In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [97]
Still, all that time once filled with singing and prayer now seemed without purpose and threatened to expand into a feeling of loneliness. I did not want to be lonely. Lonely filled me with panic. Even at work I felt cut off, closed up in a box of glass and metal, surrounded by aspirin and splints, lotions, greeting cards and Russell Stover chocolates—everything anyone could ever need to feel better or encourage someone else to. Anymore, the only thing that made me feel better was being with John.
At first, just having my own apartment seemed like heaven. I painted the walls shell white, decorated them with pastel landscapes from K mart instead of the juvenile posters I might once have chosen, and carefully arranged in the cupboard the few pots and pans my boss and his wife had given me. On the wall across from my bed, I nailed the walnut gun rack my great-uncle Clyde had made as a gift for my graduation. In it rested my .22 rifle, my Ithaca shotgun and my father’s Winchester 30.06.
I had found the Winchester leaned in the corner of my grandmother’s closet, where it had been for years, ever since my father, still recovering from his back injury, had pawned it to his brother for a fifty-dollar loan. I loved the swirled grain of its stock, the smooth comfort of it against my cheek. Its smell of Hoppes gun-cleaning fluid brought back a run of emotions, which I let my mind sift through, discarding those images too specifically linked to my family or the Langs. I savored only the sensations of those times, warm as a tightly banked fire. If I let my mind’s eye wander, allowed myself to remember and miss what existed beyond the smells and warmth, I’d feel it in the pit of my stomach: loss, regret, an overwhelming sense of sadness and longing that would devour me from the inside out. I kept the rifle as I would a funeral token—a flag folded and tucked into a tight triangle; a clutch of crushed flowers, dry and dusted. It symbolized for me the metaphorical death of my father: I could imbue it with whatever nostalgia I chose.
When John wasn’t working as a carpenter’s apprentice, he took me into the mountains. He had promised that in the fall he would lead me to the breaks of the Salmon River, where pheasant and chukar made tunnels through thistle; we practiced our aim on the hundreds of ground squirrels whose burrows mounded the high meadows. But he had gone camping for the weekend, and I was stuck behind a plateglass window dusting Bag Balm.
I imagined him wading the shallows of a mountain stream—the breeze still cold off the higher snow fields, the fish smell of fresh water, the pitched hum of insects waking to the sun. Nothing felt more right than being surrounded by pine and cedar, fir and spruce, the tamarack that bared its branches in winter like a common town tree.
Even better was to be with John in the woods. I loved his love of the forest, his knowledge of animals, his accuracy with a rifle. I loved pleasing him with the accuracy of my own marksmanship. I loved the way he spread his flannel shirt on a bed of needles and covered me with his body. I loved looking past his head and seeing the sky, not just a piece of blue, but the whole of it from horizon to horizon. I loved the way the ravens called as they passed over, not a warning or hoarse caw of fear, but a cry of acknowledgment: there, there.
Standing at the counter, longing for the presence of ravens, it came to me that I could go into the woods anyway, by myself. Tomorrow was my day off. I could go fishing, take my .22, find the squirrels and shoot them. I would cut off and bring home the wiry little tails, as John did, proof of my good eye and independence. But I wouldn’t go into the closest mountains. Instead, I would go to the Clearwater, back into that place from which I came.
The next morning, I loaded my fishing rod,