St. Elias Read online

  “I’ll think about it.”

  The young man sighed. “Okay. I work in the clinic in Glennallen. If you are ever there, stop in to see me, yes?”

  “I can’t promise,” she said.

  “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Elias.”

  “Your name is as awesome as you, just like the mountain,” Josh shouted as he walked away.

  On the way back to Katy’s cabin with her roommates that evening, she wondered whether she had made a mistake. She didn’t know if she would get asked out on a date again. She wanted to fall in love, even though she felt betrayed by Ce’Rainitee and not sure whether she could put faith in another person again. Helen was always there for her, however, and she saw Katy’s staunch determination to be with Andy. So maybe some people could be trusted, and she just had to take a chance. And perhaps, that was what growing up was about, to not give up, to take the plunge again after a bloody loss. But wasn’t it a foolish thing to do, to keep putting oneself out there in danger? How was that a sign of maturity?

  But going out on a date didn’t necessarily mean falling in love. She could have a fling. She could just have fun. While she was dancing with Josh, she did feel aroused in ways she had never felt before, and it was exciting. She wouldn’t mind kissing him just to see what kissing a man felt like, or being held in his arms, or being whispered nonsense in her ears. She imagined lying on the beach with him, the ocean before them and the mountains behind, her head on his shoulder, and them talking at length before he rolled over, his thighs on hers as he looked her in the eye.

  “Sam…” Elias muttered.

  “What?” asked Gina.

  Elias felt her face burn as she realized whom she was thinking of making love to. “Nothing…”

  They were already at the door of their cabin and Katy came out, her eyes bright and her smile stretching from ear to ear. “Guess what just happened to me?”

  “You won the lottery?” Gina joked.

  “Andy proposed,” Katy shouted.

  “No way,” said Shuping. “While we were gone?”

  Katy nodded. “I was tossing and turning in my bed, and I heard the knock on the door and Andy shouting for me to go out. As soon as I opened the door, he got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him.”

  “Oh, my, God,” said Shuping.

  Gina and Shuping started giggling and jumping up and down with Katy.

  “Well, where’s the ring?” Gina stared at Katy’s bare left hand.

  “He said he’s working on it,” replied Katy sheepishly.

  “Come on,” said Gina. “What kind of a proposal was that?”

  Elias was bewildered by it all because only a couple of hours ago, Andy had talked about how he didn’t want to tie Katy down.

  “Elias, hello?” said Shuping. “Aren’t you glad about Katy’s good news?”

  Elias smiled and held Katy’s hands. “Of course. I’m so happy for you.”

  She was indeed happy for Katy, but she also worried Katy was not making the best decision for herself. She hoped her anxiety was unnecessary and prayed Andy would make her new friend happy not just for this night, but forever after.

  Chapter Ten

  Katy and Andy had their engagement party at the Kennecott Hotel restaurant a week later. Their relatives and friends gathered to congratulate the couple. Tourists joined in on the festivities as well. There was a nice selection of hors-d'oeuvres including prosciutto-wrapped fennel, broiled shrimp vermouth, and seared sirloin squares with pickled shallots, all compliments of the house.

  After the champagne toast, the karaoke machine was turned on. Andy kicked it off with “Annie’s Song,” and Shuping followed with “You Light up My Life.” Elias was so moved she wept until Gina broke out with “Wannabe” by Spice Girls, and Andy jumped in to do the rap in the song. Suddenly, Elias didn’t know whether her tears were from laughing or crying.

  Elias had helped Mr. Mason prepare the food, and she was glad everyone seemed to enjoy it. But Sam was not there. For some odd reason, she wanted to impress him, to see him give the thumbs up and the satisfied smile when he tasted each delicacy. She was certainly thinking of him when she threaded each marinated shrimp onto a skewer. She also wanted to him to try the cake Mr. Mason let her make for her friends for this special night.

  It was a red velvet cake. Helen taught her, when she was eight years old, to make it with beet juice and cover it with buttercream frosting and coconut flakes. Helen used to let her stir the batter and pour it into the baking pan. As the cake baked in the oven, they’d sit out on the porch to snack on pork rinds and sip iced sweet tea. When time was up, they’d retrieve the cake from the oven and go back out on the porch again while waiting for the cake to cool. They’d both get on the hammock, sing a tune, and doze off.

  Elias’s heart ached. Helen was the best mother any girl in Elias’s position could have asked for. Helen never said anything ugly or spanked Elias when other kids’ mothers were all too willing to do so. It was Elias’s own fault she screwed her life up so badly. Helen deserved better. Maybe it was a good thing she left home so Helen could start to live for herself and to enjoy a life without having to care for a stepdaughter who was nothing but trouble.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Katy said when she saw the cake.

  It didn’t take long for the cake to be consumed almost entirely, but Elias saved a slice for Sam. She was still hopeful he would show.

  “I got a song picked out for us.” Gina came and grabbed her hand. “This karaoke machine’s playlist needs some serious updating, but ’Chapel of Love’ is always fun.”

  Gina pushed and shoved her over to the front of the crowd, picking up Katy and Shuping along the way. Soon, all except Elias broke into the acapella opening. They were vocalizing in such an exaggerated manner and so blatantly off-key, rocking from side to side so asynchronously, bumping into one another’s shoulders with every bar so much so that Elias decided to put aside her reservations and join in on the fun. At the end of the song, Gina handed her a glass of rum and coke. She took a big gulp.

  For a moment, she thought her spirit left her head to watch her body party, like a grown woman, no less. Her face warmed, and she giggled.

  Then Katy wanted her to sing a duet, “Don’t Stop Believing.” Emboldened, she joined Katy after the first verse. They had the whole crowd sing along, and when it was over, she enjoyed another rum and coke. Tipsy, she danced to Shuping’s “Material Girl” with Gina.

  “I never had so much fun in my life,” Elias shouted.

  “You need to hang out with me more,” said Gina. Her smile diminished a bit as she looked past Elias’s shoulder. “Here comes killjoy Stuffy Sam.”

  Elias stopped dancing and turned toward the direction Gina was looking. Sam was standing there in his ranger uniform with sort of a less than detectable grin on his face and staring at her like he did that night when she was dancing with Josh at the Glacier Cabins cookout. Elias’s heart skipped a beat, and she felt oozy all of a sudden.

  “Would it kill him to smile at his buddy’s engagement party?” Gina shook her head. “So rude. So arrogant. Don’t you agree?”

  “He is smiling…” Elias muttered.

  “What?” asked Gina.

  “I’ll bring him some cake,” said Elias, swaying.

  Gina frowned. “Don’t let him spoil our fun.”

  “He’s Andy’s friend after all. Let’s be nice.”

  Elias, lightheaded and giddy, fetched the slice of cake she saved for Sam and walked it over to his side.

  “Elias,” said Andy, standing next to Sam. “You having fun?”

  “Do I look like I’m not?” she said.

  “You look like Gina’s liquored you up way too much.” Andy chuckled.

  She shrugged, looked at Sam, and said, “Hi.”

  Sam nodded. “Hello,” he said.

  She was about to present him with the cake when he turned his gaze to Andy. “Have you secured the blessings of y
our fiancée’s mother?”

  “I haven’t. I’ve been too busy to hike up to her cabin.” Andy shook his head. “Katy’s mother Nara lives in a remote cabin way up north. And she doesn’t have a telephone or the Internet.”

  “What if something happens and she needs help?” asked Elias.

  “She’d known in advance,” replied Andy. “She’s got this…talent. She sends a message by a pigeon to warn whoever’s about to get in trouble and she tells him how to prevent it. She warns of wildfires, earthquakes, oil spills, and she’s always spot on.”

  “Katy never mentioned,” said Elias, bewildered.

  “They’re not close. Nara’s not here tonight, is she?” said Andy. “I don’t think Katy’s told her we’re engaged yet.” Andy looked at the plate in Elias’s hand. “Is that cake for me? I swallowed mine in two bites. It was so delicious.”

  “Well…” Elias felt warmth on her face. “Actually, I thought Sam might want to have a taste…”

  “Of course,” said Andy. “Sam, you missed all the goodies Elias made. Scrumptious, absolutely scrumptious.”

  “Mr. Mason was the chef,” said Elias, embarrassed. “I just helped a little.”

  “Don’t be so modest,” said Andy. “Well, Sam, what are you waiting for?”

  Sam and Elias locked eyes for a moment, and he seemed somewhat uncertain. He took the plate from her hand and forked a piece of the cake into his mouth.

  She watched him chew with his lips closed. She couldn’t tell whether he enjoyed it or not. Quickly, he handed the plate over to Andy and said, “You can have the rest.”

  Breathless, she felt as if a horse had kicked her in the chest. “You don’t like it?”

  “Sam’s not a cake person,” said Andy as he inhaled the rest of the cake. “I love it.”

  “It is…fine, the cake,” Sam said with a slight tremor in his voice. He looked miserable, and she thought she saw a tear glisten in the corner of his eye. “I must get going. Congratulations, Andy.”

  Disappointed, Elias watched as Sam turned and walked out of the restaurant.

  Gina, another cocktail in hand, ambled to her side. “Elias, will you come and join the living?”

  “You aren’t calling me dead, are you, Gina?” Andy frowned.

  Elias just could not understand Sam. One moment he was friendly, and the next he was closed off, erecting an impenetrable shield faster than the speed of light. Maybe he was indeed rude and arrogant, and it caused so much agony to act decent that he couldn’t do it but for few flashes of moments. She rejoined her roommates, but she felt deflated, her buzz completely gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Andy’s aunt, Becky, was putting up salmon in the north near Slana the day after the engagement party and Elias was invited to go. She gladly accepted. Anything to get Sam out of her head was welcome. She hoped to see the Copper Glacier coming down on Mt. Wrangell, the origin of the waters where one of the world’s most coveted salmon came home to every year.

  After five hours of driving from McCarthy, Andy parked his pickup at the turnoff for the trail to the fish camp, lowered his off-road vehicle from his truck bed, and signaled Katy and Elias to climb on board. It rained the day before, and although the Nabesna Road itself was navigable with the sturdy pickup, the muddy spur to the fish camp would have swallowed the pickup’s tires whole. The sun was out, and the sky was cloudless, the air crisp and fresh. The white dome of Mt. Wrangell stood silently in the distance.

  “It’s an active volcano,” said Katy as they bumped along the trail thick with black clay, and Elias could indeed see steam coming off the top of the mountain.

  The conifers grew shorter and thinner compared to the black spruce forest in lower elevations. Moss covered rocks, and red alder spread throughout the terrain so that it was a velvety green everywhere. Bright-colored mushrooms scattered about. Gradually the land flattened, and the trees became sparse. There were large puddles and sticky soil to overcome. Andy parked the vehicle by a log cabin.

  “We have to hike the rest of the way,” said Andy. He led Katy and Elias on a trail through a thicket of Scouler willows.

  When they came to the end of it, Elias was awestruck by a beautiful field of fireweed the color of fuchsia, juxtaposed with an equally commanding expanse of downy cottongrass. Without warning, she fell in love with it all: the sky above, the earth below, the wind brushing against her cheeks, and the water of the Copper River burbling in front of her. Elias tried to take it all in. She was overwhelmed. Attempting to look at everything around her, she ended up spinning in circles and feeling so dizzy she thought she was going to faint.

  “Hey, Billy,” shouted Andy toward a young man sitting on a folding chair under a tree, cutting and peeling the bark off willow branches.

  Billy stood up to greet them. Elias saw his front teeth were missing and the rest were a decaying yellow. His breath was a mixture of liquor, tobacco, and spearmint gum. He was hacking up a wet cough when he shook hands with Elias, who took notice of his downcast eyes that drooped beneath his baseball cap, his hunched shoulders under an oversized coat, and a general sedate demeanor.

  “Billy’s my baby cousin,” said Andy, patting on Billy’s back. “He’s my pet.”

  “Guilty as charged,” said Billy, half-grinning at Elias. “I let Andy take care of me. I’m useless, you see, unemployable, and broke.”

  Elias didn’t know how to respond. There was a moment of awkward silence, and Andy said, “You’ll get back on your feet soon.”

  “I’m a meth head and an alcoholic,” said Billy. “No one wants to hire me.”

  “You’ve been clean and sober for a while now, right?” said Andy. “Be patient. Jobs will come around. And you’ll be ready to work.”

  “You think so?” said Billy. His eyes widened, and Elias couldn’t tell whether he was hopeful or sarcastic.

  “I believe in you,” said Andy.

  “I wish I could say the same about myself,” replied Billy, shrugging. “If you’re looking for my parents, they’re down by the river.” Billy put away his tools and unfinished willow branches. “I’m going to take a nap.”

  “You rest up,” said Andy.

  Billy went toward the log cabin. When he disappeared behind a tree, Katy said, “You’re enabling him. He’ll mount to nothing if you keep helping him the way you do. You should just leave him be.”

  “He’s got a wife and kids,” said Andy. “Billy’s the way he is because he’s been unlucky with work.”

  “Classic chicken or egg first problem, isn’t it?” said Katy.

  Andy didn’t respond. He walked silently toward the river instead.

  »»•««

  Becky, the matriarch of the clan, was the daughter of Andy’s grandmother’s sister. Both she and her husband, Steve, were in their sixties. They congratulated Andy on his engagement to Katy whom they seemed fond of. Elias received a warm welcome as well as a tour of the operation.

  Steve’s wooden fish wheel, standing in the water abutting the bank of the Copper River, was made by the man himself thirty years ago. It had two baskets that sat at 180-degree angles to each other, facing in opposite directions. The water current perpetuated the motion of the fish wheel, and as one basket scooped up salmon from the creek, the other basket dropped its bounty through a chute into the fish box. Using a dipnet, Steve picked up a two-foot-long sockeye salmon from the fish box and promptly killed it by striking its head with a bat.

  “The first salmon I catch in a season,” said Steve, “I just lay it on the grass to die. I don’t club it. That’s tradition, you know.”

  “But you don’t bathe in its milt like tradition, right?” Katy asked. “That’s a bit too much for me.”

  “No.” Steve chuckled. “Becky doesn’t like that. But we took a steam bath. I built one over there. The tent was made with the skin of a moose I killed two winters ago, you see?”

  Steve pointed to a dome tent about a minute’s walk upstream. He then took the salmon to Becky.
She laid the fish down on a table by the fish rack of spruce poles, with what seemed like hundreds of red salmon hanging on them, shrouded in the smoke coming from the willow bark smoldering in a pit underneath.

  Becky expertly removed the scales of the slimy fish with a blade. She then filleted the fish and split it to the tail, scored it so it looked like an accordion, and stretched it with an alder branch skewer. She hung it on the fish rack with the red meat facing out.

  “So, Andy,” said Steve. “Are you giving up that sport fishing business of yours?”

  “Not again,” said Becky, rolling her eyes.

  “It’s bad enough the non-Native Alaskans fish without regard to our salmon rules.” Steve shook his head. “And then you bring the tourists. The salmon is disrespected, and the run gets smaller every year.”

  “If I don’t do it, someone else will,” rebutted Andy. “At least I make sure they don’t take more than they should.”

  “What are you doing, Steve?” said Becky. “Are you in a bad mood today? Andy just got engaged. He has to make a living.”

  Katy grinned and looked as if she didn’t want to be involved in the conversation. Becky said, “Andy, why don’t you take Katy and Elias to the river and fish?”

  Andy took a dipnet, a baseball bat, and a pail from a nearby bench. He held Katy’s hand and started toward the river. Elias followed.

  “What’s Steve talking about? The salmon rules?” asked Elias after Andy led her and Katy down a steep, eroded bank with exposed tree roots. Andy himself then walked from the shore onto a wooden platform, constructed of the same thin spruce poles, out over the water.

  “It has to do with the Bac’its’aadi story,” said Katy. “There once was a little boy who disrespected the salmon. Depending on whom you heard it from, he was either playing in the water where the salmon were running, and he drowned but was saved by the salmon people, or he was bothering the dry fish in the cache and got kidnapped by the salmon people. In either case, he spent a year with the salmon people and came back to his parents as a small king salmon, a jack, that they caught in a dipnet. He turned back into a little boy and told people to respect the salmon, or the salmon would not run. And every year he would come back in the form of a jack, and if he were caught, he was to be laid on the grass and covered with down and not be bothered. So now it’s considered good luck to catch a jack, but you must not bother it, or the salmon would not run.”