Beautiful Hard Road

They had been driving the Alaskan highway for two days, along winding roads that hugged rugged mountainsides, and Wren did her best to take in the beauty. Each curve they rounded revealed a new panorama of vast wilderness—huge swelling hills, crystal-clear lakes that glowed aquamarine against their rocky shores, luscious green valleys and an endless sky.

This spontaneous trip had been a good idea; she was glad her sister Tate had suggested it. Wren felt a quiet calm here, although she knew she was in the eye of her storm.

She stared mindlessly through the front windshield, in the mesmerized state of a person who’s been behind the wheel for hours. Beside her, Tate wrote in her journal, lost in a song she’d been working out in hums and whispers for the better part of the last hour.

The scratch of the pen, Tate’s warm low voice—these were soothing sounds.

Suddenly Wren slammed on the brakes.

Ahead of them on the road sat a large bull bison, basking contentedly on the hot pavement. As their hatchback came to a halt just a few meters away, the massive animal raised his huge head and directed a lazy gaze at the two young women in the car.

Beyond that, he seemed disinclined to move.

“Shoot,” Wren said, “I guess we’ll just have to wait until he decides to leave.”

They idled for a moment, in a stare-down with the majestic creature blocking their path, before Wren turned off the ignition.

The world fell into silence.

“He’s so beautiful,” Tate remarked after a moment, “Look at how incredibly big he is. And his eyes are so soft and intelligent-looking.”

Wren nodded in agreement.

A fly landed at the corner of the bull’s eye, and he shook his head, his tail swishing reflexively along the pavement. Then he huffed a contented exhale and settled into a relaxed doze.

“He could be there for hours,” Tate said, “Should we get out and try to coax him to move?”

“I don’t think so; he might take a run at us if we get any closer.”

Wren beeped the horn a few times in quick succession, but the noise failed to elicit more than an ear twitch from the bison.

“Well… He’ll get hungry eventually.”

“So will I,” Tate pulled out some crackers and a jar of pickles, setting them carefully on the dashboard.

The sound of their crunching filled the air as the sisters sat watching the bull.

Looking into his dark eyes, Wren found herself becoming transfixed.

“Bison were Danny’s favourite animal,” Tate said quietly.

Wren lowered the hand that was halfway to her mouth with a pickle, and said hotly, “I told you; I don’t want to talk about Danny.”

Tate looked at her sister, and pursed her lips, considering. Then she decided to press it a little further, saying, “Wren, it’s been three months. You need to let your feelings out.”

Wren turned her head away and looked out her rolled-down window. She took in a gulp of refreshing air, and fought back tears.

No, she directed herself, Don’t start crying now. If you do, you’ll never stop.

“I will,” she managed in a constricted voice, “Just not yet.”

Tate handed her the water bottle, and she took a grateful swig, feeling relief as the cold liquid washed away the painful lump in her throat.

Danny would have told her it was bad for her health not to grieve. She could see the irony; the one person who could always get her to open up was gone forever, and he was the reason for the heartache she felt now.

Danny’s sudden death had shocked her into a state of hard denial. Ever since then her whole body had been numb, and her mind floated somewhere outside of herself, as if her life was a strange dream she was watching from afar. Even the gorgeous landscapes that enveloped them now didn’t seem to be able to fully touch her; her eyes told her the scenery was beautiful, but her heart couldn’t quite feel it.

Now her memories from that fateful day began to bombard her like icy pellets in an unexpected hail storm, unsolicited and stinging cold: the solid knock at the door, the somber face of the police officer who was standing on the porch when she opened it. The feeling of her heart dropping into her gut when he said, “I have some difficult news.”

The way she couldn’t remember how to breathe when he continued, “It’s about your brother Danny Porter. I’m afraid he died this morning.”

Her mind resisted his words; she struggled to grasp their meaning.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Your brother’s body was discovered at the Mount Baldy Trail. It seems he strayed off the hiking path, and fell quite a distance. An early morning dog-walker found him. I’m sorry.”

At this, Wren’s fallen heart surged back to life with a vengeance; its hard pounding was more than she thought her chest could contain. Her skin felt clammy, and she could hear the rush of blood through her veins. Around her the world went fuzzy, and for a moment all she could see through the fading tunnel of her vision was the officer’s concerned face.

She sat down abruptly on the bench in the hall, and breathed deeply, not wanting to faint.

“That's impossible,” she said, “Danny was just here last night. We had chicken for dinner.”

She knew there was no logic to this reasoning; but she could still hear the warm echo of his laugh, still see the exaggerated look of feigned suffering on his face as he proclaimed he couldn’t possibly eat another bite, he was so stuffed.

Had that really been only twelve or so hours ago?

Twelve hours was nothing in the grander scheme, but today it meant everything. It was the difference between her brother sitting at her kitchen table, his healthy heart beating, his lungs taking in air, and the stillness of his cold body—wherever it was now—in death.

The juxtaposition of those two realities less than a day apart was too surreal to comprehend.

Wren hadn’t cried. She’d gone about the next few weeks in a daze, planning Danny’s celebration of life perfunctorily, as if it was a stranger’s. Family and friends had come, offered condolences, brought food—which Wren had barely touched—and gone home again. Afterwards, when she was alone, a part of her wanted to give in to the black pain of grief. But she dared not.

Now Wren stared at the brown, hulking bull bison resting at ease in front of her.

His eyes are intelligent, she thought. The calm directness of his gaze seemed to penetrate to her soul. The way Danny’s had.

Danny could always read her like a book, which made her feel both vulnerable and safe. She couldn’t hide anything from him, and no matter what he discovered in her heart, he still loved her fiercely. He got her, could always tell when something was wrong, and he’d ask Wren questions that helped her process whatever she was going through.

Sometimes they were hard questions she didn’t like the answers to, and she would bristle and tell him to leave her alone. He didn’t go easy on her, but Danny was never mean; he only asked her the things she needed to ask herself, she knew. But sometimes that could be painful.

Like with her first boyfriend, Jared, who was always either canceling their plans last-minute, or not showing up at all. When he did manage to keep a commitment, he was unapologetically late.

Wren would complain to Danny, saying, “He’s always making me wait! I’m sick of it.”

“Really? He forces you to wait? You don’t have a choice in the matter?”

Wren rolled her eyes and replied, “I can’t just leave! That would be rude.”

“I see,” Danny nodded thoughtful, a twinkle in his eye, “So it’s okay for Jared to consistently stand you up, but it’s not okay for you to leave, in case he shows up.”

“Well, not when you put it that way,” Wren admitted.

“Have you ever told him it bothers you?”

Wren shrugged, “Not really. It seems silly to make a big deal about it.”

“Well, it’s not Jared’s job to guess what you’re okay with and what you’re not.”

“So you’re saying it’s my fault?” Wren felt ruffled.

Danny put his hands firmly on her shoulders, and looked her straight in the eye.

“I’m saying, if you need things to change, that has to start with you. Jared may never have good time management skills. Are you okay with that? If not, what can you do about it?”

Through gritted teeth she mumbled, “I shouldn’t have to tell him how to behave decently.”

“True,” Danny conceded, “but nobody else is going to set boundaries for you if you don’t do it for yourself.”

Wren knew her brother was right. She began to mentally berate herself for not realizing this before, but Danny quickly wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her into a headlock, giving her a noogie with the other fist.

“Stop it!” Wren growled.

When he released her she said, “Why do you always do that? We have a good talk and then you feel the need to harass me!”

“A headlock is not as bad as whatever it was you were about to tell yourself. Don't get so down on yourself, okay?” he tousled her hair, and added, “Hey, at least it wasn’t a wet-Willie.”

“Don’t you dare!” Wren warned with a harsh look.

“One of these days,” Danny winked.

*

“Wren?”

Tate’s sudden voice from the passenger seat brought Wren back to the present.

“Look, he’s getting up,” Tate said, pointing through the windshield.

Sure enough, the bison got to his feet with little effort, which was a wonder of physics, Wren thought; his legs looked too skinny to support the bulky magnitudes of his muscles and heavy coat.

The bull turned towards the car, and began to approach. He stepped slowly at first, and then broke into a loose trot as he got closer. Veering slightly to his right, he was headed towards Wren’s side of the vehicle.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” Wren cried, her finger pulling uselessly on the electric window lever, but the car was off, so the window remained as it was—completely open, leaving Wren exposed.

In a moment, the bull was beside her, his giant head filling the entire frame of the window.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Wren knew that she shouldn’t make eye contact, because he might read that as a sign of aggression and charge her. Or in this case, head-butt her at close range. Yet she couldn’t look away; she couldn’t move at all.

Up close, he was both gentle and terrifying. She could feel his hot moist breath on her face, and smell his wild grassy odour. He was an untamed beast, but the expression in his soft eyes was… kind? Loving?

It’s okay. You’ll be okay, he seemed to be telling her.

She felt a rise of annoyance. She knew she would be okay, eventually, and she didn’t need a stupid bison to tell her that.

“Leave me alone!” she snapped.

Then the huge animal stuck out his thick purplish tongue, and in one swift movement, swiped it up the length of one side of Wren’s face. She jerked back in shock.

The bison licked his nose, blinked once, and then turned and started walking off casually in the direction of the forest.

In the seat beside her, Tate’s shoulders were shaking with silent mirth.

“Oh my God!” she laughed, “You just got wet-Willied by a bison!”

Wren wiped her cheek. Then she turned to her sister and, at last, she burst into tears.