The Middle of Somewhere (8 page)

His mouth formed a small circle of surprise, and he pulled her into his arms. He smelled of cheap hotel soap. The weight of his body against hers was familiar and comforting. She wished she could purr.

He said, “I lit a candle for us at mass yesterday.”

She whispered into his ear. “Don't tell God, but I threw away most of your food.”

“I forgive you.” He kissed her deeply.

“We'll go Dumpster diving.” She pressed her hips against him. One kiss and he was hard. “But first we should celebrate.”

He moved his hand to her rear end. “I stayed in a cabin here last night. I could show it to you.”

Her entire body was turning liquid, pouring into her groin. She nuzzled his neck. “Please.”

“If you insist.”

•   •   •

She lay with her head on his shoulder, their legs entangled in the sheets. A trapezoid of light from the cabin's small window captured dust motes kept afloat by invisible forces. Dante planted a kiss on top of her head.

“We should get moving. I expect there are many miles on our agenda.”

“Uh-huh,” Liz murmured into his chest. She had more inertia than the mountains beyond the window. “Fourteen.”

“Only fourteen?”

“That's my boy.”

“Vamos!”
He yanked the covers off and kissed her bare hip.

She sat up and glowered at him. “Cruel.”

They quickly washed and dressed. She straightened the bed. They'd stashed their packs on the porch, but she asked, out of habit, “Got everything?”

They scanned the room and stepped outside. Leave no trace.

•   •   •

After their team bonding exercise, Liz and Dante reorganized their backpacks again. She had rescued some of what she'd thrown away, but they were short on snacks because Dante had eaten the ones he'd packed out. While he refilled his bear can, she went into the store to stock up.

She paid for her purchases and pushed open the door. Rodell and Payton had joined Dante. She said hello.

“We're glad to see you've got company again,” Payton said.

What exactly had Dante said? She changed the subject. “So where are you headed today?” If she had some idea of their destination, she and Dante could stop short of it or leapfrog past them.

Rodell tipped his head behind and to the left. “South.”

“Like we said before, we make it up as we go along,” Payton said, clamping a hand on his brother's arm.

“It's part of the game,” Rodell said.

Before Liz could decide whether she wanted to know what he meant, Brensen charged toward them from the back of the café, red-faced, his phone to his ear. Oblivious, he weaved through picnic tables, trash cans and hikers, berating whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the other end.

“I told you a million times not to negotiate with those assholes. You do work for me, don't you?” He came to a halt and scuffed his boots, sending up a cloud of dust. “What do you mean it's a partnership? I learn the roles, I make the movies, I earn the goddamn money, and you suck up your ten percent!” He plastered his hand against his forehead as if to prevent his skull from breaking open.

He ranted on, and Rodell and Payton exchanged looks. The older brother strode over to Brensen and poked his shoulder. Brensen spun to face Payton's chest, raised his head and noted the man's stern expression.

The actor said into the phone, “Hang on a minute.” He snarled at Payton. “What do you want?”

“I want you to keep it down.”

“Really?” He pulled himself a little taller. “I'm conducting business here.”

“I don't give a shit what you're conducting. No one wants to listen to you. This is the wilderness.”

Brensen snorted. “Not while I've got reception.”

Payton stared him down, immobile.

The actor pointed at his phone. “Do you mind?”

The bigger man's voice was a low growl. “I just said I did, didn't I?”

Rodell approached them, cleared his throat and said, “Payton, he's a pissant. Not worth your trouble.”

Payton stepped closer until his boots nearly touched Brensen's. Dante caught Liz's eye and frowned.

Brensen squirmed a couple of steps back, ran his eyes up and down Payton, nodding his head in recognition. “I knew there was something familiar about you.”

Uncertainty flashed over Payton's face. And a trace of fear.

Brensen pointed his phone at him. “I think I played you. Yeah. Lead role in
Down and Dirty in Appalachia
.”

In one step Payton was toe to toe with Brensen. The actor recoiled an inch, then scowled and held his ground. Payton set his jaw, stretched his arms along his sides, and spread his fingers wide.

“Now, Payton,” his brother cautioned, “we're not shopping for trouble.”

The café door slammed. Payton exhaled and nodded at Rodell, who grinned. The older brother addressed Brensen. “Lucky for you I'm in a sunny mood this morning, Hollywood, and eager to get on the trail.” He thrust a finger at the phone clutched to Brensen's chest. “Better finish your call because once you're in the woods again there won't be anybody answering.” He spun away, retrieved his pack from beneath a tree and swung it over his shoulder. Rodell did the same, with a grunt.

As they left, Payton tipped his cap to Liz and Dante. “See you lovebirds later.”

Dante waved at them. A moment later they disappeared behind the store. “I don't think I've seen that movie. Have you, Liz?”

She didn't answer. She was watching Brensen as he paced in front of them, checking his phone display over and over.

“Hello? Can you hear me, damn it? Hello?”

H
er pack lighter again, she led Dante up out of the valley from Red's Meadow Resort. The morning air harbored the night's chill, but the sun, climbing with them, promised warmth. The dusty trail traversed the slope through a sea of pines, although they bore little resemblance to the tall, majestic trees near Red's. This was a scene of devastation.

They stopped at the top of the slope.

“What happened here?” Dante asked.

“Maybe giants have been playing pick-up sticks.”

The hillside extended a mile or so in front of them, dropped into a shallow valley and rose to an escarpment on the other side. Thousands of mature lodgepole pine and red fir, each seventy feet or more in height and as much a four feet wide, had been snapped in half or ripped out of the ground and tossed aside, root-balls dangling in the air.

Yesterday, when Liz had approached Red's, she'd seen acre sections of forest similarly destroyed. She'd guessed an avalanche was the culprit, although the terrain didn't seem steep enough, and the uprooted trees didn't point downhill, as she would have expected. She'd meant to ask someone at Red's about it, but forgot.

The source of the devastation baffled them. Liz pointed to a nearby tree that had been sawn in half. “They've had time to clear the trail, so Pine-ageddon probably happened a while ago.”

Dante said, “Whatever it was, I'm glad I was somewhere else.”

Liz imagined the noise the trees would have made as they snapped and fell crashing to the ground by the hundreds. It must have sounded like the end of the world. She shivered. “Let's get out of here.”

They marched across the broken landscape, silenced by the overwhelming scale of the damage. After a half hour, they entered intact forest. She wondered how long it would take until a passing hiker wouldn't realize a boundary had been crossed.

Pine-ageddon was by far the most interesting thing they witnessed all day. The trail never left the forest. Where the pines were sparse and a view was possible, there was nothing to see. The surface of the trail was either fine dust or pine needles, both easy on the feet. Dante insisted on taking the rear position for most of the way, and blew his nose frequently because of the dust Liz inadvertently kicked up.

They had lunch at a verdant stream crossing. A few larkspur and asters hugged the banks, remnants of what would have been a riot of blooms earlier in the year.

“Those flowers remind me of the last people left at a party,” she told Dante.

“I wish I'd seen the party in full swing.”

“It's crazy pretty. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes crash it every year.” She decided to hike the JMT in September partly because, from the snowmelt until the end of August, mosquitoes threatened to exsanguinate hikers. She liked flowers, but not that much.

He handed Liz a bag of trail mix. “When were you up here in the summer?”

“Here? Never here. But Gabriel and I went for a weeklong trip out of Mineral King. We had to eat in our tent because the mosquitoes swarmed into our mouths.” She rarely spoke about Gabriel to Dante, or to anyone else, for that matter. The more she talked about him, the more the public version of their relationship stuck in her mind. As much as she avoided thinking about how their marriage really was, she also didn't want to forget.

“Sounds disgusting.”

“They attacked Gabriel in particular. He'd get furious with them.”

Dante said, delicately, “I didn't know he had a temper.”

“He didn't. He just hated mosquitoes.”

Dante brushed crumbs off the front of his pants. Liz suspected he wanted her to keep talking about Gabriel but was reticent to ask. It went beyond the understandable hesitation of knowing about his girlfriend when she had belonged to someone else. Maybe he was afraid of her dead husband. She hadn't met anyone who asked a follow-up question once they'd learned about Gabriel's death.

“Come on,
amigo
,” she said as she stood. “We're behind schedule.”

At Duck Lake, twelve miles from Red's Meadow, they agreed it was time to start searching for a campsite. In fact, it was past time; she was bushed and Dante had gone quiet, a sure sign of exhaustion. They dropped their packs and began hunting along the shore, their shirts clinging to their sweaty backs. She was puzzled as to why Duck Lake sounded familiar. After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, she thought it might be among the prohibited camping areas listed on their wilderness permit. She dug the permit out of her pack. Sure enough, no camping at Duck Lake. Too tired to complain, they set off for the next water source: Purple Lake. Two miles more, uphill for the first half, then a sharp slide to the tiny lake. Liz hoped to God there were empty campsites.

When they came around a bend, the lake materialized before them. Its surface held a perfect reflection of the scree slope that poured from the granite peak towering over its southern end. Liz heard a commotion and turned to see Brensen, twenty feet away, brandishing a tent pole and chasing a chipmunk.

“Get out of my food, you fucking rat!”

She laughed and Brensen spun toward the sound, catching his boot on an exposed root. He stumbled headlong toward a tree. At the last second, his hands flew up and smacked the trunk, breaking his fall. As they crossed the grass toward Brensen, Liz wondered if he did his own stunts.

“Fucking squirrels!” Brensen said, by way of greeting. “That bastard tore into my cashews.”

“It was a chipmunk,” she said. “And it's lovely to see you again, too.”

“Chipmunk, squirrel, rat. Who cares?” He adjusted the waistband of his pants, smoothed his hair, and addressed Dante. “Hey, Duncan. Good to see you back in the game.” He raised his eyebrows at Liz.

She returned the look, magnified to ridiculousness. She and Dante said, simultaneously, “It's Dante.”

“Dante, yeah. I knew that. Losing my mind up here. What a goddamn boring hike today. If I didn't hate pine trees before, I do now.”

“Hey, Liz,” Dante said. “Do you think it was Mr. Brensen who killed all those trees right after Red's Meadow?”

Brensen smiled for the first time. “I wish. Funny enough, I can tell you what happened there. The Devil's Windstorm last November. After it went through here, it blew into L.A. Made a hell of a fucking mess.”

“Wind did that?” Liz said.

“Up at Mammoth, near Red's, it blew a hundred eighty miles an hour. They said it was a fluke event. The jet stream, instead of staying north of thirty thousand feet, decided to touch down in the Sierras.”

“That's insane,” Dante said.

“If you ask me,” Brensen said, picking up his tent pole, “this whole goddamn place is insane.”

Brensen had snagged the only campsite on the shore of the lake, but there were others on the far side of the outlet stream. Liz deposited her pack at the first one.

“I hope you love it, because I'm whipped,” she told Dante.

“It's paradise.”

She set up the tent while he inflated the mattresses and fluffed the sleeping bags. He set beef stroganoff on the burner and she headed to the stream for water. Lake water was fine, but moving water was better.

She marveled as she had each evening at how much better she felt once she'd shed her pack, made camp, washed and changed into her (relatively) clean sleeping clothes. As she picked her way around boulders and over logs, her leg muscles felt sore, but comfortably so, as though content to walk farther with a normal burden. Her body impressed her. She typically asked it to work hard an hour a day during a run or at the gym. Now she had suddenly asked it for ten times the effort, and it had responded—not without complaint—but it had responded all the same. Countless neuromuscular junctions, firing away, thousands of times a minute, tens of thousands of coordinated impulses orchestrated by her brain, functioning smoothly behind the veil of her consciousness. If only her emotional self was a fraction as capable.

She knelt in the grass at the lip of the stream. Water burbled over mossy rocks. On the opposite bank, a robin probed the coarse turf as if it were a suburban lawn.

“You up here on vacation?” Liz asked it.

It cocked its head as if considering the question, bounced to a hillock and flew away.

She propped a bottle between her feet and began pumping. The jet of water hissed as it sprayed into the empty bottle. So long, Aquamira. Fresh water was on the way.

“You alone?”

Her hand slipped off the pump handle and hit the bottle, knocking it over. She righted it and swore under her breath.

She knew it was Payton before she looked up. He stood too close, casting a looming shadow. The sun was setting over his right shoulder, blinding her. She blocked the sun with her free hand. His mouth was half leer, half smile, but she couldn't make out his eyes under the bill of his cap.

She said, “You shouldn't sneak up on people.”

“I wasn't sneaking. I didn't want to shout from over there”—indicating the way he'd come—“and ruin the quiet for everyone.”

She wanted to stand, but he hadn't given her enough room. “Can you back off so I can put my arm down?”

He crouched. His knees were an inch away from hers. “Better?”

Her face flushed, and her pulse picked up. “What do you want, Payton? I'm busy here.”

“I asked you if you were alone.”

“I would be if you left.” To busy her hands, she dropped the float in the current and resumed pumping.

“I can do that for you.” He reached for the pump.

She blocked him with her elbow. “Back. The hell. Away.”

He snorted and inched backward—a retreating spider. “Here?”

“Try Ohio.” She gripped the pump tightly to calm her hands.

“Now, now. I'm just trying to talk to you.” His tone was conciliatory. “I came here to ask you something.”

The water hissed into the bottle. Ssshhh. Ssshhh.

He picked up a slender stick, holding it like a baton. “Rodell seems to think you're afraid of me. But I disagree. I think it's something else.”

Her hand stopped in midstroke.

He waved the stick in front of her, as if teasing a kitten. “What do you think, Liz?”

She capped the bottle and scooped up the equipment, holding it to her chest as she rose. Tubes dangling and dripping, she strode past him toward her campsite.

“Have a nice evening,” he called after her. “And don't worry. No chance of a storm tonight.”

•   •   •

Liz lay huddled in her sleeping bag facing Dante, who was on his back, eyes closed. She couldn't imagine how she would feel now if he weren't there beside her. She hadn't said anything to him about Payton. What could she say? Replayed in her head, no sentence or gesture was anything worse than awkward. Except it had been.

Until the incident at the stream, it had been a good day. Dante's appearance at Red's and his apology touched her. Even the boots he bought—not to mention the duct tape—meant something to her. And the sex didn't hurt his case either. As she'd hiked today, she had been grateful for the monotony of the scenery because it freed her mind to think about him. He was committed, he was reaching out to her, he was trying to give her what she wanted. Bending over backward, in fact. He wanted to be with her, to be close to her, to live with her and was willing to meet her at least halfway. She should think herself lucky.

And what had she done for him? Mostly protect him from herself, from her secrets, lies and misgivings born out of keeping the truth balled up and under wraps for too long. The half bottle of wine she'd had with dinner had loosened her. She wanted to be close to Dante, to let him in, just a little.

“Are you asleep?” she whispered.

“No. Just enjoying the sensation of not moving.”

“I'm with you. That was a lot of territory to cover.” She paused. “I was thinking of something today.” She paused again. “When I was in college, I was walking to class and this guy in a wheelchair cut in front of me. I fell over a curb. My knee was bleeding badly. He saw what happened but just wheeled away. Didn't say sorry or anything. So, this older man, a professor probably, helps me up. I must've looked shocked because he says to me, ‘Just because someone's in a wheelchair doesn't mean he isn't an asshole.'”

Dante rolled over to face her. “What are you saying?”

“It's the same when someone dies young. Everyone thinks of them as an angel flying up to heaven. The marriage the person had gets the same pass.”

“Are we talking about Gabriel? And you?”

She nodded.

“But I thought you two were happy.”

“You and I have never spoken about it.”

“We haven't?”

“No.”

“Maybe I heard it from someone else? Valerie?”

“Possibly. Like I said, it's what people think. No one dares to ask, because it's taboo. Someone's dead, suddenly dead, you don't ask those questions.”