Roger's Pass

		


        		"A watcher who sees and must say what he sees,
        		Must carve a figure out of blankness,
        		Invent it in other words so that it has meaning."
               			         (Mark Strand, Dark Harbor)


The mountains ask that you trust them.  They ridicule the naive
seduction by open spaces, and the simple straightness of the prairie
holds no currency here.  Especially not at night, especially not in bad
weather.  With sleet free-falling from the sky and lightning setting
tree tops afire, We are here, they whisper.  We were here and we will be
here, even if you can't see us.
	Robert anticipates each turn of the road and stays as close to the
white line as possible.  Each lightning flash illuminates the
mountainside, lighting up patches of snow and dark, giant conifers. Now
one reveals a giant boulder laying astride the white line.  Robert
swerves left and misses it by inches.  The car's headlights flicker
through the snow and the fog like sputtering matches, stretching only a
few yards into the darkness.  Robert is thankful for the lightning.  The
windshield wipers flop-flap across the glass, leaving streaks of
visibility.  An eighteen-wheeler rumbles past, nearly squeezing Robert
into the mountainside.  In the truck's wake, sleet and road grime
splatter on the car, and for a few seconds, he can't see where he is
going.  Then the thunder splits the mountains.  Another truck screams
by, high beams searing past Robert's dark-adapted eyes.  A second semi
follows a few seconds behind this one, lifting even more road material
into the air for Robert to drive through.  Reflexively he dives toward
the white line, which is the only thing he can see.  He brakes with some
force.
	Jana has been sleeping on the backseat.  She lies curled up under her
ski jacket, a mountain in her own right, quietly breathing.
	Robert glances in the rearview mirror when he hears her stir.
Jana leans between the front seats and touches Robert's shoulder.
He avoids her eyes but hunches a shoulder so that his cheek
caresses her hand.  Her skin is white, almost transparent. 
	"What happened?"  She stretches her neck.
	"The mountain's throwing rocks at us."
	"Where are we?  Are we close to civilization?"
	"We're a few miles past Golden," Robert says.  We should be coming up
on Roger's Pass pretty soon.  We'll get gas there."
	"Isn't this is the highest pass in the Rockies?  I remember reading
that somewhere."
	Robert nods.  "I think you're right.  Hungry?"
	"A little," she says.  "Should we eat at Roger's Pass?"
	"We could.  There's a good restaurant there but it's expensive.  I
thought we might eat in Revelstoke, maybe one and a half or two hours. 
Would you mind?"  He picks his words carefully and with the same
attention he pays to the road.  They have to get used again to each
other, after almost a year's separation. 
	"O.k. Whatever.  I'm easy."  
	He smiles, acknowledging and recognizing the unconsciousness
flirtatiousness so characteristic of Jana. She retreats back under the
ski jacket. 
	"Wake me up when we get there."

Talking unfocuses Robert, and he doesn't mind that Jana sleeps.  An
image comes to his mind, an image that registered in his mind the first
time he saw her and that, ever since, he associates with her.  She was
standing in a group of people gathered close to an exhibit booth at the
Chaos Systems Convention in Vancouver.  The bright neon lights, the hum
of voices, machines and blood flowing through it all, gave Robert a
slight headache, and he saw Jana in that group, talking and gesturing,
running her hand through her hair and shifting her weight from one foot
to the other. He was somehow certain that she knew he was observing her,
and that they both knew she was putting on a show.   This vision of her,
standing and talking, being all bright and translucent under the lights,
this image has stayed with Robert ever since that November day in
Vancouver over eight years ago when a blizzard rolled through the city
and all the streets were impassable, and all the planes were grounded.  
	A fortunate, freaky blizzard.  It gave Robert and Jana something to
talk about and two extra days before he was able to drive back to
Calgary and she could fly back to Atlanta.  He drove her to the airport
when the storm passed.
	"Be careful in those mountains," she reminded him while they waited at
Continental's ticket counter for her ticket to be processed.
	"Always.  By the way, would you like to see them?"  he asked.  
"Georgia is flat, isn't it?" 
	"Not quite as flat as Mississippi or Louisiana," she said.
"Not nearly as flat as Louisiana.  That's below sea level.  We are
talking negative mountains here.  Indentations."  She clipped that 
word into four syllables and left breathing space between each one.
	"But if you have indentations, you must have mountains.  A valley
happens only because of mountains surrounding it."
	She kissed him then, and he felt surprised by the force of her body.
	"Did I make an indentation?"
	"Do you want to come to Calgary on your next vacation and see the
mountains?"  He wasn't sure why he invited her.  The words had slipped
out, very effortlessly.  He felt sure that he hadn't asked because he
felt attracted to her (which he did, he admitted instantly to himself,
but sex, or the possibility of sex, didn't hold much motivational power
over him, these days).  When Jana said, yes, she'd love to, Robert was
relieved, as if a heaviness had been lifted from his shoulders, but he
didn't think it was happiness he felt.  He didn't quite know how to
categorize his emotional state, but he thought there was time enough
later to puzzle it out.  Robert waited for Jana's plane to take off, and
then drove home, trying hard not to let his mind run away with fantasy.  
	Jana's letter from Atlanta, a month later, put him into an
unaccountably good mood.  She wrote how much she looked forward to being
with him again in November and even gave some him exact dates: four days
over the Thanksgiving holiday.   She told him how Atlanta was already
warming up for the summer months, which would usually stretch from April
to November.  In August, Robert wrote back.
	Dear Jana:
	The dates are fine.  I hope the weather is good.  I got a feeling it's
going to be an early winter--and maybe quite nasty too.  Why?  Well, for
one thing, I saw some Canada geese just last Saturday flying around in
their migration formation.  Also, tomatoes are starting to turn red,
which is quite early for this latitude.  Normally, I don't suspect
tomatoes of being smart enough to know when the cold is coming early,
but I think this is a genetic mutation.  This tomato knows that if it
doesn't set seed right away it stands no chance of surviving.  Geese,
though, are incredibly sharp about figuring out when they ought to go
South.  Mostly, they prefer to stay in Canada as long as possible, which
I have always thought rather sensible of them.  So, that they are
getting ready to leave means that they think winter is only a few weeks
away.  There was a snow warning in the higher passes of the Banff and
Jasper Parks last weekend.  I drove through on Sunday and the
temperature and feeling was very fall-like.  I'd so like to be able to
show you around Calgary when there is good weather--and warm weather.  
	
	And that was the start of their yearly visits with each other.

The road ahead is covered in gravel washed off the blasted face of the
mountain.  Lightning fires up in rapid intervals; thunder staccatos into
the rumble of the trucks, a conspiracy of sounds.  Robert pushes
everything but the road out of his mind, everything but the road and
Jana and that image, her incredible lightness, which spills into him at
times.  He does not fear that image, but he is a scrupulous driver. 
When driving in daylight, he sometimes listens to the radio--some oldies
station and songs that he recognizes and hums along with--but at night
it's different.  At night, the roads, the mountains are like jealous
lovers who won't allow themselves to be shared.  Not that Robert has
much experience with lovers, jealous or otherwise.  Robert knows that
other people consider Jana his lover, and in a way they are lovers. 

	Robert fills the car at Roger's Pass.  He stands alone at the pump,
listening to the big rigs rolling past, now on the downslide of the
mountain, now going with--instead of, against--gravity.  The station
attendant and he exchange the usual curtesies.  Bad night  and It's
worse on the other side and Got much longer to go?
	The wolf comes as a surprise.  In the middle of the road, suddenly it
is there in the headlight beam, whiter than the snow on the mountains; 
undiminished by the flashes of lightning.  Hard on the brakes, and steer
right, around it.  It's going to hit, Robert's internal voice says,
softly, as if in mourning already.  He loses the wolf's image for a
second, and but then, there's no impact, just quiet, not even thunder. 
The storm must be moving on, Robert thinks.  The sudden deceleration and
silence wake Jana.
	"What was that?" 
	"It was a white wolf.  I don't know where it came from, but it scared
the hell out of me.  I was sure I was going to hit it.  
Did you see it?" 
	Jana looks to the spot where the animal went over the side.  
	"I saw something, just for a second.  You're sure it was a wolf?  How
could it be a wolf?" 
	Robert turns his face toward her and stares at Jana for a long moment. 
She seems illuminated and startlingly present.  
	"Well, it was big and canine and very thin.  I'm no expert, but it was
far too big for a coyote.  In fact, it was bigger than wolves I've seen
in zoos, too, come to think of it.  And it was pure white.  I guess I
don't know what it was, but if it wasn't a wolf what else could it be?"  
	Jana shakes her head.  "Are we there yet?" She runs her hand through
her hair.   "God, I must look like a mess."  
	She reaches up and adjusts the mirror so that she can observe
herself.  Her arm darts through Robert's field of vision in a
distracting way as she tries to smooth her short hair which sticks out
like little horns.
	"Why didn't you wake me?"  She digs in her purse for lipstick and her
compact.
	"I had no warning, and it was all over in just a few seconds.  Let's
stop in Salmon Arm."  
	"What about Revelstoke?"  
	"We'll be in Revelstoke soon," he says, "but once we've stopped I think
it would be better not to have any more mountains to negotiate.  Salmon
Arm is another hour, but the driving is easier.  Still easy?"
	"Easy and hungry," she says.

Daylight comes and with it a heavy fog. Robert wonders if the sun will
come out with enough strength to burn through.  But by mid-morning, as
they approach Salmon Arm, the fog thins and begins lifting, and it seems
as if the mountains had been burning for a long time, and are now
smoldering.  Jana sits close to him, and he senses wave after wave of
sexual energy pushing in into his body.  Sometimes he has to shield
himself against her, but now, he opens himself to her energy.
	"I'm starving," he says.
	"I bet you are, honey bun."  Jana plays Marilyn Monroe--all 
soft, raspy voice, and kiss-me face. 
She looks out of the window, with her head cocked a little.
	"I think the sun will make it."

	"What do you think it means?"
	Robert holds the hamburger in mid-air (the best hamburger he's had in a
long time) and looks at Jana before he answers.
	"What means?"
	"The wolf."
	"It means . . . wolf."
	"No, I mean to the Indians.  In the folklore."
	Robert doesn't know.  The cheery waitress comes by with the desert
options, but both Jana and Robert still struggle with the mountain of
french fries,  and waive her on with apologetic, I-am-so-full,
I-am-going-to-explode motions.
	"I hope they take plastic here."
	"I don't mind washing dishes."
	Robert leaves a tip, and on the way out, asks the waitress about white
wolves.  She has never seen one, except on T.V., she says and that
probably doesn't count.

>From Salmon Arm to Vancouver it's about twohundred miles, as the crow
flies.  But in the curvy terrain of the mountains, this distance
stretches to over threehundred.  Robert tells Jana how Salmon Arm got
its name from the yearly salmon runs.
	"You can reach into the water and grab a salmon, just like a bear would
do it," he says.  "The water is so full with salmon that
you could walk across it, using the salmon as stones."
	"When I was little, we used to have smoked salmon for christmas dinner,
instead of turkey.  All the kids in school had great turkey stories,
about stuffing, and wishbones, and I had salmon.  I made up my own
stories about turkeys, after a while."  She pauses and Robert imagines
her, at Christmas, with her family around a table, a giant pink salmon
in the middle, white linen, silver, crystal glasses.
	"Do you think we'll see the wolf again?" Jana asks.
	"I don't think so."

Waking up in the middle of the night is strange business.  Robert at
first doesn't know what woke him: there is no trace of nightmare in his
mind, no need to pee, and the night is quiet.  They found a hotel on the
waterfront and fell asleep so quickly they barely acknowledged each
other's presence.  But now Robert is awake, wide awake, the choppy
rhythm of the TransCanadian Highway is still in his hands and arms,
measuring off distances by the roll of the tires, and from there,
transferring the energy into the steering wheel, into his fingertips,
into his hands, into his arms and further into every muscle of his
body.  And then the foghorn's long and even sound, barely perceptible,
registers in his mind.  They are at the coast, and the rhythms have
changed.  Here, the moon rules, not the asphalt.  Here, the leisurely
movements of the tides measure off time.  Robert tries to fall back into
sleep but can't.
He gets out of bed, stands at the window and tries to make out the
shoreline, but an early morning fog blurs all the features into an even
gray soup that rises and falls gently, suggesting hills and valleys, a
make-belief scenery without sharp edges or green trees.
	He remembers a weekend camping trip in the mountains a few years ago. 
He went up a canyon with seven waterfalls, a peaceful spot with water
cascading into deep pools surrounded by ferns and trees. The fish
weren't afraid of people and would swim around his legs.  Getting to
that spot, though, meant climbing across some cliff faces, and the route
across the cliffs was scary.  Several times, standing on tiny ledges on
the rock suspended over hundred foot drops, looking at sheer face he had
to cross without seeing any decent footholds, he sincerely regretted not
staying home for the weekend.
	He got a bad case of poison sumac that weekend, and part of the
treatment was to take long hot baths.  He hadn't taken a bath in many
years.  Another part of the treatment was Benadryl, which gave him a
pleasant woozy high.  And he indulged in reading a science fiction
novel, he had bought several years ago and never got around to reading. 
The poison sumac caused a very itchy rash, and Robert noticed how much
pleasure there is in scratching an itch.  Standing in the hot shower,
directing the spray on the angry red skin, was a kind of erotic blissful
experience.   Yet he was determined to get a book with pictures of
poison ivy, oak, and sumac so he could avoid this in the future.
	Jana's skin is flawless.  White, without being pasty.  Robert pulls at
the cover, and inch by inch reveals more of her body.  She lies half
curled on one side, her right leg straight, the other one pulled up to
her chest.  Robert looks for marks.  He runs his eyes over her flesh,
notices little hairs beginning to stand up--she must be getting
cold--and pulls the covers all the way down, until they lay in a heap at
the foot of the bed.   Jana grabs at air in her sleep and turns over,
instinctively searching for warmth and finding it against his body.  She
nuzzles his chest and Robert makes a womb for her into which she crawls
and he begins to run his fingers over her back, gently raking against
the flesh.  She moves closer and opens her eyes.

They miss the early morning ferry to Vancouver Island, and they wait in
line for the noon ferry.  Hundreds of cars have lined up to board, but
the boarding goes smoothly: a well-oiled machine directing cars to their
designated spots in the belly of the big metal container.  Six levels,
ten rows each.  People abandon their cars for the panoramic views of the
crossing, which is still obscured by fog, and a light drizzle makes
standing outside a bit uncomfortable.   All objective signs of progress
towards the island are soon obliterated;  the engines' drone and the
diesel fumes seem to indicate that progress is being made, and ship
slices through the water, creating waves on which the seagulls bounce or
the occasional driftwood surfs.  Jana leans over the railing, not
minding the rain and the fog.  Robert takes her picture, and when she
hears the click of the camera, she shakes her finger at him.  
Gotcha, he smiles at her.  Jana only wants her picture taking when she
has total control over the how, why and where, he knows.  The exposure
of an unannounced picture makes her nervous and self-conscious for
hours, and Robert regrets having spoiled her fun.  He walks to her and
pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.
	The unloading goes as smoothly as the loading.  A line of cars descends
upon Victoria.  A once-every-two-hour birthing, Robert thinks.  Ferries
spitting out young ones, who are let loose on the city.  He wants to
head north as soon as possible, north towards Nanaimo, north towards
Campbell River and another ferry ride, north towards their final
destination, Cortes Island.  Victoria is charming and quaint, and Jana
lets out little squeals of delight at the boutiques, art galleries and
restaurants.
	"Would you like to spend the day here?"  Robert offers the day in
exchange for the picture.
	Jana looks at him and hesitates.
	"It's o.k., really."

	"We have dolphins," the sales clerk in the gallery says.  "Dolphins and
whales."
	"But no wolves?"
	"I could probably order you a print.  I have to look in the catalogue
and see, but it could be done, I think."
	The clerk pulls out a catalogue and pushes it toward Robert and Jana.
	"Why don't you take a look?"
	"I don't want a printed wolf," Jana whispers to Robert.
	 
They cross the Straight of Georgia in a dense fog, but Robert keeps on
the lookout for aquatic life.  In previous crossings, he had seen
dolphins and whales.  The possibility of seeing dolphins excites Jana. 
She stands in the bow of the ferry, scanning the water.  For a second,
they both get excited when she spots a dark fleck on the starboard side,
which turns out to be a bouncing piece of logwood.  Three seagulls perch
on it.  Jana gives them the Surf's Up sign.  The air is heavy with fog
and saltwater, and each breath rattles Robert's lungs.  He feels
weighted down.  

The timber industry on Cortes has taken big bites out of the hillsides. 
Trees lie toppled and crissed-crossed on top of each other.  Gaping
wounds, Robert thinks.  Progress.  But most of the streets are still
unpaved, and on the gravel roads, Robert tests the car's tossability. 
Jana picks at her nails.  The red polish has come off in places.  Robert
drives up Cortes Bay Road, which curves wildly and finally meets with
Gorge Harbour Road, which is paved.
	"We're looking for Whaletown Road," he tells Jana.  
	"Whaletown Road.  Okey, dokey.  What's on Whaletown Road?"
	"It dissects the entire island, and in the north leads to Squirrel
Cove, which is a little piece of paradise."
	"Paradise.  You Tarzan, me Jane?"
	"Don't tempt me."  
	The sun is bright and sparkles off the green (lush!) vegetation.  Ferns
are dominant here.  Robert points out beds of Aspen suckers.
	"They reproduce a-sexually and grow in a circle around the original
seedling."
	"Wouldn't that be an ideal setting for a blow job?"  Jana asks.
"Imagine, you on your back on a fat bed of suckers, and me, you know . . . "

	They are lost, Robert realizes.  Instead of going straight on Gorge
Harbour Road, he'd taken a left someways back onto Thunder Road and was
now looking at Anvil Lake.  He tries to remember the  location of the
lake in relation to its position to Squirrel Cove and thinks that it is
about due south of the cove and at least four or five miles away.  
Anvil Lake is barely visible from the road, but he catches glimpses of
blue and green.  He tries to edge closer to the side of the road to get
a better look.   The lake is beautiful and completely surrounded by
trees and heavy undergrowth.  He can't find an access road, though, and
inches the car further onto the shoulder of the road.  Jana fights
through the undergrowth and gets her hand caught on a downed tree limb. 
The cut bleeds badly, and runs diagonally from her little finger to her
wrist.  She dips her hand into the lake, and the blood spreads like a
watercolor, undulating further and further away from the center of her
hand.  The cut will leave a scar, Robert knows, and when the bleeding
stops, he pulls her hand out of the water and holds it in his for a long
time.  Robert stares into the sun until all colors blend into bright
white--white like Jana's face, white like the wolf--and he tries to
listen to the sound of leaves unfolding on the branches.