by Zoje Stage
“Is this it?” Tilda asked, not sounding terribly impressed.
“This is it,” Beck confirmed.
Several feet below the rustic shelter, spring water trickled out from between some rocks into a trough.
“It’s named for that?” Tilda pointed to the dribbling water.
“Yup.”
“I was hoping I’d be able to soak my feet.” She drooped a little, disappointed.
Beck found a good-sized rock to use as a chair and perched on the edge. She leaned back a little to let the rock take the weight of her pack, and then unfastened her hip belt. “Are your boots bothering you? Are you getting blisters?”
“I don’t think so. It just sounded nice, dangling my feet in a pool.”
Tilda watched as first Beck, and then Imogen, removed her pack. Beck used her stick, wedged against another rock, to keep hers propped up; Imogen let hers rest on its back, an upside-down turtle. Using the same technique, Tilda soon had her pack off and plopped herself down on the cool, ever-so-slightly damp floor of the hut. While the Blum sisters gathered the canteens and filled them with fresh water from the trough, Tilda took off her boots and socks and pressed her feet into the moist earth.
Tilda might not have fully appreciated their shady sanctuary, but Imogen was well aware that their packs would’ve been much heavier if Santa Maria weren’t such a stable water source. Imogen gave Beck points for that; she’d planned a trip where water wouldn’t be a concern. Hermit and Boucher each had its own creek, unlike other places in the desert interior of the Canyon. On previous trips, when they’d gone out to places like Sumner Wash and Salt, they’d had to carry in all the water they’d need to get them through the night. If they got lucky, they might find a puddle nestled in the curves and angles of a boulder and they’d press the mouths of their canteens into the stagnant water, while trying to avoid the twigs and mosquito larvae. They never turned down opportunities to top off their water bottles, even if the puddles necessitated a double dose of iodine tablets. At Santa Maria, the water was so clean they probably didn’t even need to purify it, but Imogen dropped a single iodine tablet into each canteen, just in case.
Their chores complete, Beck and Imogen joined Tilda, sighing with relief as they sat on the ground and extended their legs. They passed around a bag of gorp, though Tilda augmented her snack with a fancy organic protein bar.
“If your feet start to hurt don’t ignore it—tell us and we’ll stop right away,” said Beck. “The best remedy is prevention.”
By the slouch of her shoulders, the lethargic nod, it was apparent that Tilda was feeling it—the effort of their steep descent. “They’re okay. This…not Disneyland,” she said with a snort. “Jalal and I did so much hiking—at least I thought we did. Now I see it was more like strolling. I was duped—the San Gabriel Mountains should be demoted. I really thought I was better prepared.”
“Don’t get discouraged,” Imogen said, picking out one M&M for each cashew, a ratio she knew wouldn’t last. “Everybody feels like this the first half of the first day.”
“Going down is always hardest,” said Beck. “And then your muscles start to acclimate, and it gets better.”
“So this is only halfway?” Tilda squinted an eye at Imogen.
“More like a third?” She turned to Beck for confirmation. Got it with a bobbing nod that really said A little less.
“You said it gets harder after Santa Maria Springs?” Tilda asked Imogen, her incredulous voice spiraling upward.
And now Imogen understood better why Beck hadn’t given Tilda the full rundown. It pissed her off a little that her sister was right, and too late Imogen realized she might have planted a seed of doubt or worry in Tilda’s mind. Indeed “Prepare for the Worst” might not work for everyone.
“There are some level stretches coming up.” It was Beck’s attempt to save her and Imogen appreciated it, but even to her biased ears her sister sounded cryptic.
“And some unlevel stretches?” Tilda asked, her focus back on Imogen.
“Remember the tricky spots I mentioned?” Imogen said, hoping spots made it sound less daunting.
“There are some sections with sharp declines coming up, and some rock falls to cross—real boulders, and not just a rock or two. The next three hours might be the toughest section of the trail.”
Both Tilda and Imogen blinked at Beck and her matter-of-fact assessment.
Tilda swallowed some water with a loud gulp. Imogen saw her trying to imagine it.
“And after that? Will we be almost to camp?”
“Then we’ll hit Cathedral Stairs,” Beck said.
“That sounds pretty,” said Tilda. “Is it pretty?”
“Sure.”
“Are they stairs?”
“Nah. Switchbacks, descending down through the Redwall.” Beck closed up her Ziploc baggie of nuts and seeds.
Tilda snapped her head back over to Imogen, a playful smile curling her lips. “And then we’ll be at camp?”
“No…not quite.” Imogen liked it better when Beck was in charge of the answers, though it felt good that Tilda was consulting her, too. Now that they weren’t holding back, she tried to picture the rest of the route. “Then we’ll walk a bit more. Hit the Tonto Trail. Head west—a mile and a quarter or so?”
Beck nodded. “Not gonna lie, Til. When you hit the Tonto, and it seems like easy walking, you keep thinking that camp is just around the next bend. And a mile and a quarter doesn’t sound that far…And it becomes the longest mile and a quarter you’ve ever walked.”
“Oh.” Tilda bunched up her protein bar wrapper and stuffed it in her pack; they’d designate an actual garbage bag later and tie it on the outside of one of their backpacks. “And then we’ll be at camp?” she blurted, both good-natured and exasperated.
“Yes!” the Blum sisters said with a laugh.
“Now I have the whole plan? No other surprises?” Her gaze ticktocked from sister to sister. Imogen pressed her lips together, raised her eyebrows, and waited to see what Beck would say. Which was nothing. “You’re the word person,” Tilda said to Imogen. “I count on you to be chattier where Beck’s more…reserved.”
Imogen hadn’t believed for a long time that Tilda was the least bit interested in having a better relationship with her. Now she wondered if her own mixed feelings clouded that perception. Writing Esther’s Ghost had reminded her of past traumas that she’d never fully examined. Worse, she’d effectively suppressed them until she believed she was a hermit because she wanted to be, but she was starting to question that.
“I say exactly what needs to be said,” Beck offered in her own pithy defense. “When it needs to be said. No more, no less.”
Beck took herself so seriously and sometimes it struck Imogen as funny, but she glanced away to keep from laughing; her sister could be sensitive about being laughed at.
“Guess we better get going—sounds like it’s a long-ass way.” Tilda put her socks and boots back on.
“Agreed,” Beck said, instantly on her feet.
“Miles feel a lot longer in the Canyon.” Imogen took a minute to stretch out her calf muscles. “Scrambling over rocks takes a lot of extra steps.”
“A quick pee first.” Tilda glanced around, dismayed by her bathroom options. Imogen retrieved a flattened role of toilet paper from the side pocket of her pack and handed it to her. “Where should I go?”
“Anywhere,” Beck said. “It’s pretty deserted this time of year, no one’s going to see you.”
“Just don’t pee on your boots.” They both gave Imogen a smirk. “What? I’m serious, that’s good advice—stand so your boots are uphill of your pee.”
“Okay.” Tilda sighed, tucking the toilet paper under her arm as she wandered a few feet off the trail.
“And don’t sit on anything with thorns.” This time Beck earned the smirk—and a merry middle finger from Tilda.
The sisters packed up the water bottles and snacks.
“Can you
see me?” Tilda called from behind a boulder.
“No,” Beck and Imogen said together, chuckling. They both stuffed their windbreakers under the straps that held their sleeping bags.
“Maybe I should take my leggings off before we go,” Imogen murmured, feeling a little sweaty. But before she could decide, Tilda let out a shriek and came running from behind the rock. Beck bolted upright, on alert.
“Gross, gross, gross!”
Beck seemed to decide it wasn’t an actual crisis, and her whole body loosened. “You’ll get used to it. Please don’t scream unless it’s a real emergen—”
“No, no—” Tilda pointed behind her and Imogen saw real panic on her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, the hair on her arms tingling.
“Blood, there’s a bloody—”
“Are you bleeding?” Beck was all doctor now.
“No, there. I was kicking dirt over my toilet paper and I saw…A bloody…”
Imogen grabbed her walking stick and she and Beck hurried off trail in the direction of Tilda’s privy. The writer in Imogen ran through possibilities of what they might find: the bloody carcass of a freshly devoured animal; a severed human limb (unlikely, but a story-worthy idea). What Imogen spotted wasn’t exactly dramatic. They squatted down to get a better look.
“Looks like a…T-shirt?” Grimacing, Imogen used the tip of her walking stick to prod it. As Tilda had attested, the lump of cloth, perhaps once white, was covered in brownish-red bloodstains.
“Maybe somebody got their period and didn’t have anything,” Beck suggested.
“Maybe.” As it dangled from Imogen’s stick, Beck studied it more carefully.
“No. It was wrapped around something.” She pointed at the succession of stains. “It seeped through these layers, see? But not these.” She shrugged. “Lots of things to get cut on. I trust they were heading out, not in—that much blood probably needs stitches.”
“Should we put it with our garbage?” Imogen dropped it back on the ground and took a step back. She really didn’t want to carry around someone else’s bloody waste, but it was the right thing to do.
“Why don’t we just bury it well. Want me to get the trowel?”
“That’s okay, I’ll use my stick. And some rocks.” She started digging into the dry earth with the end of her pole.
“Got this? I’ll make sure Tilda’s okay.”
As Imogen nodded, Beck retreated. If it had been bright blood, fresh and wet, she might have asked Beck to take over. With its dried, subdued color Imogen could pretend it was something else; it reminded her of a shirt she’d once tie-dyed in mashed blackberries. But that wasn’t enough to keep away a momentary flashback of a morning demolished, a memory of screams. They weren’t supposed to be here—the triggers of the outside world.
They used the reverse method of how they’d taken off their packs to put them back on. One by one, they tugged each other’s hip belts, making them tight to ease the strain on their shoulders.
Beck looked spry, a bounce in her step, as she started down the trail. Tilda’s stride and footing were growing more confident, and she was handling her walking stick better too, letting it assist her balance and support her when needed. Imogen’s own legs were feeling a bit jiggly after their rest, but her muscles soon warmed up and she felt strong enough, at least for now, to make it to Hermit Camp without slowing them down.
The air around them smelled clean and undisturbed. Tilda’s hair, bundled on her head, bobbed as she walked. Imogen’s pack made a rhythmic squeaking noise as it swayed with her stride. At the lead, Beck marched on with a sanguine ease and Imogen suspected she was lost in her thoughts. A distance grew between Beck and Tilda, but Imogen wasn’t concerned. Tilda paused at another rocky step-down and, unable to look back over her pack, swiveled her whole body toward Imogen.
“I prolly shouldn’t start asking every fifteen minutes if we’re almost there.”
“Prolly not.” They shared a grin. And held each other’s gaze for a moment longer than they had in…forever.
It had only been a couple of hours, but Imogen already felt different. In the city, in her apartment, her blood was diluted the weak red of being half alive, half out of it. She was always aware of the slowness of her life’s journey—how she generally just needed more time than everyone else to figure things out.
Years ago Beck and Tilda had surged ahead and forged busy, enterprising lives full of new people and new experiences. Imogen had watched from afar, watched as seeds germinated and started to grow like a barrier between them. They’d kept growing, tall and thick, sprouting thorns on their entwining arms. If Imogen couldn’t finally put a stop to it, the plants would become a hedgerow, as solid as a wall, and she wouldn’t be able to fit even her hand through to find anyone.
This is going to work. She wasn’t even sure what the thought meant, what it included, but it felt right. Maybe it wasn’t too late to catch up. As if to compel her to move everything along a bit faster, find a way through the gap, her sister disappeared on the trail ahead.
6
The feeling of settling in at camp after an interminable day of hiking was like finally finding the home you’d always wanted. The home, devoid of luxuries, that you’d always needed. Watching as Tilda lay sprawled on her one-inch-thick inflatable mattress pad, Imogen knew exactly what she was experiencing: the greatest comfort of her life. No sofa after a difficult but ordinary day could compare. Nor could a prosaic view of four walls or the best in streaming television.
The feelings came back so effortlessly, as if this real world, this better world, had been waiting for her. And it would have waited forever, and welcomed her regardless, but she was glad, so glad, Beck hadn’t let her say no to this trip. They’d gone car camping a few times while Beck was in medical school, and when she first moved to Arizona they made one Canyon trip together. But in the intervening decade Imogen had become too intimidated—too poor, too indulgent-of-her-ways—to make adventurous trips. And in the last year she’d even forgone trying to visit her sister and Afiya.
Now, fully immersed in being outdoors—truly outdoors, with no easy way to go back indoors—it was easier to see the meaninglessness of her everyday life. With its to-do lists and routines, its material distractions and petty worries. At home, she was broken and useless; in the Canyon she had the same potential as the raven that flew circles above her head.
While Beck unpacked the things they’d need to make supper, Imogen did a bit of housekeeping. She secured their plastic drop cloth with rocks around its edges, as sometimes gusts blew hard through the inner canyons. They never used a tent in the Canyon, and Imogen had never experienced rain here, though they carried extra tarps for that contingency. In theory, the scorpions came out at night, but they’d never seen one; as a precaution, they always shook out their boots in the morning. But a tent would ruin everything.
It was something of a contradiction that in the city she preferred the familiar and solitary comfort of small rooms, yet sleeping outside had always ranked near the top of her Favorite Things. There was nothing like being snug in a sleeping bag and awakening in a morning fog that made her feel like she was in a cloud. And while she was never fully at ease in the dark, here—with a sky unmarred by the disease of light pollution—the celestial canopy promised wonders of its own. She was hopeful it would feel just as good as she remembered, and in a state of physical exhaustion, she might not even need her tincture to help her sleep.
As Imogen tidied up their mattress pads and sleeping bags, making neat parallel beds, she grinned with the anticipation of the nightly star show. Both she and Tilda had invested in heavier but more comfortable Therm-a-Rest inflatable pads, but Beck still liked her eggshell pad, which accordioned into a featherweight rectangular prism. Imogen made each of them a preliminary pillow using the stuff sacks from their sleeping bags, which she filled with whatever they weren’t currently wearing. It would drop into the forties overnight, but the sleeping bags wo
uld keep them warm. Until then, they’d wear their sweatshirts and fleeces as the temperature started to fall.
Tilda strolled back from the pit toilets, which they’d passed on their way into camp, the toilet paper in one hand, her camera in the other.
“Gotta enjoy the facilities while I can, right?” Once they departed for Boucher canyon in the morning, they wouldn’t have even a pit toilet again until they came back to Hermit for the last night of their trip.
“Squatting isn’t so bad,” said Beck.
“The lack of plumbing isn’t so bad,” Imogen corrected, “but my thigh muscles aren’t good at squatting.”
“You’ve got it so backwards,” said Tilda, sitting crisscross applesauce on her makeshift bed. She sniffed her underarms. “I’m still a little unsure of this whole no showering thing.”
“No one ever died from being a little smelly.” And Imogen should know: with fewer reasons to leave her apartment came less motivation for daily hygiene.
Tilda snapped a few pictures of their camp, then took a second to survey the campsite about two hundred feet beyond theirs, where a small blue tent was set up. “So some people use tents?” she said.
“Silly people.” Beck lifted her compact Swedish stove out of the saucepan it traveled in.
“Do you ever, like, go and introduce yourselves and hang out?”
“If you pass someone on the trail you say hello, maybe swap stories,” said Imogen, aware that avoiding people was probably a new concept for someone who spent most of her life trying to expand an ever-widening circle of followers.
“But at camp, people pretty much like to do their own thing.” Another reason Beck surely liked the wilderness, with its little demand for small talk.
“Don’t you ever…worry? About who’s around?” Tilda asked.
Imogen eyed the distant tent. She was tempted to say yes, but didn’t: at best Beck wouldn’t understand why she shared this concern; at worst she might kill Imogen for scaring Tilda. At home, she’d added a second lock to her door, even though it was against the rules of her lease, and couldn’t sleep with the windows open. She listened now, trying to pick up voices. If she heard women among the neighboring party it would diffuse much of her apprehension. But she didn’t hear any voices at all.