Something to Hold (15 page)

At first, thick brush presses in on the road from both sides. As we climb, more of the deep blue sky stretches through the trees. The slopes that face north are shadowed thick with timber, and a deep green foliage covers the open and sunny slopes that face south.

"Huckleberries." Pinky points out the window. "They'll be ripe in a few weeks." The air through the window lifts a clean, spicy scent into the cab.

Pete keeps the truck in the middle of the rutted track, even on the curves. He is not expecting to meet any traffic. We must have gone several miles when he suddenly points off to the side of the road up ahead.

"Smoke," he says.

Pete slows the truck as we come around a curve. It's only a campfire, carefully set inside a ring of stones in a small clearing beside the road.
Káthla
stands by her black pickup parked near the fire ring.

So this is where they're hiding.
There's no sign of Raymond, but I know he must be close by. I didn't tell my dad about their plans last night when I had the chance. And I won't say anything now.

Jewel pulls open the front flap of a tent tucked back into the trees and peers out.

"Hey," Pinky calls across me out the window. "Hi, Jewel!"

As we pass, Pete waves his arm above the driver's-side window.
Káthla
raises her hand in return, but she doesn't smile.

Finally, the road takes a couple more climbing curves and runs straight across the broad top of the butte. We slide to a stop in a clearing.

The first thing I notice are the gray legs of the lookout tower, anchored on four huge concrete slabs. I can't even see where the legs end until we open the door and step out. And then I have to tilt my head back and back, my eyes following an endless zigzag of metal steps all the way to the top, where the tiny lookout cabin finally appears. I think of all the summer nights when Mrs. Wesley's voice reached out of the radio and into my sleep. And now I'm here. A thrill runs up my backbone.

Mrs. Wesley, small so far up, leans out a window and waves.

"We're staying up there?" I ask Pinky. I hadn't thought about how high it would be.

She laughs. "No—there," and she points over to a little cabin I hadn't noticed under the trees.

Pete unties the tarp, reaches into the pickup bed, and tosses out our stuff. I take the sack of peaches from him before he can dump it on the ground too. "I gotta get back," he says. "You girls have fun up here."

"They will," says a voice behind us. Mrs. Wesley comes around the side of the pickup. She wears a plaid jacket and jeans, her black hair tied back under a scarf. She reaches out to Pinky and to me, hugs us, then stands clutching our shoulders. She smells of warm woods and rose lotion.

Pete grins, gives her a quick kiss, and gets back in the truck. He is careful not to gun the engine and raise a cloud of dust. The pickup disappears down the curve, but I can hear him changing the gears for a long way before the woods swallow up the sound and he is gone.

"Welcome to Sidwalter," Mrs. Wesley says.

M
RS.
Wesley leads us into the cabin and fixes lunch while we store our things in the apple box Pinky uses for a dresser. It takes no time to settle in—the cabin is just one square room. I take in the whole space in four quick turns. Right by the door, a desk and a radio like the one in our hallway, then a bed and some crates beside one window, table and three chairs under another, and a wooden counter and tiny stove at the third. Almost no space left over in the middle. Pinky and I will sleep outside, our bags spread on a tarp under the trees.

As we clean up, I see how much harder it is to live out in the woods than at home. Mrs. Wesley heats a kettle on the stove while Pinky and I haul more water from the big tank outside so that we can wash the dishes. All the food has to go back into the icebox or in a big tin box under the counter to keep it away from mice indoors and bears outside. And because there is so little room in the cabin, everything that is brought out to fix lunch has to be put away. "Or else we'll be tripping over it," Mrs. Wesley tells me as she heads for the tower and back to work.

Pinky and I put everything away. We sweep the whole floor and set the chairs and table straight. A breeze through the open windows cools the cabin.

Then she says, "Wanna go up in the tower?"

I'm not so sure. "It's ... tall."

I'm dying to see the view from up there. But the thought of all those stairs and the open weave of steel leaves my knees a little weak.

"Not so bad when it's calm," she says. "C'mon."

When we step out from the shelter of the trees around the cabin, the air is hot. A big space all the way around the lookout has been cleared of trees. "Fire break," Pinky says.

Before starting up the steps, she stops and turns around. "I'll go first. Just keep climbing.
Don't
look down."

I take a deep breath and follow her step by step up the stairs. She smiles back at me at the first landing, then takes the next set two at a time. By the time I reach the third landing, she has sprinted far ahead.

I am now taller than the trees, and I risk a quick look out across the woods. Mount Jefferson spreads its crisp glacier and rock shoulders before me. I've never seen it so close. The sky is bright and blue, only a whisper of breeze puffs around my arms. So far so good. The wind picks up as I pull myself to the next turn.

Somewhere above me, Pinky crawls through the trapdoor at the top. "Did you leave Kitty down there by herself?" I hear Mrs. Wesley ask.

"Nah—she's coming."

I force my eyes back onto the tower steps and try not to think about how many I still have to climb. Or about the hard ground far below. I grip the railing tight and will myself not to look down.

I finally reach the top, where Pinky holds the trapdoor open for me. I climb through and sag against the table in the center of the tiny space.

"You made it," says Mrs. Wesley, smiling. "Not everyone does." That makes me feel great.

It's definitely worth it. From here, Mount Jefferson feels close enough to touch. And every side opens up a stunning view that I never imagined I'd see all at once and from this high up.

Pinky counts off the peaks in front of us. "Broken Top, Three Fingered Jack. And way down there"—she points off to the southeast—"The Three Sisters." She pulls me around to the other side of the tower and points out the Mutton Mountains, which rise up under a carpet of dry grass and are dotted with dark trees. Then the spindly legs of the fire lookout rising from the bald crest of Eagle Butte.

Like the main cabin below, the tower cabin has no extra space. A big table, the fire finder, takes up the center of the floor. A huge map of the reservation covers the whole surface. We have one in the hall beside the radio at home. Like our map, this one has wavy lines that trace the mountains, hills, and creek drainages. A topographical map, my dad told me when he first put it up. The whole lay of the land spread out on paper. This one has Sidwalter Butte at the center, then lines fanned out to the lookouts on the other buttes—Beaver, Eagle, and Shitike.

In the corner is a bucket with water in it. Rags hang over the side like wicks. "We make sure we have water," Mrs. Wesley says. "That's my first job every morning—bringing it all the way up here."

Pinky pulls a short wooden stool out from under the table, scoots it over to the window, and hops up on it. A small glass cup on each leg—a lightning stool. I recognize it even though I've never seen one before. Dad said the lookouts stand on them when they use the radio during storms, in case lightning strikes the tower.

My eyes scan the skyline, looking for clouds. Caught up here in a storm—I can't imagine how scary that would be.

Mrs. Wesley stands at the far window holding binoculars to her eyes. Pinky picks up a pair and hands them to me. "Guess how far you can see with these things."

They're heavy, and the view is jiggly until I steady my arms against the windowsill. I get the lenses focused, and all of a sudden I'm staring at the jagged rock face of Eagle Butte, miles and miles across the reservation.

"Gosh—there's the lookout!"

Mrs. Wesley lowers her glasses and glances over her shoulder to see where I'm looking. "Wave to Millie," she says, and laughs.

The radio squawks to life on the shelf beside me. "Afternoon check-in," Mrs. Wesley says. She reaches over and takes the microphone.

One by one, the lookouts report in, bouncing off Mr. Wirt, the dispatcher who sits in the basement of Fire Control at Warm Springs. His voice scratches out of the speaker, followed by each woman's reply. Nothing at Eagle, nothing at Shitike.

Mrs. Wesley tells him that she has a visitor but that all is quiet out in the woods. She signs off, replaces the mike, and then scans the last section of window with the binoculars. After a moment she holds still, twisting the focus slowly with her finger. "Smoke," she says.

Pinky and I both peer out the window in the direction she is looking. Not far off across the woods, but right down below the butte: a thread of whitish smoke. "Oh," says Pinky, "that's just Jewel from our class, with her
káthla.
We passed by their camp on the way up."

Mrs. Wesley shakes her head. "I hope they're careful—it's so dry out here."

***

Later in the afternoon, Pinky and I make our way back down the tower to play cards in the cabin. Climbing down is much worse than going up—no way to fool my eyes about where we are at each step. A couple of moments of panic make me grip the railing to stop my legs from shaking. But I make it down—and maybe I could make it back up again too, I think proudly.

We get through a few games of Hearts, then some Slap Jack and War. Pretty soon, Mrs. Wesley comes in the screen door and says, "Supper time. Girls, go wash up."

Washing up means going around the side of the cabin and pulling a wash pan down from a shelf next to a water barrel. This is on the east side, shaded from the late-afternoon sun.

"Rain," says Pinky, dipping water out of the barrel. "Whatever comes out of the sky and down the roof goes in here. This is for washing and for up in the tower." She points over to two tanks on steel legs resting up against the cabin. "Drinking water has to be hauled from the river. Propane comes from Warm Springs."

Pinky hands me the Ivory bar, and I lather up while she pours a trickle of water. Then I hold my hands out over the basin, and she sloshes a little bit more to rinse. Most of the soap comes off. The rest I wipe with the towel hanging from a nail on the side of the cabin. When I'm done, Pinky hangs the dipper back on the side of the barrel and closes the lid. She splashes her hands through the soapy water in the basin and then dries them. Four hands washed in the water I'd use for two. It must not rain that often up here.

Mrs. Wesley stands at the counter as we walk in. "How about some smoked fish?"

"Yes, please," I say quickly.

She smiles and hands me the plate to put on the table, then pulls a pitcher of water out of the icebox in the corner. Pinky brings a bowl of boiled potatoes, and we sit down. Then Mrs. Wesley pours a small sip of water into the cup set beside each place. I pick up my cup when they do.

"We thank the Creator for giving us this food," she tells me. She and Pinky each take a sip, so I do too. Like saying grace at home.

After supper, Pinky and I wash the dishes. She talks to me about the school year starting up next month, and I'm grateful for her chatter. So much went on during the day that I had no time to think about Jewel and Raymond. In the quiet of the evening, their troubles seep in with the shadows that grow as the light dims. The burden of what I know weighs me down.

At the radio, Mrs. Wesley signs off for the night, "Sidwalter over and out." Then she lays out a tarp under the trees beside the cabin, and we unroll our sleeping bags. I lie there looking up at the black trees outlined by stars. A soft wind crackles through the branches.

Somewhere in the dark down below, I imagine Jewel and Raymond hiding out with
Káthla,
hoping for the best.

I
N
the morning, when we come back into the cabin after washing the breakfast dishes, Mrs. Wesley hands Pinky a bowl. She lifts up a dishtowel to show us the last of the peaches that Mom sent up. "You girls take these down to Jewel's camp," she says. "They might enjoy some fresh fruit."

The morning is quiet around us, just a rustle of breeze through the leaves. Pinky shows me the path, a shortcut through the brush that disappears down the hill on the far side of the outhouse.

She picks up our conversation about school this year. Pretty soon, we'll be riding the bus up to the junior high in Madras. Changing classes, eating in the cafeteria. No recess, and much more homework. And boys. And maybe lipstick. And a lot we don't even know about.

We reach the road right where it begins to flatten out, and I can smell the campfire. Then I see the corner of the canvas tent around a curve. The camp looks deserted, and the pickup is gone.

"
Hello,
" Pinky calls out. We stand in the road, waiting. Then Pinky takes a few steps forward. "Jewel?"

The brush behind us crackles, and a voice yanks me back almost a whole year to a road not much different from this one. "What do
you
want?"

We whirl to face him. Raymond grips a baseball bat in one hand, his other fist clenched.

Jewel pushes through the brush. "Put that thing down," she tells him, but he shakes his head.

I hold out the bowl—"Mrs. Wesley sent these"—and I lift up the towel to show her. "She thought your grandmother would like them."

Jewel nods her thanks and takes the peaches. We walk with her over to the campfire, where she sets the bowl in the shade of the tent.

"Where's your
káthla?
" Pinky asks.

"She took the truck to check on the berry fields—see when they'll be ripe," Jewel says. She glances at me. "It's just a little ways. She wanted us to stay here."