Chapter 11
I didn’t interrupt. I sat there in the dark and took out the Satphone. By the glow of my screen, I did a quick summary of my talk with Claire. Sent it.
Then I lay back, turning my head to look at Maggs. Who was looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
I broke down my tent and packed it. Tightened down the ruck, then hoisted it on my back.
As I stepped out from the rocks, I almost bumped into that same woman who’d interrupted Claire and I late yesterday up top.
She stepped back. Weirdly, she was wearing her sunglasses even though dawn was just breaking.
She was probably heading to the top of the rocks for the view to watch the sun come up.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I could hear voices coming from the shelter as other hikers got their day started.
The woman turned her head toward me. Then Maggs. Then me. All a moment too long. Then she nodded, not quite a greeting, but something else, and climbed past, up to the top. This time I checked and the tattoo on her hand was a version of the infamous Punisher skull. Then she was gone.
“What the hell,” I muttered to Maggs.
Of course, I was off kilter from Claire’s revelation yesterday. Probably just some person interested in seeing the mysterious Spook and his lovely Shadow. I was getting jittery which was never good.
I walked out of the rocks and several hikers eating an early breakfast turned to look at me. A few nodded greetings and I nodded back. There. Sort of normal.
Then I moved on down the trail, out of sight.
I reached the spot where the trail cut across Route 129.
There were a few cars parked in the trailhead lot.
A handful of hikers. I didn’t see Jenna waiting for a ride; either from her husband or Luke.
The smell of bacon hit me before I saw the source—rich and impossibly good after even just a few days of dehydrated food and protein bars.
Maggs’ nose went up immediately, and she picked up her pace toward the old pickup truck near the trailhead, tailgate down.
Behind it was a full camp kitchen setup: propane griddle, folding table covered with food, coolers, and an elderly man in a faded ‘Appalachian Trail Class of '97’ t-shirt flipping pancakes with practiced ease.
A hand-painted sign on the table read: Trail Magic - Hot Breakfast - Free - God Bless
Three hikers were nearby, sitting on the curb with plates piled high, eating like they'd never seen food before. The old man saw me approaching and grinned.
“Morning! You look hungry. Please tell me you’re hungry.” His voice was gravelly but warm, with a thick Southern accent.
“Starving,” I said.
“Good answer. I’m Harold. Been doing trail magic here for, oh, fifteen years now. Can’t seem to stop.” He gestured at his spread. “Got pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, coffee, orange juice. Whatever you want, as much as you want.”
I conjured up some Rose. “That’s incredibly generous.”
“Nah, it’s selfish. I get to live vicariously through you youngsters. I’m too old to hike anymore, so I feed the ones who can.” He pointed at Maggs. “And I got something for your pup too. What’s her name?”
“Maggs.”
“Beautiful dog.” He pulled out a Tupperware container. “Made some plain scrambled eggs, no seasoning, and mixed in some bacon. Dogs love it. She can have as much as she wants.”
I filled a paper plate—pancakes, bacon, eggs, a biscuit—and Harold poured me coffee strong enough to strip paint.
Maggs got her eggs in a disposable bowl.
She looked up at me and I gave her the hand gesture indicating permission to eat something from a stranger.
She attacked the bowl with enthusiasm that made Harold laugh.
“She's got good manners but she’s hungry. I like that. Honest appetite.” He flipped more pancakes. He studied me. “You look like you've done some hiking before. Military maybe?”
That was an odd assessment given my gear was new, but he’d noted my boots which were well worn. “Something like that.”
“Thought so. Got that bearing.” He didn't push. “Where you headed? Katahdin? Or just sectioning?”
“Depends,” I said. “Last year I did Katahdin to North Carolina. Then life intervened. Working my way back.”
“Life can do that,” he agreed. “Been a good crop of hikers this year. Met some interesting folks already. Every year, there’s always something new.”
“Such as?”
“Just yesterday, had a young woman come through. Pretty young thing but awfully nervous. Ate some. Then stood around a long time as if trying to decide whether to go on.” He shrugged.
“Over the years I’ve had hundreds ask me to call them a ride.
Just calling it quits. No shame in it. The Trail’s not for everyone. ”
My attention sharpened. “Young woman? Mid-twenties maybe? Dark hair?”
“That’s her. You know her?”
“Met her on the trail yesterday. Jenna.”
Harold nodded slowly. “She wouldn’t eat much.”
“Did she get picked up?” I doubted there was time for her to have called Luke and for him making it down this quick. But plenty of time for her husband to be waiting for her if he’d been tracking her phone.
But Harold shook his head. “Nope. She finally just hoisted her pack and headed on her way.”
I felt a surge of relief. For someone I didn’t even really know. Well, I knew her name. Coral would call that progress.
Harold looked at me. “She gonna be okay?”
“I hope so. She’s in a bad situation at home.”
“Figured as much. The Trail brings all kinds. Some running toward something, some running from. You’d be amazed at the stories you get if you just listen.
It’s like being a damn priest in confessional.
People are tired, on edge. Some happy. Some sad.
Almost all kind of worn out. Some hot food and coffee and they tend to relax.
And they figure they ain’t ever going to see you again.
So they confide. Sometimes too much. You won’t believe some of the stories I’ve heard.
But if they got to say something, they got to say it.
” He poured more batter on the griddle. “I gave her my number. Told her if she ever needed anything—a place to stay, help, a ride to civilization, whatever—she could call. Even if it’s three years from now. ”
“That was kind of you.”
“Ain’t kindness. It’s just being human. I’ve had to pick some people up from this section of trail who were in some hurt.
” He flipped the pancakes. “You know what I’ve learned doing this for fifteen years?
Sometimes people don’t need advice or solutions.
They just need to know someone gives a damn. ”
“That’s basically what I told her.”
“Then you did good.” He slid the fresh pancakes onto a serving plate. “Speaking of doing good, you seen that woman with the old yellow Lab?”
I went still. “Yeah. I’ve met her.”
“Thought you might’ve. She came through here real early, just as I was setting up.
That dog of hers . . ." Harold shook his head.
“That dog probably should not be on this trail. Could barely walk. But she was carrying his stuff, helping him up every step, talking to him the whole time like he was her child. So.”
“He was her son’s dog.”
“Was?”
“Her son died. Her whole family died. House fire. The dog is all she has left.”
Harold’s face fell. “Oh, Lord. That poor woman. I figured it was something dark. There was a cloud over her.” He was quiet for a moment.
“She wouldn’t stop here. I called out, offered her coffee, told her to hang around until I got the stove going.
She just smiled—saddest smile I ever saw—and said they had to keep moving while they still could. ”
“How did she look?”
“Exhausted. Determined. Heartbroken.” He met my eyes. “That dog’s not going to make it much farther.”
“I know. And she knows.”
Harold studied me. “You gonna do something about it?”
“I can’t force her to accept help.”
“No. That’s true. You can’t. And some people don’t want help.
” He sighed. “All you can do is be there if she's ready. Plant the seeds, water ‘em, hope they grow.” He frowned. “You know, there’s another angle to it. Sometimes we don’t want to heal because pain is the strongest connection we have to what we lost.”
I blinked, trying to unravel that one.
He refilled my coffee, then his expression shifted. “Listen, there’s something you should know. I recognized you when I saw you come into the trailhead.”
I became so still, Maggs lifted her head up from her eggs.
“How?”
“Woman came through, north to south, yesterday. Had a picture. Of you. Asking if I’d seen you come through.”
“What kind of picture?”
“You and the dog. Looked like it was taken at Amicalola.”
How in the hell, and then I realized. The trail angel. Who was she working for? Or had she been threatened or paid off for the pic?
“What did this woman look like?”
He described the woman from yesterday and this morning who’d acted unusually.
Harold went on. “She didn’t sit right with me.”
“Didn't sit right how?”
Harold frowned. “Hard to put my finger on it exactly. She was dressed like someone pretending to dress like a hiker. I’ve seen thousands and she was just, well, off.
Like she was trying to be that which she isn’t.
Wearing sunglasses even though it was cloudy.
Bad scar on her face. She was cold. That’s what I felt from her.
Cold. Foreigner too. She had an accent. Mexico?
Some place south.” He held up his hand. “She had a tattoo on the back of her hand. A skull.”
“Who do you think she is?”
“Trouble,” Harold said.
“She say anything other than asking if you’d seen us?”
“Nope. Didn’t eat any of my food either.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said.
“Probably nothing. But better safe than sorry.”
I put the paper plate in the big black trash bag along with Maggs’ empty bowl.