The Middle of Somewhere (3 page)

She zipped the pouch closed and looked up. Dante had that expression he reserved for her. His dark brown eyes were soft and a smile teased at the corner of his mouth, as if someone were poised to give him a gift he'd been wanting forever. She held his gaze for a moment—his love for her running liquid through her limbs—and got up to stow everything in her pack.

Liz had consulted the map when they'd stopped and knew they had to climb more than five miles and fifteen hundred vertical feet before making camp. Her feet were sore and her thighs complained as she hoisted herself—and her thirty-pound pack, nearly a quarter of her body weight—ever upward. She was fit, as was Dante, but this first day was asking far more of her body than it was accustomed to. Hiking would get easier as they got stronger, but there was no getting around it: today was a bitch.

They walked in silence, kicking up small clouds of dust. The creek stayed with them, then disappeared, and they were left with only pines, boulders and trail. After an hour or more, they came over a rise. The trail followed the crest for a short stretch, then dipped toward a creek bubbling down a seam between steep slopes. On the near bank two hikers were resting—the first they'd seen since the Half Dome turnoff. Each man sat leaning against a pine tree. The nearer man was large, and imposing even while seated. He'd taken off his boots and socks, and his long legs were crossed at the ankle. His head was tipped back, and his eyes were closed. When the other, smaller, man swiveled in their direction and lifted his hand in greeting, Liz immediately noticed their resemblance. The same lank, sandy hair, the same square jaw and full mouth. Brothers. They even had identical cobalt blue packs.

“Hey,” she said.

The big one opened his eyes and massaged his jaw. “Hello.”

Closer now, she judged they were both in their twenties. The big one was definitely older. He had the swagger as well as the looks.

“Hello,” Dante said, stepping off the trail to stand next to Liz. “How's it going?”

“Excellent. Just taking a breather.”

“I hear you. I feel we've climbed halfway to God.”

The big one gave an appreciative snort, and took a swig from the two-liter soda bottle that served as his water container. “Is that where you're headed?”

Liz glanced at Dante to see if he thought this an odd remark. He smiled good-naturedly and said, “Well, maybe eventually, if I'm lucky. But today, just to . . . what's the place, Liz?”

“Sunrise Camp.”

“Yes, Sunrise Camp,” Dante said.

The man nodded. “You on a short trip, or doing the whole JMT enchilada?” He raised his eyebrows when he said “enchilada,” and gave it a Spanish pronunciation.

Liz frowned at the possibility he meant it as a slight on Dante, but checked herself. He seemed friendly enough otherwise. “The entire JMT,” she said. “At least that's the plan.”

“That's a lot of quality time for a couple.”

Liz didn't know how to respond.

Dante stepped in. “How about you?”

The brothers exchanged looks. The younger one said, “Depends on how we feel. Could be a long trip. Could be a short one.”

Dante nodded as if this were the sort of freewheeling adventure he wished he could join.

“Well,” Liz said, anxious to leave these two behind, “have fun whatever you do.”

“We always do,” the younger brother said.

She started down the trail, with Dante behind her, and stopped at the creek's edge. On the opposite side, one path followed the stream uphill, while another led downstream for a while, before dissolving into the forest.

She turned to the men, and pointed at one path, then the other, with her trekking pole. “Do you happen to know which way it is?”

The older brother pointed upstream.

“Thanks.”

Aware of the eyes on her, she gingerly crossed the creek, stepping on half-submerged rocks and using her poles for balance. The added weight of her backpack meant a small slip could result in a fall. When she arrived safely on the far bank, she waited for Dante to cross and turned left up the hill.

The trail followed the stream for a stretch, then cut steeply up the slope. Her pack felt heavier with each step. The footing became uneven, and she had to concentrate to avoid a misstep. She could hear Dante breathing hard behind her. Twenty minutes after they'd crossed the creek, she stopped, panting.

“Does this look right to you?”

His face was flushed with exertion. “You're asking me?”

“I don't know. The trail hasn't been this lousy.”

“Maybe it's just this piece.”

They struggled uphill on an ever-worsening trail for another fifteen minutes. And then the path disappeared.

“Damn it,” Liz said, and jammed her pole in the dirt.

They retraced their steps to the junction. The brothers hadn't moved. They regarded Liz and Dante from their side of the creek.

She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice and pointed to the downstream trail. “It's this way.”

“Really?” the older brother said. “I was sure it was the other way.”

The younger one added, “Thanks for saving us the mistake.”

“No problem,” Dante said, waving.

They started off again. Before the trail veered to the left, Liz looked over her shoulder. The older brother stared in her direction. Given the distance, she couldn't be certain, but she thought she detected a smirk on his face.

A
t six thirty, the sun hovered above the horizon, and they stopped for the day. The campsite overlooked Long Meadow, a vast expanse ringed with pines. The Echo Peaks and Matthes Crest stood guard in the distance. Tawny grasses in the meadow awaited the first precipitation since early May, and the tops of the peaks had lost their snow.

Dante groaned as he lowered his pack to the ground, then sat on a fallen log to take off his boots. Liz unpacked the tent and began clearing pinecones and other debris from the rectangle she'd chosen for their shelter.

“How are your tootsies?”

He crossed his ankle over his knee and examined the damage. His boots were new, as was the rest of his gear and clothing, but unlike everything else, he'd refused Liz's advice on which boots to buy. She agreed that his choice, Italian Zamberlans, were fantastic boots, but doubted he would have time to break them in and suggested he pick a lighter, more modern style he could wear off the shelf. He'd ordered the Zamberlans, and she had packed plenty of moleskin.

“Several, but not all, of my toes have sore spots.” He pointed out the red areas and turned his foot over. “And this looks perhaps like a blister on my heel.”

Liz unfurled the groundsheet with a snap. Blisters on Day One. Not a good start. “Tomorrow morning please mole-ify all of them.”

“Okay, Mama.” He sniffed his underarm. “I smell like a pig!”

“Well, you're in luck. I read there's a standpipe nearby because of the High Sierra Camp. We don't have to filter water, and if you carry it away from the pipe, you can wash, too. Luxurious, huh?”

“Yes. It's wonderful that, after today's efforts, I will be treated to a bath in a saucepan.”

“A cold bath in a saucepan.”

“Of course.”

She clipped the tent ceiling to the arc of the central pole, then fitted the crosspiece through the grommets, forming the roof. “Ta-da!” She'd hoped Dante would clap, but he continued to worry his toes.

A hiker came around a stand of trees a dozen yards away. Though the light was failing, he wore sunglasses and had trouble finding his way. He wasn't anywhere near the trail.

“Hey, there!” She waved at him. “Are you lost?”

“Maybe.” He took a step, caught his toe on a log and stumbled a few steps before righting himself. She guessed he was orienting by sound. “I'm looking for the High Sierra Camp.”

“Oh, lucky you. I hear those camps are swank.”

Probing delicately, he took baby steps toward them. “I hope so. I just learned about it today.”

Dante looked up from his podiatric pity-party and addressed Liz. “Why aren't we staying there?”

“Because we're stoic.” She noted Dante's pout. “Well, some of us are. Besides, you have to reserve months in advance.”

The man stopped dead. “Are you shitting me?” He unclasped his hip belt and threw the straps off his shoulders as if they were the strangling arms of a rabid orangutan. The pack hit a boulder with a crunch of metal and glass.

Liz said, “Was that a camera?”

The man ignored her and she regarded him with concern. She couldn't figure out why he hadn't taken off his sunglasses, nor could she fathom why anyone who seemed so unhappy about roughing it would be backpacking alone. Dante, at least, had a reason for being here, even if he had no clue what he was getting himself into. She had tried to warn him, but when he began to take her warnings as evidence for her lack of feelings for him, she backed off. But this stranger was another story. Why would he put himself through this? Did he lose a bet?

The man kicked his pack several times, shouting, “I'm gonna kill him! I'm gonna kill him!” with each kick. Spent, he staggered in a small circle, tripped on a rock and came down hard on his hip. “Goddamn fucking rocks everywhere!”

Dante jumped up to help him but realized he was barefoot and sat again. He didn't do barefoot. “Are you okay?”

The man had lost his sunglasses in the self-induced fray and was searching for them on his hands and knees.

“Are you visually impaired?” Liz asked, thinking the impairment was more likely mental.

For some reason, this question calmed him. He looked straight at her.

“Oh!” She pointed at him and couldn't help jumping up and down in excitement. “You're that guy!” She turned to catch Dante's eye so he could verify her I.D., but he was digging in his backpack. “Dante!”

He didn't look up. “What? I'm trying to find my camp shoes.”

“It's that guy! The one in the movie!”

“Oh, here they are.” He bent to strap on the shoes. “My feet are killing me. What movie?”

Liz continued to point at the man, so when Dante finally finished with his shoes, he'd know whom to look at. The man sat on a rock in the
Thinker
pose and rubbed his hip with his free hand. He seemed to be reminding himself to refrain from betting on a day never getting worse.

“The movie we saw last week. He played the dumb cop.” She shrugged at the man in apology.

He raised his hand. No offense taken. “Matthew Brensen,” he said. “Just to end the suspense.”

“That's right!” she said, then caught herself. “Of course, you would know that.”

“I would.”

Dante walked over, introduced himself and Liz, and shook Matthew Brensen's hand. The actor was not a big star—he'd never win an Oscar—but was famous enough that his embarrassing moments had a better than even chance of ending up on
Entertainment Tonight
.

Brensen said, “Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing out here?”

“Having a bad day?” Liz offered. The excitement of a celebrity sighting was wearing off. She was tired and wanted to eat dinner before it got any darker and colder.

He nodded sadly. “I let my fucking agent sign me up for a lead in a goddamn backpacking movie. Smart, right? But, okay, I go with it. Expand my scope and all that horseshit. Then the director says I need to find out what it's like.” The anger flared in his voice again. He spread his arms wide. “So here I fucking am. And you know what it's like? It fucking bites!”

Dante nodded sympathetically. Brensen pulled out his phone, and cursed when he couldn't get a signal. Over their heads the sky was chambray blue, fading to pale pink at the horizon. The setting sun cast an amber glow on the distant peaks. A handful of deer had gathered in the meadow, heads low.

“Tell you what,” she said to Brensen. “Dante's about to have a cold bath in a saucepan. You're more than welcome to join him.”

•   •   •

The next morning, as soon as she judged it light enough, Liz crept out of the tent, leaving Dante dead to the world. Their body heat had warmed the interior; leaving it was like walking into a freezer. She pulled her fleece hat from the pocket of her down jacket and slipped it on, tugging it over her ears.

She poured water from a Nalgene bottle into the pot—the only one—and lit the stove. The quarter-sized circle of blue flame hissed, and she smiled. Morning in the mountains. She climbed a nearby granite shelf to get a better view, her thighs complaining about yesterday's hike.

No questioning how Sunrise Camp got its name. The meadow stretched two miles in front of her, cast in near darkness, but the sun had found the Cathedral Peaks, painting them a warm orange, a promise for the coming day. The air was completely still, her breath in her ears the only sound. It was morning distilled, the sun rising on a quiet world, a mute witness. To Liz, it was both the oldest miraculous event, and the newest. This one belonged to her, and she to it.

She swallowed hard and shivered. Hugging herself, she descended to the campsite. The water would be ready. Coffee beckoned.

While Dante slept on, she prepared for the day. She retrieved the bear cans from where they had stashed them last night. The cans were large bear-proof plastic cylinders in which the Park Service required they store all their food, toiletries and trash. Liz and Dante each carried one, which, with careful planning, could hold food for ten days. Although, as Dante pointed out, not the food you really wanted and not enough of the other kind either.

Numb with cold, her fingers fumbled with the catches on the lids, so she used a spoon handle to open the cans. She rehydrated milk for granola and set aside the food they'd eat during the day (energy bars, trail mix, wax-wrapped cheese and dense bread) so the bear cans could stay inside the packs. After she drank her fill of water, she went to the standpipe and refilled the bottles. Brensen's pack rested against a tree. Next to it lay a gigantic larvae—Brensen in his bag. Only the top of his hat showed. He'd been too pissed off to bother with his tent, a fine decision as long as it didn't rain.

She returned to their site, stuffed her sleeping bag into its sack and deflated her air mattress. As she worked, the line dividing dark from light marched across the meadow. She looked at her watch. Seven thirty. Time to wake Sleeping Beauty.

Dante had never been a morning person, and he certainly wasn't going to be a convert this morning. The sleeping bag was warm, he mumbled from inside, and his legs and shoulders felt as if he'd been pummeled by a prizefighter during the night.

“Wasn't me,” she said, cheerfully. She reminded him that today was mostly downhill.

“As in ‘it's downhill from here'?”

She bit her tongue to stop herself from reminding him he had asked to come, that it had been his idea. It was too early in the trip, and too early on a pristine morning to go down that road. Instead, she began disassembling the tent around him. He held out while she removed and folded the fly, but when she slid the pole out and the tent collapsed on him, Dante relented. Once he was up, the cold accelerated his preparations and within twenty minutes, they were on their way.

The trail took them past Brensen, firmly lodged in his cocoon. Liz commented it was a shame his face wasn't visible so they could take a photo and send it to the tabloids when they got to Tuolumne Meadows.

Dante twitched with excitement. “There's reception there?”

“So they say.”

“Bueno!”

“And a store with lots of food.”

“Really?”

“And beer.”

“Beer!”

“And campsites with plasma screen TVs, Dolby sound and reclining chairs with cup holders.”

His footsteps stopped. “Really?”

Liz turned, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him. “No.”

“But you weren't joking about the beer, right? Because there's nothing funny about that.”

•   •   •

The prospect of evening refreshments buoyed Dante's mood for several hours, right up until the moment he was splashing water on his face and slipped into Cathedral Lake. He was soaked from the knees down. All he could do was change his socks and march on. The moisture would worsen his blisters, but at least the terrain over the remaining five miles to Tuolumne Meadows was relatively flat.

They knew they were close when they passed three dozen Korean tourists wearing sneakers and Vans instead of boots. Signs pointed them to the campground, an enormous maze of sites, most of which were occupied. And not simply occupied but fully inhabited. TVs glowed through the windows of RVs bigger than school buses. Generators hummed. People in tidy clothing watched them pass from screened-in picnic tables and lounge chairs. Liz felt like a refugee carrying all her worldly possessions through a city that had never known war.

She couldn't understand the attraction of parking a rolling house in a national park. For her, the section of the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows was a gauntlet to run. Sure, the scenery was beautiful, but she resented having to suffer crowds to enjoy it. They would be turning south tomorrow, toward the wilder reaches of the trail. It could not happen soon enough.

In an ocean of RVs, the backpackers' campground had a throwback feel, but with the amenities of a picnic table, a fire ring, a bear locker and access to a store, running water and real toilets, it was barely camping. Dante was delighted. He dropped his pack at the first open site, changed his shoes, asked her what she wanted from the store and took off.

Liz did some reconnaissance to find a quieter site. Not far from the entrance she passed a yellow tent. No one was around. On the picnic table were two blue backpacks she recognized as belonging to the brothers they'd met yesterday. She headed in the opposite direction and selected a site with a measure of privacy. She tore a page from a small notebook, drew an arrow on it and returned to Dante's pack, where she wedged it under a strap. Returning to the site, she began to make camp.

A half hour later, Dante showed up with his arms loaded. He grinned and said, “Guess who I saw at the store?”

“Another celebrity?”

“No, those guys from yesterday. Remember?”

“How could I forget? They were pretty weird.”