Juggling Fire (7 page)

In the morning the tent is steaming hot. I slide out through the front, shedding my bag inside. There’s an endless supply of dead branches to snap off for my fire. I carve a spoon from a chunk of cottonwood bark while I wait for my pot to boil. The forest is noisy with gray jays and tiny black-capped chickadees and rustling leaves.

On the spine of a hill, caribou mill about, digging for lichen, all skinny legs and antlers in the distance.

I am happy, relaxed at last.

The trouble is that I’m growing up. Becky has known what she wanted since she was small. She loves to run dogs and her life just falls into place around it. Maybe I should have taken an extra year to finish school, not a year less. Becky has to stay in shape. She has to work at two jobs in the summer to support her team and run them every day in the winter. Most winters there’s a litter of pups, and she sells all but the smartest and fastest. She goes where she likes, wandering miles and miles of trails with her dogs. Mom only asks that she draw a route map on a white board before she leaves. But how do I make a life from fairy tales and juggling, and the memory of a clearing in a forest long ago and far away, and a father who was either a kindly king or a humble woodcutter, depending on how you look at it?

“For heaven’s sake, Rachel,” said Mom, brushing my hair from
my forehead. “
None
of the endings are actually true. They’re
just stories. Somebody made them up. It doesn’t matter if it’s
the author’s ending or mine or yours.”

This was serious. Didn’t Mom know that I dreamed of
a lake? The water was blue and cliffs rose from it, and white
birds roosted on the rocks and wheeled over its surface. And all
true stories flowed from that lake, that beautiful lake. Endings
couldn’t be changed simply because somebody wanted happiness.
For heaven’s sake, dragons and prison guards patrolled its
entrance. Princesses and princes had died, falling gallantly from
overhanging boulders, yearning to reach the water nestled
below them.

After many days of wandering through the wild forest, the
princess wheeled her steed about and drew up beside the prince’s.
“We could die here,” she said. “I’m afraid.”

The prince nodded his head and reached across to touch
her hand.

Side by side, they trotted up a grassy slope until the horses
could climb no more. Then the princess and the prince dismounted
and set forth by foot through the enchanted forest, their hands on
the sheaths of their swords, for there were many dangers…

Of course, I didn’t say all that, or even think it clearly, when I was small. But I kind of did. Fairy tales were sacred to me, nothing to be messed with. But because I couldn’t put it into words, I only kissed Mom and let her snuff out the light with her breath, quiet and warm in the darkness.

I’ve changed since the bear came into camp. Grizzly and polar bears can breed—pizzlies, they’re called, or grolar bears. They’re so new that there isn’t an established word yet. Maybe polar bears are wandering farther inland from the melting ice these days and meeting up with grizzlies they once evolved from. A grizzly and black bear supposedly mated in a London zoo, but their offspring didn’t live. Is the golden bear a hybrid who has somehow managed to grow up? And be beautiful.

Grizzlies are considered to be a symbol of wilderness because they need such an enormous range to thrive. Without an intact ecosystem to roam through, grizzlies die off. It’s not enough to preserve bits of habitat here and there: grizzlies need to wander.

I tie a pouch at my belt and drop my bear spray and banger into it for easy reach. Whenever I see spots moving in the trees, my hand cups the top of the pouch and gently tugs it free, like a cowboy drawing his six-shooter.

It’s different traveling in the forest. I miss the open land and the smell of Labrador tea when I lie on my stomach and willow smoke when I blow twigs into flame. The woods are to my left, dropping to the river. Beyond the forest on my right rise mountains: the lower slopes are dark with buckbrush; the upper slopes are bright with glistening outcrops of rock.

Every day I’m remembering more about Dad. Sometimes I can open the door to the past and he’s waiting inside. One memory will spark so many others, like a line of firecrackers when the fuse is lit. When that happens, it doesn’t feel like I’m remembering. It’s like I’m actually there.

The funny thing is that I’m different in those memories. I’m not a very emotional person. It’s only when I’m in the room of memories with Dad that I’m light and happy. I feel free. Until I remember—quickly as a curtain shutting off the stage—he’s gone.

I see the bear in the heat of the afternoon, a yellow swath over a dark shape lumbering far off through the trees. He’s gone so fast, I’m not sure it’s really him. Brooks growls and stiffens by my side.

I camp where I turn off from the forest to climb another pass. Although I’ve already eaten a cold supper while I walked, I light a fire and lie stretched beside it while the bowl of stars and the northern lights shimmer across the darkness.

From now until almost at the cabin, there is no more trail. If I don’t read the map properly, I’ll get lost. I’ll turn around and the mountains will all look the same no matter which direction I turn.

“Follow a creek,” Mom said. “All the creeks flow north into the
same river. When you get to the river, walk to the cabin if you
know which direction it’s in. If you don’t, stay visible on the bank
and we’ll find you. Don’t go back into the forest. Don’t leave the
water. Make a decent camp and relax. We’ll come eventually.”

For days she’d been giving me so much advice that I couldn’t
take it all in. She’d mentioned this already at least three times.

“Mom,” I sighed, my hand on her shoulder, “I’ll be just fine.”

7
Panic

In the morning, fear is dancing like dust motes in the air. I can’t keep still. A cooling wind blows through my head, freezing my thoughts. A natural theater of jagged mountains is to the right of my camp. I poke at last night’s fire with a stick, and a cloud of ash billows up, making me cough. I heap lichen on still-red coals and blow until they flame a pale yellow.

Then I pace.

Snow streams out from the peaks I’m heading toward, like schools of fish darting through currents of air. If I broke camp and walked, I could get to the cabin without sleeping properly again. I could just head directly there, nap and walk, nap and walk. Dad’s handiwork will be all over the clearing and in the cabin and down the trails we made when we lived there. Dad’s blazes will be on the spruce trees, showing the way, marks from his ax fading into the tree trunks.

Mom told me she put our gear in the cache, as well as leftover food. Did she put in everything? Will his coffee cup be sitting on the counter? Will his frying pan be hanging on a nail above the stove and will his ax be stuck in the chopping block? Mom was looking for clues, not aiming for a clean camp.

Panic sweeps over me. My breath comes in quick ragged gasps.

He wanted to come back. He told me he would.

He could be anywhere, of course. Maybe he never came back to the cabin. Maybe the memories hurt him too much, so he just wanders about from camp to camp through the mountains, always on the move. Maybe he’s okay as long as he doesn’t have to damp down the restlessness churning inside him.

I stoop and stroke Brooks’s back. I’m still growing. At this rate I’ll soon have to kneel to pat him. What with walking all day and growing, I’m probably starving myself. Maybe I wouldn’t panic so fast if I just had more food.

I stand, feet slightly apart, elbows at my sides, and swivel my body, each time bringing it back to home position. After a few minutes, I pick up my juggling balls and warm up. I toss one ball behind my back and up and retrieve it with the other hand. Smooth and relaxed. Smooth and relaxed. Over and up into the other hand, with always an instant where the audience can no longer see the ball. From now on, there’s no more trail. I’ll just follow the river.

When we’re dreaming—or remembering—time doesn’t exist.

The balls cascade out from the center, and I remember Dad in the sunshine on the gravel bar with his baseball cap on and his fishing rod flying out from his shoulder. I stacked rocks for a castle by his side. A warm breeze blew from the passes where the creek flowed down from the mountains. When I was little, I was sure I heard beautiful music, barely audible, on the wind. Mom and Becky were somewhere close by, and when I turned from my makebelieve world to fill my pot with river water for a moat, I saw smoke rising from our chimney and drifting to fill the wild forest around our hut.

Dad smelled like wood smoke and tobacco. So did the air about me. Peace buzzed through the air and landed lightly on us and made me smile. Did we live happily ever after?

I didn’t know what happiness was then, but I lived in it; I breathed it in.

I finish juggling with a high throw. While the third ball is overhead, I clap my right hand to my left, transferring its ball. I catch the high ball with my empty hand, letting only my arms do the work.

Brooks sits before me, eyes tracing each movement.

“Let’s take the day off, Brooks,” I say, packing the balls away for the day.

An idea comes to me as I speak. “We’ll just leave everything here and walk up this draw along the creek. Maybe I’ll see something with the monocle from the ridge.”

I fill Brooks’s pack with cheese and nuts, drop the monocle in a shirt pocket and snap on my waist belt filled with bangers and bear spray and bug dope. We climb a knoll through dwarf birch and look back at my camp. A smudge of campfire smoke still drifts across the tundra. I think about returning to put it out, but the tundra is wet. It shouldn’t burn.

The brush is thick, and I need both arms to push my way through. Brooks gets stuck again and again with his pack. He whines and turns to bite himself free. I haul on his collar.

I haven’t eaten breakfast. I put my hands on my stomach.

It’s sunken in. I’m not hungry, of course. At home I mostly eat in bed at night while I read. Here I can’t do that.

Ahead I see an open patch covered with dried bearberry and blueberry leaves like a splash of spilled red wine. The golden bear is grazing in the berry patch. He is minding his own business, shoveling berries—leaves and all—between his loose black lips. Startled, he glances over at us and shakes his head.

Brooks dashes to the bear and stands by its head, barking his foolish head off. Like a boxer, he dances back and forth. The bear lifts his massive head, crowberry plants trailing out both sides of his mouth.

Brooks nips at its front leg. Like a demented terrier, he grasps the leg between his jaws, his whole body tossing with the effort.

“Brooks!”

No response.

The bear makes a grating sound like he’s grinding his teeth.

“Come!”

I see a paw with claws like hunting knives reach up and swipe through the bright air. Then Brooks is on the ground, lost under a mountain of shaking fur.

“No!” Not my voice. Not my voice at all.

Brooks screams; the bear grunts. Brooks is between the bear’s jaws now, being shaken back and forth like a towel. His ears hang down.

I screw the cylinder of gunpowder into the banger.

I want to run. It’s such an enormous effort not to.

Instead I point the banger into the air and then lower it a fraction so the flare will explode slightly toward me. I don’t want the bear to be scared in my direction. I pull back on the safety and, almost in the same motion, grab my bear spray from its holster and yank off its safety just in case the bear won’t leave.

The flare explodes with an orange tail.

The bear is running low to the ground. I see his yellow stripe rippling from head to tail, shoulder hump pumping as he escapes. Pee dribbles between his back legs. I can smell it, sour and hot.

I screw in another flare and watch it explode.

Willow branches snap back and forth. Behind the bear, bushes shake until gradually they still.

No birds.

Brooks lies on the ground without moving, his green pack ripped open.

The cheese is bloody. So are the nuts. Brooks’s blood blends with the red plants of the tundra.

I pick up the empty gunpowder shells from the earth and stick them in my pocket. I don’t know why; they’re completely useless but I want to hang on to them.

Then someone is screaming. Noises pour from my mouth. I fold my arms around my chest to keep them in.

Everything I love disappears. I’ll never see our cabin again. My father won’t come back. And now, neither will Brooks. There’s just loss, like the ball at hip level vanishing behind my back with a slight upward tilt.

“Becky’s happy,” said Mom. “She runs her dogs and she’s living
her own dreams. You need to let go of what happened to Dad.

Remember the good times and what he was like then.”

“But there’s nothing left, Mom,” I said.

“You’ll always have your memories.”

“You can’t eat memories,” I said, before I could think. “And
nothing else tastes good.”

I put my arms around Brooks’s neck and hold him. I’m lying on blood. I wriggle out of my sweater and place it on his flank, behind his pack.

My feelings are still somewhat frozen, but my memories are growing stronger. They unfold with all my senses involved: sight and smell and hearing and touch and even taste. They’re a time machine, and I can work the controls at will. It’s just a little trickier staying in the present.

Then Brooks picks up his head and licks my face.

He’s alive.

Barely, but he’s alive.

If he has to die, I want him to die this very second. That way neither of us will suffer. It’s childish and it’s selfish and I shouldn’t feel like that. But for this moment, I do.

I take the bags of bloody cheese and nuts and hurl them with all my strength down the mountain. Then I stand, hands over my face, and force myself to breathe slowly. It’s so hard to tear away my hands. I don’t want to see mountains all around me. I don’t want to see that I’m completely alone.