The River at Night(18)

Rachel plunked her hands on her hips, her kinky curls in a muddy topknot on her head. “Seriously, Rory, how many bears have you seen out here?”

“None. But I know what their scat looks like, and I’ve seen plenty of it.”

Rachel snorted. “Bear poop? Come on, how do you know it’s—”

“Last year an older couple came out here to camp—a mile away, maybe, near the river—and spotted a cub on the ridge. They got real close. Theory was they wanted to take a selfie with the thing, or that’s what their last Facebook update said, anyway. Too bad mama was watching; you know, just biding her time.”

Sandra put her comb down, eyes wide. “What happened to them?”

Rory snapped his shoulder straps together across his broad chest, yanked them taut. “Nothing good.”

My jaw tightened so hard I got light-headed and had to lean against my backpack for a moment. Rachel took a step toward the trailhead and peered into it as if she could find the answer there. “So come on, what?” she said breathily, her forehead shining with sweat.

“Pieces of them were found, that’s it. So the moral of the story is, don’t do stupid shit, and listen to what I say. Are we good? Ready to roll, ladies?”

We all nodded as we gathered our gear, the only sound soft grunts as we heaved our packs onto our shoulders.





9


We set off. Rory in the lead, followed by Pia, then Rachel, Sandra, and me. The order felt profound in a way I didn’t quite like, but I let it go because right away I had other worries. Just keeping my balance with a pack on my back—which Rory and Pia had winnowed down to “a very doable” thirty-five pounds or so—and walking in high, stiff hiking boots took up most of my brain. To keep from falling backward I leaned forward, using muscles I didn’t know I had. What were they, stomach muscles? Core? Back? I gritted my teeth as I watched my chubby white knees pump up and down, negotiating my shoes into crevices between rocks and tree roots. The straps of my pack dug wedges into my shoulders. Already I was thinking about food.

In minutes, I was coated with sweat and breathing hard, noting somewhere in my brain that the path hadn’t even started going uphill yet. My ankles turned in my boots if I misjudged a step. I realized I’d better concentrate on every footfall; my mind wandered anyway. A grueling argument I’d had with Richard just a year ago flooded back to me. I’d asked him if Marcus, then in his early thirties, could move in with us. Insisted on it, since he had nowhere to go after the death of our mother. The fight had been one of the most vicious we’d ever had, and, to my surprise, I ended up “winning.” Marcus moved in the following week. One Sunday soon after, Marcus and I returned from a day of shopping to find all of Richard’s belongings gone from the apartment. Apparently this change of scene had pushed Richard into the arms of his girlfriend, someone he’d insisted up until that day didn’t exist.

A root shot up out of nowhere, trapped my boot, and I went flying, whiplashed from my memories. I can still conjure the fright of being airborne, all that greenery shooting by and rocks and earth zooming up to meet me. I lay in a fetal pile waiting for the world to stop moving, panting and cursing and crying a little until I could bring myself to examine my bloody palms and test my fingers. They all seemed to work. “Don’t be such a fucking baby,” I said aloud. “You fell, now get up.”

Something called to its mate high above me, a mournful coo followed by a shrill peep-peep-peep. I felt watched by insensate green. Underbrush crowded the path, yearning to erase it. I remembered something a friend who once lived near a cornfield had said to me: after a spring rain you could hear the stalks growing; they made an eerie, creaking sound.

I closed my eyes. Opened them. I was still in the middle of nowhere, alone.

“Rachel! Sandra! Rory! Pia!” I hated the sound of my voice. It sounded weak, thin, useless.

Only forest noises answered. I reached in one of my countless zippered pockets for my cell phone. No coverage.

I began to wonder if I was on the right trail. Yes, blue flashes of paint still marked the occasional tree on the path, but was there for some sick reason more than one blue trail? Had I taken a wrong turn and not noticed? A wave of love for civilization and its myriad comforts washed over me as I turned in my cathedral of tree and stone. It all looked the same to me. Nature was a language I simply didn’t speak.

I tightened my pack, retied my shoes, and began to climb. To summarize: I never knew there was so much up. The first time I clambered up a cascade of rocks, huffing and drenched with sweat, it didn’t occur to me that this would be only one of many messy encounters with gravity. I’d make it up one steep rise of earth and stone, congratulate myself—even get a bit smug on a level stretch—only to face the next heartbreaking climb.

A dull ache had fired up in both feet, mainly my heels and both little toes. Figured I’d ignore it, let it hang out with the pain in my shoulders, thighs, calves, and hands. I had no concept of how far I’d walked. A mile? Three miles? Five? I knew how it felt to walk a mile in the city in sneakers on a nice day, how it felt to swim my tidy ten laps at the Y, but this was different. I only knew that a couple of hours had passed, and I’d seen no sign of anyone. Everything in my life became the dumb brute act of moving forward, as animals must—food, sex, and shelter leading them on.