Part one
chapter one
choose the good
my strongest memory
is not a memory
It's something I imagined
then came to remember as if it had happened
the memory was formed when I was five just
Before I turned six
From a story
my father told in such detail that I and my brothers and sister
had each conjured our own cinematic version with gunfire and shouts
Mine had crickets
That's the sound I hear as my family huddles in the kitchen
lights off hiding from the feds
who surrounded the house
A woman reaches for a glass of water
and her silhouette is lighted by the moon
A shot echoes like the lash of a whip and she falls
In my memory. It's always mother who falls
and She has a baby in her arms
The baby doesn't make sense
I'm the youngest of my mother's seven children
But like I said
none of this happened
a year after my father told us that story
we gathered one evening to hear him, read aloud from isaiah
A prophecy about emmanuel
He sat on our mustard colored sofa
a large bible open in his lap
Mother was next to him
The rest of us were strewn across the shaggy brown carpet
butter and honey, shall he eat
Dad drowned low and monotone weary from a long day hauling scrap
that he may know to refuse the evil
and choose the good
There was a heavy pause
We sat quietly
My father was not a tall man
but he was able to command a room
He had a presence about him
The solemnity of an oracle
His hands were thick and leathery the hands of a man who had been hard at work all his life
and They grasped the bible firmly
He read the passage aloud a second time, then a third
than 1/4
With each repetition, the pitch of his voice climbed higher
His eyes, which moments before had been swollen with fatigue
were now wide and alert
There was a divine doctrine here, he said
he would inquire of the lord
The next morning, dad purged our fridge of milk, yogurt
and cheese
and That evening, when he came home
his truck was loaded with 50 gallons of honey
Isaiah doesn't say which is evil, butter, or honey
Dad said grinning as my brother's lugged the white tubs to the basement
But if you ask, the lord will tell you
when dad read the verse to his mother
she laughed in his face
I got some pennies in my purse. She said
you better take them
They'll be all the sense you got
Grandma had a thin angular face and an endless store of foe
indian jewelry
all silver and turquoise
which hung in clumps from her spindly neck and fingers
Because she lived on the hill from us near the highway
We called her grandma down the hill
This was to distinguish her from our mother's mother who we
called grandma over in town
because she lived 15 miles south
in the only town in the county
which had a single stoplight and a grocery store
Dad and his mother got along like two cats with their tails tied together
They could talk for a week and not agree about anything
but they were tethered by their devotion to the mountain
My father's family had been living at the base of bucks peak
for a half a century
Grandma's daughters had married and moved away
but My father stayed
building a shabby yellow house
which he would never quite finish
just up the hill from his mother's
at the base of the mountain
and plucking a junkyard
One of several next to her manicured lawn
they argued daily
about the mess from the junkyard
but more often about us kids
Grandma thought we should be in school and not as she put it roaming the mountain like savages
Dad said public school was employed by the government to lead children away from god
I may as well surrender my kids to the devil himself
he said and send them down the road to that school
God told dad to share the revelation with the people who lived and farmed in the shadow of bucks peak
On sundays, nearly everyone gathered at the church
a hickory colored chapel just off the highway with the small restrained steeple, common to mormon churches
Dad cornered fathers as they left their pews
He started with his cousin jim
who listened good naturedly while dad waved his bible and explained the sinfulness of milk
Jim grinned then clapped dad on the shoulder
and said no righteous god would deprive a man of homemade strawberry ice cream on a hot summer afternoon
Jim's wife tugged on his arm
as he slid past us
I caught a whiff of manure
Then I remembered
the big dairy farm, a mile, north of bucks peak
That was jim's
After dad took up preaching against milk
grandma jammed her fridge full of it
She and grandpa only drank skin
but pretty soon it was all there
2%, even chocolate
She seemed to believe this was an important line to hold
Breakfast became a test of loyalty
Every morning
my family sat around a large table of reworked red oak
and ate either seven green cereal with honey and molasses
or seven grain pancakes
also with honey and molasses
Because there were nine of us
the pancakes were never cooked all the way through
I didn't mind the cereal if I could soak it in milk
letting the cream gather up the wrist and seep into the pellets
but Since the revelation, we've been having it with water
it was like eating a bowl of mud
It wasn't long before I began to think of all that milk spoiling in grandma's fridge
Then I got into the habit of skipping breakfast each morning and going straight to the barn
I'd stop the pigs and fill the trough for the cows and horses
Then i'd hop over the corral fence, loop around the barn
and step through grandma's side door
On one such morning, as I sat at the counter
watching grandma pour a bowl of corn flakes
She said
how would you like to go to school
I wouldn't like it. I said
how do you know she barked
You ain't never tried it
She poured the milk and handed me the bull
Then she perched at the bar directly across from me and watched as I shoveled spoonful into my mouth
We're leaving tomorrow for arizona
She told me
but I already knew
She and grandpa always went to arizona when the weather began to turn
Grandpa said he was too old for idaho winters
The cold put an ache in his bones
get yourself up real early
Grandma said
around five and we'll take you with us
Put you in school
I shifted on my stool
I tried to imagine school but couldn't
Instead, I pictured sunday school
which I attended each week and which I hated
A boy named aaron had told all the girls that I couldn't read because I didn't go to school
and Now, none of them would talk to me
Dad said I can go
I said
No, grandma said
but will be long gone by the time he realizes you're missing
She set my bowl in the sink and gazed out the window
Grandma was a force of nature
impatient, aggressive, self possessed
To look at her was to take a step back
She died her hair black
and This intensified her already severe features
especially her eyebrows
which she smeared on each morning in
thick inky arches
She drew them too large
and this made her face seem stretched
They were also drawn too high and draped the rest of her features into an expression of boredom
almost sarcasm
You should be in school
She said
oh won't dad just make you bring me back? I said
your dad can't make me do a damn thing
Grandma stood squaring herself
If he wants you, he'll have to come get you
She hesitated, and for a moment looked ashamed
I talked to him yesterday
He won't be able to fetch you back for a long while
He's behind on that shed, he's building in town
He can't pack up and drive to arizona now while the weather holds, and he and the boys can work long days
Grandma's scheme was well plotted
Dad always worked from sun up until sun down in the weeks
before the first snow trying to stockpile enough money from hauling, scrap and building barns
to outlast the winter when jobs were scarce
even if his mother ran off with his youngest child
he wouldn't be able to stop working
not until the forklift was encased in ice
I'll need to feed the animals before we go. I said
He'll notice i'm gone for sure if the cows break through the fence looking for water
I didn't sleep that night
I sat on the kitchen floor and watched the hours take by
1:00 am
2
3
At 4:00, I stood and put my boots by the back door
They were kicked in manure and I was sure grandma wouldn't let them into her car
I pictured them on her porch abandoned while I ran off shoelist to arizona
I imagined what would happen when my family discovered
I was missing
My brother richard
and I often spent a whole days on the mountain
so it was likely no one would notice until sundown
When richard came home for dinner
and i didn't
I pictured my brothers pushing out the door to search for me
They try the junkyard first
hefty iron slabs
In case
some stray sheet of metal had shifted and pinned me
then they'd move outward, sweeping the farm
crawling up trees and into the barn attic
Finally, they turned to the mountain
It would be passed dusk by then
That moment just before night sets in when the landscape is visible only as darkness and lighter darkness
and You feel the world around you more than you see it
I imagined my brother spreading over the mountain
searching the black forests
No one would talk
Everyone's thoughts would be the same
Things could go horribly wrong on the mountain
Cliffs appeared suddenly
Farrell horses belonging to my grandfather ran wild over thick banks of water, hemlock
and There were more than a few rattlesnakes
We've done this search before when a calf went missing from the barn
In the valley, you'd find an injured animal
on the mountain
a dead one
I imagined mother standing by the back door
her eyes sweeping the dark ridge
When my father came home to tell her, they hadn't found me
My sister audrey would suggest that someone asked grandma
and My mother would say grandma had left that morning for arizona
Those words would hang in the air for a moment
Then everyone would know where i'd gone
I imagined my father's face, his dark eyes, shrinking
his mouth, clamping into a frown as he turned to my mother
You think she chose to go
Low and sorrowful, his voice echoed
Then it was drowned out by sounds from another conjured remembrance
Crickets
Then gunfire
Then silence
The event was a famous one I would later learn
like wounded knee or waco
But when my father first told us the story
it felt like no one in the world knew about it except us
It began near the end of canning season
which other kids probably called summer
My family always spent the warm months bottling fruit for storage, which dad said we'd need in the days of abomination
One evening
dad was uneasy when he came in from the junkyard
He paced the kitchen during dinner, hardly touching a bite
We had to get everything in order he said
There was little time
We spent the next day boiling and skinny peaches
By sundown
we'd filled dozens of mason jars which were set out in perfect rows still warm from the pressure cooker
Dad surveyed our work the jars and muttering to himself
Then he turned to mother and said
it's not enough
that night dad called a family meeting and we gathered
around the kitchen table because it was wide and long and could seed all of us
We had a right to know what we were up. Against he said
He was standing at the head of the table
the rest of us perched on benches studying
the thick planks of red oak
There's a family not far from here
Dad said
their freedom fighters
They wouldn't let the government brainwash their kids in their public schools
So the feds came after him
Dad exhaled long and slow
The feds surrounded the family's cabin
kept them locked in there for weeks
and When a hungry child
a little boy snuck out to go hunting
the fed shot him dead
I scanned my brothers
I'd never seen fear on lukes face before
They're still in the cabin
Dad said
they keep the lights off and they crawl on the floor away from the doors and windows
I don't know how much food they got
Might be those starved before the feds give up
No one spoke
Eventually, Luke, who was 12
asked if we could help
No
Dad said
Nobody can
They're trapped in their own home
but They got their guns
You can bet that's why the feds ain't charged in
He paused to sit, folding himself onto the low bench in slow
stiff movements
He looked old to my eyes worn out
We can't help them
but we can help ourselves
when the feds come to bugs peak
we'll be ready
That night dad dragged a pile of old army bags up from the basement
He said they were our head for the hills bags
We spent that night packing them with supplies
herbal medicines, water purifiers
Flint and steel
Dad had bought several boxes of military MR es
Meals ready to eat
and We put as many as we could fit into our packs
imagining the moment when having fled the house and hiding ourselves in the wild plum trees near the creek
We'd eat them
Some of my brothers stowed guns in their packs
but I had only a small knife
and Even so
my pack was as big as me by the time we'd finished
I asked Luke to hoist it on to a shelf in my closet
but dad told me to keep it low where I could fetch it quick
so I slept with it in my bed
I practiced slipping the bag on to
my back and running with it
I didn't want to be left behind
I imagined our escape a midnight flight to the safety of the princess
The mountain I understood
was our ally
to those who knew her, she could be kind
But to intruders, she was pure treachery
and This would give us an advantage
Then, again
if we were going to take cover on the mountain
when the feds came
I didn't understand why we were canning all these peaches
We couldn't haul 1,000 heavy Mason jars up the peak
Or did we need the peaches
So we could bunker down in the house like the weavers and fight it out
Fighting it out seemed likely, especially a few days later
when dad came home with more than a dozen military surplus rifles
mostly skss
their thin silver bayonets folded neatly under their barrels
The guns arrived in narrow tin boxes and were packed in cosmalign
A brownish substance
the consistency of lard that had to be stripped away
After they've been cleaned
my brother Tyler chose one and set it on a sheet of black plastic
which he folded over the rifle
it with yards of silvery duct tape
Hoisting the bundle onto his shoulder
he carried it down the hill and dropped it next to the red railroad car
Then he began to dig
when the hole was wide and deep
He dropped the rifle into it
and I watched him cover it with dirt
his muscles swelling from the exertion
His jaw clenched
Soon after dad bought a machine to manufacture bullets from spent cartridges
Now we could last longer in a standoff, he said
I thought of my head for the hills bag waiting in my bed
and of the rifle hidden near the rail car
and began to worry about the bullet making machine
It was bulky and bolted to an iron workstation in the basement
If we were taken by surprise
I figured we wouldn't have time to fetch it
I wondered if we should bury it, too, with the rifle
We kept on bottling peaches
I don't remember how many days passed or how many jars we'd added to our stores
Before dad told us more of the story
Randy weaver has been shot
Dad said his voice thin and erratic
He left the cabin to fetch his son's body and the fed shot him
I'd never seen my father cry
but now tears were dripping in a steady stream from his nose
He didn't wipe them, just let them spill on to his shirt
His wife heard the shot and ran to the window
holding their baby
then came the second shot
Mother was sitting with her arms
folded one hand across her chest
the other clamped over her mouth
I stared at our speckled linoleum while dad told us how the baby had been lifted from its mother's arms
Its face smeared with her blood
Until that moment
Some part of me had wanted the feds to come
had craved the adventure
now I felt real fear
I pictured my brother's crouching in the dark
their sweaty hands, slipping down their rifles
I pictured mother tired and parched
drawing back away from the window
I pictured myself lying flat on the floor still and silent listening to the sharp chirp of crickets in the field
Then I saw mother stand and reach for the kitchen, tap
a white flash, the roar of gunfire and she fell
I leapt to catch the baby
Dad never told us the end of the story
We didn't have ATV or radio
so perhaps he never learned how it ended himself
The last thing I remember him saying about it was
next time
It could be us
Those words would stay with me
I would hear their echo in the chirp of crickets
in the squish of peaches, dropping into a glass jar
in the metallic chink
of an sks being cleaned
I would hear them every morning when I passed the railroad
car and paused over the chickweed and bull thistle growing where Tyler had buried the rifle
Long after dad had forgotten about the revelation in Isaiah and mother was, again huffing plastic jugs of
western family, 2% into the fridge
I would remember the weavers
It was almost five. Am
I returned to my room, my head full of crickets and gunfire
In the lower bunk
Audrey was snoring a low contented hum that invited me to do the same
Instead, I climbed up to my bed
crossed my legs and looked out the window
Five past
then six
at 7:00
grandma appeared and I watched her pace up and down her
patio
turning every few moments to gaze up the hill at our house
Then she and grandpa stepped into their car
and pulled on to the highway
When the car was gone
I got out of bed and ate a bowl of bran with water
Outside, I was greeted by lukes, goat, coma
Cosby who nibbled my shirt as I walked to the barn
I passed the go cart
Richard was building from an old lawn mower
I slapped the pigs
filled the trough and moved grandpa's horses to a new pasture
After I'd finished
I climbed the railway car and looked out over the valley
It was easy to pretend the car was moving
speeding away that any moment the valley might disappear behind me
I'd spent hours playing that fantasy through in my head
But today
the real wouldn't take
I turned west away from the fields
and faced the peak
The princess was always brightest in spring just after the
conifers emerged from the snow
their deep green needles seeming almost black
against the tawny browns of soil and bark
It was autumn now
I could still see her, but she was fading
The reds and yellows of a dying summer obscured her dark form
Soon it would snow
in the valley that first snow would melt
But on the mountain it would linger
burying the princess until spring
when she would reappear
Watchful