-mouthed and sneered in my direction before sliding behind the counter to stretch toward a package of cigarettes in the rack above Byrd’s head.

  The dramatic makeup she wore—thick mascara and purple eye-pencil—made her look fifteen when she was trying to look twenty-one, so I put her somewhere around seventeen. She noticed a beer missing from the six-pack on the counter and thumped Byrd on his forehead.

  Byrd pointed down the aisle at Frankie. “They’re his.”

  The fragrance of orange lingered after she walked away from us—not the odour of blossom or juice, but that bitter citrus oil that repels predators. It stung my eyes and made me blink.

  “Lark. My cousin,” Byrd explained. “She’s got demons.”

  I wondered if Lark’s demons were acquainted with Frankie’s demons because her body language changed when she saw him. I don’t know if Byrd and I exchanged actual words or just gestures with Byrd saying, Is my hot cousin seriously hitting on your jackass father? And me responding, This happens all the time. Check it out.

  We watched a moment longer, Lark’s easy smile and swinging hips, Frankie’s sideways grin and outthrust pelvis, but when Lark grasped Frankie’s upper arm, Byrd called out, “I’m not staying here all night, Lark! You better not be too long! You better hurry up and get back! We’re both dead if I get caught behind this counter.”

  Lark threw a scowl at Byrd and a grimace at me before she sauntered back past and out the door.

  Smiling, Frankie followed, stopping at the counter. “What’s your name?”

  “Byrd,” the boy answered, as we all turned to look at Lark’s silhouette against the neon light in the parking lot.

  “Byrd,” I said loudly. “He said his name is Byrd.”

  “Like … flapping?” Frankie inquired.

  “Like Larry,” Byrd grinned.

  “Hate the Celtics,” Frankie said. “How do you say ‘It’s good to meet you,’ in Cahoola?”

  “The slang way’s simple. Like saying ‘What’s up?’ It’s Yo arra.”

  I lowered my face when Frankie repeated, “Yo arra.”

  “The formal version is longer. It’s how you’d address an elder, a teacher or a cop, for example. You add fah ken ut. Yo arra fah ken ut.”


  “Yo arra fah ken ut,” Frankie said slowly.

  We repeated that phrase to each other, Byrd and me, a thousand times after that day. It was the bedrock of our friendship. I’d once asked him if we’d exhumed the stupid cliché of the wise red man having one over on the dumbass white man. He thought about it for a moment, because Byrd was a thinker, and then said, “Not cliché, brother. Classic.”

  Nola was restless, wincing in pain.

  “We’ll get that arm looked at first thing tomorrow,” I said.

  “Not first thing,” Bridget said. “First we have to get back.”

  At that point, I felt confident that I could find my way to the Mountain Station in the morning. “We’ll get back,” I said.

  “Michigan is a long way away,” Nola said.

  “Where are your parents? Are they here with you?” Vonn asked.

  “They’re still in Michigan.”

  “Are you here on vacation?” Nola asked.

  “I came alone.”

  “Alone?”

  “I come a lot. From Michigan. To see my buddy,” I faltered.

  “All the way from Michigan?” Nola wondered. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” I said. I did not tell them it was my eighteenth birthday.

  “Why didn’t your buddy come with you?” Bridget asked.

  “Sick,” I said. “He was sick, so he couldn’t come.”

  “But he knows you’re here?” Bridget asked.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t want him to feel bad for missing the hike.”

  “But he’s waiting for you.”

  “No.”

  “He’ll be waiting to hear from you, right?” Bridget said.

  “I told him I was on my way back. To Michigan.”

  “Oh.”

  I tried to turn the conversation. “Who’s waiting for you?”

  “Well, if Pip hadn’t died a few months ago he’d be waiting for me,” Nola said, then amended, “No, he wouldn’t. He’d be here with me. He never got lost.”

  “Someone must be waiting for you?”

  “There will be,” Nola said, “when they realize we’re missing.”

  “No one knows we’re up here, Mim,” Bridget said.

  “Someone knows.”

  “No one knows.”

  “Pip just hated getting lost. He would just hate this.”