Chapter 7
After Luke drove off, leaving me with a load of guilt heavier than my ruck, I looked around.
The stone arch at Amicalola Falls State Park was crowded with hikers, all taking their ‘start of the Trail’ photos.
Families posing. Solo hikers asking strangers to capture the moment.
Couples with arms around each other, grinning at cameras.
As if starting mattered. It was making it to the end that counted.
I headed around, keeping to the edge of the parking area, Maggs walking beside me on her best behavior.
“Excuse me!” A woman in her thirties approached, holding out her phone. “Would you mind taking our picture? Under the arch?”
“Sure.” I took the phone.
She and her husband/partner/friend/whoever posed, arms raised in triumph, as if they were finishing, not starting. I took several shots, then handed the phone back.
“Thank you,” she said. “Would you like us to get one of you and your dog? You should have a memory of your start.” Hell no, I thought. AI was scouring the internet constantly for pictures of people like me.
I had one already. In my head. “I’m good. Thanks though.”
“Are you sure? It’s such a great spot. Everyone gets their photo here.”
“Really, I’m fine.”
She looked like she wanted to push, but something in my expression stopped her. Rose had told me my face doesn’t invite conversation. She backed off. “Okay. Well, good luck out there!”
I nodded and moved farther away, toward the trailhead, away from the crowd. Luck had nothing to do with it. One foot in front of the other was the key.
One guy—maybe mid-twenties, long hair, gaunt—was filming everything on his cell phone, narrating his journey for what I assumed was YouTube or social media or the Tok thing.
At this rate, I might as well have gone to New York City given the effort I had to go to avoid becoming a backdrop in his film.
“Hey man!” He approached with the confidence of someone who'd never met a stranger trying to kill him. I kept my head turned until he was too close to catch my face. “I’m Charlie. I’m documenting my journey.
The big rehab walk. Like that movie Wild.
Can I get you in my shot? Just for a second?
I’m documenting everyone who’s starting today.
Like a time capsule thing. And your dog looks really cool. People love dogs.”
“No.” He didn’t look too healthy. His skin was pale and his gear second-hand. He wore an old denim jacket with a lot of patches sewn on it. That wasn’t going to work out too well the first time it got wet. I wondered how far into his rehab he was.
“Come on, just a quick—"
“No. Sorry.” There I’d thrown in a little politeness.
“Dude, it's for—”
“I said no.” My voice was flat, final. I hated people calling me ‘dude’, too.
He backed off, hands up. “Okay, okay. Chill. It’s all good. No problem.”
I watched him film other hikers instead, all of them happy to wave at his camera, share their names, talk about their goals.
Normal people with normal lives who could afford to have their faces on the internet.
Primarily, I was avoiding being caught in everyone’s background shot so it was causing me to hang around longer than I wanted to.
I noticed a woman also with a dog avoiding the arch and the others.
She was maybe fifty, weathered in the way that came from sun and time rather than neglect, with gray threading through auburn hair that had mostly escaped its bun.
The dog was old, a yellow lab whose snout was almost pure white.
They were both moving slow. She walked around the group, paying no attention to the people and disappeared up the trail. For some reason, no one approached her.
I remembered my sort of promise to talk to someone but not here in this cluster.
There were probably ten or fifteen through hikers getting ready to go.
I thought about various military courses I’d gone through where at the start the cadre would come out and tell you ‘look to the left, look to the right, one of you won’t be here in a week’.
I realized it had never once occurred to me that the one who wouldn’t be there could be me.
But looking over the people here, I could almost pick out who’d be quitting within the first week.
Then I forced myself to stop judging. Rose had told me people can surprise you. So I was going to let myself be surprised. I tried making myself think they would all make it to Katahdin.
There. I was changing already.
But it was lie. Some of them wouldn’t.
I walked around the arch, not through. There was a wood sign: 8.8 miles to Springer Mountain. 2,190 miles to Mount Katahdin.
Maggs looked up expectantly. She knew the deal.
I scratched behind her ears. “You ready for this?”
She wagged her tail.
“That’s what I thought.”
I felt a vibration in my rucksack. I slid it off and opened an outer pocket. The Satphone was ringing. I had it, and my cell phone, in a Faraday bag, but I hadn’t sealed it this morning when packing, so I could get the text from Rose.
I pulled the Satphone out, overwhelmed with a wave of fear that something had happened to Rose.
I hit the on. “Hello?”
There was silence, but someone was on the other end.
“Rose?” I asked.
Nothing.
“Who is this?” I demanded.
“Pike? Where is Pike?”
“Who is this?”
“You are not Pike.”
Then there was a click as the line went dead.
A mystery. I hated those. Someone had Pike’s satellite number from the past. Someone who had the capability to be alerted when it became active.
Since Herc was dead, I had no idea who that might be.
Pike had been retired for a long time, so I didn’t think it was a problem.
Probably someone just noticing a blip from the past and wanting to figure out what was going on. Some pencil pushing geek in a cubicle.
I put the satphone back in the Faraday bag, sealed it, and then in the ruck.
“Excuse me?”
I turned. An elderly woman with a kind face and no ruck smiled at me. A trail angel already?
“I couldn't help but notice you helped someone with their photo but won’t let anyone take yours.” She tilted her head. “Are you camera shy?”
I’m getting-killed-by-someone-from-my-past shy, I thought. “Something like that.”
“Well, that’s a shame. You should have at least one photo from your start. Even if you never share it with anyone." She pulled out an old-style disposable camera. “Remember these? No digital footprint. I use them for my personal memories.”
I looked at the camera. At her gentle expression. At Maggs, who was wagging her tail at this nice old lady.
“Why do you think it’s important?” I asked.
“Because moments matter. And twenty years from now, when you’re old like me, you'll want to remember what you looked like when you were brave enough to start walking two thousand miles.” She smiled.
“I won’t share it. I won’t even develop it if you don’t want me to.
But you should have the option.” She reached into a pocket and produced a card with just a phone number on it.
“If you have second thoughts, you can call me and I’ll develop it and mail it to wherever you live. ”
“I appreciate that, but—"
“Let me guess. Witness protection? Bad divorce? Just really value your privacy?”
“Complicated past.”
“Ah. Those are always the most interesting people.”
I reconsidered. Rose might want a picture eventually. “All right.” Maggs and I stood still and she snapped a couple of shots of us, manually forwarding the film in the cheap disposable camera.
“Thank you. Just text me and let me know where you want the pictures sent.” She tucked the camera away. “Well, young man, I hope you find what you're looking for out there. You and your lovely dog.”
“Thank you.”
She started to walk away, then turned back. “One more thing?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever you're running from or hiding from—and I know you are, I can see it in your eyes—remember that it’s awfully hard to move forward when you’re constantly looking backward.”
Hell, I wasn’t running from anything right now. One of the few times I wasn’t, but I didn’t say anything about that. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Plus you have to look back to cover your six. That’s where your six is.
“Good. Safe travels.”
I watched her go, this stranger who’d somehow seen right through me in thirty seconds. Then I brightened. I’d talked to someone I could text Rose about when I got around to it. A woman who took old style photos at the start of the Trail. Today was covered.
She went and talked to someone else.
Maggs nudged my hand.
I started walking.
No digital trail. No evidence I'd ever been here except if I asked for it. Pretty much like my entire adult life before Rocky Start and Rose.
Photos were just proof you'd been somewhere.
Walking was the actual being there.
I let Maggs off the leash once we were out of sight. She trotted ahead, tail wagging, completely unconcerned with documentation or evidence or digital footprints.
Since it was late March, the trees were still leafless, even this far south.
In fact, there was a chance there might be snow at the higher elevations ahead if the weather turned bad.
One of the reasons I’d initially done north to south was to hit the fall here in the Smokies where they were at peak foliage. Now it was just gray and dreary.
Those starting today were among the first to head north; although I imagined there were dozens already on the trail. I had no idea how many people attempted to through hike the trail every year. Or how many finished.
What did it matter what others did?
I actually doubted I’d go all the way to Katahdin. Making it to where I’d been ambushed late last year would mean I’d done the entire Trail, albeit in three parts. I figured the road to Rocky Start would be open in about a month and we could get to work cleaning the town up and rebuilding.
“Let’s go,” I said to Maggs.