Legend of a Suicide (12 page)

They continued to catch the last of the salmon and also a few Dolly Varden and some small bottom fish. The original plan had been to go out in the inflatable for halibut, too, but his father had decided to save the boat and all of its gasoline for any kind of emergency that might come up. They shot another mountain goat. The smoker was going around the clock still, even as the first snows came down to the cabin, and the inside of the cabin seemed a smokehouse also with strips of salmon and Dolly Varden and sculpin and lingcod and deer and goat everywhere cooling and waiting to be bagged, the baggies and garbage bags that had already been filled piling up in the spare room.

They went to bed each night exhausted, and there was no time left awake to listen for his father, and so Roy managed on some nights even to forget that his father was not well. He began, even, to assume that his father was fine, in that he
didn’t think about his father one way or the other. He was simply living each day filled with activity and then sleeping and then rising again, and since he was working alongside his father, he assumed his father was feeling all the same things. If he had been asked how his father was feeling, he would have been annoyed at the question and considered the matter too far away to pay attention to.

Most of the snows were light and did not stick for long down close to the water or even for a ways up behind the cabin. They did not cover the cache consistently. Roy asked his father if the weather would stay like this, because it seemed like it might be the case. His father had to tip his head back to remember.

They didn’t stick long, most of the snows in Ketchikan. But then I remember skiing around, and snowbanks, and shoveling snow and all the slush I had to drive through, so I guess the snow did stick and build up sometimes. Isn’t that funny, though, that I can’t really remember?

They went up to the cache several times a day and looked for bear tracks or any other tracks, but nothing ever came. The constant checking began to seem odd to both of them, as if they had developed some inexplicable fear of this one small piece of ground, so they decided to check less often and just trust that it would be all right, especially since it was growing colder and the days shorter. They came in earlier each evening from their work at the woodpile and the smoker and began reading again and sometimes played cards. They played two-handed pinochle, which technically could not be played, and his father rambled.

Remember what I told you about the world originally being a great field, and the earth flat?

Yeah, Roy said. How everything went to hell after you met Mom.

Whoa, his father said. That’s not exactly what I said. But anyway, I’ve been thinking about that again, and it’s got me thinking about what I’m missing and why I don’t have religion but need it anyway.

What? Roy asked.

I’m screwed, basically. I need the world animated, and I need it to refer to me. I need to know that when a glacier shifts or a bear farts, it has something to do with me. But I also can’t believe any of that crap, even though I need to.

What does that have to do with Mom?

I don’t know. You’re getting me sidetracked.

So they finished the hand and went to bed. But Roy kept thinking of his father’s ramblings, and it seemed to him a strange father out here. It was his tone of voice more than anything, as if the creation of the world had amounted to the Big Screw. But Roy didn’t think too much about it. He really wanted only to sleep.

The snow stuck lower and they quit fishing and smoking and chopping wood.

We have enough anyway, his father said. It’s time now to settle in and relax. That should last about two weeks before I go insane.

What?

I’m just kidding, his father said. That was a joke.

They read by the light of the paraffin lamps and kept the stove stoked. Roy had as much trouble concentrating on his homework here as he had anywhere else, so he spent most of his
long hours studying the wavering shadows on the plank walls and waiting for the next meal. It was the most delicious and anticipated food he had ever eaten, all the smoked fish and meat with rice and canned vegetables. His father read and sighed and sacked out for long naps.

They took hikes still, and brought their rifles, but as the snow built up thicker this became too difficult, so as Roy studied, his father began making snowshoes. He used fresh branches and strips of the moose hide they had salted and let dry. As it snowed and blew outside and occasionally rained, he bent over the shoes like the dentist he was, sewing them up carefully and inspecting them with prodding fingers. Red-eye, he finally said, his way of saying ready. They’re finished. We’re going into the snow, my son.

But it just rained, Roy reminded him.

Yeah, that’s right. Okay, we’ll wait until there’s snow again, and then we go. But in the meantime, I have to go for a hike before I decay into some kind of marshmallow in here.

Me, too, Roy said, so they went for a hike along the water. It was overcast and drizzling, the waves indistinct, the waters shifting, surging. They walked along the steeper coast that they rarely hiked along, around the opposite point and on farther to the next in silence until his father said, I don’t think I can live without women. I’m not saying it isn’t great being out here with you, but I just miss women all the time. I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how it is that something is so thoroughly missing when they’re not around. It’s like we have the ocean here and a mountain and trees, but actually the trees aren’t here unless I’m fucking some woman.

Huh, Roy said.

Sorry, his father said. I’m just thinking out loud. I’m also thinking we can’t leave our food for this long. If another bear comes, we’re screwed.

So his father went back but Roy decided to hike on for a while, and though he thought he would try to think about what his father had said, he only looked at the water and at the smooth rocks beneath his boots and he didn’t think anything.

When he returned, his father was listening to the new ham radio. There was a clicking sound over and over and then a voice gave the standard universal time and a storm report for the South Pacific, gale-force winds everywhere it seemed. Then another channel and warping sounds with a guy far in the background talking about his great ham equipment, which was all anyone ever talked about on ham radio, pretty much, and his father turned it off and began cooking some rice.

Tom should be here again soon, his father said.

Yeah?

Yeah. And I was thinking. I want us to stay here longer, but I know it’s not fun to hear me talk about things like I talked about today, so if you want to go back to your mom and Tracy, you can. That would be okay.

We have to quit talking about that, Roy said. I already said I’m staying.

His father didn’t turn and look at Roy during any of this, and Roy knew his allegiance was being tested, that it was being gauged, so he added, I don’t want to go. I’m staying here until next summer.

Okay, his father said, and still he didn’t turn around.

Tom came again and told them it was going to start snowing more. He was standing on one pontoon and they were standing on shore, about fifteen feet away, as if in a different world, unapproachable from the water. I won’t always be able to fly in, Tom said, when the weather’s bad, and I won’t just be checking in on my way to other places anymore, so if you need anything, you need to call me on the radio.

Okay, Roy’s father said. That’s fine.

Is the radio working okay?

Yeah.

You have a VHF too, and you should be able to hail anyone passing through on that, and they can pass a message on to me. In case you have any more bears over for dinner. Tom grinned then. He was freshly shaven and showered and his clothes clean and he was starting to get cold out on the pontoon. Roy realized he had some kind of heater in the plane.

All right, Tom said. Enjoy.

He climbed up into the plane and started the engine and taxied around. They waved and then he roared away and was gone.

We’re here now, his father said. That we are. And the two gone into the wilderness knew not the excesses of mankind and lived in purity.

You sound like the Bible, Dad.

We shall trot through snow like horses and know more winter than Jack Frost. The lichen and the high reaches shall cleanse our souls.

I don’t even know what that sounds like.

It’s poetry. Your father is one of the undiscovered minor geniuses.

Roy laughed, and then he realized it had been a while. Then he followed his father inside.

It did begin snowing a few days later, as Tom had predicted, and they tried out the snowshoes. Though the shoes felt unwieldy tied onto their boots, they actually worked well. Roy and his father rose high on the mountain with what seemed to Roy more ease than before, since the earth was no longer pitted and they didn’t have to tear through the undergrowth or look carefully to see what would support them and what wouldn’t. With the shoes, they sank no more than a few inches with each step, and everywhere the path was clear. It was cold, but they had many layers on and, as they climbed, they began shedding layers. It was clear and sunny. They could see past the near islands to other horizons beyond, farther than they had seen before.

This is what most people never see, his father said. Most never see this place in winter, and certainly not from their own mountain on a sunny day. What we are is lucky.

They climbed to the very top and stood on the rocks and it was still clear. They saw their entire island behind and no other sign of humanity on it, only white mountains and the darker trees spreading below.

His father spread his arms and yelped.

Roy wondered and heard the echoing.

I am so happy to be alive, his father said.

Since it was still early in the day, they continued partway down the other side and hiked on to the next ridge and up to the next peak. Another glorious view, and a different one.

Down there in that valley is where I killed the bear, his father said.

Wow. That’s a long ways.

It was.

They walked around the top, taking in all the different views.

If you could have anything you wanted, his father said, what would it be?

I don’t know, Roy said.

You’re not giving the question any time to seep into your bones, me boy. What would it be? What’s your dream?

Roy thought and couldn’t come up with anything. It seemed to him he was just trying to get through this one dream of his father’s. But finally he said, A big boat, that I could sail to Hawaii on, and then maybe around the world.

Ah, his father said. That is a good one.

What about you?

What about me. What about me. So many things. I think a good marriage and not to have broken up the two I had, and not to have been a dentist, and not to have the IRS after me, and after that, maybe a son like you and maybe a big boat.

He gave Roy a hug then, which took Roy completely by surprise. He felt embarrassed when his father finally let go of him. His father was going to cry, he knew.

But then luckily his father turned and headed back down the slope. They continued on without talking, and by the time they were descending to the cabin, the awful locked-in feeling had gone away and Roy said, Who’s been eating my porridge? Who’s been sleeping in my bed?

His father laughed. It would be time for the cache, all right.

When they had their shoes off and were inside with the stove going, his father said, You know, I’ve been thinking about what
you said about already having said that you’re staying, and you’re right. I don’t have to feel bad and apologetic after everything I say. I can just trust that you can handle a few things. After all, I’m never going to be perfect or without troubles, and I want to be able to talk with you and want you to know me, so I’m not going to keep apologizing like that.

I think that’s good, Roy said.

I appreciate it, his father said.

Roy read from his history book then, thinking he never had weird talks like this with his mother and then missing her. She and his sister would be having dinner now, listening to the same classical music, whatever it was, that they always listened to, and his mom asking Tracy all about everything and Tracy getting to talk to her. But then his father seemed to be doing better, too, and this wasn’t so bad, so he read on about the guillotine and tried to forget about home.

A few other things, too, his father said. I’ve been thinking about Rhoda and thinking that maybe things could still work with her. I’m having a more positive attitude. I think I could be more attentive like she wants, and make good on my promises and not lie to her. I think I could do those things now. I don’t mean to make them sound like merit badges, like little tasks I can just check off, but I think I could do better now. I might call the operator on the shortwave.

Sounds good, Roy said. And he kept reading.
The people ran in terror of each other like a band of criminals caught, each wondering who would speak and betray the other, as if each had a knife at the other’s back.
It seemed like he was getting very little actual
information in this book. It was supposed to be a history book.

Weren’t there supposed to be facts?

They played cards again late in the evening, and his father won every hand.

My luck’s a-changing, he said. I am a new man grown out of the ashes. My wings are of the eagle and I shall fly far above.

God, Roy said.

His father laughed. Okay, that was a bit much.

They continued to explore more of the island by snowshoe, only on clear days at first but then on overcast and even snowy days as well. They traveled farther and farther until one afternoon they lost all visibility and were still at least four or five hours’ hike from the cabin.

Huh, his father said. He was standing only a few feet from Roy and still it was hard for Roy to see his father’s jacket and hood and the scarf wrapped around his face. He seemed a shadow that could be there but might not be there. His father said something else, but Roy couldn’t hear it clearly over the wind. He yelled to his father that he couldn’t hear.

I said I think I screwed up, his father yelled.

Great, Roy said, but only loud enough for himself to hear.

His father came closer, leaning against him. We can do several things. Can you hear me?

Yeah.

We can hike back and try to find it and try to make it before dark, but we might not and we might get tired and cold and get stuck. Or we can use what’s left of daylight and our energy and
build a snow cave and hope it’s better tomorrow. We won’t have much to eat that way, but we might be safer.

The snow cave sounds fun, Roy yelled.

This isn’t about fun, his father said.

I know, Roy yelled.

Oh. Sorry. And his father turned away then and Roy had to follow close not to lose him. They went to a stand of cedars, and up against a bank behind the trees where the snow was thick they began tunneling into the side of it. They were out of the wind already, and now Roy could hear his father’s hard breathing.

What if it collapses? Roy asked.

Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’ve never dug one of these before, but I know people do use them from time to time.

They dug until they hit ground and then they continued enlarging from inside, but the angles were all wrong.

We’ll never be able to sleep in here, his father said.

So they moved over a bit and dug a smaller entrance down lower and his father went in on his stomach to dig out from the inside until the roof collapsed on him and only his feet stuck out. Roy threw himself on the pile and dug wildly at it to un-bury his father until his father finally backed out and stood up and said, Damnit.

They stood there like that, breathing hard, listening to the wind and feeling it get colder.

Got any ideas? his father asked.

You don’t know how to make one?

That’s why I’m asking.

Maybe we need deeper snow, Roy said. Maybe we can’t dig a snow cave with what we have here.

His father thought about that for a while. You know, he finally said, you might be right. I guess we’re hiking back to the cabin. As much as that’s a stupid idea, I can’t think of anything else. Can you?

No.

So they set off up the ridge, exposed again to the wind. Roy fought to keep up, to not lose his father. He knew that if he lost sight of him even for a minute, his father would never hear him yell and he’d be lost and never find his way back. Watching the dark shadow moving before him, it seemed as if this were what he had felt for a long time, that his father was something insubstantial before him and that if he were to look away for an instant or forget or not follow fast enough and will him to be there, he might vanish, as if it were only Roy’s will that kept him there. Roy became more and more afraid, and tired, with a sense that he could not continue on, and he began to feel sorry for himself, telling himself, It’s too much for me to have to do.

When his father stopped, finally, Roy bumped into his back.

We’re over the ridge now. I think we go along this and have one more before the cabin. I wish I knew what time it was. It seems like it’s still daylight, but it’s impossible to tell how much of it is left.

They stood and rested a moment and then his father asked, Are you doing all right?

I’m tired, Roy said, and I’m starting to shiver.

His father unwrapped his scarf and Roy thought he was going to give it to him, but he only tied it around Roy’s arm and then to his own. That’s hypothermia, his father said. We have to keep
moving. You can’t give in to the tiredness and you can’t sleep. We have to keep moving.

So they hiked on, and Roy’s footsteps became softer and it seemed a longer time between them. He remembered riding in the back of his father’s Suburban from Fairbanks to Anchorage, the sleeping bags piled in there and the road lolling him back and forth. His sister had been back there in a sleeping bag, too, and they had stopped at a log cabin that had giant hamburgers and pancakes bigger than any Roy had seen.

Roy was dimly aware of darkness and later of day and hitting hard and waking and then the rocking again and then, when he awoke, he was in their cabin in a sleeping bag in the dark and his father was behind him and he could tell they were both naked, could feel the hair from his father’s chest and legs on the back of him. He was afraid to move but he got up and found a flashlight and shone it on his father, who lay curled on his side in the bag, the end of his nose dark, something wrong with the skin. Roy put on some dry clothes fast because it was so cold. He put more wood in the stove, got it going, and pushed the sleeping bag closer around his father, then found his own bag and got into it and rubbed his hands and feet together until he was warm enough and fell asleep again.

When he woke next it was light and it was warm from the stove and his father was sitting up in a chair watching him.

How do you feel? he asked.

I’m thirsty and really hungry, Roy said.

It’s been two days, his father said.

What?

Two days. We didn’t get back here until the next day, and then we slept through last night, too. I have food hot for you on the stove.

It was soup, split pea, and Roy could eat only a small bowl of it with a few crackers before he felt full, though he knew he was still hungry.

Your appetite will come back, his father said. Just wait a little while.

What happened to your face?

Just a little frostbite, I guess. It got a little burned. The end of my nose doesn’t feel much.

Roy thought that over for a while, wondering whether his father’s face would get completely better but afraid to ask, and finally he said, We came close to not making it, huh?

That’s right, his father said. I cut it way too close. I almost got us both killed.

Roy didn’t say anything more and neither did his father. They went through the day eating and stoking the stove and reading. They both went to bed early, and as Roy waited for sleep, he felt none of the elation he had always imagined people felt when they came close to death and narrowly escaped. He felt only very tired and a little sad, as if they had lost something out there.

In the morning, his father spent over an hour at the radio before he was finally able to place a telephone call to Rhoda, but what he got was only an answering machine.

Oh, he said into the mike. I was hoping I would get to talk with you. This is going to sound stupid into a machine, but I’m just thinking that maybe I’ve changed some out here and maybe
I could be better now. That’s all. I wanted to talk with you. I’ll try again some other time.

When he turned the radio off, Roy asked, If you talked with her and she wanted you to, would you leave here right away to go be with her?

His father shook his head. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just missing her.

They spent another day in the cabin reading and eating and staying warm and not talking much. Finally they played hearts with a dummy hand, which didn’t work well.

I’ve been thinking about Rhoda, his father said. You may find some woman someday who isn’t exactly nice to you but somehow reminds you of who you are. She just isn’t fooled, you know?

Roy, of course, didn’t know at all. He’d never even had a girlfriend except for Paige Cummings, maybe, whom he had liked for three years, and Charlotte, whom he had kissed once, but it seemed like he knew girls in porno magazines better than he knew any real girls.

His father tried the radio again that evening when they were done playing cards, as Roy was washing the dishes. He got through this time.

What are you thinking, Jim? Rhoda said. You’ve been away from everyone now for a few months and you think you can be different, but what’s it going to be like when you’re back in the same situations, with the same people?

Roy was getting embarrassed. There was no privacy to the radio. So he dried off his hands, put on his boots, his father stalling for time, saying, I, uh, waiting for Roy to get out of there.

And then Roy was out of the cabin for the first time in four days, sinking past his boots into the snow and heading for the shoreline. There was no ice or snow down close to the water. It wasn’t cold enough there, Roy supposed, or else the salt melted everything away. He picked rocks out of the snow and hurled them at thin panes of ice farther up along the creek, cracking and shattering them like car windows. He didn’t know how long he needed to stall out here, but he imagined it would be a while. He walked past the creek mouth and out to the low point, staying close along the edge, out of the deep snow, and wondered whether there were any fish in the cove now. He supposed there had to be, since there was nowhere else for them to go, but he had no idea how they survived. He wondered what he and his father were doing here in the winter. It seemed pretty dumb.

When his father had asked his mother whether Roy could come here, his mother had not answered or let Roy take the phone. She hung up and told him his father’s request and asked him to think about it. Then she waited for several days and asked him at dinner whether he wanted to go. Roy remembered how she had looked then, with her hair pulled back and apron still on. It had felt like a kind of ceremony, attended with a greater seriousness than he was used to. Even his younger sister Tracy had been silent, watching them. He cherished this part of it, even now. He had felt he was deciding his future, even though he knew that she wanted him to say no and knew also that he would say no.

And that was the answer he gave that night.

Why? she asked.

I don’t want to leave here and my friends.

She continued spooning her soup. She nodded slightly but that was it.

What do you think? Roy asked.

I think you’re answering the way you think I want you to answer. I’d like you to think about it again, and if the answer again is no, that’s fine and of course you know I want you here and Tracy and I will miss you if you go. I want you to make the best decision, though, and I don’t think you’ve thought about it enough yet. Whatever you decide, know that it was the best you could have decided now, no matter what happens later.

She didn’t look at him as she said this. She spoke as if she knew of events coming later, as if she could see the future, and the future Roy saw then was his father killing himself, alone in Fairbanks, and Roy having abandoned him.

Don’t go, Tracy said. I don’t want you to go. And then she ran back to her room and cried until their mother went to her.

Roy thought for the next several days. He saw himself helping his father, making him smile, the two of them hiking and fishing and wandering over glaciers in brilliant sunlight. He already missed his mother and sister and friends, but he felt there was an inevitability to all of this, that in fact there was no choice at all.

When his mother asked him again at dinner several nights later, he said yes, he would like to go.

His mother didn’t answer. She put down her fork and then breathed deeply several times. He could see that her hand was trembling. His sister ran back to her room again and his mother had to follow. It was as if there had been some kind of death, he
felt then. Certainly if he had known as much then as he knew now he would not have come. But he blamed his mother for this, not his father. She had arranged it. He had originally wanted to say no.

The clouds were high and thin and there were huge white circles around the moon. The air was white and seemed almost smoky even out over the channel. There was no wind and almost no sound, so Roy stepped hard into the rocks and snow to hear his boots. Then he was getting cold and hiked slowly back.

When he reentered, his father was sitting on the floor by the radio, though it wasn’t on anymore and he was just staring down at the floor.

Well? Roy asked, then regretted it.

She’s with a guy named Steve, his father said. They’re moving in together.

I’m sorry.

That’s all right. It’s my fault anyway.

How is it your fault?

I cheated and lied and was selfish and blind and stupid and took her for granted and, let’s see, there must be some other things, just general disappointment, I suppose, and now I’m going to get shafted and it’s my fault. The big thing, though, I think, is that I wasn’t there for her when she went through all the stuff with her parents. It just seemed like too much, I guess. And I suppose I left her alone to deal with all that. I mean, I thought she had her family to help, you know.

Rhoda had lost her parents to a murder-suicide ten months earlier. Roy had not heard much about it except that her mother used a shotgun on her husband and then a pistol on herself, and
afterward Rhoda found out that her mother had cut her out of the will. Roy didn’t really understand how this last part worked, but it was all part of something too awful to think about.

She felt I abandoned her then, his father said.

Maybe things will change, Roy said, just to be saying something.

That’s what I’m hoping, his father said.

A big storm set in the next day. It sounded as if water were hitting the roof and walls in sheets, a great river rather than just windblown, it hit so heavily. They couldn’t see anything through the windows except the rain and hail and occasionally snow hitting them from angles that kept shifting. They kept the stove going constantly and his father ran out for a few minutes to bring in more wood. He returned three times cold and swearing and piled the wood with the food in the extra room, then stood by the stove to dry off and get warm again.