Chapter Eleven
“Last chance for Lady Bird Johnson Grove!”
Mo didn’t reply, instead running her thumbs under the edges of her shoulder straps in a downward motion, frustrated that they were already digging in under the weight of her pack.
So far, the pair had only hiked back up to the main parking lot and then down from the trailhead to the edge of the creek, passing easily over a small brook.
It was less than half of a mile, so why did her back already hurt?
There weren’t any crazy elevation changes, and the path itself was flat and well maintained. It was downright irritating.
Beautiful and spirited Aspen, however, was humming an unknown melody, happily hiking along like she wasn’t also weighed down by a ginormous pack.
Mo desperately wanted to demand why it was so easy for her.
How was she not also grimacing in pain? But that would probably mean she would also have to admit her lie to Aspen—which she wasn’t in the mood to endure.
She had barely found the spoons to get out of bed this morning, let alone deal with whatever judgment Aspen might have for her fib.
A fib Mo didn’t even have to create.
“Hold on,” Aspen stage-whispered suddenly, stopping quickly in front of Mo. “Look.”
Mo, feeling shooting pain in the arches of her feet at the abrupt halt, followed Aspen’s pointed finger to the edge of Redwood Creek, studying the rocks for whatever she was pointing out. “What?”
“It’s a bird.”
“A bird?” Mo couldn’t help but scoff, rolling her shoulders in pain.
“An American Dipper,” Aspen replied quietly, her excitement evident. “The small, darkish gray, and pudgy bird there by the driftwood and large rock.”
Mo used those clues and scanned the water’s edge, finally spotting the bird, which was no bigger than a robin.
It was standing in the moving water of the creek, submerging its head for a few seconds before popping back up, the water rolling on and off its plumage with each swift movement.
She watched it dip in and out for a few moments, noticing how skilled it was at diving, like if a songbird was raised by ducks.
It was then Mo realized that this was the first time she had looked somewhere other than at her shoes since she had parked the car.
“They aren’t super common,” Aspen said, breaking the silence. “I see one maybe once or twice a summer season, if that.”
A half-assed “Cool” was all Mo could add, and Aspen cleared her throat, adding punctuation to her feeble attempt.
“All right, let’s let them hunt.” Aspen sighed, the joy from her voice totally gone.
“We should follow the trail for most of today—the creek level is only now starting to drop. I’m thinking we should take a quick side quest in a little bit, up one of the little-known overgrown offshoot trails.
I wanna show you some of the more unseen parts of the Ladybird Grove that have been cut off by wildfires in the past.”
Mo only nodded, adjusting her pack for the millionth time before finally looking around.
The shorter, more windblown coastal trees around Route 101 were mostly gone, leaving Mo to peruse more of an evergreen forest. The steeper elevation on either side of Redwood Creek was covered in Douglas firs, canyon oaks, and other related trees.
The farther south that they followed the water flow, the taller the trees looked.
The creek itself was moving at a decent pace in narrow sections, with larger pools of flat water ballooning out at the wider edges.
The signature smooth, water-tumbled stones littered every surface near and around the creek, allowing for only random peeks at dark-tan sand.
It was easy to tell where the water had been at its fullest, and Mo felt comfort in knowing the trail ran along the creek, making getting lost rather difficult.
“Wanna go for a cool morning dip?” Aspen said, pulling Mo back into the present.
“Are you crazy?” Mo replied, not sure if Aspen was joking. Her mood had not been lightened by the beautiful scenery. “It looks so cold.”
“Alrighty then.” Aspen put her hands up in surrender, nodding slightly toward the trail. “Let’s get to the edge of that grove, I guess.”
Their forward movement from here on out was slow going.
Aspen had decided to stop leading, instead moving to walk behind Mo.
Every so often, Mo would stop and look to Aspen for direction, and the woman would just point encouragingly toward the trail.
This gesture caused Mo’s annoyance levels to rise.
She took to stomping forward angrily, doing her best to figure out the reason why Aspen would decide to do this.
Was this some kind of test? Did Mo not understand some rule of backpacking?
“Can I say something?” Mo finally asked, her voice dripping with indignation.
“Judging by your tone”—Aspen’s voice was weary—“you don’t need my permission.”
“Why the fuck am I leading?”
“Were you ever a Girl Scout?”
“Huh?” It felt like Aspen wasn’t taking this seriously, so Mo turned to shoot her a dirty look, resentment almost bubbling over. “Do I look like a Girl Scout?”
“Boy Scout, then?”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Mo mocked. “No. I played guitar. Inside. Like a normal kid.” She kicked a rock, her heel sliding down a small divot in the trail, causing her to almost lose her balance. “Shit!”
Aspen reached out, grasping her pack and elbow firmly. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Mo snapped, pulling away. “What are you getting at?”
“Well, I was taught by a group of Girl Scouts to let the slowest member of the group walk in the front.” Aspen smiled, gesturing for Mo to continue walking. “That way, they set the pace and no one is left behind.”
Mo breathed in deeply, flexing her tired feet and throbbing lower back before returning to the trail. “I wish you’d left me behind.”
“Do you now?”
“Yeah. I really do.”
“That’s not really a good idea…”
“Yeah, well, neither is butting into a depressed woman’s life. But you had no problem doing that.”
The sentence was out of Mo’s mouth before her filter could catch it. The regret was instantaneous, but her pride kept her from turning around and seeing the aftermath of her words. Punishment seemed to be the goal of this trip, and Mo was speed-running to the end.
* * *
The better part of the next two hours were spent in silence.
Mo would stop frequently to remove her pack, drink hastily from the extra water bottle on the side, and sit on a stump or log to rest. Of all of those stops, only once did Aspen follow suit.
Otherwise, she would stand with her pack firmly on, sipping from her hydration tube, staring solemnly out at the water.
The scenery only got greener the deeper they hiked, and Mo found herself ignoring all of it, instead internally whining about how much pain her body was in.
It only dug her deeper into her terrible mood.
Just as Mo was about to find another place to sit and ponder how to get out of this relatively unscathed, Aspen picked up the pace behind her.
“It’s up there,” Aspen said coldly, walking past Mo and taking a left past a decent-sized Douglas fir.
Mo followed, stopping quickly as the trail ended at shrubs. “You want me to go in there?”
The sound of Aspen’s legs plowing through the brush stopped, followed by a groan. “Do you want to see some good redwoods?”
So far Mo had only spotted them from afar, since the trail exclusively followed the creek. “Okay. Can I put my pack down?”
“Fine,” Aspen said, turning to walk back toward Mo. “Do you have any food in there?”
“You didn’t bring the food? I thought you were the expert.”
Aspen closed her eyes for a few seconds before responding with a slow and calm voice.
“You misunderstand. I have the food. But…” She pointed at Mo’s pack.
“If there is food in there and we leave it here, then it could attract a bear or some other wildlife. I’d rather your gear not get torn to shreds on the first day. ”
Mo grimaced at her miscalculation, but she still held firm. “No food.”
“All right. Put it against that tree,” Aspen instructed, her hands falling to a zipper on the band around her hips. As Mo removed the pack and leaned it against the base of the tree, Aspen tied a blaze-orange strip of cotton around the closest branch to the trail. “A reminder, just in case.”
A quick glance at her watch let Mo know it was fifteen past one, and she pulled one arm over her chest and under her bent forearm, trying urgently to stretch out her screaming muscles.
“You aren’t going to remove your pack?”
“No. Bears.”
“Right.” Mo frowned, catching Aspen’s eyes watching her stretch. “My arms and back are killing me.”
Aspen’s gaze softened, but she didn’t comment on Mo’s discomfort. Instead, she gestured with her thumb toward the thicket-covered hill. “Up we go.”
It was slow moving up the hill, but Aspen had them walking in a zigzag pattern, which seemed to help.
The tiny bit of Googling Mo had done when she was feeling actual motivation for this excursion had informed her that deviating from a trail was a terrible idea.
But Aspen seemed competent so far, and all Mo had contributed was sass and general assholery, so she didn’t comment. Her grave seemed already dug.
After twenty straight minutes of climbing and pushing through ground cover, the hill plateaued.
Once through a thick wall of short trees, the brush subsided, opening to a brown leaf-litter-covered floor with a smattering of ferns.
In front of the women were about five or six gigantic trees, at least forty or more feet of space between each one.
Aspen stopped next to the first grouping of yellowy-green ferns and turned to look at Mo, a small smile on her face.
“Look up,” Aspen said.