Alexis Smith - Marrow Island

“What poem was it?” I ask.

He reaches in his pocket and pulls it out: a paper so worn and soft it could be a hanky. He carefully unfolds it and hands it to me. It’s T. S. Eliot, from Four Quartets . “A modernist,” I say, impressed. I was expecting Longfellow; Manley Hopkins. “Do you know about this poem?”

“What about it?”

“This page — it’s from a poem Eliot wrote about living in London before and after the Blitz. He was a Christian, Eliot; fire was complicated for him: it was death, but it was also the purification of the soul.”

He’s silent, and I think that I’ve ruined it for him. That I’ve somehow belittled him and intruded on his love for these lines.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “it’s apt, is all I meant to say. It seems really — telling, that you kept this page with you.”

The bats are out, feasting, their wings beating the air silently against the pale pink of the sky. Where we’re sitting, it’s already so dark, I can barely see his face.

I reach my hand out to touch his chest, and he catches it and holds it. He kisses the inside of my wrist and my elbow. His lips linger over my skin. I haven’t shaved in weeks, but he buries his face in my armpit and pushes aside my tank top, tastes the tender side of my breast. My skin is covered in sweat and dust and DEET, and when we kiss, I taste it all in his mouth with the warm sour of beer. We spread the blanket out on the pine planks of the deck. We’re still wearing our hiking boots. He unhooks my bra, kisses my belly, unbuttons my shorts, and slips his hand between my legs. He’s pushing my shirt up with his face. The stars light up the treetops. When I close my eyes, I can still see them. And the shapes of the trees, too, the outline of them, flaring up in the night sky.

Later he asks, “What are you doing out here, Lu?”

I’m not sure if he means the woods or the lookout, or both. But I’m caught by that nickname. He just started using it, at the Dollar Save on our way back from Baker City. We were standing at opposite ends of an aisle, each hunting for something, distracted by the discount store oddities. “Lu,” he had called, softly; the store was eerily quiet. And I looked up. He was grinning, holding a can of Armour Potted Meat. I choked on a laugh and held up a package of Ekonomik Boy Cream Cake. It’s a moment I go back to in my mind now, instead of thinking of an answer.

We’re lying naked in the cot, his ear pressed into my breast. I can’t lie to him.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” I say.

My first night alone at the lookout I am terrified, sleepless, listening to the sounds of a cougar prowling the deck. Maybe my period is coming. Thinking of the old wives’ tales about menstruation and wild animals, how the smell of blood draws the carnivores. I imagine there’s a niche market of erotica based on this superstition. A woman alone in the wilderness: so vulnerable, so delicious; she goes mad, consorting with the beasts.

I convince myself I’m imagining the stealthy footfalls, the deep padded, furred tread, the velvety disruption of the air around its ears, its nostrils. It’s only the wind, blowing pine needles on the boards.

I sleep late, for once.

My coffee water is about to boil when I hear the sound of footsteps on gravel. It’s not early in the morning, but it’s not late. It seems early for a hiker. I know it can’t be Carey. The footsteps come closer. Not an animal, not the scurry of small mammalian feet, and not the soft waltz of deer hooves, the languorous 3/4 beat of their steps. I recognize the sound of thick rubber soles on the rocky terrain because they were just like mine, the echo of my own lone footsteps up and down and around this mountain. I freeze. I cannot imagine the person attached to them. A lost hiker, someone in need, perhaps. But what if it’s not? I feel the electric surge of adrenaline, and I turn off the burner, take the pan of boiling water by the handle for protection, and force myself to go to the door, to step out onto the deck, and peer over the side in the direction of the path.

Katie stands below, shielding her eyes to look back at me.

The pan of hot water splashes me, and I curse and run inside and put it down on the burner. Katie stands halfway up the steps when I come out. Her dark hair is shorter now, cut up around her ears, sticking out from a red bandanna. She’s wearing backpacking gear, but she’s cleaner than I am. I hug her and she smells like Katie, the way she smelled on Marrow, like vetiver and seaweed — but also musky from walking in the sun — oily hair, warm sandstone. Her nose and cheeks are burned.

“How did you get here?”

“I walked.” Her voice is a husk. She clears her throat. “I’m out of water.”

“Come inside.”

I pour some water from the jug for her, take her pack and set it aside — it’s lighter than it ought to be, for someone backpacking or traveling anywhere. She sits at the small table and drinks. I want to wait for her to be ready to talk again, but I can’t.

“Sister J. passed away, two months ago.”

She doesn’t look at me but only nods. She’s looking around the room, her eyes resting on the CB radio.

“I was with her,” I say. “She was thinking about you.”

She holds out the cup, and I get her more water. I notice now the circles under her eyes, how they’re lined with red inside the rims.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

She looks directly into my eyes. “I am dead,” pulling off her bandanna, hair felted to her head. “I’m not here. If anyone comes looking for me, you haven’t seen me.”

She lies back on the cot, and I remove her shoes. She groans as I pull them over her blistered heels. I strip her holey socks — she has one more pair in her bag — and see the swollen knobs of her toes. I roll up the leg of her jeans — they were Tuck’s jeans, I think — she has belted them; her legs are unshaven and pale, with blue and green bruises up and down the shins. I take the water I had boiled for coffee and pour it into my dish tub along with some cold water, set it on the floor beside the cot. She lets out a howl of agony and pleasure as I ease her first foot into the water; she’s breathing like a woman in labor.

“If you can manage it, we can go down to the creek later and have a cold soak to bring down the swelling. Let’s just clean you up, now.”

“Okay.” Her voice is small, an octave higher, like a child’s.

I make oatmeal while her feet soak, and she lies, senseless, on the cot. I think she’s sleeping, but when she hears the bowls of oatmeal hit the table, she sits up. I put extra brown sugar and evaporated milk in hers. She lifts her feet from the basin and hobbles to the table. The oatmeal is scalding but she eats quickly.

“Let’s bandage your feet,” I say. I take some Ace bandages and antibiotic ointment from the first-aid kit and attend to her sores and blisters. I don’t know that her boots will fit again so soon and I tell her so.

“I’m fine,” she says, lying back on the cot. “I just need to rest.” Then I think she really will fall asleep, but I don’t want her to rest.

“Okay,” I say. I’m afraid if I take my eyes off her, she’ll slip away.

“Tell me about Sister,” she says, closing her eyes.

I think about this, sitting at her feet, watching her drift away.

“They sent a letter saying she asked for me,” I say. “She wanted me to bring something, but she wouldn’t say what it was. At first I thought she was just losing her mind. But that was my clue, the not naming: I knew it was something the sisters couldn’t give her, and that she couldn’t name in front of them.”

Katie opens her eyes and watches me.

“Did you figure it out?”