Chapter Twenty-Nine
The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland and midnight hush.
It’s mid-afternoon, and the sun is doing its absolute best to cook me alive. Feels appropriate.
My pack is so much heavier than it seemed when trying it on in the store.
Almost immediately, I’m bathed in sweat and breathing like a porn star.
Dust covers both my new boots and my calves, while the trail grows curvy, narrow, and steep.
Each step costs me, yet (for now) I’m happy to pay the price.
Until I see a bear.
At first, I blink rapidly, believing it’s got to be a figment of my imagination. I’m barely two hours into this hike. What are the chances? But, no, down the slope from the trail, in the creek that runs perpendicular to the trail, is a bear who looks to be hunting for fish.
I have the sensation that I’m in a movie. Or that the bear is in a movie, on a screen. And I’m just a voyeur, safe from any harm. It takes a full minute for panic to set in.
Then my heart pounds in my ears so loud I half expect the bear to glance up from the creek and glare at me for the racket. I freeze. I don’t reach for my phone, don’t even move my toes inside the boots. I just remember the advice scrawled on the signs posted by the trailhead.
“Don’t run. Don’t scream. Look big.”
I’m already big compared to the overgrown squirrel population around here, but the bear surely has me beat by a good hundred and fifty pounds.
Weirdly, I’m embarrassed at the thought of dying so soon after declaring my independence.
Will Dan at Alpine Adventures shake his head when he hears the news, thinking, That poor, stupid girl. Didn’t I warn her?
But the bear never even glances up. It’s busy swatting at darting shapes beneath the creek’s edge, flicking its paw with a kind of slow-motion grace. After a while it slogs out of the creek, water pouring from its flanks. Then it disappears into some trees.
There’s nothing to do but continue hiking along Fooses Creek and up Monarch Pass.
My backpack is already like this impossible burden, and I don’t want to add to its weight by filling up my water bottles.
Plus, I’m scared of going down into that creek.
What if the bear comes back? But I do it anyway because my guidebook says there are few water sources after this, at least for a while.
So I fill up and then start looking for a flat place to camp.
By nightfall, I’m high enough up that it’s mostly exposed ridges.
Were a storm to roll in, I’d be an easy target for lightning.
I’m lucky. No storms. No bears.
Yet I’m so afraid that I barely get a wink of sleep.
Since I got zero sleep the night before, this is untenable.
I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone stay upright while carrying thirty pounds of gear.
My one saving grace is that pure exhaustion, plus fearing for my life, leaves little room for heartbreak or thoughts of Chet.
The next day, I start hiking at dawn because I’m (sort of) awake anyway. If my guidebook’s to be trusted—and if I’m reading it correctly, backward—then I’ll reach Monarch Ski Area in a few miles.
It’s not cheating, I tell myself, stopping this soon.
I just need some rest. Still, my fear isn’t so much that it’s cheating, but that the moment I’m off the trail, I’ll give in.
Admit defeat, head back to Sugar Pine Springs, get my car, and drive away.
Except, then what? I don’t know what I’ll do or where I’ll go once this hike is over, but that’s sort of the point.
Maybe somewhere along these trails, I’ll find the answers.
That’s why I decide it’s safe to book a room at the ski lodge, where I take a shower, eat a hot meal, and sleep fourteen hours straight.
When I wake, I examine my feet. Already, there are four painful blisters. Plus, one of my toenails has turned black. Good thing Dan told me to buy some second skin patches. “You’ll thank me later,” he’d said.
I’m thanking him right now. But sweet mother of Peggy Sue, these boots are killing me. Would my riding boots hurt this much? I can’t decide, but still, I get back on the trail. Then I’m on my way toward the Continental Divide.
At least being well-rested means my body’s functioning better now.
Yet it takes everything I’ve got just to get enough oxygen in, especially once I’m above the Alpine Line.
At least I inadvertently prepared for this hike by spending the last few months hauling around fifty-pound bags of horse feed at a seven-thousand-foot elevation (which is where Sugar Pine Springs sits).
When I reach the Continental Divide, there’s a large cairn sitting on the ledge of a boulder.
I remove my pack and approach it, the insides of my feet still chafing from my boots as I step over uneven ground.
Someone stacked all these rocks, and I can’t fathom why.
I’m not sure how long I spend just looking at it.
What possessed someone to build this?
The wind up here has a bite to it, even in the sun, and it smells like cold stone and something faintly sweet, like distant rain. That makes me think about Chet.
Of course it makes me think about Chet.
But is love like this cairn? Perhaps it all comes down to stacking something precarious, one piece at a time, hoping the whole thing doesn’t topple. Wondering if it’s worth the risk—because even with the best-case scenario, love can destroy you.
This thought reminds me that I’m alone, unless you count the mountain and the sky.
But the mountain is indifferent to me, and the sky’s liable to throw around lightning in the next hour or two.
According to my guidebook, I have three and a half miles to the Arkansas River bridge, a major landmark.
I should get going. And yet, I stay another minute anyway.
When I reach the bridge, I meet four hikers—two sets of siblings, cousins to each other—going the opposite direction.
They invite me to backtrack and camp with them for the night.
They have kind faces and the type of camaraderie I once hoped Reed and I would someday have.
I want to tell them yes, but I say, “No thank you,” and keep walking.
The whole point is to be alone. To find out what’s left of me when there’s nothing, or no one, left to protect me. Embrace my inner chaos.
Later that night, I regret not sticking with the cousins. Because coyotes start howling. Their cries stitch through the dark, somehow sounding both mournful and matter-of-fact. I’m petrified, lying in my sleeping bag, wondering why I turned down four warm, living people for this.
No, Jane, I chide myself. You turned down Chet for this. Why would you walk away from a man who loves you? Sure, he’s flawed. And okay, he’s got some issues with honesty. But is this a hill literally worth dying on?
I tell myself to breathe. I remind myself that I had to go; Chet and I would have fallen apart soon enough, because we’d built our relationship on lies.
And yet, I close my eyes and conjure him. His voice first. Then his hands.
Chet, wrapping his arms around me, broad and warm. Pressing his face to the back of my neck. Breathing me in, like he needs proof I exist. Turning me to face him, gazing at me with those stormy dark eyes, smirking so his dimple appears . . .
I’m overcome with missing him. My body wracks with sobs, but I stay silent so the coyotes won’t hear me.
The wind buffets the sides of my tent and carries the coyote song out over the ridges.
Somehow, at some point, I fall asleep. Early morning sunlight invades my tent, and I wake.
I get up, strap on my gear, and start moving.
Days pass. My world shrinks to what’s right under my feet, then expands with every ridge. Each afternoon, almost like clockwork, storm clouds rumble in the west. I always manage to hike below the alpine line before this happens.
Until I don’t.
The landscape is all exposed—no trees, just open space and lots of rocks.
So there’s nowhere to take shelter when the hail pounds down, piercing and burning me in a cold, cruel sort of way.
For over an hour, I just sit on the ground, huddled over, arms covering my head, shaking so hard I can’t otherwise move.
When I’m finally able to stand and walk, my fingers are so stiff that I can’t even tighten my bootlaces or zip my jacket.
Everything I have is wet, inside and out.
To make matters worse, when I find a spot to set up camp and start pitching my tent, blood drops stain the nylon.
At first I think it’s from a hail-induced head wound.
But, no, it’s a nosebleed. I don’t have any tissues to stem the blood flow, so I use a sock, pressing it to my nostrils while I lie on my back and tilt my chin to the sky.
My supplies are low; the only thing I have left for dinner that night is dehydrated bean soup.
But my stove ran out of fuel two nights ago, so I mix it with cold water, turning it into brown-and-black-streaked mush.
I’m still not warm from the hailstorm, and my damp sleeping bag is useless.
Thus, it’s impossible to sleep that night, not just because I’m cold and wet, but also because I itch. Like, everywhere.
In the morning, I discover why. How in God’s good name did I contract poison ivy when I spent most of the day staying clear of foliage? But the proof’s in the pudding. My legs and arms are streaked with red blisters.
“That’s it!” My yell is loud, directed at the rolling clouds. I’m not even a fifth of the way through this hike, and I’m falling apart. So after determining from my map that I’m close to a trail stop near Lake City, I decide to hitchhike into town and call Marigold to come get me.
Yes. I’m throwing in the towel.
But Dan was right. Reading this stupid guidebook backward is confusing.
Thus, I underestimate how far I must walk.
The trail just keeps going and going, and I’m exhausted and uncomfortable.
So exhausted and so uncomfortable. In a fit of pure desperation, I throw my backpack to the ground, kick it, and fall to my knees, sobbing.
This time, I don’t worry about coyotes overhearing.
Thus, I’m unaware that another living being—or beings—have approached.
I’m unaware, until there’s a hand on my shoulder and a soft voice saying, “Jane?”
Looking up, I find an angelic face peering at mine. Golden-brown waves, like a halo. Brilliant green eyes and a warm smile. A safe harbor in my stormy, chaotic sea. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life.
“River?”