Take Me With You Page 13

  “I’m glad you boys got to see bison,” August said.

  “I hope it’s okay that I took, like, thirty shots with your camera.”

  “It’s fine, Seth. Digital pictures don’t cost anything.”

  “I can’t wait to show the kids at my school. Oh. Wait. I forgot. I won’t see ’em till after Christmas. Well. It doesn’t matter, I guess. I’ll just show ’em the pictures next year. They’ll still know I got to see all this. Just not so soon.”

  They sat quietly for a moment. Then that long, dividing ache sliced through August’s chest again.

  At almost that exact same moment, Seth said, “Phillip should’ve seen the bisons.”

  “That would have been nice,” August said.

  “We should put some of his ashes here. Right here where we sat and watched them.”

  August looked around. Out the windshield, his side window. The rearview mirror. There were a lot of cars holding still. A lot of tourists watching the bison.

  “I don’t know, Seth. I like the idea in principle. But there are too many people around.”

  “I could scatter a little handful right out the window and nobody would ever know. You could just put a little bit of ’em in my right hand. And I’ll just hang my hand out the window. And just as you start to drive, I’ll open up my hand. Nobody’ll even notice. And if they do, it’ll just look like a little puff of smoke or something.”

  August let the idea settle briefly. Then he opened the glove compartment, took out the iced-tea bottle. Slowly unscrewed the cap. He filled the cap with ashes, then poured them into Seth’s waiting hand. Then he sealed the bottle again and tucked it into the map pocket in the door. Close to his left knee. He had a sense he might be reaching for it often on this drive.

  “Seen enough?”

  “Let’s just look a little more, August, please? It’s so pretty here.”

  They sat in silence for two or three minutes, Seth’s right hand in his lap balled tightly around his big responsibility.

  Then Seth sighed. “Okay. I guess we can go see more great stuff now.”

  “Henry. Seat belt on.”

  But when August looked over his shoulder to check, Henry was already back in his seat with his seat belt on.

  Seth hung his right hand out the window as August pulled back onto the road. A moment later, the hand was back inside again. August never saw the ashes go. He felt cheated somehow. He wished he had seen them go.

  “Wet wipes in the glove compartment,” he told Seth.

  “Thought I wasn’t allowed in the glove compartment.”

  “Seth . . .” But before August could finish the thought, he looked over to see Seth grinning widely, pleased with his own . . . not joke exactly, but . . . August couldn’t find the word.

  “Funny guy, Seth,” he said. “You are a funny guy.”

  But it struck August odd. Because Seth wasn’t a funny guy. At least he never had been before.

  The following morning they drove the park road alongside Yellowstone Lake. Headed toward the canyon and its waterfalls. The sky was just beginning to lighten. They’d left camp early in the hope of being the first up to the viewing spot at the brink of the upper falls. But August felt sure that was a battle already lost.

  “That’s a big lake,” Seth said. He whistled low between his teeth. “Man. That’s the biggest lake I ever saw.”

  The road ran close to the edge of the water and nearly at the same level.

  “What other lakes have you seen?”

  August glanced over to see Seth redden slightly.

  “I’ve never seen a lake before,” he said. “Any lake. So I guess I didn’t say that right.”

  “Really? Never seen any lake at all?”

  “Kind of like desert where we live.”

  “Definitely like desert where you live.”

  “I’ve seen lakes in books. You know. And movies. And on TV . . .”

  Before he could go on, Henry surprised them both by piping up. “Stop!” he squeaked.

  “What, Henry? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just want you to stop here.”

  August found a safe place to pull over.

  “You need to go to the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “What do you need, then?”

  “The bottle.”

  August exchanged a glance with Seth, who shrugged.

  “What bottle, buddy?”

  “The Phillip bottle.”

  August blinked a few times, then pulled the plastic iced-tea bottle out from its place in the map pocket. He undid his seat belt and held the bottle out to Henry, who was by then unbelted and standing.

  Henry held both hands out together. Palms up.

  “Just put a little,” Henry said.

  August opened the bottle and poured a mound of ashes into the small waiting hands. Henry closed both hands tightly around them.

  “Wait, let me open the door for you.”

  August held the back door wide and Henry made his way carefully down the back steps. August followed him out into the surprisingly chilly morning twilight. Henry stepped out onto a narrow bank by the water’s edge. Took off his sneakers by stepping on each heel with the other foot.

  “Let me help you with your socks,” August said.

  Henry patiently lifted one foot at a time for August to pull his socks off. Then August rolled the hems of Henry’s jeans up as high as possible around his skinny legs.

  Henry walked into the lake, deep enough to get his rolled pant legs soaking wet. If the water was cold, which it surely must have been, he didn’t let on.

  August heard a small sound and looked behind him to see that Seth had come outside to watch. He had Woody on a leash. Woody also seemed intent on watching Henry’s movements.

  Henry spun around three times, his arms straight out in front of him, hands still tightly balled around the ashes. As if he planned on shot putting them into the lake. Then he stopped and held his hands up high, as if someone might reach down and take the ashes from his waiting hands. August expected him to open his hands and let them go, in which case the ashes would have rained down on Henry instead of the lake. Instead, Henry suddenly plunged his hands down into the water. When they came out again, they were open and separate. Henry stared at them for a moment, as if to gauge what remained. August could see a dull film of ash rise to the surface of the water between Henry’s wet pant legs. Then the boy waded ashore.

  “Okay,” he said as he walked past them.

  August picked up the boy’s shoes and socks and followed him inside, Seth and Woody trailing after.

  “You want to change into dry pants before we go?” August asked him.

  “No. It’s okay.”

  “Want to wash your hands?”

  “No.”

  Henry settled into his usual spot on the couch and put on his lap belt. Woody, freshly relieved of the leash, bounded into his lap.

  August shrugged inwardly and settled back into the driver’s seat, where he waited for Seth to belt himself in. He glanced back over his shoulder at Henry, who was holding out his hands and staring at the open palms. August opened the glove compartment and retrieved the canister of wet wipes he kept on hand for Woody’s muddy paws. He reached it back to Henry.

  “Here,” he said. “For your hands.”

  Henry shook his head. “No,” he said in that little mouse voice. “It’s okay. He can stay.”

  August thought that over for a moment before pulling his hand back and dropping the wipes into the glove compartment again. He fired up the engine and they drove on alongside the vast mountain lake, the sky just beginning to take on color.

  “This is Wednesday,” August said as they drove. “You’ll want to call your dad today.”

  Nothing. Absolute silence.

  August glanced over at Seth, who stared out the window as if he hadn’t heard.

  “You do want to talk to your dad. Don’t you?”

  First no answer. The
n, after a time, Seth said, “Not really. No.” Quietly. As if he’d suddenly run out of that seemingly endless Seth energy.

  August glanced at Henry in the rearview mirror. Their eyes met as Henry instinctively returned August’s glance.

  “What about you, Henry? You want to talk to your dad today?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Oh no,” Seth said when they pulled into the parking lot for the short trail to the brink of Upper Yosemite Falls. “There are already people here.”

  Their rig was the sixth vehicle parked.

  “I thought there might be.”

  “But we’re gonna go see it anyway, right?”

  “Yeah. Hell yeah. We’re here. Let’s go see it.”

  They stepped out into the cool early morning.

  “Wow,” Seth said. “That must be some waterfall. I can already hear it!”

  August took Henry’s hand for the walk to the falls, though he wasn’t sure why. It was impossible to lose him until they reached the platform at the brink of the falls. And the platform was railed. They had seen that from earlier overlooks. So it would be damned hard to lose him even then. Yet August instinctively reached down and was a bit surprised when Henry reached up to meet him halfway.

  As they walked hand in hand, August thought of the ashes on Henry’s hands. And it made him comfortable. Not afraid, as he’d thought it would. For the first time August understood why Henry had declined to wash them away.

  They stood on the platform together as apart as possible from the other tourists, the roar of the falls making communication nearly impossible. Henry leaned forward, pressing his belly and chest against the rocks that formed the edge of the platform, his head underneath the rail. Even though the rocks were wet from mist. August stood over him and held the waistband of his jeans for no real reason except to make himself feel more secure.

  As the water pitched over the very brink of the falls, August felt he could see through it. See the greenish depth, the sheer bulk of it, alone in the air with nothing to support it.

  Seth gripped the rail tightly and stared over it for a few minutes. He took out his own disposable camera and snapped off a shot. Then he tugged at August’s jacket. August leaned down to hear him better.

  “Let’s go now,” Seth shouted into his ear.

  August had to give Henry’s jeans a good pull to get his attention, but then they walked together up the short, steep path back to the parking lot.

  “That was a letdown,” Seth said.

  “Really? I thought it was a great waterfall.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I wanted us to be able to put some of the ashes in. So they’d go over the falls. But there were all those people.”

  “We could go even earlier tomorrow. We could get up at four. Get here while it’s still dark.”

  “But maybe we’ll do all that and somebody else will’ve done the same thing.”

  “Maybe. But what other options do we have?”

  “We should go further up the river. Is there a place to get down to the river further up?”

  “Farther,” August said without thinking. Then he wished he hadn’t corrected the boy. “I don’t like that plan. There’s nothing much more dangerous than a fast-moving river above a waterfall. A lot of people die that way in national parks. They fall into the river and the current takes them right over the falls.”

  “There has to be a place where we can go and still be careful.”

  “I don’t know, Seth. I think the best way to be careful is not to do it at all.”

  They walked the rest of the way back to the rig in silence. Woody sat in the driver’s seat watching them from the window as they approached, his whole body wagging.

  When they were belted in and ready to drive, August looked over at Seth. The boy looked sulky, his face shut down.

  “What’s up, Seth?”

  “I know you think I’m not careful enough, August. But sometimes I think you’re too careful.”

  “Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It can be.”

  “It keeps people safe.”

  “Not always it doesn’t. Everybody goes around missing all the best stuff because they don’t want anything bad to happen. But then when something bad wants to happen it just does. Anyway. No matter how careful you’re being.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” August said, still not starting the engine. “There are bad things you can prevent by being careful and others you can’t. Lots of people get into lots of trouble when they could have avoided it by being more careful.”

  “But not by being too careful,” Seth said, clearly exasperated. “By being just careful enough. I think we should go further . . . farther . . . up the river. And be just careful enough.”

  August sat with his inner resistance for a moment, then sighed. “You might be right,” he said. “Maybe we should go upriver and just be careful. Maybe I was being overly cautious.”

  “Sure were,” Seth said. Then he glanced quickly over at August. “I mean . . . thank you. That’s what I meant. Thank you.”

  “I figured that’s what you meant,” August said.

  “Oh, this is a great place!” Seth shouted as the river came into view between the trees.

  But August didn’t like the look of it at all. Because there was no guardrail. Just a racing river.

  “I could climb up on that big rock,” Seth continued.

  He pointed to a rock about the length of a school bus and three times as wide at the edge of the rapids, the river curving and roiling around one edge of its base.

  “But there are places with no rocks. You can just stand at the edge of the river. Wouldn’t that be safer?”

  “I don’t know, August. I think if I stood in a safe place and threw the ashes they’d just land in the dirt by the side of the river. And I sure don’t want to lean over. Look at the top of that huge rock. It’s almost flat. And it’s higher on the river end. So if I slipped climbing up it, I could only fall back away from the water.”

  “I don’t like it,” August said.

  Yet they were walking in the rock’s direction.

  “Tell you what, August. I’ll get down on my belly and inch my way up that rock. Till I can get just my arms over the edge. My whole body’ll be lying on the rock. I couldn’t fall. It’s not even possible.”

  “On one condition,” August said. “That I go up there with you and hang on to the waistband of your jeans.”

  “August, it’s impossible to fall off that rock.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I don’t really know what that means,” Seth said. “Except I think it means you’re going to be hanging on to the waistband of my jeans.”

  August lifted Henry by his waist and set him on top of the rock, which was much lower on its nonriver end.

  “Promise me you’ll stay here and not move a muscle.”

  “I promise, August,” Henry said.

  “Because this is a dangerous place for you to be walking around alone.”

  Henry crossed his heart with one hand solemnly. “Double, triple promise,” he said.

  “Good boy. Okay, Seth. Let’s go.”

  They inched their way along the rock, Seth in the lead. And it felt safe enough. Until they got out closer to the end, and August could look off and see river below them. But the rock was so wide he couldn’t even look straight down. It really was safe. His brain told him so. And yet his heart began to pound.

  “Okay, hand me the bottle, August.”

  It surprised him to hear Seth say it, because it meant the boy had reached the edge. August instinctively reached up and grabbed the waistband of Seth’s jeans, hooking his thumb through a belt loop. He looked back at Henry, who hadn’t moved. With his free hand, he took the plastic bottle out of his jacket pocket and handed it up to Seth.

  Then he looked at the rushing river again and got a bad feeling. The feeling said this was a mistake. That he was right in the very act of doin
g something he should have known better than to do.

  At that exact moment Seth let out a gasp, followed by, “Oh shit!”

  August yanked hard on the jeans, and the boy came tumbling back toward him, and they rolled a few feet back away from the river and then came to a stop, partly tangled. August’s heart pounded like it might break loose, and he grabbed Seth’s shirt as if to assure himself that he had the boy, and Seth could not get away.

  “What just happened, Seth?”

  Seth stared at his own hands and said nothing at all. August looked down at the hands. They were empty.

  “I dropped it, August.”

  August breathed deeply for the first time in a long time. “Oh hell, Seth. Is that all? You scared the crap out of me.”

  “August. I dropped it. Phillip’s bottle. It’s gone.”

  “So? The plan was to put it into the river. And you did.”

  “But not the whole bottle. You wanted to put him other places, too.”

  “Well, now he’s on his way down the river. So he’s going all kinds of places, isn’t he? Places we never could have thought of. He’s on a big tour of Yellowstone right now.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “I’m not, actually. Come on. Let’s get off this rock. Let’s go get your brother.”

  Seth stared forlornly out the window for most of the drive back to camp. Finally he spoke up.

  “You were right, August. I’m sorry.”

  “What was I right about?”

  “You said we shouldn’t do it. It was too dangerous. You said something bad might happen. And you were right. And it’s all my fault.”

  “Seth, nothing bad happened. We’re all fine. It was a plastic bottle. With about half a cup of the ashes of my son, the rest of which are safe at home. When I heard you scream, I thought you were falling. It was a bottle, Seth. You’re a living, breathing kid. When I said something bad could happen, I meant to you. Not to the bottle. You’re safe, so nothing went wrong.”

  “I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “Seth, you have to let it go.”

  Seth turned his face to August and fixed him with a scorching stare. “People say that to me all the time. And I have no idea what they’re talking about at all.”