A Bird, a Blizzard, and the Compass in My Chest
By Kate Dreyfus
On the last day of the retreat, Lenore, Jennifer and I went back up to the Park for a last hike. They had it in mind to go to an abandoned gold mine site. I was game to try.
The trail turned out to be a purely uphill adventure. Maybe a mile or so in, my thighs decided they were done with trying to swing my nerve-damaged legs any further. Plus, I felt like I was slowing Lenore and Jennifer up by stopping every fifty feet or so to take pictures of yet another cactus that had to be the most interesting one that I had ever seen. The agave we were now stopped by was a giant lusty bush with long curly white threads curling throughout deep green spiky leaves.
“Are you sure?” Lenore asked.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just stay on the trail, or else I’ll go right back down to the parking lot.”
I watched them move on, up the slope, and then continued to take pictures of the agave, first from above, then from below. When I got up and looked back up the trail, they were gone, over the ridge.
The air was so silent that all I could hear was my ears ringing.
Then, I heard the sound of a bird, trilling different melodies, none of which seemed to repeat. The sounds seemed to be coming from about thirty yards away, from just behind a curved rock the size of a Volkswagen Bug.
I crept closer to the rock, placing my feet carefully on the sand strewn with orange and grey rocks, watching for rattlesnakes. Maybe February wasn’t their usual time to be out, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Looking back over my shoulder, I noticed the trail was no longer visible. I put down my neon-green Nike’s—my extra shoes—as a marker.
When I got about twenty feet from the rock, the bird went silent. I stood and waited. A moment later, it started up again.
Now the sound was coming from a cottonwood about thirty yards to my left. In between us, the land seemed to dive down into a ravine.
A ravine! I threaded my way towards it, trying not to step on just-budding desert flowers, or rattlesnakes.
When I reached the place where the land turned sharply down, I turned my boots sideways and side stepped downwards, with knees bent, and arms outstretched for balance. Small orange and grey pebbles scattered their way downward, gently ricochetting around my feet. I picked up a few of the most orange ones, and put them in my pocket for good luck.
The steep slope led down to a narrow creek bed with a fine sand bottom, mostly dry, but with damp patches of sand remaining under the shade of patches of deep green grass. In the sand, I saw a series of footprints, pristine, as if they’d been imprinted by carved wood stamps. At first, I thought they’d been made by a bird—but the longer I looked at them, the more they seemed to have been made by a pterodactyl. I swung my head around, viewing the V-notched gully that I’d descended into from all directions. Of course, there are no pterodactyls here! I thought. Or, even if there is a strange creature here, I can reason with it—show it through my body language that I am just a fellow traveler.
My heart stopped racing. I heard the bird, still singing in the cottonwood, running through its greatest hits. It paused, and I sang back to it, staring up at the tree. It sang back.
I tried to vary my song, to see if it would vary its response, but my range was much more limited, especially given that I have a whistle that sounds like air blown through a toilet paper roll. Plus, this could take a long time, and I really needed a notebook and a pen to try to write down the song patterns.
I should follow the footprints down the gully, I decided, and turned my back from the direction of the trail. I couldn’t see the trail anymore, as it was on higher ground, but I could sense it.
As disorganized as my mind had become from Long Covid, my innate sense of direction remained intact. Since I was a kid, it had always felt like there was a compass, centered in my chest, its metal needle quivering and turning as I moved. I’d relied on it in a couple of tight situations, such as one winter night in the late 1970’s, when I’d ended up with four guys stranded in a half broke-down Saab beside I-80 in Pennsylvania. It was maybe three a.m., with zero visibility and no other traffic except one tractor-trailer that hadn’t stopped when I tried to flag it down.
I know where I am, I thought, looking at the cottonwood, and listening to the bird’s song.
But shit! I suddenly thought. What about Lenore and Jennifer? What if they had made really good speed, and already were past me, maybe even back at the parking lot?
No, that didn’t seem likely, I decided. They had had at least another mile to go to the abandoned camp.
But what if they’d turned back? Then they easily could have passed back by the place where I’d left the trail, at that yucca, draped with threads like strings from the backs of giant oversized pea pods. And I wouldn’t have heard their voices, or the sound of their footsteps. I visualized them standing in a group of people by the trailhead, all pounding buttons for 911 on their phones, which were not working as we were out of range.
This was bad.
I began to scramble back out of the gully, on all fours.
That’s how it had always worked.
Back in that blizzard, we’d been driving west on I-80 through Pennsylvania, drivers taking turns, because we’d stayed too long on a random weekend trip to Massachusetts. Now we needed to get back to Oberlin before spring term registration started Monday morning.
Mark, Steve and Brendan had been asleep. Just Joel and I had been awake, when he had driven onto the highway ramp. I’d stayed up to keep watch because I didn’t trust Joel, for reasons including that he’d accidentally walked through a plate glass dorm door the Friday night we’d left Oberlin. The infirmary people had told us to keep an eye on him.
The other three woke up. We debated our options. I knew the way back, from my inner compass, but Joel disagreed. The guys had looked between us, uncertainly. I knew we only had one shot—for reasons including that Saabs have a “flow through ventilation” system. That meant we could not keep any body warmth in the car, as the wind sang through the vents.
Ultimately, I’d screamed Joel down. Mark had turned the car back to the direction I knew was right.
Joel had curled up in a fetal position in the back seat, muttering again and again, “we’re all gonna die,” as we inched through the snow.
We made it back to a gas station I’d remembered us passing. We sheltered there for a day and a half, along with a stranded rock band. We stacked car batteries against the station’s office door to hold it closed.
About a hundred people died along that interstate in that storm, in Pennsylvania alone.
Now I crested the top of the gully, walked back to the giant stone, and turned right to head to the trail. I stopped to pick up the sneakers I’d left for myself not far from the threaded yucca.
As I began my descent, the songs grew fainter, and then vanished, though I strained my ears to hear them for some time.
What if Lenore and Jennifer had made really good speed, and already were past me, maybe even back at the parking lot, pounding on their cell phones with no reception? What if I’d unnecessarily caused them to panic? Just because I fell under the spell of a bird’s songs?
I scrambled back to the trail, and then starting picking my way down the rocky trail. As I began the descent, the songs vanished, though I strained my ears to hear them for some time.
Kate Dreyfus lives in Portland, Oregon. She’s recently retired, left-handed, and a mom. She loves to take photographs and wander around.
