The Middle of Somewhere(15)

The wind had picked up and, with the sun mostly occluded by the clouds, the temperature plummeted. She rounded the corner. The lake was streaked with whitecaps, and she ditched the vague idea she had to camp on the shore. Instead, she continued south, crossing the wooden bridge at the outlet and heading toward the next rise. Halfway up, rain began to fall steadily. She put on her waterproofs and drew the rain cover over her backpack.

It was a long three-mile slog to the nearest water source, Shadow Creek. She didn’t mind the rain per se. She hadn’t expected to spend eighteen days outside without some discomfort and inconvenience. Rain was only water. She could deal with rain.

What she couldn’t deal with so casually was a thunderstorm. She’d been terrified of thunder and lightning since her father took her camping when she was nine. He came to Santa Fe, where she lived with her mother, two or three times a year. Her mother called it visitation, although Liz found out later they had no legal agreement. To Liz, her father’s visits felt like kidnapping. He was a virtual stranger and took her away against her unvoiced will. They never went to his house in Virginia, where she knew he had a family—a complete one. He claimed he enjoyed camping with her so they could be alone. But even as a child, she knew better. Camping was what he could afford, at least for her. She imagined his other family never had to sleep in a tent. She imagined he took his real kids to Disney World, and stayed in a hotel with a pool.

But Liz had no choice in the matter—not at that age—so camping it was. The spring she was nine they went to Bandelier National Monument, a short drive from Santa Fe. As soon as they arrived, they set off on a hike. Either her father got lost, or he misjudged the distance, because when the clouds gathered and the air smelled of tin cans, they were nowhere near the car. They were, instead, on the exposed ridge of a canyon. The skies opened as thunder rumbled. Raindrops fell, attacking her bare skin like darts. The nape of her neck tickled. A loud crack made her jump, and rang in her ears. The first bolt of lightning struck close by. Fear gripped her insides. She wanted to run. She wanted to disappear.

Her father moved to pick her up. But she knew what every kid knew about lightning: you didn’t want to be the tallest. Let him be the tallest. She threw herself on the ground, flat as she could, pressed her cheek into the gravel and shut her eyes tight. Her father tried to pull her upright, but her arms found a rock and she clung to it with all her strength and kicked at him, screaming. Thunder boomed in her ears and rolled through her chest. She saw her death: a bolt of lightning sliced through her like a giant sword. Terrified of the pain, and the empty unknown that would follow, she writhed against the dirt to burrow in.

Eventually, the storm relented and they found their way back to the car. Her father took her home the same evening, filthy and shaken. At the door, he said to her mother he had no idea why Liz was so scared of a little lightning.

In early summer, when she was first planning to hike the JMT, Dante asked her how the weather would be.

“Mostly clear, and cold at night. But it could rain, or even snow. Probably a thunderstorm or three.”

“You do remember that you hide under the bed when there’s a thunderstorm? Last time you shook so hard it rattled the frame.”

“It’s bad enough without you exaggerating. But I’m not about to spend my whole life burdened by an irrational fear.”

“Why not? That’s my plan.”

“Do you even have an irrational fear?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. I’m afraid you’ll never have sex with me again and I will die a sad, lonely and very frustrated old man.”

They’d laughed, and made love on the couch. That was months ago.

By the time she arrived at Shadow Creek, the rain had become drizzle. She put down her pack and searched for a campsite. After following several rabbit trails off the main path, she found a small site with an established fire ring not far from the river. She suspected there were other campsites downstream—the terrain was leveling out—but after nearly fourteen miles, half of it in the rain, she was more than ready to quit. She wasn’t going to quibble about where she pitched her tent.

The tent would have been up quickly except she drove a stake into a tree root, which gripped it tightly. She spent twenty minutes digging, pulling, twisting and cursing before she got it out. When the tent was erect and secure, she threw her pack inside and climbed in after it, leaving her boots, pack cover and rain suit in the vestibule. She blew up her air mattress and became light-headed. She’d not eaten nearly enough today. Tempted as she was not to bother with the stove and eat her next day’s lunch instead, hot food sounded better. She set up the stove in the vestibule and ate an entire packet of instant mashed potatoes which, to her surprise, actually did taste like a loaded baked potato, as advertised. She washed it down with water and realized she’d forgotten to fill her second bottle. Back out into the rain.