The Mountain Story (10 page)

“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. “C
ahoola
.” 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.”

“Don’t say
lost
. We can’t be more than a few miles from the
ranger station. It’s not like we’re in the wilderness. Palm Springs is right there!”