Kent grew up spending most of his time outdoors in North Dakota and Washington state. He writes short stories, poetry, and has published four novels. He lives with his wife in rural Washington. Hope you enjoy meeting Kevin and Babydoll!
Babydoll's Honor
By Kent D. Walsh
By Kent D. Walsh
Over the next several weeks the routine was pretty much the same each day. Monday through Friday I would get up early, feed and water Nishka and the horses, and then go to school. After school, I would hurry home to the animals. If the weather permitted, I would saddle up Sneeze, and the two of us would ride around the pasture with Babydoll and Nishka playfully chasing each other nearby. Afterwards, I would brush her and Baby down, and then feed all three of them. If it was raining out, I would just sit in the barn brushing the horses and petting Nishka.
One of my dad’s favorite things to do was to take me and Nishka trout fishing up at Swift Reservoir, on the north fork of the Lewis River. The reservoir was created when Swift Dam was built about twenty-two years earlier, at the time creating one of the highest earth-fill dams in the world. It sits just east of the town of Cougar, not too far from the base of Mount St. Helens. The water there is clear, cold and deep, and just filled with rainbow trout.
We owned a ten-foot-long wooden homemade boat that my mom’s father had built many years earlier and given to my dad. That’s what we used to float around the lake and fish out of. Since it wasn’t too big, we would just lift the back end up and slide it into the bed of our pickup truck. It was kind of heavy, but with the two of us lifting we didn’t have too much of a problem. We also had a five-horsepower outboard motor my dad bought to power it. It was pretty simple; whenever we wanted to go fishing, we just loaded up the boat and motor, grabbed a couple of fishing poles, and the tackle box, and off we went. So since it was Saturday, and fishing season had just opened a couple of weeks earlier, Dad wanted to go up to the lake fishing.
When he asked if I would like to go, I told him, “Sure, but what about all the rumbling and steam blast up on Mount St. Helens? The geologist said on the news it’s probably going to have an eruption very soon. Maybe we shouldn’t go up there.”
Dad laughed. “Eruption? All it’s been doing is blowing off a little steam. I think that might be the only eruption we’ll ever see in our lifetime. Besides, the mountain is at least ten miles away from the lake.”
I still wasn’t sure it was that good an idea, but said okay anyway. While Dad and I loaded the boat and the motor, Mom made us a couple of sandwiches to take along for lunch. Dad told me to go dig some worms and he would throw in our fishing gear. By now, not wanting to be left behind, Nishka was trying to climb in the back of the truck, but with the boat there, she couldn’t do it. Dad bent down and lifted her up into the boat; boy was she happy. It was a team effort, and in only about fifteen minutes we had everything loaded and were ready to go.
Mom waved and yelled “Good luck!” as we pulled out of the driveway.
Nishka was barking loudly, and excitedly running back and forth in the boat.
As we pulled away I waved back at Mom and hollered, “Bye, Mom! We’re bringing fish home for dinner tonight.”
I’m not sure who was the more excited of the two, Nishka or Dad, because when I looked over at Dad he had this great big smile on his face, and then he slapped the steering wheel a couple of times with his hand and yelled, “We’re going fishing!”
As we traveled towards Cougar, we got a glimpse of the mountain a couple of different times. It looked very strange, as it had a small puff of steam coming from its top. I thought to myself, Wow, we really do have our very own volcano right here in Washington. It took us about an hour before we arrived at the boat launch on the east end of the lake near Eagle Cliff Bridge. As we stepped from the truck and looked around, everything was so beautiful. The air may have been a bit crisp, but the plant life and trees were so green, and the water was fresh and clean.
After we launched the boat, Dad motored it out into the lake while Nishka stood on its bow with her nose in the air sniffing the wind.
We had only traveled a short distance when Dad said, “Let’s try it here.” He turned off the engine.
We picked up our fishing rods and attached bobbers to the lines. We then hooked a worm on for bait and tossed them out away from the boat. It was really funny; I’ll bet it wasn’t ten minutes before I caught the first fish. In fact, I caught three before Dad even had a bite. He was getting a little depressed for a while, but once he caught one he was all happy again.
Fishing was great; in only about two-and-one-half hours we had our limits. We didn’t even get a chance to eat our lunch and it was time to go. Dad let me drive the boat back to the launch; it was fun. But once we drove up close to the bank he took over again. When we landed, several people came over to see how we had done. We were just as proud as we could be as we held our string of fish up for all to admire. After loading the boat back up, we climbed in the truck and started to laugh.
I said, “We caught our limits.” We then slapped our hands together in a high five. On the way home, we ate our sandwiches and reminisced about what great fisherman we had been.
When we got home, Mom was very excited about our catch. She was so funny.
She said, “I’m sure glad you two caught some trout. You told me to plan on fish for dinner, so that’s what I did. If you hadn’t caught any, I guess you two would probably be eating beans tonight!”
What a wonderful meal it was: fried trout, baked potato, and of course beans—green beans that is; they were great.
Throughout that next week there was more and more news about the possible eruption of Mount St. Helens. People were told they should stay away from the mountain, and the locals were asked to evacuate. For us, it was pretty much life as usual; Dad went to work in the mountains cutting timber, Mom took care of the household chores, and I went to school. I even rode Sneeze a couple times during the week after school, and then again on Saturday. We all felt we were far enough away from the mountain that we were safe and it wouldn’t affect us, even if it did erupt.
Then early in the morning, on Sunday, May 18th the land around Mount St. Helens began to rumble again, and then it erupted. The blast was incredible. It was so powerful that it was heard over 100 miles away. It blew a large portion of the mountaintop completely off, and the ensuing mud flows devastated the immediate area, causing death and destruction for miles around. Its aftereffects will surely last forever. A plume of ash towered above the mountain, and then the ash gradually rained down across the land for hundreds of miles. I remember my dad’s pickup truck covered in ash; it looked as if a blanket of light grey snow had just fallen.
But as bad as the ash appeared, we got off pretty lucky compared to a lot of other people. We were south of the mountain, and the winds were blowing to the east, so we escaped the worst of it. Some of the areas downwind had accumulations of two feet or more, clogging gutters, collapsing roofs, ruining vehicle engines, and burying the landscape. Perhaps the scariest thing for us was that the mountain was actually only about twenty-five miles from our property, and the news reports said if the blast had blown out the south side rather than the north side, it might have reached us. But even still, at that time no one knew for sure how much effect the blast was going to have on the surrounding areas, including us.
News bulletins broadcast from radio stations outside the area were brutal. The way it sounded at first was that half of the state of Washington had been blown away. There was even one report that the destruction extended as far as Yacolt. I ran out to check on the animals. Nishka greeted me as I came out the door. We raced over to the barn to check on the horses. As I stepped inside, there were Sneeze and Babydoll just standing there chewing on the remaining pieces of hay I had fed them the night before, acting as if nothing had even happened. Despite their lack of concern about the Mount St. Helens eruption, I decided not to ride that day. Part of it was because of my concern for the horses, and the other was, with all that horrifying news, I just didn’t feel like riding.
That morning during church services, we all gave our thanks to God for keeping us safe during this horrible disaster. After that, we spent most of our time saying prayers for those that hadn’t fared as well, especially those that were injured or died.
Like most people, we spent the following days and weeks cleaning ash from our roofs, vehicles, tractors, chain saws, and any other equipment the fine powder might damage or corrode. But even after the eruption, the mountain didn’t remain silent. Rumbling, together with plumes of ash and steam, became almost a daily occurrence, while a lava dome continued to grow. The great Mount St. Helens was at work to rebuild her massive missing top.
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