Sylvia’S Trail Through Time

By Lee Spangler

Set in 1987 in the geologically rich location of Western Colorado, Sylvias Trail through Time is an intriguing personal story about a sensitive womans struggle to find meaning in her life. By chance, she discovers a path that lies just beneath her feet and that descends through time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514451908

Lee Spangler

Lee Spangler lives in Bend, Oregon, and spends his time fishing, hiking, traveling, skiing, sketching, and volunteering. As a young man, he studied German literature at UCLA and at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley and then moved to the Pacific Northwest to lead a counterculture lifestyle. Later, he came to his senses and pursued a career in real estate until he retired in 2008. The author is one of those whimsical people whom you may meet in a coffee shop who seems a little too intense but whose heart appears to be in the right place. He has created for your enjoyment a deeply personal work of fiction whose characters, you will agree, are remarkably true to life.

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Copyright © 2016 by Lee Spangler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/19/2016

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For my mom and dad who instilled the value of learning in our family.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Carl Sagan

S he drew a circle around herself with a stick, its wooden point digging a groove in the soft reddish dirt that made up her play area. Her spot was near the house but closer to the shed that kept the green equipment, the tools, the long garden hose, and the tarp, where the kitten sometimes hid. For a moment the breeze picked up. Light dust settled on her legs as she knelt forward to examine the small pebbles she had gathered in the sand. She smoothed out a level place, and then began balancing the stones carefully on top of one another. Her goal was to build a small rock pony, which she had planned to fence and train, but even with the support of a sturdy twig, the pieces kept rolling off and landing like scattered marbles onto the gravel floor of her arena. Patiently, she tried again until a form took shape. She considered then other features of her project and decided that she would use some moss for a mane and some leftover sprigs for grass. Also, she considered hollowing out little holes with her stick into which she could place larger pieces of gravel in order to make a stone wall. This structure might help stabilize the animal’s legs. It would be a beautiful horse, maybe brown with tan stockings. She imagined it would look like the color of the cliffs that rose above the river near Grand Junction. She might even register her creation one day in the fair and get a ribbon. This would make her sister Susan jealous of course, but more important, the pony would not belong to her but to Ellen alone. Mine, she intoned quietly. There was that word. She had heard it so often in talk between her parents at the dinner table or while her father argued on the phone to Mr. Lewis, the Four Man. It wasn’t easy to have a Mine . That was clear. It meant so much fuss. Yet, on this late afternoon under the Colorado sunshine that filtered its light through the limbs of the cottonwoods, amid the bitterbrush and the drying black-eyed flowers, Ellen felt at ease with the soil. She claimed her piece of ground, molded its features respectfully, and with loving innocence, sensed the earth’s intrinsic worth.

Sylvia Grace glanced out the window. Her line of sight, only partially obstructed by the freshly manicured laurel hedge, had stretched beyond the lawn, out across the rangeland, and had settled on the distant Blue Mountains to the North, which were mottled yellow and brown with fall colors. In the foreground of her view, she had barely noticed the hunched figure of her young daughter who was playing by the shed. In fact, Sylvia hadn’t even intended to look outside. Her attention had shifted in that direction almost unconsciously. She had been preoccupied in the kitchen with the job of arranging recipes into folders when, inexplicably, a strange foreboding disturbed the flow of her routine. She sensed the point in time first as a split-second feeling of uncertainty accompanied by a slight flinch, similar to what a driver experiences when he believes momentarily he has failed to take the proper turn on a route he knows. Then he recovers rapidly and feels reassured that he is on the right road. It had been only a second or two before Sylvia’s composure returned. Yet, during that instant, caused probably by some untraceable association from her work, she recalled a detail of her birthplace of Rangely in the White River Valley, which was just over those mountains, and felt compelled to look in that direction. As she imagined her old street, she found the fact slightly disconcerting that she hadn’t traveled far from her childhood town. It had been her intention, she remembered, to see the world. In any case, she rationalized that her husband Steve, the girls, and she were leading a good life in the outskirts of Fruita, at least at some distance from the place of her origin.

Her father had driven a bread truck. His route had taken him from the bakery in Vernal, Utah, across the Colorado border along US 40 to deliver products to Rangely, Craig, and to Steamboat Springs. It was a tiring several-hundred-mile daily journey and dangerous as well. In the early morning winter hours, before the plow cleared a path, the roads were slick. Then there were the ever-present numerous deer and elk that lingered along the highway’s edge and leaped out unexpectedly at passing traffic. Hiram McCarty grew embittered as he daily loaded and unloaded trays of low-quality bread into the van. He hated the job, its poor pay, the lack of appreciation from his employer, who was the worthless son of a wealthy Mormon family from Salt Lake City, and of course, and most of all, he loathed the long hours. To complicate matters even more, just at the time when he had had enough of the tedium, he became trapped by his circumstances and simply couldn’t quit. His wife had become pregnant, almost inexplicably. Their sexual relationship, which had been infrequent anyway and lacking in passion, now had produced an unpleasant and undesirable consequence. His wife’s recently fitted diaphragm, which she had alleged was virtually foolproof, had failed. Soon a child would be born. They would name her Sylvia. Later, though, his misfortune would turn around. Upon the discovery of vast oil, natural gas, and high-quality coal deposits at its outskirts along an ugly plain, and aided by investment from Chevron, Rangely would transform into a thriving oil town. This event brought rough and tumble fellows to work the fields. Hiram seized the opportunity to open a restaurant in order to serve these new arrivals breakfasts and box lunches.

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It was only a fly, one of many that appeared with regularity in the late summer. It buzzed aimlessly around the kitchen and then settled upside down on the ceiling to crawl a few inches before taking off again. Then it descended suddenly, wheeled about Sylvia’s head, and then landed on the breakfast bar. It had been quiet in the house all afternoon, but this critter had an annoyingly loud hum, which disturbed her tranquility, and had appeared almost mysteriously, arriving likely through some unrecognizable crevice. She picked up the fly swat and approached the little bugger stealthily. She had practiced for years and knew to angle her swing to strike in front of the pest to produce the maximum result.

As she raised her arm, she watched the fly begin to rub its legs in what looked like a lewd dance. It disgusted her, but at the same moment, she felt a twinge of compassion overcome her, and struggled with a momentary pang of conscience over the thought of killing an innocent creature. In that instant, she pictured an executioner with a raised ax about to bludgeon a supplicant and hesitated. Crap, it’s only a fly, she muttered to herself. Feeling almost embarrassed by her oversensitivity, she proceeded with swift resolve and brought her stroke downward with more force than she actually intended. At first she didn’t see her target, but realizing that she had shut her eyes, she then perceived, pooled in a dark milky color, the smashed remains of the fly stuck to the smooth surface. She paused for a moment and grimaced. Before the mixture of pleasurable, cruel glee and mysterious guilt from murdering the insect could adequately congeal and neutralize in her, Susan entered the room from the right, interrupting the tension of that private moment. Maawm, she intoned, implying she was about to ask a question. Then, with hardly even the slightest eye contact and apparently lost in thought, she turned abruptly, almost contemptuously, like a spirited horse whose movement is thwarted by the limitation of the corral, and exited, giving Sylvia the impression that perhaps she had been looking for something and was about to ask her its whereabouts.

Susanne Rae? her voiced trailed off, knowing she wouldn’t be heard. It had been only an instant. Yet, in its brevity she had sensed the haunting feeling of rejection. She depended on her elder daughter’s affection, her validation, and companionship to soothe a biting wound that had formed and had festered in Sylvia’s soul since birth, and which had followed her over those hills that had caught her attention earlier that day. If asked, she might claim she had put her upbringing in Rangely behind her. Of course that would be like a tree denying the existence and impact of events on its being that were recorded on the first rings of its core. Many earlier circles showed burns or were stunted by poor conditions, whereas later annuals had developed wider and stronger. A more favorable environment in more recent years fostered the growth of fragile colorful leaves and stronger bark. These bright spots of greenery and thick skin produced a prouder image, which shielded the trunk but didn’t necessarily change its essence. The net result produced a layered living being that was continually modifying.

It had been quiet. It was three strangers occupying the same house. That was the only way she knew how to describe her upbringing. Even as a young child, amid the thick tobacco smoke when her father was home, she moved about the house silently, as they all did. Not that there wasn’t conversation, but what little there was lacked content and contained no emotion.

I’m leavin’, her father announced after being home briefly in the early evening after he had taken a short nap. He felt obliged to return to the restaurant to prepare for the next morning’s early breakfast business.

See ya later, her mother might utter in response, but without conviction.

The door would click behind him, which was then followed by the familiar sounds of the closing car door, the firing of the engine, and the dull roll of the tires as he turned onto the pavement. Occasionally, her mom might mention she was going the following day to the church for some activity or to Sunday service, but otherwise the house was still, rarely interrupted by music or voices from the radio, or later, by the drone of a TV. There wasn’t even a ticking clock. The home lacked the sanctity of an abbey, neither the reverence nor eeriness of a cemetery, nor the solemnity of a church. It was a place devoid of feeling, like a rural train platform where unrelated humans met for a moment before boarding different trains. As a little girl living in that small bungalow in Rangely, she learned to be equally reticent. She didn’t even say she was going to bed. She just slipped inconspicuously into her room, got undressed, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed, and went to sleep. She neither knew of any goodnight kiss, nor expected to be tucked in or to receive special attention. She was a boarder. She never witnessed any family drama or any enthusiasm about anything. The Christmas tree was put up, lights were hung mechanically, gifts appeared under the tree and then were opened without passion. There were rarely visitors. She lived with her parents immersed in a dull mindless existence, which, curiously enough, still provided a strange sense of stability. Only later as she matured, perhaps as a teenager, did it first occur to her that maybe she wasn’t wanted.

Hey there, he said carefully, conscious that being seen talking to her might cause him ridicule. Sylvia turned and blushed. She had noticed that Mack had been looking at her before. They had passed occasionally in the hall and recently she had seen him at Helmer’s grocery with his family. He was a junior and she a sophomore. He was lanky, simple, and like all the boys, conformed in dress, attitudes, and speech. He sported a silver buckle at the top of his jeans and wore usually a Western button-down shirt. His dad did something with tools, welded or repaired equipment. She once watched the boy climb into the passenger seat of John Cumming’s pickup truck and head east on 137. She knew where he lived and had seen him in a garage when she rode her bicycle on the other side of town. Shyly, not suspiciously, she looked back at him. She was simply inexperienced with conversation, especially with boys.

Hi, she spoke, finding a pleasant enough tone of voice, but felt at a loss to add any other words. She knew she was seen as the school oddball. That had been made clear to her. She was thin, freckled, wore braces to push in her protruding front teeth, and walked with a slightly stooped-over posture as a result of a curved spine. Most of all, she hardly spoke in social situations. Conversations were not simple to her. Some people, she noticed, had the ability to chatter about superficial subjects. Others were able to express themselves when the subject matter turned profound. In neither case could Sylvia master her malaise. She would hear words spoken to her. They would fly at her, giving her a jolt, but she could neither think up a connecting thought, nor respond quickly enough nor honestly enough with sentences that expressed her disposition. At best, she strung together awkwardly a few common sounds in the form of interjections. She could, however, talk easily with her cousin Mary, whom she respected for playing piano beautifully. Also, Mary was especially kind. She had given Sylvia some records of pieces of music written by classical composers. When Sylvia was in her company, she felt valued, safe, and not criticized. Unfortunately, her cousin lived over in Rifle and therefore Sylvia saw her infrequently.

She had heard the girls talking about boys, especially after gym class in the locker room. Even Janice Evans had gone so far as to brag openly about her exploits, and proudly declared one afternoon about having gone all the way with Al White, one of high school’s more popular athletes and who, due to some family connections, was destined to go to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs next fall. Sylvia kept to herself but listened from a distance to the escapades involving beer, staying out late, parking by the golf course, and carnal adventures at the drive-in theater. Their gossip and mischievous laughter about sexuality made her curious and stimulated some urges that she had been recently experiencing in her developing body. She had been a miserably late bloomer, having gotten her first period only a few months earlier as she was turning sixteen. She had small breasts as well, a fact that she believed was apparent to anyone who looked at her. She had, even once, been brutally teased by several of her classmates, who jested that she looked like she had grown two backs. Yet most disconcerting about her development into womanhood was the fact that although she had never ever felt particularly modest about her lower private parts and had even discovered a certain pleasure from touching its smooth folds years earlier when she was little, she had begun to grow what she considered to be an unnecessary and unflattering amount of maiden hair. Long dark red-brown curly strands had, almost overnight, sprouted upward toward her belly, outward toward her thighs, and worst of all, downward, transforming what she had once fantasized to be a gentle, enchanting meadow into a dark prickly forest.

Hey, Mama, Kathy Owen called over to her one afternoon after Sylvia had come out of the shower room. The others sniggered. Tell us about all your hunks. The girls began to laugh. Mama, is one of them that goofy-looking guy down at the restaurant? She realized they were taunting her about her dad, who by all definitions looked peculiar, with his bald head and buck teeth.

That’s cruel, another said, feigning sympathy for Sylvia. Mama’s got her own secrets, Sheryl Keaton smirked, implying that Sylvia’s vast experience had come entirely from the work of her own hands.

Ooh that’s good! Julie Snyder added, and made a clicking sound with her tongue.

Well, tell us, Mama, the ringleader repeated.

Sylvia stood there and thought desperately of something to say. She needed to utter something witty or provide some lurid information, anything to deflect the conversation away from her, anything to make this scene disappear, but she could think of nothing, her mind blocked by the searing pain that began to well up in her from deep within. What troubled her as well was this name Mama. Why did they call her that? She could not understand their meaning.

She takes everything so damn seriously, Louise Meyer interjected, feeling probably somewhat guilty for the collective bullying but not strong enough in her convictions to put an end to it. Come on, Mama, she demanded, laugh it off.

Then Sylvia, as if she had been struck by a sudden shock, came to a painful realization. She discovered it in the sound Louise used to call her Mama. She had misheard her, she had misheard them all. They hadn’t called her mama at all, but had nicknamed her llama. That was it. Her slightly pointed face and mouth, her curly hair, her slender frame, the freckles, the light brown freckles that covered her neck, arms, legs, and everything else made her look like some strange animal. Then she blanched and remembered the wool between her legs. Barely able to stand, she finished tying her shoes and walked silently out of the room.

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Steve and her younger child Ellen would be home soon. They had gone into town to buy a fan for their daughter’s room to help the little girl sleep. The summer of 1987 had been a series of depressingly hot days that were interspersed with thunderstorms that failed to cool the air. Sylvia heard the chuffing sound of some sprinklers in the distance and a deep vibration, perhaps from the idling of a diesel engine parked on a siding along the railroad track that bordered US 6. The sun had fallen low in the sky and hung within the mauve haze that had been created by the dusty air. It looked stuck between two large branches of the children’s climbing tree. She saw its rays reflecting off the bark and momentarily recalled a scene from earlier in the summer.

The family had taken the RV over to Moab to the national park and had hiked the long rocky uphill trail at sunset to see Delicate Arch. They arrived at the monument as the sun began to balance on the horizon, sending red-orange rays of lighting on a most unusual trajectory toward the arch. In order to best see and admire the natural creation, most of the tourists either stood on a ridge that formed a balcony above the arch or sat on smooth stones lower down in a bowl that produced an amphitheater. In the center, fifty yards below, the arch sat on a stage of red sandstone. From right to left, it consisted of two parts, the first being a powerful-looking ancient segmented index finger that curved upward toward the sky and then turned dramatically downward. This digit tapped gently on the second part, a trapezoidal-shaped rock that sat on the ground and completed the structure. She remembered how Susan, without asking them, had left.

The parents caught sight of the thirteen-year-old bounding down the smooth rock benches and scampering across a flat area that led to the arch. She centered herself directly in front of the stone form and peered upward to the onlookers. Near her, a few visitors who had descended to touch the rock and to snap close-ups with their cameras stood reverently. Then, with playful childlike mischief, Susan suddenly posed before the iconic landmark with her arms outstretched. She looked like an amateur actress overdramatizing a scene from a Greek tragedy during which a star-crossed queen implores an audience to listen to a mournful tale. Or perhaps she was mimicking, in an exaggerated manner, the behavior of a rock star about to sing a song. In any case, her gestures elicited smiles and some laughter from a number of spectators. Others, however, who had placed their cameras on tripods and had probably set their timers to capture the changing evening light on the rock, clearly would have preferred a photo of the arch without a teenager in the middle of it.

Ellen, eager to join her older sister, pulled away from Steve, whose hand she had been holding for most of the hike. He admonished her and kept her close. They watched as Susan repositioned herself and changed her motion. This time she stretched her arms to each side at shoulder level and began to slowly and gracefully move them, along with her wrists and hands, up and down. It was clear that she was imitating the slow flight of a large hawk. In one fleeting moment, the twilight reflection of the hues off of the surrounding mountains and the dusty glow from the spotlight of the setting sun created the illusion that the girl was actually about to leave the ground. Gracefully, she stepped forward and began her ascent back to her family. Sylvia watched her daughter move with agility and climb with confident, measured resolve over rocks.

Isn’t she … ? Sylvia paused, unable to express the right word to describe her feeling. She was so proud of her daughter’s spunk. Suddenly, her own legs twitched as she watched her daughter come nearer, as if somewhere from afar, buried in her childhood memory, a message had been delivered to her own body about how to negotiate over a particular rock. She loved the girl deeply. Her firstborn had meant so much. Isn’t she … special? she repeated, finally completing her thought out loud to Steve and Ellen. Sylvia heard her voice, but neither of them acknowledged her statement. She realized how superficial it had sounded, how imprecisely it had described her feeling, how inadequately she had expressed herself.

When they had returned to the parking lot, Steve eased himself into the leather captain’s chair of the RV and drove them the nine-mile route back through the park entrance to the outskirts of Moab. It was now completely dark and both children had fallen asleep. Earlier in the day they’d chosen a campsite ten miles north along the Colorado River, and in order to reach it, rode slowly past massive rock formations, massifs, and some huge palisades that made up the canyon walls. He had inserted one of his favorite CDs in the player, an old collection of Johnny Cash favorites, then began humming and singing a few verses about Folsom Prison. He grinned over at Sylvia meaningfully. Whatdaya think, gal? he spoke, imitating a Johnny Cash voice. He intoned his words deeper and somewhat playfully, hoping to set a positive mood in order to initiate an upbeat conversation, or to point out, without saying so, that the day or time they had just spent together had been a successful experience.

Yeah, it was something, she retorted. My legs are tired from all that climbing. I damn near don’t feel like cooking either. Heck, the girls are asleep. I hate even wakin’ them.

Yeah, that sure was one long climb down in the dark. We coulda used a flashlight at the end. Do you remember the time when Jim Tucker and his cousin … what was his name? Oh yeah, Ed … yeah, one a’ the Anderson boys got lost somewhere around here? Ya remember. Alan called an’ wanted Hank ’n’ me to drive all the way over here to look for ’em. That must a’ been near five years ago. I know that. Ellen was just a baby then. Remember you were in the kitchen feedin’ her when he called? You gave me a look or something. Ya know? One a’ those looks! He grinned through the dim light of the cab over to her, expecting her to immediately recall some mood she’d been in and that she’d know exactly what he meant. Crap! he said before she had a chance to respond. The game’s prawbly over.

She assumed he meant the Rockies, but wasn’t sure. She adjusted herself in her seat and tried to think of something to say. She had liked watching him carry Ellen on his shoulders down the trail and had joked when they stopped once while Susan re-tied her shoelace that they had looked like a moving totem pole. She loved to see him interact well with the children; in fact, loved him the most when he showed any indication of affection toward them or toward her, for that matter. Ya mean they can’t win without yer brain root’n them on? she chided him. She had learned over the years to be more lighthearted, discovering this attitude brought out the best in him.

He leaned toward her, looked at her, and grinned. I like it when ya make me laugh! he spoke good-naturedly.

His charm overwhelmed her for a moment. She fidgeted in her seat again and realized that she felt a little clammy. The hike had caused her to sweat and she needed a shower. The girls did too. Her hair was probably a fright as well. She realized also that she wouldn’t mind going to pee either. The RV had a toilet and shower but the site had neither hookups nor a public bathroom. It was totally rustic. He’d fire up the generator and get everything going, this she knew. He was so handy, but she suddenly envisioned her bathroom at home and wished she were there where she could make use of all of the conveniences.

As if he sensed her discomfort,