In Stone

Creative nonfiction
by Kelly Spitzer

At first light, the air smells crisp. The earth, scourged with deep cracks that swallow shoes and tent stakes, and elbows dug too deep in the night, stretches its dusty fingers, looking for rain not to be had. Against its shores, Lake Powell shimmers blue, a quiet blanket of relief that reaches life less every year as drought wins out.

I grew up in country not far from Lake Powell, where the air was often so dry that skin flaked and even bald men used conditioner. But now, after years of the Pacific Northwest's mist-kissed weather, I feel as cracked and ruined as the earth below me. My hands, I notice as I crawl out of the tent, are crisscrossed with arroyos, the once slight lines deeper, darker.

At the camp table, I see my dad standing sentry over the coffee pot—a French-style press that brews in just four minutes. I yawn, search the Henry Mountains for clouds, but again, there are none to be had. My dad catches my eye and nods. Though it's only May, we both know today will be another hot one, that without an early start, we'll miss the opportunity to do anything but sit in the shade and stare.

Which is not the reason we—my fiancé and I—are here. We're here, at the request of my dad, to relax. Next Saturday is the big day. After seven years of claiming the significant-other status, Brian and I will marry. My dad wants us to unwind beforehand. Mostly, I think, he wants us to fish, though for him, relaxation and fishing are analogous.

"At least it's still cool this early," I say, and reach for a travel mug that Dad has filled with coffee fit for an engine.

"It's actually not a bad morning for fishing," he says. "The bass will be close to the surface. We might even get into some stripers."

Dad knows these waters, these fish, well. Since my brother and I left home, he comes to the lake often. What started out as a weekend trip every couple of months, quickly blossomed into once a month, then twice. The two days turned into three, then four. When I catch myself wondering how he pays the bills, I stop and remind myself that smile lines wrinkle his face now, and when we say goodbye after too short of a visit, it's a hug I receive, rather than a handshake or a pat on the back.

"Not too many, I hope. You'll be too busy tying my grubs to fish yourself."

"We'll let him do it." Dad points to Brian, who is skipping rocks at the water's edge. The rising sun reflects off the ripples, casting them a surprising pink.

I smile, because even this slight comment is meant to razz, their way of relating to one another, which they both fall into with uncanny ease. Despite their age difference, I often think they are more like brothers, or buds from grade school, rather than soon-to-be father and son-in-law. Brian, however, doesn't hear, so for now, Gloria—my dad's significant other—and I are spared.

The sun continues to climb the eastern canyon walls, and Dad cranks the propane stove, drops teaspoons of butter into a pan, swirls bagels around the melted center. Gloria packs a small cooler for the boat—mostly drinks, along with dried fruit and nuts. Bagels and coffee in hand, Dad herds us to the boat. "If we don't get out there now, we'll miss our chance," he says.

As the boat trudges toward the lake center—the ninety-foot drop in the water level makes faster speeds dangerous—I slather my face with sunscreen and squint through the buzz of sunlight toward the open channel. Once we reach it, it's full speed ahead. The wind is chilly and pricks like bee stings. I duck down and hang on to my hat. Up ahead, Dad spies a notch. He cuts the engine, lets the boat drift along its south wall.

The rods are prepared. Dad slings his line into the water and before long, he's hooked one. He reels it in. "Just a smallmouth," he says, and tosses it back. My line is in the water, too, and immediately, I feel a tug. With feet planted on the muddied boat carpet, I try to reel in the line. It doesn't give. "I'm stuck," I say, picturing my grub snagged on a submerged cottonwood, a rock ledge, a colony of tumbleweeds.

Dad turns to Brian, pokes him, gives him that "watch this" look, then bleats into the canyon, "Kelly's stuck." His voice reverberates off the sheer rock walls. Everyone within miles can hear him. Brian laughs. I roll my eyes and yank and tug and curse as my dad moves the trolling motor left, then right, trying to free my line.

Over the course of the morning, we all catch a few fish, and when it gets too hot, we retreat to the shade, to a natural stone amphitheatre, where we lounge and laugh, the scent of baked earth heavy in the air.

"You know, I like to fish," Dad says, "but the real reason I come here is for this." He points west, where the sun is fading to dusk, creating a cascade of pink and orange over the red-rocked walls.

Silent, we gaze at the day's last display, and my mind wanders to a time long ago. A time before the dam, when the rapids of the Colorado ruled the canyons, when the ancient Anasazi, the Navajo or Hopi or Havasupai or Ute tribes walked beneath the cliffs, dipping their toes in streams that fed the river. I wonder what the sunset looked like to them, from hundreds of feet below where I sit in Dad's boat, atop water that covers kivas and burial sites, pottery and hunting tools from those long gone. Did it look any different? From that far down, were the colors less vivid? Did it take more effort to lean your head back, trace your eyes along the towering rock, and look up into the sky above? Did it mean more, back then?

And what did it look like to those who came after? The men who built shacks along the water and hauled uranium out of the rocks on horseback?

Or to those who built the dam itself, and watched themselves get closer and closer to canyon-tops rimmed with salt and dust, to mandarin sunsets that engulfed them on July nights?

I look at the faces around me, at my dad, chin in hands, elbows propped on the boat's edge, and decide that, in each of its various forms, this country infects those who wander here. It burrows itself into imaginations, it breeds in the heart, the blood. It grows on you and in you, until, eventually, it becomes you.

I understood then what Dad's invitation meant. It was more than a fishing trip, a chance to relax. It was more, even, than his blessing. Dad was giving us a piece of him, written in stone, to share forever.

Copyright 2007 by Kelly Spitzer