Sitting on his mattress in the dark, Abel tried to pop out the bends in his bony frame. He could do it physically, but not mentally. His mind wasn’t up to the task. His young daughter lay asleep in the other tiny upstairs room on the other side of the narrow stairwell. The time had come to drop caustic news into her joyous existence. Sure, he could wait one more day to tell her that her mother was probably not coming home again, but he had waited one more day yesterday. He was afraid of this terrible duty.
The man rose from his bed, adjusted his one-piece union suit underwear and slipped out of his room to his daughter’s chambers, going along on bare feet as quiet as an owl in flight. Once there, he did not quite know what to do, so he sat down gently on the end of her bed.
In the darkness he could just make out the face of his child embraced by her pillow, Listening to her slow, rhythmic respiration, he studied the little life tucked under the covers, slumbering in a tiny room under a cabin roof that separated her from a driving blizzard of thick mud-snow. She was safe and comfortable despite the steady rat-a-tat on the window. That was what mattered.
Abel left Pelee’s room and felt his way down the stairs to the modest main room. He crossed to the cabin’s wood stove, rotated the damper and opened the stove door to throw a few sticks of hardwood onto the coals. Pulling up a chair, he sat close to the hot stove, orange light from the flames flickering through isinglass panes mounted in the cast iron door. The radiant heat felt therapeutic, a hot tonic for a brain full of cotton fiber.
Minutes scurried along the walls as Abel sat swaddled in darkness, soaking in the luxurious heat of burning kindling. The hooting winds, creaking stovepipe and the crackle of the fire were familiar sounds that masked the approach of little feet on the floor. Suddenly, Pelee was at her father’s side, startling him. He instinctively placed an arm around her waist and hoisted her up onto his lap. She nestled there and snuggled up against the man, wrapped in his arms.
“This is a nice little surprise,” Abel whispered.
“Mmm.”
“What brings you down here at this late hour, missy?”
“I was scared.”
Abel found the statement hard to fathom. “Pelee scared? No way.”
“I was. Honest.”
“What were you scared about?”
“The volcano.”
“Oh, the volcano.” Pelee’s admission sent a shiver through him.
“Pop?”
“Yes, missy?”
“Mommy was working at Yellowstone. And that’s where the volcano is.”
Abel’s chest tightened. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. Pelee had a razor-keen intelligence. She could thread minute and wildly divergent facts together and weave them into a whole, thoroughly thought-out conclusion. She customarily astounded him with her flashes of insight when confronted with novel situations. Could it be that Pelee was about to play a role reversal here and pin troublesome news on him?
“I know that the volcano was bad. It was really, really big. Mom was supposed to fly here then. She was supposed to be here a while ago, but she isn’t. She should have called. If she were going to be late, she would have called. But she didn’t call. That makes me scared.”
“Why do you think your mother hasn’t called, Pelee?”
“She would call if she could. If she didn’t call, that means she couldn’t call. Something happened to her. I think mommy is hurt. The volcano hurt her. I think the volcano hurt her badly. That’s why she hasn’t called.”
Involuntarily, Abel squeezed his daughter and held her tight to his chest. She began to sob quietly, pressing her head into his sternum. The child’s father was shaken by his daughter’s revelations. He was speechless, but he had to find his voice.
“Pelee.”
“What?” the little girl pouted, muffled against her father’s chest.
“I think you may be right. Your mom was working at Yellowstone when the volcano erupted.”
Pelee continued to sob quietly.
“We haven’t heard from your mom, so we don’t really know how she is. We don’t know if she is all right or not. But, Pelee, if your mother was still at Yellowstone when the volcano exploded, maybe your mom did not have a chance to get away. That’s possible.”
Pelee turned her head and placed an ear against Abel’s chest. “Pop?”
“What, missy?”
“Do you think mom is dead?”
Abel’s flesh and bone shook as if molded gelatin. He placed a hand to her hair and began stroking her head.
“We don’t know, Pelee, do we?”
“No.”
“She could have been hurt and can’t contact us. That’s possible. Bobcat says most communication is down. People can’t get through on phones or by email. If she could have called, she would have. So, we have to hope, Pelee. We have to hope that mom is somehow still alive and that some day she will be able to get in touch with us and come see us. We have to hold out hope.”
“You know what, Pop?” Pelee mumbled, sniffling and rubbing her nose.
“What, missy?”
“I know mom loves me.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
“Petah, please, please extinguish the lamps. We are all here now. We have but one candle lit. So, please, the lamps,” said elder Benjamin White Elk. The daughter of the Blackfoot Federation doctor, Sinopa, swept through the meeting hall at Chief Mountain village to carry out the task of puffing out half a dozen kerosene lanterns. White Elk’s shallow baritone voice hummed mellow and low to drive off the dead silence from the large interior space. A month earlier, the center could not hold everyone in the tiny Montana reservation town of the South Piegan Blackfoot. Now a third of the seats were vacant.
White Elk, in blue jeans and khaki shirt threadbare from long use, insisted on candles at the meeting. He wanted the light of the old ones to shine. The elder whom all the Blackfoot tribes knew to be as strong as heartwood and stable as kimberlite stone did not want to see the loose skin of starvation, the worm furrows of worry or the limp, joyless children with hollowing eyes.
No, White Elk wanted the saffron light of candles to bring back the warm glow of healthy flesh. Candles would represent warmth. Candles, most of all, would signify the return of the sun.
The wick filaments in the lamps went cool. Darkness closed in from the ceiling and pressed through cold windows somehow holding back heavy layers of volcanic ash. Now a single likeness filled the void. The elder’s face, sculpted as if from sedimentary rock before the winds off the Southwest deserts, reflected away the light of the single candle flame, scattering his image to the far recesses of the building.
“Petah, will you please bring your candle forth. And anyone who has brought a candle to the meeting, please follow her slowly, one at a time, up to the front here. Light the candle with the flame from this candle, and return to where you were sitting. Thank you.”
The young woman crossed from the rear of the hall quickly, wanting to catch the flame lest it go out before she reached the table. As she hurried along, the quiet gave way to rustling as many in their seats rose and shuffled out to the aisles to make their way forward. Down they came, dozens of young and old alike from the Blackfoot community. No one spoke. Feet, clad in boots to ward off the ash and cold temperatures, clattered along the floor creating a steady murmur. Eyes in dark sockets were fixed on the candle.