Screwing up her courage, she stepped off the porch, heading for the store.
Around her she heard the typical sounds of summer in the forest, the chirping and trilling of Douglas squirrels, the chee-dee-dee of mountain chickadees, the occasional police whistle-like call of a varied thrush. And always the scent of sun-warmed pine. It was a comforting smell, one that reminded her of endless happy hours spent hiking in the wilderness. She found herself smiling in spite of the dire situation. Sometimes nature reminded her of bigger things than her own problems. It whispered of ancient forests, the advancing and retreating of glaciers, the everyday foraging of birds and squirrels in the underbrush. Here these animals were, carrying on with their lives day after day. They foraged and gathered and stored, slept through winters and explored the springs. Trees weathered countless snowstorms, fierce winds, and mild summers, with the chattering of squirrels in their branches. They did this, year in and year out. The constancy of nature.
It always calmed her mind, the chaos of her problems seeming smaller, the panic subsiding. Time was she had worried about how to hide her gift, about not having any friends, about her parents’ aversion to her gift.
Today she worried about her own death. But still, even that seemed smaller, just one organism in the cycle of life, born one day and returning to the earth the next, her body food for coming generations of flowers and worms and trees.
This thought didn’t make her sad; it liberated her. The best she could do was make the most of the time she had left, whether that was seventy years or a day. She would live every moment to its fullest, and she would fight until the very end.
Madeline padded along the paved road until she reached the camp store area. A pack of kids rushed by her, screaming and running this way and that, attacking each other with robot action figures. A woman in a St. Louis Cardinals sweatshirt yelled after them, “You all better be back for lunch! I ain’t gonna say it twice!” She piled into a monstrous RV and slammed the door.
Ah, camping, thought Madeline, feeling a little better, her spirits brighter than they’d been in days.
She strode up the four wooden steps to the camping store, only to find the place overflowing with tourists buying suntan lotion, cedar boxes sporting coyotes, and walking sticks decorated with bear bells. It was one of those stores that sold both souvenirs and groceries and was perpetually packed from June through September.
This day was no exception. The line for the register ran the length of the store, and everyone in it looked sweaty and impatient. She did notice one couple, though, happily kissing in the middle of the line, somehow miraculously able to tune out the droning masses, the wheezing of vacationers who’ve spent their last recreational dollar on postcards and gimmicky T-shirts, the whines and pleas of kids who want just one more gobstobber to stick in their sibling’s hair.
A family at the end of the line was buying bear bells for each of its five members. The three kids whined and complained about who got which bell until they got distracted by a bin of rubber spiders and scorpions and began dumping them on each other. She cast an annoyed look at the parents, who were jangling the bells, as if giving them a test run. Many times she’d encountered bell wearers on what she had hoped to be peaceful, rewarding hikes.
The clanging of the bells now rankled her memory.
Jangle jangle jangle up the trail.
Jangle jangle jangle down the trail.
And the real crime of it was that there was no solid evidence bear bells even worked; some specialists believed they were nowhere near as effective as the human voice. As predators, bears exercised a certain degree of curiosity, and sometimes were even attracted by the bells, wanting to know what they were. One Canadian boat captain Madeline had met called bear bells “dinner bells.”
She squeezed down the aisle between a cluster of people eying glass tankards with grizzly bears and walked to the refrigerated section. Grabbing a couple of turkey sandwiches and two cans of soda, she steadied her nerves for checkout.
She got in the end of the long line. Shoppers swarmed in every aisle and around every display shelf, pawing ceramic bells that touted Glacier National Park and digging through bins of enough cheap rings to turn every American finger a deep shade of gangrenous green. One portly woman in her fifties, wearing a polyester pantsuit sporting butterflies, couldn’t decide between a monkey made entirely of seashells and a Day-Glo orange apron that proclaimed, Kiss the Cook.
Frankly, Madeline didn’t see what either trinket had to do with Glacier National Park, but that was her own tastes. In the end, the woman chose both. Madeline pictured the woman’s house, shelves bulging with bric-a-brac and kitsch, worm-eaten Indian corn necklaces and fake rubber spears with yellow and green chicken feathers. The woman looked completely stressed about the whole buying endeavor, graying black hair escaping in wisps from her ponytail, her brow furrowed.
But perhaps she enjoyed the purchases when she got home, Madeline thought. She imagined the woman chasing a grandchild around the living room with the rubber spear, the kid screaming with delight.
The line moved forward with the speed of rush hour traffic in San Francisco. She gained one foot. Then two. At the front of the line, a sunburned man in khaki shorts and a too-tight T-shirt was complaining about the price of film. Then his credit card wouldn’t work, and the manager had to be called to clear the register and start over. Finally he dug some crumpled bills out of his pocket, but it only made him complain more about the inflated prices.
With him gone, she moved forward another foot, and the new person at the front of the line dithered over whether to get a small sewing kit in a leather pouch or a tiny spoon that read Glacier National Park on its handle. The cashier kept ringing one up, then voiding it out when the customer changed her mind.
The woman dithered for well over three minutes. Madeline stretched, gazing out the door toward escape. It was a good thing the creature didn’t burst in right then, ready to do her in. She just might take him up on it.
Finally the lady chose the spoon, and the line crept forward another foot. In five more minutes, her head beginning to pound from all the shouting and shrieking children, she at last reached the register. Fishing out her wallet, she paid for the food and gratefully left the swarming, trinket-shopping masses.
When she got back to the cabin, she tucked the grocery bag under her arm and fished around the loose jeans for her key. Her fingers found the large plastic key chain, and she tugged it out. Inside, she set the food down on the small table, quickly locking the door behind her. Crossing the front room, she stopped at the bedroom door.
Noah still lay there in the same position, only now his eyes were open and staring again at nothing in particular.
“Noah?” she said softly. “I brought you some food.”
He didn’t stir.
She retrieved the food and brought it into the bedroom. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she pulled out the sandwiches and unwrapped his. “Noah?”
He continued to stare, eyes red and swollen, mouth set in a thin, gray slash. A rope of clear mucus dangled from one nostril, clinging to the pillow on the other end. Noah was beyond caring. Slowly, his wide, tired eyes closed, and a long exhale escaped his lips.
Still he didn’t move. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. For several minutes she sat there, watching over him, and at last wrapped up the sandwich again and placed it on the bedside table along with a can of soda.
Feeling helpless about Noah, she took her own lunch into the main room and sat down at the small table. She unwrapped her sandwich, the soggy white bread falling to one side as she pulled it free of the cellophane. A pale tomato and wilted lettuce adorned the layers of pressed turkey, but Madeline was so hungry the concoction looked like a rich Thanksgiving feast. She bit into it hungrily, the flabby bread sticking to the roof of her mouth. Prying the bread free with her tongue, she chewed and swallowed, took another bite, and finished the sandwich in minutes.