Lava Falls Read online

  I come around the last bend and see the cabin. It is whole and upright. Sunlight glints off the window. As I draw closer, the front door opens. A scrawny old man comes out holding a plate of food. He has white hair and a white beard, both crudely trimmed, as if with pruning shears. He sits on the same stump we put there our first season. He stabs the meat on his plate and takes a bite, chews. Then he looks downriver and sees me.

  The old man doesn’t even rise to his feet. He hardly squints. Later I’ll learn that interlopers have become much more common than they were in our first years. Several parties of adventure seekers come through every summer and pilots fly dozens of hunters in for the fall season. I am nothing unusual, or so he thinks at first. He continues to concentrate on his meal until I start to land the boat on our beach. Then he sets the plate on the ground next to his stump and walks slowly toward me. He is bent and moves stiffly.

  It is, of course, Father.

  I can’t bring myself to call him that, so instead I speak his Christian name.

  That stops him. He looks about in confusion. I feel as if I have trapped him, caught him out, at long last. As if he’s waited his entire life for someone to find him, and now someone has. But who?

  He takes a step closer. Now he does squint. He speaks my mother’s name. And that’s when my heart breaks.

  “No,” I say. It’s all I can say.

  His knees buckle and he sits on the beach, legs splayed, eyes on me. I crawl out of the kayak and stand next to it, unable to move closer.

  He struggles back to his feet, embarrassed by his weakness, and so now I make myself walk toward him. I stop a few feet away. Tears wet his whole face. He sits again, and so do I, there on the pebbled beach in the sun.

  I speak first, telling him the short version of my life these past decades. I don’t apologize for leaving. He listens, nodding as I speak.

  Then I ask about the boys.

  He looks across the river, across the trees, maybe even beyond the mountains. He says, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “They left two years after you.”

  “Did they take the rowboat?” It is sitting on the beach, not ten yards away. He shakes his head.

  “They left on foot?”

  “Must have.”

  I am stunned that the boys left, got out, and yet didn’t ever try to contact me stateside. Maybe they hated me for leaving them. Or maybe they had only left here, the cabin on Sweet Creek. They could be anywhere in this wild state. Mother, Father, the twins, me, we are all devastatingly self-sufficient.

  But, I know all too well, that doesn’t mean not lonely.

  I see in Father what I couldn’t see as a girl. Grief. Huge rolling waves of it. As big as Alaska. As long as the Yukon. As far flung as the arctic terns. He sits on his beach, the one he’s called home for over forty years, and tries to rest his eyes on his inlet. There is no rest. This place has not supported his family, after all. It has only supported him, one lonely man with an even lonelier dream.

  Father rallies a bit that night in the cabin as he tells Gregory and Stuart stories about storms and hunger and wolves. They are rapt listeners. They nod in complete agreement when Father tells them that Alaska has been ruined, has become one big playground. He says he has no peace. The intruders arrive by boatloads and planeloads. Some come on foot. He claims to want nothing from them. But I can see that they have been keeping him alive. Surely he doesn’t have the strength to hunt anymore. And all about his cabin are signs of the intruders’ generosity: canned foods, a Gore-Tex jacket, a high-tech pair of snowshoes, even bags of chips. I easily picture these people coming upon the old man in his cabin and giving him everything they can spare.

  We all sleep in the cabin that night. In the morning I take Gregory aside and tell him to call his contact in Fairbanks.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. I may imagine it, but I think I see the accusation of betrayal in his eyes.

  I nod. “I’m sure.”

  Then I tell Father to gather up anything he wants to take with him. The boys brace themselves, hands behind their backs, feet spread, watching the two of us, expecting his resistance, an outburst.

  Father says, “I don’t need anything.”

  “The helicopter will be here in an hour,” I say.

  Stuart actually tears up.

  I ask my guides if one of them can handle the double kayak without me. I had been looking forward to drifting back down the rivers, the ease of leaving. It hadn’t occurred to me that I would leave with more than an emotional souvenir, that my visiting Sweet Creek would be the beginning of a new, even more complex journey.

  The chopper lands in the upper meadow. A ruddy redheaded pilot announces that he has another job, is doing us a favor by fitting in our run, and asks us to hurry. Gregory and Stuart stand on the edge of the meadow, just as Mother and Father had done when I first landed here. Father sits up front and the pilot helps him with his seatbelt. I press my forehead against the window and, as we fly away, take in the lay of the land from above. Our cabin quickly diminishes to a dark spot. Sweet Creek nothing more than a silvery ribbon. Big River the muscle of our geography, the attachment to the civilized Yukon, and then our life is gone.

  Already I see Fairbanks. It had always been this close. I reach forward and take Father’s hand off his thigh. I hold it against my cheek. He can’t hear me over the roar of the helicopter’s engine, but I say, “I’m sorry.”

  Life Drawing

  Blair saw Charles most days on her walk home from school. He lived a block and a half away from her family, apparently by himself, and was usually watering his roses when she went by. He always looked at her. You might even say, studied her. As if he were—and this was a phrase she’d learned from her mother—undressing her with his eyes.

  At his age, too. It made it dirtier.

  Blair was proud of her solution to the problem. After a few weeks of this ogling, she started fetching her Bible from her backpack, as soon as she got off the school bus. She carried it prominently against her chest, like a shield, as she passed Charles’s house.

  The first time she did this, he smiled. It occurred to her then that she had been all wrong. Maybe he was a Christian, too. Maybe he knew her family and was only showing an interest. Blair was embarrassed that she’d thought the words undressing and ogling. She entertained the possibility that she, not he, had been the one having dirty thoughts. The truth was important to Blair, even if it made her uncomfortable.

  That night at the dinner table she asked her parents if they knew the man who lived with all the roses in front of his house. They looked at her blankly, and then her father put down his knife and fork and asked, “Why?”

  “His roses are such a beautiful example of God’s presence,” she said. “That’s all.”

  Everyone nodded—her parents and her little sister Ruthie and big brother Joshua—and that was the end of it. She didn’t mention Charles to her family again.

  But she kept clutching her Bible as she passed by, and Charles kept looking. After that first time, though, he didn’t smile anymore. Blair wondered if the word sinister would describe his interest in her. She couldn’t help noticing that her walk loosened under his gaze.

  On the Monday of the last week of school, he finally spoke to her.

  “Do you read that?” he asked, gesturing with the running hose. The water came dangerously close to Blair’s feet and she jumped back.

  Charles laughed. “Sorry!”

  “If you mean the Bible, yes I do.”

  “What does it tell you?”

  “You haven’t read it?”

  Charles glanced down and then up again, meeting her purposefully challenging stare. “I have. Parts, anyway. It was a long time ago. Do you recommend it?”

  Her father said to never let anyone mock the Bible or their faith. Smile, he said, and speak the words of the Savior. It didn’t matter which words. Just be sure to always answer a disbeliever. Always defend
God.

  “I do recommend it.”

  “And it teaches you what?”

  “To live chastely.” Where did that come from? She was embarrassing herself again. So she added, “To love Jesus.”

  Charles nodded. “Thanks.”

  Blair stood still for a moment, watching him water his roses. Then she realized that she was pausing inappropriately, and so she walked on home.

  The following day, Blair slowed her pace as she neared Charles’s house. She’d thought about him a lot since their conversation, and it occurred to her that she had a responsibility as a Christian. She wanted another opportunity to talk to him. Today she held her Bible loosely in her hand, the one on his side of the street, and checked her outfit before coming into view. She wore tight jeans, like any fifteen-year-old, and two camisoles, a white one under a lace-trimmed, hot pink one. She tugged at the neckline of both, making sure she wasn’t showing too much. She wanted to be very clear.

  Blair stopped in front of his house, surprised to see that Charles wasn’t watering his roses. When a moment later he stepped out the front door, she was mortified to be caught standing still, as if she were waiting for him.

  “It’s the young evangelist,” Charles said and smiled more broadly than ever before.

  “I take it,” she said carefully, “you don’t believe.”

  “Oh, I believe,” he said.

  His sincerity confused her. He believed in what?

  He asked, “What’s your favorite verse?”

  Blair knew so many verses by heart, but her mind went blank. Or not so much blank, as it became filled with curiosity about this rose-tending man rather than with Bible verses. He was handsome, she realized, even if about three times her age. He was thin with gaunt cheeks and tousled brown hair, only a few strands of gray. His old skin looked pleasant, the way it rested softly against the muscles in his arms. He wore a faded dark green T-shirt and worn Levi’s, a pair of sneakers on his feet. He looked so comfortable. What she had told her family was true, his roses were a testament to God’s presence. The thorny bush he watered now, holding the hose end almost tenderly, letting the water gurgle onto the roots, had tight golden buds with orangey-red edges. She wanted to see them in full bloom.

  He waited and so she blurted, “I like first Corinthians 13:13.”

  When he raised an eyebrow, she recited, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

  Then she felt the hot flush of blood in her face. This is the one Henry had quoted her just yesterday, but for the wrong reason. It was also the wrong version—his church used the King James.

  Charles nodded and said, “Yes.” As if he knew the verse. He moved the stream of water to the next rose bush. “Nice one.”

  “What’s your favorite?” she asked back.

  “Mainly I remember the not-so-nice ones.”

  Disbelievers loved doing this. They thought they could trip you up by quoting stuff out of context. This would be a good time for her to walk away. Her dad said to not listen to blasphemy. Even letting it enter your ears can taint you. But she waited.

  Charles said, “How about this: ‘For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.’ Leviticus 20:9.”

  The hose hung loosely in his hand, soaking the roots of yet another bush, as he quoted. Now he lifted it and sprayed the bush’s leaves, almost as if he were angry.

  Blair had never cursed her parents, and she never would.

  “Put to death,” he repeated, holding his thumb over the end of the hose to make the water squirt hard.

  As Blair tried to think of the right thing to say, he continued. “Then there’s this: ‘But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die.’ Deuteronomy 22:20–21.”

  Shame pooled in the base of her belly. It was as if he knew. He was, after all, a man of her city. She imagined Charles, along with other neighbors, stoning her. But he only squinted at her, giving her one of those looks again, as if he were undressing her.

  She left without saying goodbye or commenting on his verses. Tomorrow she would tell Henry it was over. Better, she would leave the room right after band practice and not talk to him at all. She hadn’t done anything irreversible yet. No one could stone her. She was a virgin. And not one of the reclaimed ones. She was a real virgin. No one could stone her, she repeated to herself, and as she did, a confusing rock pile of anger replaced the pool of shame in her belly.

  That night when Blair said her prayers, she thanked God for introducing her to Charles. She realized He’d done so on purpose. Her neighbor was a test. And a reminder. She’d done nothing terrible yet. Not too terrible, anyway. She prayed for guidance and forgiveness and for pure thoughts. Then she prayed for her mother and father, for Ruthie and for Joshua. She climbed into bed and thought not about Charles but about his roses. They were lovely. He had deep red ones. And yellow ones that glowed. There were pale lavender ones too, dusty and strangely sad. Her favorites, though, were the yellow ones with orange edging on every petal.

  Over the next couple of days, Blair tried to think of ways to reengage Charles in conversation about the Bible, but two things stopped her. One, he didn’t speak first when she passed, and she didn’t want to be bold. And two, she knew her intentions were not entirely spiritual.

  Blair was only fifteen years old, but she knew a lie when she saw one, even when it was a lie she told only herself. She’d made a personal vow, not only to Jesus but to herself, to be rigorous about the truth. And the truth was: something about Charles attracted her. It wasn’t a sexual attraction. God no, he was at least forty, probably older. But her heart did that flutter thing, and she felt hot in the face, and her bowels got all icy when she walked by him. It was different, totally different, from how she felt with Henry. Still. Whatever the feeling was, it didn’t seem right, and until she understood what was going on, she thought she best ignore him.

  But he kept looking, and with exaggerated daring. As if, as long as she didn’t stop him, or take a different route home, he would filch everything he could get. Taking a different route home was exactly what she ought to do. Her continuing to let him look was, in a sense, agreeing to his nasty old man voyeurism, right?

  Then, on the last day of school, Charles called out, “Hey.”

  Blair had rehearsed this moment many times in her mind. She didn’t stop or even look in his direction. She kept walking, facing straight ahead. He laughed. It was not a mean laugh, just a short bellow. Like she’d surprised him, shown him something he hadn’t realized. Her resolve maybe. But then her feet took over and, all on their own, stopped. She tried to order them to go on, but instead they turned to face Charles. Okay, so maybe this was God guiding her feet. She would tell him off. That’s what she should do. Tell him to keep his filthy old eyes off of her body.

  The words seemed so mean, though, when she saw his face. He was no longer laughing, but his lips remained parted, as if he wanted to say something but had no idea what. He hadn’t shaved that day, so he had a bit of gray bristle, and the skin under his eyes sagged. She had this strange sense that looking at her sustained him in some way.

  That thought was sinful, she knew that. It was the sin of pride to think that she had the power to sustain anyone. Only God could do that. It was also the sin of vanity. What made her think she was attractive enough for anyone to get anything from looking at her? She was fat. Had bad skin. Dull hair. She was duck footed.

  And yet he kept staring, as if she were soaking his roots, nourishing the possibility of bloom.

  “How old are you, anyway?” Charles asked.

  “Fifteen.”

  He shrugged, as if that answered something, and said, “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time. Blair jutted out one hip, held the
Bible against her breasts, pursed her lips. He smiled slowly and said, “You’re very beautiful, do you know that?”

  What happened next was shocking. A wave of tears surged up her throat, filled her eyes. She didn’t know why. Every inch of her skin tingled with a sad ache. Like if she didn’t hold onto this moment, it would never, ever come again.

  Charles said, “I’d like to draw you.”

  “Draw me?” The tears made her voice scratchy.

  He shrugged again. “You’re too young, though.”

  Then the moment left, as if snatched away by God Himself. In its wake, she thought, this is a ruse. He wants to draw me? Right.

  She swallowed back the remaining tears and wished there were an inconspicuous way to pull up the necklines of her two camisoles. They were aqua and black today, and especially low cut.

  “You holding your Bible,” Charles added. He walked over to the spigot and turned off the water, began rolling up the hose.

  She couldn’t help asking, “Why with my Bible?”

  He thought for a moment and then shook his head. “It doesn’t help to think about it too much. I just like the juxtaposition.”

  That meant contrast. Or even clash. This made her mad. Blair wasn’t at odds with the Bible. It was her path and guide. She actually held it in front of her, like a steering wheel, and walked home.

  Once school let out Blair had no reason to walk by Charles’s house, and that was a relief. She put the man out of her mind. But pieces of him wouldn’t go away, like his faded green T-shirt and the feeling behind his sagging eyes, the words beautiful and juxtaposition. She wanted to see how his roses were coming along.

  On Friday night of the second week of summer vacation, Blair saw Henry at the mall. She was with her mom and Ruthie. He was with Chandra, another girl from school. His arm was draped over her shoulders so that his curled hand grazed her big boob. To make it even worse, Blair’s mother noticed the couple and had to comment on them, saying something about their behavior being inappropriate. They were giggling and bumping hips and pointing in store windows.