The Urn Carrier (12 page)

Chapter 15

TESSA JUMPS UP to expressway 40 to 64 toward the Grand Canyon.
Although Alex and Ruth had strongly recommended going to Moab and the
Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, the closer she gets to San Francisco,
the closer she is to Dina’s arrival. Her plans are to stay the course for her
ash drops at the Grand Canyon and Zion.

The Grand Canyon is much more than photographs can express, but
then photographs cannot translate the air, or the depth. Tessa wonders, if all
these professional photographers and artists have failed in capturing the
Canyon’s essence, how can she even hope to try?

Still, she waits for the dinner hour, when most trails become less
hectic.

She hikes to a lookout south of the fabled dimpled pyramids, a
sight that can even be seen from space. A corridor of symmetrically eroded rock
monuments marching like sentinels from the southwest to northeast.

She quickly sketches in the rough shapes and adds the foreground
of the protruding rock edifice on her side of the canyon with the canopy of the
tree draping over her.

She has never attempted 3D. Using this sketch as a blueprint, she
can try different mediums. On the Internet, she’s seen examples of street
artists creating 3D illusions on cement sidewalks. She will start with what she
knows—charcoal, water color. Perhaps acrylic or oil.

The next day, because of the heat and crowds, Tessa opts on
leaving Murphy in the rig for a few hours while she hikes down into the canyon.
The campground has full hookups and they’re in a good shady site. Murphy is
safe and, after their morning run, he seems more than willing to stay in the
coolness of the air conditioning in the rig.

The rangers forewarn everyone that for whatever distance anyone
hikes down, it will be twice as much to hike up. They advise taking twice as
much water than what you think you need. Some people heading down double back
right away, saying, “We need more water.”

Mr. Forsythe’s instructions do not expect her to make it to the
Colorado River.

“The Grand Canyon is built on erosion. Go as far as you wish down
the trail. Anywhere along the way is acceptable.”

Many people, in varying stages of fitness, are attempting the
trail. Young boy and girl scouts and foreigners are clattering away, the kids
laughing and teasing and running as fast as they can down. Others are trudging
back up the trail, looking winded and rationing whatever water they have left.

An older couple is seeking shade. A guided mule train is walking
by, and hikers have to make way for the mules. Tessa sees the old couple
struggling to stay out of the way, but looking shaky as they slowly proceed
uphill. She maneuvers herself down to them and helps them find some rocks to
sit on in the shade.

“Have one of my waters.”

“Oh, we’re almost to the top, aren’t we?”

Tessa has only been on the trail fifteen
minutes. Twenty tops. But these people don’t look well. When she had taken the
man’s arm to help them to the shade, it was cold and clammy.

“It’s okay, I brought four waters.”

“Is your hair partly pink?” the older woman, now seated, asks,
squinting.

Tessa nods and shifts where she is, so the woman doesn’t have to
look into the sun when she addresses her.

“On purpose?”

Tessa smiles.

The mules continue passing. Some of the riders are wearing really
strong cologne and perfume.

“My, they stink, don’t they?” the woman comments.

“The mules have to poop too,” one of the last mule riders
responds.

The old woman and Tessa giggle.

“I meant the perfume.”

“I know, it gagged me too.”

They act like teenagers together, and it provokes a grin from the
woman’s husband.

“Take my water,” Tessa insists. “It’s at least another forty-five
minutes up.”

“Thank you, angel.”

Tessa holds both their hands a moment before moving on. She
follows a safe distance behind the mule train. She turns back and her eyes see
a shimmering as these two become younger people now, their heads bent together,
laughing lightheartedly with each other, as they remain on the coolness of the
rock for just a few more moments.

AUNT SADIE’S JOURNALS are opening Tessa’s eyes to another
dimension of the places she’s visiting. Sometimes, in a crowd, she’ll see the
back of a woman’s head, her hair in ringlets, like a young Sadie.

When she’s driving in the Ford, her hands gripping the steering
wheel with the black leather padding wound around it, she can almost imagine
looking over and seeing Sadie laugh at some remark from Percy.

Sometimes in the evenings, when she’s walking Murphy around a
sparsely filled campground, they’ll come upon two couples laughing and roasting
marshmallows, and that shimmering thing occurs. Tessa will recall a photograph
of her aunt and uncle with another couple from the road.

In some ways, when Tessa is down by a body of water, it’s like
Uncle Percy and Aunt Sadie are right behind her. Maybe that’s why she senses
she’s being followed. Maybe it’s not creepy Uncle Chuck at all. Maybe it’s her
ancestors.

Chapter 16

AT ZION, TESSA scores a campsite right next to the Virgin River.
It is roaring. A series of recent heavy rains have engorged the river and she
can hardly hear herself think as she relaxes in the outdoor chair.

She and Murphy are in the shade of a grove
of short, but old trees. Tessa hasn’t been sleeping very well, waking in the
middle of the night, disoriented and not knowing where she is.

Murphy’s tail thumps beside her when she sits up, as if he is
saying,
“I’m still here.
”

Tessa wonders what’s nagging at her, a sense of foreboding, or is
she still looking over her shoulder for Uncle Chuck? She has some sense that
she’s being followed, but when she looks and looks hard, she sees nothing.

She attempts to paint the picture she took of the Grand Canyon.
Focusing on her heart calms her. A long pull-behind trailer, much newer than
hers, parks at the site across the way. Six shrieking children hop out. They
scurry for the play area. They are followed by two adult women, and then, six
more children. It seems like a lot of people, even for that large of a trailer.
The man driving the truck and a teenage boy in the passenger seat open their
doors and begin unhooking their rig. The teenage boy with the cowboy hat takes
one look at her and nods, and returns to his task.

Mormons.

“Howdy neighbor,” a voice calls out above the Virgin River. A
middle aged couple approach. “Noticed the Michigan tags. We’re from Michigan
and we’re hosting a neighborhood bonfire tonight. Three sites to the left of
you. Tan Motorhome. Bring your chair. We’ll have s’more fixings.”

“Thank you.”

Tessa is so not going to a neighborhood s’more campfire. What does
she have in common with these people?

That night, the troubled, upset, sensations prevent her from
sleeping. She tosses and turns. Soon she’s dragging her camp chair to the
laughter three doors down. The circle is huge and all types of folks are
sitting around it, including the Mormons and their teenage son and daughters. They
enlarge the circle for her. The boy tries not to make eye contact, but his
energy is focused on her. She catches him looking once or twice, but is
involved in a conversation with Bill, the host.

“You play euchre, of course?”

She smiles. “I’m not competitive.”

“Just for fun, just for fun. We have an informal card table for
four. Us Midwesterners have to have a game or two?”

She agrees.

Before she knows it, all the other campers are grouped around
trying to learn the game; the Benders are Island Pacific people, the Mormons,
and the Hefrons from Rhode Island all watch as Tessa, Dianne, and Bill, and
Jen, a twenty-something traveling from Columbus Ohio, all play.

Jen is good, and Tessa just plays off her lead. To end the game,
Bill decides to play a loner, where he drops his partner with just two trump.
Instead of winning a possible four points, he loses good-naturedly.

“What possessed you to try?” Tessa laughs.

Bill wiggles his eyebrows. “It’s just for fun. Did you have fun
that round?”

Tessa nods. “You’re a risk taker.”

“Oh, you bet he is.” Dianne smiles.

“Have you hiked Angel’s Landing yet?” Jen asks Tessa.

“No. I never heard of it.”

“Awesome hike,” the teenage Mormon boy says. He’s standing
directly behind Tessa, and his energy is buzzing into her. His hand is on the
back of her card table chair. Just like with Paul. She turns and looks up at
him, being careful not to show her cards to the others.

The boy smiles down at her. He may be her age,
or a year younger. “It’s high, but passable. The weather is supposed to be good
tomorrow. There’s chains and stuff, if you don’t like heights.”

“Chains?”

“Yeah. There’s some sections that seem narrow and have drop offs
on both sides, but it’s easy.” He shrugs.

“We hike it every time we come,” his father adds.

“I’ll go with you,” Jen offers. “If you want to.”

“Okay.”

“Murphy might want to stay with us, for that
one,” Bill suggests.

“Really? You’d be all right with that? Because I don’t want him to
get hot.”

“Yeah, it gets hot up top, that’s for sure,” the boy agrees.

As the fire dies down for the older folks, the kids decide to
continue a campfire in an empty site on the edge of the campground, by some
rocks and the river.

More young people from various sites join them and pretty soon
it’s a party. Everyone’s dancing and laughing. Some are drinking beer, and some
are hooking up and wandering off. The Mormon boy tries to engage her, but Tessa
just keeps speaking with Jen. They talk about all their travels and where
they’ve been and where they are going.

“I can make myself scarce if you need me to,” Jen offers, nodding
over to the young guy.

“Thanks. I’m not interested in hooking up with anyone. But don’t
let me slow you down.”

Jen smiles. “I don’t usually find someone else my own age
traveling alone.”

“Do you get a lot of shit on the road?”

“You mean, because I’m not white?”

Tessa nods.

“No, not really. Just like Bill and Dianne, people are pretty
friendly. You get one or two idiots along the way, but they are the exception.
Just trust your gut instinct. It really develops out here on the road. I’d say
ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people are pretty awesome.” Jen pauses. “I’m
glad you want to go hiking tomorrow. It’s always more fun with another person.”

“Have you ever done Angel’s Landing?”

“No, but I want to try. I like early starts, if that’s okay with
you. I don’t like heat of the day hikes.”

“Neither do I.”

“Cool.” Jen has deep dimples when she smiles, and Tessa relaxes in
a safe space with her.

“Murphy is like the coolest dog ever.” Jen is petting him as he
lies sleeping between them. “I’m running to my rig for another beer, want one?”

Tessa shakes her head no.

“How about a water?”

“Okay.”

As Tessa waits, she reflects that at both bonfires a blend of
folks she might not normally hang with, like the Mormons, surprised her.
Everyone striving to find common ground in conversation, hearty laughs of
self-told mishaps on the road, enjoying new stories and histories together. She
tells the one about her first dumping tanks mishap when the hose wasn’t fitted
into the dump station correctly and everything went flying everywhere. How
helpful all the folks at the dump site were. Everyone around the campfire claim
it has happened to them too. She feels they are just being nice, but it’s good
to laugh about it.

The music out of the old-fashioned boom box starts playing “Rock
Around the Clock.”

And she and Jen start dancing. Tessa is young and free, alive and
alone, and yet, not lonely at all.

“I’M GLAD YOU still wanted to go hiking today.”

Jen is leading up the well-worn switchback path. It’s red and has
rocks alongside. While steep at times it’s not too bad. And just like the
Mormon boy said, there are chains every now and then as they gain steeper
access. Even for early in the morning, many people are on the trail. Most are going
up; some have already been up and are jubilantly climbing down. Their faces a
healthy blush and excitement that they “made it.”

Curiosity propels Tessa and Jen higher.

A blend of folks here too, just like at the campfire. People from
France, Germany, South America, Asians, First Nation. Just as Jen nods
especially to other black people, Tessa nods to First Nation, and they grin and
smile when they see her, sometimes arm bent at the elbow, a fist up in the air
as a hello.

Lots of children attempt the climb, and a few elders who say, “I’m
only going so far.”

Some benches are spaced at intervals for folks needing to rest.
Then they get to the top, or so they think and realize as they make the turn,
there’s actually a lot further to go.

Jen starts out on the ridge that has fifteen-hundred-feet drop
offs on either side. Tessa starts and gets about thirty yards before she
freezes. Although the ledge is wider than it looks, she can’t do it. The drop
offs on either side make her dizzy, and a little nauseous, like she’s suspended
in the clouds. Maybe on a different day this would be less threatening. Today
she simply stops.

In the middle of the eight-foot wide and sometimes less wide
ledge, is a chain the whole length of the mostly barren ridge line up through
to the other side where there is vegetation again; a high path with trees. At
the very end are people, stick people it looks like, standing on a wide open
flat surface, overlooking the park, the highway, and the other high points of
the mountains. Their little jubilant stick figures jump up and down and their
happy shouts of achievement waft over to Tessa after a considerable delay.
Then, there’s a long drop arch to another, lower platform rock. Tessa is unsure
if the trail ends there or up top; she can’t see that far.

Tessa makes room for the others behind her, and once they pass,
she moves off trail. Jen returns to where Tessa is sitting on a rock well
beyond the path of other visitors.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t do it.”

“It’s okay. We don’t have to.”

“I don’t want to hold you back. I can wait here.” Tessa has tears
in her eyes and hates her fear of heights. “I want to be able to do it.”

“Well, let’s just sit here. It’s a good time to have water and a
bite to eat.”

They sit in silence and watch group after group come up and make
the turn and keep going.

“Is it just me?”

“No, it’s really scary, even though eight year olds are doing it.”

Tessa laughs and shoves her.

Suddenly a family with two boys, about eight and eleven, make the
turn. The younger boy sits down.

“Get up,” the father tells the boy.

“I don’t want to do it, Dad.”

Tessa’s heart twinges.

The dad pulls his son by the arm, standing him up. Others pass by
as the mom and older boy wait. It’s a constant parade of hikers willing to try
the ridge.

“Man up, Garth. I’m not going to have you embarrassing this
family.”

Tessa flinches. It’s all she can do to calmly stand and walk over
and in a polite voice say, “He can stay here with us.”

“No!” the father barely regards her. “He is going to learn to face
his fears, whether he likes it or not. I’m a primary electric lineman. I climb
poles all day. He’s going to learn how to do this.”

“Let him be.” The words erupt from her belly.

Jen is beside her in a flash. “Easy there.” She puts her arms
around Tessa and pulls her back into her body.

The father looks around at Tessa and something in her eyes moves
him backward a step. “I mean. I’m sorry. It’s nice of you to offer, but he
can’t just not go.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because we’re going . . . as a family.”

“It’s not for everyone.” Tessa’s voice is still deep. She’s almost
growling.

She’s re-living. Her fists are clenched. She’s ready to take this
man’s head off.

For a moment everyone freezes. The mom and older brother are
staring open mouth at her. The little boy is looking up hopefully toward her.
The father is shrinking away, his face red, as if he is embarrassed, or, very
frightened.

“C’mon, son,” is all he says, and he marches
the boy forward.

The boy whimpers and looks back at Tessa, with a plea in his eyes.

“I’ll hold onto you,” the father says, a little more kindly.

“Let’s go this way.” Jen guides Tessa to their shady spot and they
sit back on the rock. “Man. Now I know what it means to see a person’s eyes
turn yellow. Girl, you transformed. That guy was scared of you. Everyone was
scared of you. That’s some deep shit.”

“It’s not right, making that boy go when it’s obvious he didn’t
want to. That’s fucking abuse. I’m sorry.” Tessa puts her head down. “It’s just
wrong. I don’t know where that all came from.”

“You went somewhere else.”

Tessa nods.

“You’ve got power. Just another thing I’m attracted to.”

They sit in silence a moment.

Last night, at the fire, Jen had leaned in for a kiss and it felt
good. It felt more than good. They kissed for what seemed like hours, but Tessa
couldn’t go any further. Despite her raging hormones, she kept seeing Dina’s
face.

“That girl better know how lucky she is,” Jen says, referring to
Dina.

“Oh, you like the growly Tessa?”

Jen laughs. “Oh yes, ma’am. I would love me some of that growly
Tessa.”

They nudge shoulders.

“Let’s go up this way.” Jen indicates away from Angel’s Landing.
“We can get just as high, if not higher, and you can take a picture, paint it,
and send it to me sometime, yes?”