The Middle of Somewhere (21 page)

S
he hadn't noticed the sky. Lost in thought about Brensen and alert for the possibility of encountering the Root brothers, she hadn't registered the gradual loss of blue until an hour and a half after they left the bridge, and Brensen's body, behind. Hunger had overcome the shock of his death, and the four of them stopped to eat in the shade. Liz tipped her head back while taking a drink and saw the clouds, already tall and thick, blocking the sun.

“Is it me, or is it getting humid?” Dante said, plucking his shirt away from his body.

“It's sticky, all right. Could turn into a storm.”

Dante nodded at the McCartneys, resting nearby. Linda was lying on her back with her arms across her face. Paul was studying a map. “Are we waiting for them?”

“It makes sense to talk to the ranger about Brensen together.”

Linda unfolded her arms and rose with labored movements. She noticed Liz and Dante watching her and managed a weak smile. “You kids ready to rock?”

The trail insisted they make up all the elevation gain they'd lost that morning. Up they went, through the heat of the afternoon, pausing only to filter and drink water. They came to Arrowhead Lake, clogged with algae and sedge around its margin, the water an unnaturally vivid green. Liz doubted it would have been safe to drink even after filtration. They continued past the lake without a word, bearing the heat and grief individually.

In the late afternoon, they arrived at the first of the Rae Lakes. The dark clouds rendered it a deep aquamarine, the water so clear Liz could perceive sharp edges of submerged rocks thirty feet out. The bizarre curved peak of Fin Dome rose from the lake's distant shore.

A mile farther they reached the turnoff for the ranger station, and minutes later approached a log cabin set upon a stone foundation. Liz didn't bother to remove her pack before ascending the steps to the narrow porch. She felt the emptiness of the cabin even before she called hello. When no one answered, she knocked.

Dante came up beside her. “They're gone?”

“And there's no note. They're supposed to let hikers know when they'll be back.”

Liz gave a thumbs-down signal to Paul and Linda, who were waiting a short distance away, and wondered whether she ought to add the ranger to the list of people she was concerned about.

She suggested camping at the cabin, in case the ranger returned, leaving unsaid how much safer she would feel next to this sturdy building in a thunderstorm. But there was room only for two to sleep on the porch and no patch of ground in the vicinity flat enough to accommodate a tent.

They broke up in pairs to search for campsites. After a half an hour, the women found a small secluded site, well away from the lake edge and the trail, partially protected by a stand of whitebark pines.

Linda leaned against a tree trunk. “Do you mind if we take this one? I'm not feeling so great.”

Liz laid her hand on the woman's forehead. “You've got a fever.”

Linda sat on a log and straightened her injured leg. Liz rolled up the pant leg. The flesh around the wound was swollen and red. Droplets of white pus oozed from between the stitches.

“It started itching this morning. I should've said something to Paul, but I was hoping it'd just go away. He'd have been so worried. Then the whole thing with Brensen—”

Liz touched the inflamed skin and Linda flinched. Liz put her hand over her friend's. A fat raindrop landed on her knuckle. “I'll go find Paul.”

The men had located a site fifty yards away, on the other side of a rocky knoll, wedged between a cluster of boulders and a shoulder-high granite bench. After learning of Linda's condition, Paul agreed they would sleep there, as it promised better protection from the elements. Liz led the way to the other campsite.

Once the three of them rejoined Linda, Paul knelt in front of her. “Let's have a look, darling.” He inspected the wound and gently rolled down his wife's pant leg. “Tequila and acetaminophen this evening, and then, I think, an early start. Twelve quick miles, some antibiotics and a pizza, and you'll be as fit as a fiddle.”

“You're fretting, Paul. Don't. I'll be fine.”

Liz said, “Do you want us to go with you? Just in case?”

Linda and Paul spoke at the same time. “We'll be fine.” They laughed lightly. Linda added, “If our situations were reversed, we'd keep going. It's only a few more days.” Paul nodded.

Liz said, “We haven't really had a chance to talk about it.” And her own thoughts on the subject had been muddled. She scuffed her boots in the dirt. It seemed wrong to be concerned with finishing a hike when someone had died, although nothing anyone did or didn't do would bring Brensen back. Yet the decision was before them. Maybe all she needed was distance from it. A night's sleep. A new morning, a fresh section of trail. It sounded simple, suddenly, to leave what had happened behind them, to continue as before. Even the specter of the Root brothers had become oddly familiar, as if they were an integral part of the JMT experience, and she might find their names (“Root, Payton; Root, Rodell”) in the index of the guidebook. She didn't mention them again, however. They seemed to haunt only her.

Raindrops fell, widely spaced, splatting on the ground. The air grew dense.

Paul said, “We'd best get our tents up.”

Dante pulled his wallet from the top of his pack, handed Paul a business card and shook his hand. “In case we don't see you in the morning. You know where to find us in the meantime.”

“Thanks, mate. We'll expect a photo of you two on the summit.”

Dante bent to kiss Linda on both cheeks. “I'll text you if I've got reception.”

The image of their summit selfie flashed in Liz's mind, and the edges of her spirits lifted. The rain began to fall in earnest. She gave Paul a quick hug, then embraced Linda. “Take good care.”

“You, too.”

•   •   •

It was after six o'clock and Liz and Dante were rushing to set up camp. The rain fell from the sky in sheets and the wind off the lake hurled freezing water at them. Liz's numb hands fumbled with the guy lines, and twice a gust snatched the fly and tore it from her. She shouted at Dante to stop rummaging in his pack and hold down the fly so she could stake it. Once the tent was secure, they pulled rain covers over their packs and took refuge inside.

They jostled each other as they blew up the mattresses and arranged the sleeping bags, too exhausted to care about manners. As they changed into their sleeping outfits, their clothes stuck to their skin, and the tinny smell of ozone mixed with the odor of wet wool and mud. Liz was on the verge of bursting into tears, but fought it off. If she started she would not be able to stop. The shock of Brensen's death—and worry about its cause—on top of sixteen miles of strenuous hiking had left her shattered. Lifting each leg and reaching forward to put on her leggings was almost more than she could handle.

A crack of thunder made her jump. She lost her grip on the leggings and fell backward onto her bed. Another boom of thunder, farther off, rolled into the distance. Rain pelted the tent. She swiped her wet bangs from her forehead and reminded herself she was safe and on her way to being warm and dry.

Unlike Brensen. Accidentally or by foul play, either way he died a violent death, and a premature one. And for all his kvetching, he'd pulled himself together and accepted, if not embraced, the hike. He would've been able to reach for those experiences when he made the film. It might have been his best performance ever, not that she'd seen all his movies. She wondered if the movie would be canned, or if they'd cast someone else. It didn't matter. Brensen lay in the dark of the woods, encased in his tent. She shuddered.

Dante exhaled loudly as he lay down and cinched the bag around his shoulders. “Can you feel your feet?”

“Not yet.” At last she succeeded in putting on her leggings. She slipped on her socks and hat, and snuggled deep into the bag, facing Dante. Only his eyes peered out between his hat and his cocoon.

“You okay?” he said.

“Probably not. But I'm so beat I can't be sure how I feel.”

“I know what you mean. Maybe food will help.” He extracted an arm from his bag and selected an energy bar from the pile of snacks between them—their dinner. Too much rain and too little enthusiasm for a cooked meal. He unwrapped the bar, handed it to her, and picked another for himself.

Her mouth flooded with saliva at the first taste of chocolate and berries. She chewed as if it were something she'd never done. Her mouth filled with sweetness. She took several more bites, chewing each with care. “Does yours taste unbelievably good?”

“I never thought I'd say this about a bar, but yes.”

They ate and listened to the rain drumming the fly.

After a few minutes, Dante propped himself on an elbow and drank some water. “What's our plan,
carina
? Are we continuing toward Whitney?”

She'd posed this question to herself countless times over the seven miles since the bridge. All the logical answers had been the same: there was no reason not to continue. She'd come a long way—over a hundred eighty miles—and following the McCartneys over Kearsarge Pass to civilization would serve no purpose. Unless she simply wanted to quit. Unless the threat of stormy weather—both outside the tent and within her—had proven unbearable. Unless she believed the Root brothers posed a true threat to her safety.

“Liz?”

The amber glow through the tent fabric was fading fast. She could barely make out his face. The merest glint of diffused light was caught in the dark pools of his eyes.

“You want to, don't you, Dante?”

“I do. God help me.”

Words formed on her lips. They may have arisen from an atypical impulse to follow instead of lead. Dante wanted to finish, and so should she. Days ago he promised her he would and was ready to keep his word, despite everything. (Well, perhaps not everything. He didn't know everything.)

Her answer might have signaled resignation to her fate. She had never believed in fate, nor understood its attraction. But so little of what had happened on this hike seemed within her control; she may have to alter her view. At the very least, she could throw away her map and her compass. The trail, and all the forces it represented, were leading her inexorably south.

Really her answer was straightforward. It was what she had planned. What she had wanted. And it was certainly the rational choice.

“Me, too.”

S
he zigzagged between wakefulness and sleep, falling into dreams that transmuted into nightmares. She'd jolt awake, or claw her way out of the dream, but snippets hung in her consciousness like spiderwebs, forestalling both relief and rest. The nightmares told no story. Kaleidoscopes of crumbling mountains, poisonous water, falling bodies (hers? or perhaps her mother's?), storms that made rivers run red and the earth beneath her feet alive with sparks, maps that could not be read and trails that wound in circles or led to the collapsing edge of a bottomless void. Within the arena of her dreaming mind, she had no agency and no hope, only fear. She was pure soulless adrenaline.

After each nightmare, her heart pounded and sweat ran off her forehead. She shivered in the dark of the tent until the hum of Dante's breathing gradually restored her and she fell into another dream. Finally, after what seemed like hours, her exhausted body prevailed and the cycle ended. From then until morning, she slept as if her fuse had been yanked out.

She awoke to brilliant light and shielded her eyes with her hand. The veils of sleep lifted from her mind and she realized it was so bright inside the tent because the fly was gone. She sat up, confused, and noticed Dante and his sleeping bag had also disappeared. Anxiety nudged her wider awake and she recalled, vaguely, having had nightmares. She pulled off her hat—why was it so hot?—shucked off her bag and knelt at the door, her fingers on the zipper. She smelled coffee and released the breath she'd been holding. Crises in the wilderness were never served with coffee.

“Dante?”

He stuck his head into the vestibule. “Good morning! You slept in. It's nearly eight thirty.”

“You're kidding.”

“I spread the fly out in the sun. It's almost dry. You want your coffee in there?”

“No, I'm coming.”

She crawled out of the tent and crossed to a clump of trees a dozen yards away to pee. When she returned, she found Dante poring over the map. She kissed the top of his head and retrieved her coffee from a rock where he had set out bowls of granola and milk. The coffee was lukewarm but after two sips her mind began to clear. She looked out across the lake, mirror-still but for the rings of feeding trout. The mountains were bathed in sunlight, the pines in sharp silhouette, everything scoured clean by the rain. Above, the sky was a vault of blue. Nothing broke the stillness.

“Beautiful morning,” she said.

“It is.”

“Did you see Paul and Linda go by?”

“No, but I'm sure they are over Glen Pass by now.” He looked up from the map. “What do you think? Should we camp close to Forester Pass tonight?”

“Forester already?” As soon as she said it, she knew it had to be. This morning, Glen Pass. Forester, the highest pass before the ascent to Whitney's summit, was next. After that, a night near Wallace Creek, then the last campsite before the final climb to Whitney. Three more nights. It hadn't registered before how near they were. “I think there are a couple spots next to a tarn”—she moved behind him and pointed it out on the map—“there. At the origin of Bubbs Creek.” Bubbs Creek. Woods Creek. The Woods Creek bridge. Brensen. She clasped her cup in both hands and lowered herself onto a log.

Dante regarded her. “Are you all right?”

“Just thinking about Brensen. I'd forgotten until now.”

“Yes, I've been thinking of him, too.” He folded the map and handed it to her. “Do you know if he had children?”

Her fingers paused for a beat on the smooth, plasticized paper before taking it from him. “No. I mean, I don't know.”

“It'd be especially sad if he did.”

“Yes, it would.” She stood and tucked the map into her pocket. “Thanks for getting everything ready, Dante. And I'm sorry I'm so late. Let's eat, okay?”

They broke camp as quickly as they could and set off. The Rae Lakes sat at ten thousand five hundred feet and Glen Pass, two miles ahead, was a few feet shy of twelve thousand. They climbed steadily across talus slopes and wide granite slabs, pausing only to admire the changing view of the lakes below. More lakes appeared, tucked into the folds of mountains' cloaks, bottle green remnants of last winter's snow. Liz pictured everything around her blanketed in drifts of snow and wondered how anyone, or anything, could find its way through a boundless nowhere of white upon white. Perhaps the peaks and, at night, the stars above, were enough.

The pass was a knife edge. Talus tumbled precipitously down either side. The wind howled up the north side and over the gap. Liz and Dante stopped a moment for one last look behind them, then continued down switchbacks winding through rough scree until they found a windbreak. They shared a liter of water and some trail mix, and resumed their descent.

Below the tree line, the trail softened. They walked together through sparse lodgepole forest on a gentle downhill course. They had become so accustomed to their packs, it felt like a day hike. In a few hours, they might return to the trailhead parking lot and discuss what they should have for dinner on the ride home. Liz allowed this illusion to infuse her, and something akin to happiness lightened her step further.

They had lunch at an intersection. To the left was the trail the McCartneys would have taken earlier toward Kearsarge Pass and the Onion Valley trailhead. To the right was the way down to Charlotte Lake and another ranger station. As they ate, they talked about where Paul and Linda might be at that moment and whether there was any point whatsoever in seeking out the ranger.

“I've come to the conclusion they are mythical creatures,” Dante said. “Like the Yeti.”

“What about the one at Lyell Canyon?”

“A clever avatar, perhaps. Or a mirage.”

“Maybe they're all together at a party. A ranger rave.”

“Yes. Drinking home-brewed beer and swapping stories about ignorant hikers.”

“And the worst thing they ever found at a campsite.”

He grimaced and put a hand on his belly. “Stop right there.”

Liz laughed for the first time in days, and Dante joined in, his tanned skin crinkling around his eyes. Their laughter died down, then stopped abruptly. Liz was thinking of a ranger finding Brensen wrapped in his tent, and she could see Dante was, too.

She bent her head as a swirl of emotion moved through her. “The authorities in Independence will know about him by the end of the day. I say we stick to the trail.”

“Agreed.” He reached for her hand. “And I'm so sorry,
carina
, that your trip has not been as you dreamed.”

She smiled at his kindness, and at the notion that this trip was ever about fulfilling a dream. She'd sought clarity, solitude, escape and, under duress, the purge of confession. It was hardly the stuff of dreams.

They finished lunch and continued their descent on a south-facing slope toward Center Basin, a broad, sloping valley between the towers of East and West Vidette peaks. The afternoon sun bore down on them and they stopped at the crossing of Bubbs Creek to refresh their water bottles and themselves. The creek stayed on their right for most of the day, at times so close they felt spray from the cascades, other times so far below the trail Liz wondered if they might run short of drinking water. On the western slope, the aspens burned gold in the sun, quivering in wisps of breeze. The pines shaded the trail until late afternoon when Liz and Dante emerged onto a boulder-strewn plateau. The heat climbed onto their backs, and wrapped itself around them like swaddling cloth.

They spoke little. Liz concentrated on the trail in front of her, or on the sky, a blue as deep as a lake. The business of walking, and of ignoring the heat and her growing exhaustion, occupied her completely. They stopped to talk with the handful of hikers they passed. None were going past the Woods Creek bridge, so neither Liz nor Dante mentioned Brensen. They'd agreed earlier there was no point in casting a pall on someone's hike without reason. By now Liz thought it likely Brensen's death was accidental, and that she'd suspected the Roots only because of their interest in her. Nevertheless, she found herself rounding blind corners with a measure of caution and was relieved whenever the trail ahead of her was empty. The last time they'd seen Payton and Rodell was two days before at Lake Marjorie—a lifetime ago—and she hoped their paths would not cross again.

The pines thinned, the temperature soared and the twelve miles that had promised to be an easy day on paper were getting longer by the minute. Dante hiked behind Liz in silence, the click of their poles and the intermittent squawking of nutcrackers the only sound. Bubbs Creek dropped away from the trail and hid in the willows, running narrow and muffled at the bottom of a steep incline to their right. When they found its source, they could stop. Junction Peak stood in front of them, a monument of granite. The campsite was somewhere at its base, but not near enough.

It was past five o'clock when the terrain abruptly leveled and they came upon a circle of trees enclosing a campsite. Liz walked a hundred yards farther to ascertain that a narrow verdant channel contained running water. She lowered her pack onto the moss, took off her boots and socks and stuck her feet into the icy flow. Dante joined her, and they lay side by side, numbing their sore feet, eyes closed.

“How high are we?” Dante said.

“Eleven thousand, two hundred.”

“Is that what Lake Marjorie was?”

“Uh-huh. And Rae Lakes was only seven hundred feet lower.”

“But we climbed, what, thirty-five hundred feet today?”

“Give or take.”

“And about the same the day before?”

“Yup.”

He paused. “Has anyone ever told you the story of Sisyphus?”

They snacked on salami and trail mix, and made camp. Liz grabbed her towel and went to clean up in the stream while Dante began heating lentil soup for dinner. When she returned, he took his turn to bathe. The sun had dropped behind the peaks and a stiff wind blew down from the pass, so Liz donned her fleece jacket and hat. The skin on her face and arms was taut and raw from sun, wind and cold water. She blew on her hands to warm them and squatted on her haunches and stirred the soup, wincing at the pull in her Achilles tendons and lower back. She thought she really ought to do some stretches—she had kinks everywhere—but was too tired. Instead, she turned the flame down, moved to a rock and pulled her knees to her chest. Her legs felt like bags loaded with lead shot. Wasn't she supposed to be stronger each day? She tucked her head into her arms and allowed the weight of her exhaustion to sink through her, into the ground. If she could have summoned the energy, she'd have crawled into the tent and forgotten about dinner.

Dante nudged her from her fugue. “You okay? We should eat.”

“I'm fine. Tired.”

He handed her a steaming bowl and a spork and sat on a log facing her. She placed the bowl on her knees and cupped her hands over it, warming them. Dante stirred his soup and lifted a sporkful to examine it.

“Why is it,” he said, “that everything we eat resembles baby food?”

“What?” Liz's knees wobbled and she gripped the edge of the bowl to stop its slide.

“Baby food. Oatmeal, mashed potatoes, pureed soup . . .”

Liz's breath caught in her chest. She let out a small cry before her throat snapped shut.

Dante stared at her. “What's wrong?”

She opened her mouth but it filled with cotton. Lies of cotton. Spun and stuffed full. Suffocating on cotton, clean and white. A white cotton gown. Cotton sponges to make it dry. Cotton gauze to soak up blood. She gripped the bowl tighter, ignoring the searing heat. An iron fist squeezed her lungs.

Dante was in front of her, on his knees. He took the soup from her. Held her hands. “You're shaking. What's wrong?” His eyes skipped across her face, trying to catch sight of the cause of her distress.

A broad ache searched through her, a dark, roiling river. She heard herself moan. Dante's face became hazy. She blinked. Her face grew cold but he was no clearer.

He asked her again, more insistent. “What's wrong?”

She pushed the word against the cotton in her mouth. “Baby.”

“What?”

“Baby.” She'd never noticed how sad the word was. How delicate. Two tiny syllables ringing, the sound of glass wind chimes, set in motion by a breath. Baby baby baby baby baby. Two beats that could go on forever.

Not like death. Death was a hiss. You said it only once.

“Baby? Baby what?”

He uttered the words and they pierced her, blooming into a throbbing pain behind her eyes. She pulled her hand from his and pinched the bone between her eyes as hard as she could. The pain shrunk back. He lifted her chin but she dipped her head, avoiding his gaze. “Liz, what do you mean? Why are you crying?”

Was she? And what did she mean? There was a baby and now there was not. Was that the story? How could she not know? After all of this, how was it possible not to understand? What was perfectly clear at that moment, and in all the moments before, was that she was afraid to tell him. Afraid because he would no longer love her. Afraid because of the anguish she would cause. Afraid because of the person she would reveal herself to be. Her fear was a mountain so tall it had no summit, and so wide she could not circumvent it. It was unconquerable and inescapable, looming over her, casting a chilling shadow wherever she turned. She'd taken refuge there, alone. It was her place, bitter and cramped. She'd had enough of it. And Dante was begging her to relinquish the lie.