Damned If I Do (19 page)

We finished breakfast and loaded our gear into the Jeep Wagoneer, making sure to leave plenty of room for Errol and his father’s stuff. I petted the head of Lassie, our collie, and then we waved good-bye to my mother as we backed off the driveway and rolled away down our lane, past the gardens and picket fences and past the car-chasing terrier that lived on the corner and often slept in the middle of the street.

1 September

The drive north and up into the mountains was beautiful. Errol and I were sitting in the backseat while our fathers talked in the front. Errol’s father, whose name was Andy, called my father by his shortened nickname, Oz.

“So, what do you think, Oz?” the Kiowa man said. “Do you think this stuff down in Cuba is a real problem?”

My father shrugged. “I just wish the white people could blow each other up without taking the rest of us with them.”

The two men laughed, but Errol and I just looked at each other.

“But life is good for us out here, isn’t it, Andy?” my father asked.

“Yes, it is.”

We drove up away from the squatty junipers and past the firs into a series of meadows and stands of aspen. We decided to stop at the top of a hill that overlooked a clear, twisting creek that had a beaver dam. The two fathers agreed that the fishing would be good there and so we set up camp. It seemed we all sang as we collected wood for the fire, set up tents, and prepared the night’s dinner of hot dogs and baked beans from a can. I don’t remember what songs we sang, only that we sang.

1 September

We sat around the fire after our meal and Errol’s father told us how his people used to come down and raid the Taos Indians, how some of the warriors remained to take Taos wives, how they set up a camp in Bear Canyon and lived there in the summers and in the winters moved down to stay in the pueblo, even though they were Kiowa, even though the Kiowa made periodic raids on their village.

The moon was full that night and was bright corn-bread yellow. A few coyotes called out to it and Errol and I watched it, our heads sticking out of the tent we were sharing. Our fathers were still up and talking just yards away.

“I wish I was Indian like you,” I said to Errol.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, really,” I said. “I guess I like the way your father talks about this place. Like it’s a part of him.”

“My grandfather told me I’m a cat dreamer. And it’s true, I have these dreams where a cat moves right through me. I can feel it.”

I stared at his profile, his eyes still pointed at the sky. I wondered whether I believed him. I wanted to believe him and was jealous at the thought that it was true. “What kind of cat?” I asked.

“A big one, a lion.”

I closed my eyes and looked for my own cat.

1 September

Fog hung in patches over the pond and meadow. Errol fished the slow-moving creek below the beaver dam and I worked the expanse of flat, still water above it. It was early, the air still frigid. There was no fish-feeding activity on the surface, so I was casting terrestrials, cinnamon ants, hoppers, and elk-hair caddis flies up current to an undercut bank. I was casting into the weeds and dragging the flies into the water with a splash, the way my father had taught me. “Ground insects always splash into the water,” my father told me. “You don’t have to cast far. It’s all presentation. Everything is presentation.”

A big brown took my hopper and then darted for cover around a stump in the pond. I sloshed through the knee-deep water to keep my line clear. It was a big fish, at least twenty inches. My heart was pounding. My breath was short. I could feel Errol watching me. I began to strip in line.

“Not too fast,” Errol called to me.

I heeded his warning and calmed myself. I pulled the trout closer and closer and then I could see his eye staring at me on the surface. I was standing at the bank now. I grabbed the fish, slipped out the hook, and dropped it into my creel. I looked down to see Errol and he was waving to me, gave me the okay sign.

1 September

We ate the fish that Errol and I caught for breakfast along with scrambled eggs made by Errol’s father. The fish were fried with the heads still on and the meat fell away from the skeletons easily. The heat of the cooking fire warmed the front of my body and a cool wind bit pleasantly into my back.

After breakfast, we went hiking up the mountain. We followed the creek for a couple of miles and then veered away from it, climbing to the top of a ridge. We followed the ridge up into stands of aspen trees. We got a quick glimpse of a yearling elk, and then we found the partially devoured carcass of a fawn. The glassy eyes didn’t look real. The body was ripped open and the hind legs were gone. Part of the heart was several feet away.

“Lion,” Errol’s father said. “Look at the claw marks and the size of the bite.” He pointed to the torn, light brown body, but I really couldn’t see what he was talking about. “Body’s still warm,” he said.

Errol and I looked about anxiously. I was both excited and terrified. I wanted to see the animal, see it close up, out there in the woods.

“You boys stay close,” my father said.

We continued on through the forest. It was a cloudy day and so the sun never really had a chance to warm things up. I zipped up my jacket and listened for noises as we walked, trying to separate the forest from the sounds of our footfalls. We made it to the high lake and ate a late lunch of cheese sandwiches. Then we started back down. We didn’t see the cat, no further sign of it. I was disappointed. But the image of that fawn’s heart stayed with me.

1 September

There was a lion up there. I didn’t get to see it, but I was next to its kill. I saw the animal’s heart from which it had taken a bite. In my mind, the cat was gigantic, but in my calmer moments I realized that it was no bigger than a German shepherd dog. I couldn’t get to sleep that first night home after the camping trip. I wanted to dream about the lion and nothing else.

While I was awake, I thought about the fact that school would be starting again very soon. A matter of days. Those last days of summer were always the sweetest. The weather was hot, but not unbearable. There were occasional afternoon showers. And after the rain, when the desert had sucked up the moisture in less time than it had taken to fall, I would walk with Frannie Dawes.

Frannie Dawes lived across the street with her mother. Her father was in and out of the VA hospital in Albuquerque. Frannie was skinny, with little feet, and she played the flute. She liked insects and so I liked her.

Those last days of summer were sweet. And the circus was coming.

1 September

Frannie Dawes and I left my house with a sack lunch and my father’s binoculars. We didn’t see any coyotes, but we walked a long time. We walked along the wash and watched a couple of red-tailed hawks circling and looking for prey. We stayed out until the sun was going down, just talking about this and that. I was floating, feeling happy and lost. And I wanted more than anything to kiss Frannie Dawes, to kiss her on the lips.

We were facing the sunset as we approached the edge of town. There was a broken band of clouds, which the sun had turned golden. Frannie said for me to stop walking and just look at that. “Just look at that,” she said. I did and my hand found hers. I had never been so scared in my life. I looked over at her face. She was staring at the horizon at first, but then she looked at me. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I kissed Frannie Dawes. It was a quick kiss, our lips barely touching, but it felt like a gift. Then we walked on, my heart racing around my chest.

1 September

The cave was located south of town. Errol, Frannie, and I were there at about dusk. We waited, watching the opening from about fifty yards away. A bat flew out and into the pink sky. Then another and then a swarm. A cloud of bats, their wings grabbing the air and pushing it behind them, sounding together to make a huge scream in the night. Buzzing. My mouth was open at the sight and when I realized it, I shut it. I glanced over at Frannie. Her eyes were so beautiful and full of wonder and I wondered if I could ever look that beautiful to someone. Errol was standing slightly in front of us. He couldn’t keep still. He bounced on the balls of his feet. He was so excited by the sight. He said, “Look at that! Would you look at that?!” Then he turned to look at us. Frannie had reached over and taken my hand. Errol saw our fingers tangled together. He gave my eyes a quick brush with his and then turned back to the bats.

“Bats can’t see,” Errol said. “They’re blind and they have sonar, just like navy ships. Some people are afraid of them, but they won’t hurt you.”

“They give me the creeps,” Frannie said, and she held my hand a little tighter.

“That’s because you’re a girl,” Errol snapped.

“They give me the creeps, too,” I said.

“Like I said.” Errol sighed out a breath. “Come on, let’s go back to town.”

1 September

The circus came. It came into our little town as a parade, music blaring from a marching band, and elephants stomping the streets, leaving them wet with dung and the smell of the circus. We watched the clowns tumble by. We watched the ladies in the skimpy clothes ride by on horseback and we nudged each other with our elbows. We watched the man in the top hat point to us and beckon us to come. Trucks carrying the large cages with the lions and tigers rolled by us. We watched them all the way through town and out to the western edge where they set up camp. Their big tents were beautiful with the sun sinking down behind them. The sounds of the animals rode the wind into the town that night and I went to sleep listening through my open window.

Errol and I sat forward in the bleachers, away from our parents, at the show. Frannie sat with her mother, father, and little brother. We ate popcorn while we waited for the show to start.

“What is it with you and Frannie?” Errol asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you holding her hand.”

I was embarrassed. “So?”

Errol looked back at the empty center ring. “I just saw you, that’s all.”

Then the lights went down and a spotlight came down on the ringmaster. We edged forward on our seats. He lifted his hat to us and introduced the acts and we laughed when the clowns fell and slapped each other and we gasped when the acrobats rolled through the air to be caught in the nick of time by another. And then the lion tamer came out. He was a great big man and he cracked his whip loudly. But it was the cats that captured me and I saw the same thing on Errol’s face when I glanced over at him. There were two African lions and a tiger. The tiger was gigantic, much larger than I would have imagined. If the lions had been without manes, then the tiger would have dwarfed them.

The tamer walked confidently around the inside of the big cage. He was wearing a rhinestone-studded vest and so the huge muscles of his arms were plain for all of us to see. He cracked his whip once, twice, three times, and the cats, after a brief complaint, all climbed up on their stools. The tamer shouted unintelligible commands at them with his booming voice. The low growls of the lions clawed into the crowd and I could feel the power, but the tiger was silent. When the audience was oohing and aahing over the tamer placing his head into a lion’s mouth, I looked over at the tiger and found the animal staring at me. Amber eyes fixed on me. Unmoving.

1 September

The tiger’s eyes burned there. A glance at Errol let me know that he was not seeing what I was seeing. Looking at the tiger caused everything else to disappear. The tamer seemed to do all of his tricks with the lions and left the tiger to stare at me. Then the big man approached the tiger and popped his whip. The report made me jump, but the tiger didn’t move a muscle. The tamer snapped the leather cord again and still there was no acknowledgment from the striped cat. The tamer looked to where the cat was looking and he saw me. He looked angry and he said something to the tiger. I couldn’t hear his words, only the quality of his sounds, but whatever it was he said, he got the tiger’s attention. The tiger looked at him and before anyone knew what had happened, the tamer was on the ground in a pool of blood. The big iron gate swung open by itself and the big tiger stepped out of the cage. People screamed and ran, some down to the aisles and out, pushing and trampling, and others scurried up to the top of the bleachers, packing in together with nowhere to go. I don’t know which way Errol ran, but I stayed put, right there in the front row. No one was near me. I watched the tiger rip open the arm of a circus roadie who was trying to toss a net over him. Another roadie was reluctantly trying to draw a bead on the cat with a rifle. The screaming and shouting fused into a kind of meaningless roar. Then the cat was standing in front of me. I heard my mother’s voice pierce the deadened hush. The tiger turned his enormous head and took my body into his mouth, closed his jaws about my waist. But he didn’t bite down, though I could feel the coolness of several of his teeth against the skin of my back and sides.

1 September

The tiger carried me in his mouth down the aisle toward the exit. I looked up and saw my mother in the crowd on the bleachers, her face frozen in a scream, but I couldn’t hear any sound coming out of her. I could hear only the raspy breathing of the big cat. I saw my father trying to push and weave through the pulsing tangle of bodies. People scurried for cover on tops of trucks and cars and behind refuse barrels and small boulders as we passed. I could feel the pad of each footfall against the stiff ground. Errol was standing in the bed of a pickup with his father and I could see that he wanted to run to my rescue, but was being held back. Then, in his face, I could see that Errol did not want to save my life, but that he wanted to sever my connection to the cat. He was not concerned about my welfare. He was jealous. I stared at his eyes as the tiger carried me past him. I smiled.

But where was the animal taking me? I began to grow fearful. I found it remarkable that this was my first pang of concern for myself. I was just coming to realize that the cat had captured me, that it was not the other way around. The tiger carried me off into the night, toward the big wash.