In the Midst of Life

delicate violets, yellow, white and blue. Monkey flowers and kingcups bloomed on the banks of the lake.’ * Quite often a fisherman would be whipping his line for a cast upstream from the dam. An otter would surface, see the fisherman and dive, splashing the water with its thick tail. As the sun dropped behind the hills, Spirit Lake, the place Truman knew so well, assumed an air of mystery. The light would change, and the snow-capped Mount St Helens would show a different mood before it was swallowed up by purple darkness. The distant snowfields would become incandescent, dimly reflecting a pinkish glow. Then the moon would rise, and the mountain, holding her secrets close, would look as if she belonged to another world.
    But in winter the temperature would drop to well below zero for months on end, as snow followed snow and the ice on Spirit Lake froze to five feet deep. Animals and birds would move to warmer grounds, bears would hibernate, and many creatures would die. Storms would come one after another, and the snow would fall six, or eight, sometimes ten feet deep. After every fall, Truman had to climb on to the roof of his lodge to shovel it off, or the weight of snow would have made the roof cave in. The winter months were a constant battle to survive, and Truman turned his talents to trapping and poaching. He had bought in sacks of beans and rice and flour, bacon and salted beef; he had dried fruits and herbs, and stacked wood for the fire.
    People who live close to nature have a different take on life from urban dwellers, who think they can control everything. These people recognise the rhythm of life and death in the changing shiftsof the natural world. Truman’s years of reflection beside his lake, beneath the shadow of the mountain, had surely formulated his philosophy of life.
    In March 1980, Truman was eighty-three years old, fit and strong, but nonetheless old and getting older. Eddie had been dead for five years and he was lonely. He had kept the place going because, if he hadn’t, he would not have survived the winter. He had no enthusiasm for the idea of summer visitors, but that was the business upon which he depended for an income.
    On Friday, 20th March, at 3.45 p.m., the ground under his feet shook slightly. He was glad, and thought it was a sign that the spring weather had loosened an avalanche down the side of Mount St Helens.
    But scientists at the University of Washington, twenty miles to the north, were not so blase. The seismographs showed an earth tremor measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale, and the location was close to Mount St Helens, which gave cause for real concern. Three days later the earth moved again, measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale, and the quakes were even closer to the mountain. Visitors were urged to stay away, and by the end of March the authorities were considering possible plans for an evacuation. The forest service closed all roads to the area above the timberline. Truman’s lodge was
eight miles
above the timberline.
    On the last day of March, a state of emergency was declared. Rob Smith, an old friend who lived further down the slopes, was having a drink and a quiet conversation with Truman when ‘all of a sudden the whole building seemed like a little cardboard box, rocking backwards and forwards,’ he remembered. They went out on to the porch and saw Mount St Helens spit a plume of ash thousands of feet into the air. Quite soon afterwards, the Deputy Sheriff’s car came screaming up the approach road, his voice booming from the loudspeaker: ‘The mountain’s erupting. Everyone out.’ Rob quickly made ready to leave, but Truman was not prepared to go. Rob went out and returned with the Sheriff. The two men tried every tactic from threat to guile – ‘We’re standing on a dynamite keg with the fuse lit. If it goes up, we will die’ –but they couldn’t persuade the old man to go with them. They left, and Truman was alone.
    Mount St Helens was much changed the following day. A crater had appeared on the summit, two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, surrounded by a dirty black ring of ash, disfiguring the purity of the snow. Large fissures, more than a mile long, were visible, and Truman must have been not just awestruck, but tremblingly afraid. Yet it must have been then that he formulated his unshakeable resolve: ‘If that mountain goes, I go with it.’ He was eighty-three years old, his beloved wife was dead, he was lonely and he frequently