Chapter 19

Valerie Boren-Odell, 1990

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.

—John Muir

The sound propels me from my bed like a bomb going off. I hit the floor with both feet, stagger around foggy and disoriented.

Where am I?

A moment ago I was pitching a tent along a flooded backwater in Yosemite. Joel was there, the two of us hiking the way we used to on our days off, young, unencumbered, crazy in love.

All of it was so real.

Suddenly I'm in a cabin, an ancient rotary phone caterwauling nearby. I stumble toward it, grab the receiver, blurt out, "Joel?"

"Huh?"

"Wha…I…"

"This is Curtis. Curtis…uhhh…Enhoe? Sorry, I'm guessing I hit it a little too early?"

The grogginess evaporates. "N-no. It's fine. I was up." I grab Charlie's leftover bedtime water from the counter, take a drink while Curtis chuckles into the phone, somewhere between amused and embarrassed.

"I was trying to catch you before you went on shift," he adds sheepishly.

I check the woodsy wall clock in panic. The little canoe has its oars pointed straight up and down: 6 a.m.! My heart stutters before my mind catches up, and I say, "Off day."

Dead silence, and then, "Oh…geez. Sorry about that. The message you left me didn't say anything about a day off."

"It's fine, really. I was up." I grab another swig of water, swish it around. "I just haven't make…made coffee yet." With my free hand, I smack my cheeks. Wake up, already!

"Well, I can relate there. Morning doesn't start till the coffee's on." He laughs again. It's a nice sound, casual, friendly, unstressed, as if he's in no rush to move into the day. Each thing in its own time, take it as it comes.

It all works out if you just let it.Joel's words. For an instant, my sleepy mind weaves them into the gentle laugh on the other end of the phone. Warmth envelops me, languid and familiar. It's as if I could turn around and Joel would be right here in this kitchen, in his baggy sweats and a T-shirt with the neckband stretched out from hanging sunglasses, ink pens, key rings, and all manner of Joel stuff on it.

I shake my head, drive blood into my brain. Joel vanishes. The sweet warmth gives way to the damp, misty feel of an Oklahoma summer morning.

"So, you got my message, then."

"Bonnie passed it along when I came home. She's a pretty fair secretary. This puppy parenting thing cuts into her efficiency, though."

"So Mama Dog has a name now? Bonnie…I like it. Tell her thanks for me. Sorry to be so cloak-and-dagger with the message." A blush washes upward from my chest to my cheeks. I feel silly for having deposited a note in the metal kibble storage can next to the dog dishes, but when I stopped by the house, Curtis's roommate, another tribal police officer, was on his way out the door. I hadn't realized anyone else lived there. "Your roommate looked like he was in a hurry. I didn't want to hold him up, so I told him I'd brought Charlie by to see the puppies."

"Good choice. He was probably running late. That's my cousin."

"How many cousins do you have?"

Again, that warm, throaty chuckle. "My grandma was one of twelve, so there're a lot of us. Anyway, bring your little guy by whenever. Those puppies can use some people time. Nobody's home around here much."

"Charlie would've stayed in your yard all night if I'd let him."

"Boys and puppies. See? They go together. You take one home with you? It was too dark to do a puppy count when I came in. They were all just one big pile by then."

Even though I've tried to shake off the morning's emotional surge, push my thoughts toward business, the warm sensation slips over me again, tingles on my skin like I've come in from the cold to stand by a fire. I think of tubby little fur balls all flopped together in a pile. How sweet. "No puppies here…unless Charlie hid one in his pocket."

"Better check."

"He's still asleep. I'm surprised, because I promised him we'd go hiking today. That usually means he's on the move as soon as his eyes pop open."

"Maybe he's curled up in there with your newest four-legged family member."

"Now you're scaring me. Hang on a sec." I stretch the phone cord far enough to reach Charlie's door, peek in, and scan the maze of bunk beds packed like blocks in a giant Tetris game. Charlie picks a different one each night. "Nope. No puppies. The kid's zonked. He had a long day yesterday. I worked overtime on the incident reports for our John Doe. Then I went by and talked to Sydney Potter for a few minutes. I really need to establish that we don't have a seventeen-year-old kid pinned under flood debris somewhere. Or two kids, for that matter."

"Two?"

I silently pull Charlie's door all the way closed. "Sydney says Braden had a key lanyard and high-top tennis shoes, but not the color of the shoe we found. She also insisted he would have worn boots to go hiking. I'd like to show her the lanyard and the shoe to be sure, but I'm afraid she'll know what I'm getting at. The poor kid is dealing with enough trauma. She did mention that her brother had a long-distance girlfriend he met at Junior ROTC camp, Rachel…something? Sounds like they were pretty smitten. Braden wanted the girl to come for a visit, but there had been some family resistance on both sides. Makes me question whether the girlfriend drove down here, and they were camped out someplace in the Holson Creek drainage and…the flood."

I move farther from Charlie's door, cradle the phone against the kitchen wall. "I'd like to rule out everything I can. I wondered if anyone had mentioned the girlfriend to you. Maybe a last name? She's a college student in Oklahoma City now. Anybody I can talk to at Braden's school in Antlers? Teacher? Guidance counselor? Friends Braden might be close with? If I can track down the girlfriend, I'll know whether she's where she's supposed to be and whether Braden has fallen off her radar. That would be a bad sign."

"Let me make a few calls, check with people I know at the high school." Dishes clatter and something jangles in the background as he talks. His voice is muffled. I imagine the phone resting on his shoulder.

Tugging open our ancient refrigerator, I grab the bacon package, plop it onto the counter. "Whatever you can find out, I'd be appreciative. Sydney also mentioned a housekeeper, Sharla Watson, but said she'd moved away after spring break, so I doubt she'd have any recent knowledge. I don't mean to drag down your day with all this. Sounds like you're busy."

"Nah. Getting some breakfast. Long night. Ran into some issues at work."

That explains why he called so early. He's been up all night and he's ready to get some shut-eye. "No rush, really. Charlie's dying to see where the rockfall knocked out our hiking trail. I thought we'd take a long loop and make a day of it."

"Don't forget to have your little guy look for the Dewy trees." Curtis smothers a yawn. "You know about those, right? Not condoning tree graffiti, but it's like an Easter egg hunt, only a whole lot bigger. Kids love it."

"Roy mentioned that." A strangely tender feeling comes over me as I pour a cup of coffee. Roy, Curtis…a few people here actually care if Charlie adjusts to our new life, has fun, learns the insider secrets of these mountains. "Thanks for the reminder. I haven't run across one yet, but eagle-eye Charlie will be all over the challenge."

"You'll only find them on first-growth trees, so that means terrain that was too rough for logging," he says. "But I've seen a couple over the years and heard a lot of theories on how they got there. I've had old timers tell me that Dewy was an advance man plotting out operational parcels for the timber companies, a Choctaw Lighthorseman back in the days of the old nations, an outlaw who hid treasure nearby, or a horse thief marking spring pools to water stolen livestock. Take your pick."

I blow softly over the coffee, grab a first sip, feel my anticipation for the day growing. "I think Roy said Dewy was a bootlegger who made wildcat whiskey up there. But I'll give Charlie all the options. The mystery will be right up his alley."

An appreciative laugh answers and then, "Stop over on your way home. I'll fill you in on whatever I learn about Sydney and Braden. Charlie can get in some puppy time. These little rabble-rousers could use settling down."

"Settling down? You've seen Charlie, right?" The joke is a knee-jerk attempt to diffuse the intimate feeling of being invited to drop by. I like it in a way that leaves me vaguely guilty, or off-balance…or something. "He is a puppy."

"We really are getting a puppy?" As is his uncanny knack, Charlie enters the conversation at exactly the wrong time. When I glance over, he's standing in the bedroom doorway in his undies, scratching his scrawny rear end.

"No, we are not getting a puppy."

"Pick one!" Curtis blows my ear out through the phone.

"What'd he say?" Charlie wants to know. "Is that the puppy guy?" The last two words come with emphasis, like the name of a superhero or star athlete. Batman or Michael Jordan.

"Mr. Enhoe," I correct, putting a skillet on the stove and turning on the burner. "And, yes, it is, but we're not getting a puppy." Charlie stares at me over crossed arms, one foot tapping the floor. In court, he'd be the DA who knows the witness can be broken. "Get dressed, okay? We're headed out hiking today, remember?"

The distraction works and Charlie is off to gear up with binoculars, collapsible fishing rod, canteen, camera, magnifying glass, baggies for trash patrol, and whatever else he can think of.

"That was smooth," Curtis wisecracks.

"Moms know things." The words hit me as a reminder that I'm a mom, not some unencumbered young thing.

Maybe Curtis takes it that way, too, because he's all business when he responds. "Sydney give you any idea about where she thinks her grandmother is?"

"Hard to say. Last time we talked, she sounded like she and Braden were on their own. This time, she seemed to expect her grandmother to return from some kind of medical treatments soon. Joanie from the café told me she'd heard that Budgie Blackwell died, then she heard Mrs. Blackwell was in the midst of a health crisis. So the rumor mill is all over the place. Maybe Braden knows but he can't bring himself to be honest with Sydney."

Bacon flares in the wobbly frying pan, shooting grease splatters like Fourth of July sparklers. "Oh shoot-ouch-sorry-bacon." Dragging the fire hazard off the burner, I fan grease smoke with a pot holder. "Breakfast just got a little lively."

"Sounds like I should let you go." The comment comes with another stifled yawn. "But, listen, come by on your way back from the hike. I'll give you the brief on what I find out."

We close the call as Charlie exits his bedroom, still in his undies but toting a backpack. "Mom! What did you do?" Coughing on the smoke, he rushes to open the front door, then steps out in his skivvies, so guests in the other cabins can admire his physique. "Hey, Mom! I see a black bear by the dumpster…and I bet it's Zorra!"

Mom fear catapults me to the door, and I stuff Charlie behind me before looking at the intruder across the way. It is indeed black, fairly large, and in the predawn light under the canopy of pines and oaks, it could be a juvenile black bear.

Except that it's a dog—a hefty, hairy, stub-tailed sort. I saw it yesterday with a couple of guys in cabin 6. "Tourist dog, sorry, bud. Good eye, though."

Charlie is bummed, but we have hiking and a day to ourselves to look forward to. That smoothly propels us through preparations, a drive to the trailhead, my filling Charlie in on the hunt for the Dewy trees, and the two of us setting off early to get in some foot miles before the midday heat hits. We'll picnic off trail near a stream, then make a bit of a backcountry climb over a ridge and down the other side to an equestrian trail, where we'll eventually link up with the loop taken out by the freak rockfall.

Charlie hits over-the-top yack-meister mode as we walk. He's ping-ponging back and forth across the trail, asking questions, making observations, and theorizing about whether we might see Zorra the Bear during our junket. A mile or so into our hike, I interrupt him and say, "Hey, bud, I mapped out a long trek for us today. You'll have to pace yourself, or we need to scale back the route—maybe just do this lowlands area."

An over-the-shoulder look of complete horror comes my way. "Mom, I'm just excited." Hooking his thumbs in his backpack straps, he takes a deliberate draft of misty, pine-scented morning air, then exhales. "But I'm calm, too. See?"

"I can see that."

We make it about twenty yards, winding along in the shade of redbuds and dogwoods, cottonwoods and elms, their still-perfect spring leaves cradling diamond pools of morning dew, before Charlie asks, "Mom, did you mean ‘hush'?"

Kind of,I think. Of course I don't say it. But between the park opening ceremonies, floods and debris, the rockfall, the death scene investigation, Sydney and Braden and Myrna Wambles with her morbid stories, work has been crazy, and I need…peace for a little while. The idea, of course, comes laced with guilt, and a sharp sense of loss, or incompleteness, or vulnerability at being on this journey alone, single parenting. I should be thrilled to spend time with my son. I should be fully present. I have to be. There is no one else.

"You'll see more things if you're quiet, remember? We've talked about that before. It's called forest bathing, but there's a special word for it in Japan. It's good for your mind."

I take a deep breath, lose myself in the healing power of feeling the world breathe, water over stones, wind against trees, last year's dry leaves tumbling along expanses of rock, in the play of cloud shadows on mountain peaks, the intricate lace of a dragonfly's wing. The smallest things and the largest. Perspective. To grasp even the faintest bit of it is to look into glory, to feel both insignificant and intricately made all at once. It's a valuable skill, the ability to appreciate that beauty exists even in the most difficult places. My father tried to teach me those lessons, but our relationship was so fraught with complications, I didn't fully comprehend until I met Joel, with his calm spirit and arms-wide-open embrace of life.

If he were here, he'd pass that on to our son. Because he can't, I must.

"Shinrin-yoku." Charlie's voice is quieter, more relaxed and measured, almost reverent.

"You remembered the word." I smile at his lean back and narrow shoulders, watch his small hiking boots find purchase on the path. "Good boy." Stress passes outward through my skin and gratitude settles in. It's hard to imagine that eight years ago an accidental pregnancy seemed like the end of everything.

It was the beginning.

I am so lucky to travel the world with this beautiful, unique little soul. A leftover piece of Joel. Of us, together.

As is commonplace in mothering boys, moments of revelry are like the droplets of nectar in a honeysuckle bloom, intensely sweet but fleeting. We haven't forest bathed for long before Charlie enters into a monologue about leaves and transpiration (which he refers to as transportation) the process by which plants sweat water from their leaves in hot weather as an evaporative cooling mechanism. He wants me to know that redbuds aren't very good at it because they have waxy leaves. He learned that on a nature show.

"Yes, but—" I pause as we pick our way around a washout in the trail. "Did you know that when you feel tiny drips falling down on you from a plant, if it's not rainwater or ordinary moisture, it might not be transpiration at all? It might be what's called honeydew."

"Honeydew?" He straddle-walks the last few yards, one foot on each side.

"Well, it's a form of sap." I can't count how many times I've amused school field trip kids and hapless park visitors with this obscure factoid. The punch line is the most fun when you're standing under the right sort of tree at the right time of year.

"Does it taste good?"

"It can, but I don't think you'd really want to sample honeydew."

"How come?"

"Because honeydew is produced by insects that eat sap for a living—sometimes tiny insects like aphids, and sometimes larger ones like leafhoppers."

"Soooo…when they bite the sap, it drips out from the leaves and falls on people?"

"Not exactly. Remember, I said they eat the sap, right? And they are big, big eaters. When something eats a lot and digests a lot, then…" Boys love this part of the story. It can send an entire elementary school class into a furious round of squeals, giggles, and whispered words their teachers don't allow them to say.

"It's…it's…poo?" Charlie gasps. "Mom! They poop on you?" Gaping into the trees, he scans the branches with a look of revulsion and insult. "That's bad!"

His horror fades quickly, and we laugh, and walk, and talk. Our morning hike passes with intermittent periods of silence, conversation, and discovery.

Lunch is a stop beside a clearwater creek for wading, cooling off, swimming if you're Charlie, and then we move along cross-country over a ridgeline to see the rockfall for ourselves. The damage is worse than I'd imagined, the rubble field hard-packed and massive.

"What made it happen like that?" Charlie wants to know, and I have to admit I've got no idea.

"Nature does strange things sometimes. We always have to keep an eye out to be safe." But in reality, nobody saw this coming.

"Maybe, I guess." Charlie has moved on to seeking bottle caps, gum wrappers, six-pack holders, bits of plastic, and any other human discards for his trash-and-treasure-collection baggies.

"Not too close." This place sets my nerves on edge. I don't like things I can't explain. Staring at the cataclysmic mess, I ponder potential causes before I realize it's not what I see that's bothering me…it's what I hear.

Footsteps. The human kind. With the area closed, no one should be around for miles. I turn my ear, strain against the rustle of leaves and pine branches. "Charlie, be still a minute."

The footstep noise stops, but I hear something else farther away. A voice? A little girl…singing…or whistling…or a flute playing? A radio maybe?

Just the acoustics of wind whistling through rock formations?

It's faint enough that I can't be sure. Goosebumps race up my arms. I think of Myrna Wambles, and murdered girls, and the man-devil searching for his scattered body parts.

You best watch yourself up in them mountains…

"Hello?" I call out. "Anybody there?"

I listen again. Silence.