Читать книгу Tracker's Canyon - Pam Withers - Страница 5

“Tristan, my man. A rare sighting! Where’ve you been lately?”

I pause as I’m locking my bike to the school rack and slap my friend lightly on the back. “Nowhere, Phil. What’s happening?”

“Nothing much.” He shifts his mud-spattered backpack and punches me back. “When’re you going to show your mug at climbing club, eh? It’s been forever.”

I chuckle and look away. “Soon. Hey, I’m giving the other guys a chance with the girls in the club.”

“As if. Last time I saw you, you said the girls are too into mothering you since — uh, how is your mom?”

“She’s great,” I say, feeling my mouth press into a tight line.

“Awesome! It’s been eight months, after all.” He’s studying me closely despite my upbeat tone.

“Minus two weeks,” I correct him.

“Okay. I’m so hyped you’re finally coming back. When? Can’t wait to tell the guys.”

“Any day,” I lie. No way can I tell him about the lack of cash for club fees and the shortage of hours in the day, thanks to chores. I don’t mind this more restricted life, I try to tell myself, because nothing matters more than helping Mom right now. But hell if I’m going to let anyone know what’s really up in the Gordon household.

“It’s been boring on the climbing wall without you,” he continues as we move into the school.

“No doubt.” I smile. “Except for the new kid, Dean. Mini Spider-Man.” The last time I showed up at the club was two months ago, the same day as a brand-new kid in town asked to join. I still recall the boy’s natural talent and have seen him around once or twice since. “Who’d have thought a twelve-year-old could climb like that? Or that we’d ever let a seventh grader into the club?”

Phil shrugs. “Only ’cause you suggested it that first day he showed. I admit he’s amazing. I’ve actually learned a few moves from him. But you were the star, man. We need you back.”

“Were, eh! Guess I’d better get my ass back in there.”

The bell sounds. We hurry to our lockers, grab our books, and slam the locker doors shut.

“Later, man,” Phil says as he heads up the hall to class.

“Later,” I say. Books in arms, I wait till Phil has gone before I press my forehead against the cool steel of my locker. I miss climbing club and my friends so much it hurts. But I must not think about it. I count to five till the funk disappears. Then, shoulders back and head held high, I breathe deeply and wade through the crowds to class.

• • •

An hour into Math, students point out the window.

“Class!” snaps Mr. Winters, to no effect.

A fire truck wails up the main street of our little town (population two thousand), its flashing red lights bouncing off the school’s football field posts, where it stops. I leap up to join the students crowding the window; even Mr. Winters stands there gawking. One look and I’m out of the classroom, through the main school doors, and onto the football field, sprinting over its sweet-smelling, fresh-mown grass.

Our school, edged by evergreens, has a bunch of tall Douglas firs beside the playing field, one of them maybe eighty feet high. Mini Spider-Man — Dean the amazing climber kid — has somehow managed to climb three-quarters of the way to the top of that one.

“Don’t move!” Principal Tolmie calls up to him.

Teachers and a ton of kids have circled the tree. Every panicked voice has a different set of instructions.

“Don’t look down!”

“Hold tight!”

“Wait for the firefighters!”

There’s a shrill whine as the fire truck lifts its mech­anical ladder to the branch where the boy with bushy black hair sits. He’s smiling and as calm as a Buddha statue.

Way to go, Dean, I think, half proud of my former club mate, even though I hardly know him. Except you’re going to be in a shitload of trouble. I do a fast assessment of the tree trunk between the ground and the boy, ready to climb up and coach him down if needed.

Then a mountain bike catches my eye — someone wheeling at gravel-spitting speed toward the school. The bike clatters to the pavement, and a tall, thin woman maybe twenty years old and wearing black fitness gear strides to the tree, lifts her head, and shades her eyes.

“Dean!” she shouts matter-of-factly, like she has seen it a thousand times before.

Dean actually smiles down at her, pulls a stick of black licorice from his shorts pocket, and starts chewing on it. She’s barely old enough to be out of high school herself, I think. Babysitter? Sister?

She tosses her long, black hair over her shoulders and marches toward the fire truck, all business-like. I edge closer.

“I suggest you retract the ladder … safer if he climbs down on his own.”

Some nerve, telling the fire department what to do.

To my amazement, a firefighter reverses the truck ladder, and the woman in black strolls to the base of the tree.

“So sorry,” she apologizes along the way to the teachers and principal, then signals Dean.

He nods, pockets his licorice, and down-climbs, never hesitating, never faltering, like the closest relative to a monkey I’ve seen. I’m tempted to burst out cheering.

On the ground, before the principal reaches them, the young woman embraces the boy and he hugs her back fiercely. Like, way too tightly for a twelve-year-old with half the school staring at him.

Then she grips his shoulders, puts her forehead against his, and delivers some kind of quiet lecture. He just nods, blinks, and glances up at Principal Tolmie, who is headed their way looking like a police officer itching to clamp handcuffs on someone.

“All yours.” The woman hands Dean over and takes her time striding back to her bike, thanking the firefighters on the way.

Seriously? So this sister or whatever she is just arrives, takes over, orders him down, then leaves? No, not yet, as it turns out. What she does next will haunt me for hours. She picks up her bike, turns, and glares at me. A long, slow, vicious look. I turn to see if there’s someone behind me, maybe some enemy she has bad blood with.

I’ve never seen the woman before, so there’s clearly some mistake. It’s only as she turns to ride off — tires spewing gravel, once again — that I catch the logo on her T-shirt. It sends shivers through my body: Swallow Canyon Expeditions.

• • •

Spring means the days are getting warmer and longer. By the time I’ve biked home from the supermarket and drugstore, I’m imagining pulling the dented barbeque out of our garage and grilling Mom a hamburger. Maybe it’s red meat she needs. Or just a reason to come downstairs and sit on the back patio with me. Later we could watch the stars come out and discuss which constellations are which, like the three of us used to do. Dad would have his stargazing chart laid out on the picnic table and his garage-sale telescope set up on a rickety tripod. He’d sit back on the wood bench he and I built, wearing that worn green sweater Mom knit him, a grin on his face and an arm around each of us. I swallow hard, remembering the clean, damp-wool smell and prickliness of his sweater when he hugged me.

When I see her bedroom window is open, curtains flapping in the breeze, my heart lifts. Then I spot Elspeth’s moped by the back door, and my mood does a crash landing. What’s the witch up to now? She should’ve gone home an hour ago.

I heave my backpack onto the linoleum kitchen counter and frown at the dirty dishes piled in the sink. Elspeth is happy to eat our food while fixing lunch for Mom — but do dishes? Not.

Never mind; she’s too busy looking after Mom, and I’m the official dishes guy, it seems.

Something smells weird. Lavender?

“Tristan, honey. So glad you’re home. Your mother’s sleeping, but I stayed late so you and I could talk.”

Talk? I glance at the new hair colour: pink. It clashes with her rainbow smock, purple miniskirt, and red clogs, but it brightens up the place, for sure. Where my uncle found this thirty-year-old space cadet and why Mom has fallen under Elspeth’s spell is beyond me. Oops. My negatory detect-o-meter is beeping.

“Hi, Elspeth. Interesting hair colour. Hey, am I imagining it, or is there a fascinating fragrance in the air?”

“Lavender, darling. It’s part of our aromatherapy session. It calms her.”

“Cool. But is it possible she doesn’t need to be calmed? Maybe she needs to get up and move, instead.”

Elspeth reaches out to pat my hand; I slide it away and begin storing groceries. Aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, horoscope-reading, crystal-touching: these are what my uncle’s paying for out of what I think should go toward groceries, repair bills — and my climbing club fees. But Elspeth is Mom’s caretaker for now. And who knows? If she ever convinces me aromatherapy can make Mom better, I’ll be the first to haul wheelbarrows of lavender home.

“So, Tristan, you know your mother is not mending with time as much as we hoped.”

“Mmm.”

“I feel she is drifting away from us.”

I picture a lily pad floating across a lake, buffeted by wind, its brown edges curled down into the murky water.

“Tristan?”

“Yes.”

Elspeth looks across our small living room and its few pieces of worn but sturdy furniture at the stairs, as if my mother might come gliding down in her nightgown any second and overhear us. She motions us into the living room, where I evict a basket of dirty laundry from the sofa so we can plunk down. With springs well-worn, the sofa sinks under our combined weight. She plays with the dozen or so rings on long, white fingers adorned by fake fingernails painted a startling pink.

I instruct myself to listen politely.

“When a loved one passes away and there’s no body to grieve over,” she begins, “the family’s recovery process is prolonged, delayed.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, gritting my teeth, but only gently.

“Not so much in your case, dear,” she adds with a lame pat on my shoulder that makes me recoil. “You are strong, and your need to be your mother’s pillar has brought you through the worst already, which I admire.”

Oh yeah? She thinks she’s a psychic now?

“But with no … body,” she continues, “there needs to be a special object that will draw out your mother’s grief. Not the few things Search and Rescue returned. Something else, something special. You’re okay with talking about this, right? I believe it’s therapeutic. But I don’t want to traumatize you, honey.”

“I’m fine,” I say, fingernails pressing into my palms, but only lightly.

She does a big, dramatic sigh. “Good. Because I feel she needs something important of his to hold on to, something that proves he’s gone. It will help her in her recovery.”

“But —” How is this any of Elspeth’s business? Why doesn’t everyone just accept Dad is dead? Why do we have to talk about it? I swallow a fat lump in my throat.

“Darling, I know we can’t ever expect to find the body. But before he disappeared, he may have shed or dropped something Search and Rescue didn’t find. On a tree branch or ledge, perhaps. I feel it; I sense it. My extrasensory perception tells me this. And — well, you’re a tracker and a canyoneer. And I know you want her to get better. If you could just try —”

“Search and Rescue tried for two whole weeks,” I remind her. “And brought back his shredded sleeping bag and a few clothes.”

“Shh, you’ll wake her.” Elspeth presses one of her pink-tipped fingernails to her lips. “Yes, Search and Rescue tried to find him alive, then tried to find the body. But their failure doesn’t mean that you — the one with the true spiritual family connection — can’t locate something they failed to discover. You’re his son, Tristan. You have powers they don’t.”

I open my mouth, but when nothing comes out, I shut it again.

“I feel it in my bones, Tristan. Your ability to locate something else he left behind, darling. She’ll come out of this depression. You’ll be a family again.”

“Tristan?” A sleepy voice drifts down from upstairs.

“Go, honey,” Elspeth urges. She squeezes my hand. “Be gentle with her. We all need to gift her with our utmost patience for now. Then, when you return with what your father left behind for you, it will all be okay.”

Elspeth, I decide, is crazier than bat shit. One pink hair short of wigged out. Get me out of here.

As I bolt up the stairs, I hear Elspeth heading out the door. In minutes, the putt-putt of her moped fades down the gravel road.

“Mom?”

She’s propped up on her pillows, all bones and pale skin. I breathe in the reek of lavender. What would Dad make of what she has become? If he had known what it would do to her, he’d never have gone into Swallow Canyon that day.

“Can you close the window, Tristan? It’s chilling me.”

“Sure, Mom. How are you today?”

She shrugs and offers a wan smile. “Did you get my pills from the drugstore?”

“Yes.”

She smoothes the old, shabby quilt that smells like it should’ve been washed three loads ago. I perch there and take her hand, my throat catching.

“Elspeth says you washed the dishes and mopped the floor this morning, but forgot to fix the kettle. She had to boil water in a pot to serve me some special herbal tea.”

“Poor, poor Elspeth.”

“I know you’re not fond of her, Tristan, but she has been so helpful since — since our tragedy.” Her voice is pleading. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Her gaze drifts toward the closed window; she’s on the edge of crying, as usual. But it no longer rips me up, I remind myself. No more feeling small and helpless and useless. I have moved on — and filled my father’s shoes pretty well, haven’t I? Someone had to.

So why does Mom just lie here, numb and wasting away?

No body to grieve over. Recovery process delayed.

“I got food today, Mom, but the money tin is empty now.”

She nods vaguely. “Ask your uncle, darling. You’re a good boy. Any luck with the washing machine?”

“Only if the goal was to drown the mouse population in the basement. I mopped up the mess and tried duct-taping the hose, but it didn’t work. No worries — I’ll ask Uncle Ted.”

She smoothes my hair. “What will you make for dinner?”

“Lobster mornay? Just kidding. Hamburgers?”

She shakes her head. “Something lighter.”

“Okay, the usual.”

She smiles blandly. “Sounds good. Scrambled eggs.”

“Can I get you a magazine or something? Or read to you from my joke book?”

“Thanks, Tristan, but I’m feeling rather sleepy.”

“Maybe a little walk would wake you up? It’s a nice day, Mom. We could go sit in the grotto.” The grotto is a cool fake cave Dad and I built by the stream at the foot of our property. It’s where we used to spend lots of fun family time.

Oops, mistake. The tears start down her cheeks.

… patience for now. Then, when you return with what your father left behind for you, it will all be okay.

“No!” I say out loud.

My mother’s body jerks in alarm. “Tristan?”

“Sorry, Mom. Sorry, sorry.” I lean across the bed and wrap her in my arms, absorb her sobs. The more I absorb, the better she’ll get, right?

If only her shrivelled body didn’t feel like a clutch of bones. Soon I leap up and run down the stairs, two at a time. I snatch the eggs and crack them so hard against the mixing bowl rim that the shells disintegrate into a thousand sticky pieces.

Embrace calm.

The bowl, suddenly gone blurry through my tears, is the one in which Mom, a former bakery manager, used to make brownies, cookies, and cakes, including special birthday cakes for me resembling things like fire engines, and later, anime action figures. And giant chocolate-coloured hearts for my dad. We were a real family then.

Maybe flinging pans around will drown out the memory of Elspeth’s words.

“She — will — get — better,” I declare to the moped tracks still visible out the kitchen window. “With or without your psycho-shit.”

My negatory detect-o-meter is screeching. But at this moment, I don’t have the energy to care.