The Middle of Somewhere(54)

She heard feet on gravel and lifted her head to see the McCartneys crossing the gulley between their camps. Liz wondered if they’d heard her screaming last night and felt her cheeks flush. The couple smiled and waved as they approached.

Paul said, “Good morning. We wanted to make sure you didn’t get blown away.”

“No, we’re still here,” Dante said, his tone tinged with regret.

Paul and Linda exchanged concerned looks. Liz changed the subject. “Thanks again for the stakes. I’m not sure the tent would’ve held up without them.” She scanned the piles of gear in front of her and peered inside her empty pack. “I didn’t give you guys a fuel canister last night, did I?”

“No,” Linda said. “You said you’d conserve, which was nice of you.”

“That’s what I thought. But I was so tired, I thought maybe I forgot.” She began rummaging through Dante’s pack.

“Is something wrong?” Linda asked.

“Yeah. Our extra fuel has spontaneously combusted, too.”

They all looked at one another.

“What the hell is going on?” Paul asked.

Linda said, “Someone could have gone through our packs at Muir Ranch. Everyone has dinner at the same time, and our cabin was next to yours. Nothing’s locked.”

Dante shook his head. “Stealing a camera, or a nice knife, I could see. But fuel? Even at the ranch they were only charging eight dollars a can.”

Linda said, “Eight bucks is eight bucks. Some people depend on other hikers’ leftover food instead of resupplying. They end up with a free vacation if they steal fuel.”

“I guess,” Liz said, although she doubted the theory.

Paul said, “If we hike into Le Conte Canyon tonight—and that’s our plan—we’ll be low enough to make a fire.”

Dante said, “Another primitive skill to add to my resume.”

“That’s the thing about primitive skills,” Liz said. “You never know when you might need them.”

The McCartneys returned to their camp. Dante swung his pack onto his back and adjusted his cap. “See you later.”

“Have a nice walk.”

He nodded as if this was exactly what he had in mind. “You, too.”

She watched him go. He cut diagonally across the hill to meet the trail at the shore and turned south. After a few hundred yards he followed the trail away from the water, and began ascending a ledge at the base of Mount Darwin. Dante was tiny now, an ant moving slowly and steadily, significant in its being and in its purpose, and insignificant otherwise. If she took her eyes off him, she might not find him again.

He reached the top of the ledge and stopped. He might have turned to admire the view, or to see where she was, but it was impossible to tell. In a moment she would lose sight of him in any case, so she made her final preparations and set off. She had become chilled and walked rapidly, relieved to be on her way.

She left Evolution Lake behind and passed a series of lakes, each the same deep blue. Wanda Lake was the largest, lying in a basin a mile below Muir Pass and nearly divided in two by a peninsula. The trail came within an arm’s length of the shore. As she skirted it, the surface danced, bejeweled by the early-morning sun.

She stopped to rest midway along the final climb to the pass and looked down upon Wanda Lake, a pool of indigo ink. In this treeless expanse was only ink, stone and sky. The granite basin held the pool within its rugged curves. Beyond the lake, the western slopes of the jagged peaks plummeted into an unseen valley where she guessed another measure of ink had spilled.

The vista reminded her of her first weekend in Santa Fe, when her mother had taken her to lunch at Coyote Café, and to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. She’d been dragged through countless museums during her twelve years—some a dozen times or more—and had never been inspired. Museums and galleries and studios were her mother’s world. Claire was an authority, so Liz felt her mother automatically experienced more in the face of art than she herself ever would. Depending on her mood, Claire might offer commentary but she was usually lost in private reflection or engrossed in sketching in the notebook she always had with her. Liz was relieved when an audio guide was available to assuage her boredom, although she did admire line drawings, especially preliminary sketches, and the museum buildings themselves.

At the O’Keeffe museum she had left her mother’s side and proceeded, as if called, to a canvas in the far corner the size of a large window. She stood a step away and peered through an ivory hole into an impossibly blue sky, where a faint moon hung. Her gaze slid to the bottom corner of the painting and a second ivory hole revealing again an ellipse of sky. She realized the ivory was bone and had the sensation of lifting out of her shoes. Her eyes were drawn through the hole in the bone. She felt if she were to lean forward, she would feel the bone’s dry smoothness on her forehead. She was in the painting, and the moon was more real than she.