Chapter 7 #2
“I recognize this place,” Don said. “Didn’t think I’d remember it as well as I do. There was that … guy? The forest ranger. Remember him? With the eyebrows.”
Rodney snorted. “Yeah, I remember him. Thought he’d never shut up.”
“He liked to talk, didn’t he?”
“About anything and everything.”
“Told that joke, too. How did it go?”
Rodney said, “Beautiful day in the forest. Park ranger gives warning about bears. Says brown bears are usually harmless. They avoid contact with humans, so it’s suggested that campers and hikers tie small bells to their bags.
They make noise and give the bears time to get out of the way.
However, he said, grizzly bears are extremely dangerous.
If you see any droppings from a grizzly, leave immediately. ”
Don played his part. “How do we know if they’re grizzly bear droppings?”
Rodney looked at him, deadpan. “It’s easy. They’re full of small bells.”
A beat of silence.
And then Rodney’s lips twitched, mirth-filled eyes crinkling around the edges, that thing he did when he was trying not to laugh.
Don didn’t have that problem. It was a terrible joke, even after all these years, but that didn’t matter.
Don laughed. Rodney laughed too. They clung to each other as the laughter gave way to tears.
Don didn’t know who sobbed first. It didn’t matter.
It hit them both almost at the same time, and they cried.
They cried until their lungs burned, until their faces felt like plastic.
They cried until they saw their tears lifting from their faces, floating around them, glittering like tiny little stars. And then they laughed once more.
When they finished, Rodney kissed the side of Don’s head and said, “Come on. We’re almost there.”
The trail should have been more difficult than it was.
They were old men attempting to quickly climb a mountain, after all.
But as they climbed higher and higher, no stitches formed in their sides.
They were short of breath, but it was manageable.
Beads of sweat dotted their brows (sometimes floating away like their tears), but they did not slow, they did not falter.
Every now and then, they needed to push floating rocks out of the way.
Partway up, a boulder the size of a dog spun in front of them, blocking the path.
Don and Rodney pushed it out of the way.
It went over the edge with ease, but it didn’t fall. It hung suspended, spinning slowly.
They caught glimpses of the lookout tower from a distance, the top of the structure sticking out from among the waving branches of tall fir trees.
It still stood. Don didn’t know what he would’ve done if it had been gone.
They hadn’t been here in over thirty years. So many things could have changed.
They were still a quarter of a mile away when the light suddenly shifted. Not quite day-bright, but close; and then it was as if the world had been plunged into darkness. They both froze. A small waterfall ran down the rock face, gurgling.
“What happened?” Don asked, heart in his throat. “Is it—”
“The moon,” Rodney said, staring up at the sky.
Don looked up and gasped, hands shaking. The moon had split, breaking into huge chunks surrounded by a gigantic cloud of dust. It didn’t seem real.
“We’re running out of time,” Don whispered.
And then the ground began to shake under their feet. Don looked back the way they’d come. A bright flash of light, and then two glowing spheres appeared over the trees, electricity snarling as they lit up.
“Run,” Rodney said.
They ran.
They ran as fast as they could. Men in their seventies were not typically meant to run long distances up winding trails, but the higher they climbed, the quicker they moved, the easier it became.
Don didn’t really believe that time was running backward, the years peeling away like sunburnt skin.
But it felt like that. It was as if they had discovered the secret to eternal youth: the collapse of gravity at the end of the world.
As they rounded a corner, something shifted underneath their feet, and the earth split.
A long, jagged crack formed between their feet, the side of the trail lurching deliriously.
Don yelped as he fell to one knee, skinning the hell out of it.
The pain was bright but dimmed almost immediately.
Rodney helped him up, pulling him along, the crack continuing on and on and on.
“It’s coming,” Don panted. “We’re not going to make it.”
“We are,” Rodney growled. “Keep moving.”
They did, Rodney’s grip on Don’s wrist tight to the point of bruising. Up the trail, up and up and up until they crested a hill. Below them, a large expanse of forest as far as the eye could see. The trees looked like they were reaching for the heavens, all their limbs pointed skyward.
And there, sitting on wooden stilts near the edge of a cliff, the fire lookout.
“It looks the same,” Don said in wonder. “It all looks the same.” He turned. “I remember. I remember him. Shouting. He was—”
He was shouting his joy into the summer sky. He’d never seen anything like it before, the lookout tower. Set atop wooden stilts, it rose high above them.
It’d been Rodney’s idea. He’d heard of towers that people could rent out for a night or two. Kind of like camping, but with four walls and a roof. It’d be small, he’d told them. Won’t be a whole lot of room for all three of them, but they’d make it work.
It’d been a good couple of months. No fights.
No outbursts. No violence. Don thought maybe it was working.
That they could be enough. That they could fix him.
And didn’t he hate himself for thinking such things?
Of course he did. Fixing implied something was broken, and he couldn’t bring himself to think that.
Their son wasn’t broken. He just needed time.
Patience. Love. With that, anything was possible.
“Do you see that?” Jeremy cried, jabbing a finger toward the tower. “Can you see that?”
Rodney grinned at him. “I can. And guess what? It’s all ours for the next three days.”
“Three days,” Jeremy repeated. “Which means we get to stay the night tonight and tomorrow night?”
“We do,” Don said. “And look, see that little building next to it?”
Jeremy nodded, bouncing on his heels. “What is it?”
Don ran a hand through Jeremy’s hair. “That’s the bathroom. It’s called an outhouse. It would be difficult to get plumbing up here, so we’ll use that. Back in olden times, before people had bathrooms in their houses, they’d have one of these outside.”
Jeremy looked up at him with big brown eyes. “I get to poop outside?”
Don sighed. “Of course that’s what you took from that.”
“Yes,” Rodney said. “You get to poop outside.”
Jeremy pumped his fists above his head. “Yes. Yes. Let’s go!”
And with that, he took off running toward the tower, Don and Rodney bringing up the rear.
Rodney carried a duffel bag for all of them, and Don had a cooler and a backpack filled with food to last them the next few days.
It had been a pain in the ass to lug all of it up to the tower, but worth it, in the end.
He’d never seen Jeremy so relaxed before.
“I feel good,” he told Rodney as Jeremy began to climb the stairs of the tower. “I feel happy.”
Rodney bumped Don’s shoulder with his own. “See? Told you. Just needed a bit of time.”
“Yeah,” Don said. “That’s all.”
It wasn’t, and they’d learn that soon enough, but for now, it was true.
He felt a low simmer of excitement as he followed Rodney up the stairs, the wooden steps creaking underneath their feet.
It was hot, but not bad. No humidity. No clouds.
Just a stretch of a sky so blue, it seemed surreal.
And in that sky, the pale outline of the moon, a ghost in daylight.
The interior of the tower had two sets of bunk beds, a twin-sized mattress on each bunk.
Windows on all sides. A small stove, a small fireplace.
Maps lining the walls and plaques with engraved words about the land, the people, the work the fire tower did.
A table in the middle with a large compass and an even bigger map of the area.
Jeremy was already climbing to the top of one of the bunk beds, declaring it as his. As soon as that was done, he was back down the ladder and running around the tower, touching anything and everything within reach.
It was a good trip, the kind that was over before they wanted it to be.
Hours spent hiking, taking silly pictures, eating bologna sandwiches with cheap yellow mustard.
Fires weren’t allowed anywhere except in an old woodstove, but that didn’t matter.
They could still tell ghost stories, could still make s’mores.
And they did. They did all of that and more.
On the first night, after Jeremy had gone to bed, snoring, one arm dangling over the side of the bunk bed, Don and Rodney sat near one of the windows, watching the stars come out over the forest.
Don said, “We’re going to make it, aren’t we?”
Rodney looked over at him with a lazy smile. “I think we are.”
“I’ve never seen him like this before.”
“He’s starting to trust us. Bet it won’t be too long now before we hear the word ‘Dad’ come from him.”
“You think?” Don asked, aching with it. “What a wonderful moment that would be!”
“I think so. You’ll see. It’s all going to get better from here.”
He was wrong. They had no way of knowing it then, but Rodney was wrong.
It didn’t get better. Looking back, it was odd they had ever thought it would. But perhaps that was part of the human condition: always having hope, even when it was hopeless.