Becoming Odyssa

by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  I stayed with Chilly and Kid until mid-afternoon, when they decided to stop for a break. I didn’t want to stop. It was 4:00 PM, and Moot was nowhere in sight. This was it. I was free! All I had to do was hike hard until sunset and I would once again be on my own.

  I lowered my head and began to stride down the trail like an Olympic speed-walker. With great enthusiasm, I hiked up a mountain, past a shelter, up another mountain, over a bridge, and into the woods, until the sun finally disappeared. It grew darker and darker and darker, and when I could no longer make out the trail, I took out my flashlight, traveled twenty yards into the woods, and set up my tent.

  Inside the tent, I changed clothes, and wrote in my journal about how glad I was to no longer be with Moot. And finally, I turned off my headlamp and laid down to sleep. Then I heard a noise…

  At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I opened my eyes and discovered I could still hear it—a melodic whistle traveling down the trail. The tune was accompanied by footsteps, and then, peeking under my tent cover, I saw a light beam through the trees. I lay motionless, like an escaped convict trying not to be recaptured.

  The footsteps and whistling grew louder until they were right near my tent. I hoped that in a few seconds I would hear them fading away as they continued up the trail, but suddenly the sound stopped, and all I heard were crickets. When my tent walls lit up, I knew I had been caught.

  “Odyssa, are you awake?”

  “Hi, Moot.”

  “I’m beginning to get the feeling that you’re trying to lose me.”

  Really? Because I’m beginning to get the feeling that you’re trying to stalk me! Mumbling obscenities under my breath, I listened to Moot’s ramblings as he set up his tent next to mine and prepared his dinner.

  I stayed relatively quiet inside my tent, but Moot talked throughout his dinner and hardly seemed to notice my lack of response. At one point during his monologue, Moot suggested, “You know, Odyssa, since you haven’t had sex, if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask me, because I would be happy to answer them. I’m really open, and I think you might find the information helpful down the road.”

  I still didn’t respond, but I was quite certain I knew more about the subject than he thought I did, and furthermore, the last person I would ever want to consult on the issue was Moot.

  Despite my silent treatment, after he finished dinner, Moot had the gall to conclude his monologue with, “So, do you think that hiking partners can be cuddle buddies too?”

  What!? I don’t know what bothered me more: the phrase “hiking partners” or the term “cuddle buddies.” I knew that I didn’t want to hike with Moot, and the concept of spooning with him made me cringe. Even if it was ten degrees outside and I didn’t have a sleeping bag, even if my only chance of making it through the night was to rely on Moot’s body heat, I still wouldn’t have cuddled with him. A shudder traveled down my spine, and instead of responding to him, I pretended to be asleep.

  The next morning, I didn’t even try to be quiet and sneak away. I knew I was trapped.

  I angrily packed up my belongings and thrashed through the brush back to the trail. I had progressed from resistence to resignation, and I spent all morning trying to come up with coping mechanisms.

  At first I tried to rationalize my fate. I mean, was Moot really that bad? After all, he had been relatively interesting for the first twenty-four hours that I’d known him. He was outgoing, he was a strong hiker, and most importantly, he said he had a girlfriend, so there could be no way he was looking for more than friendship. But then why would he ask if we could be cuddle buddies?

  When Moot caught up to me a few hours later, I laid down the final card in my hand, hoping that it would be enough to win some solitude.

  “Moot,” I said. “I’m having girl problems this morning, and it’s best if you just go ahead.”

  I wasn’t really, but typically the topic was guaranteed to cause men to distance themselves. Not Moot.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I have a sister, so I understand. I don’t mind hiking slowly and waiting for you.”

  “No, really,” I replied. “I’ll probably have to stop and do some maintenance, and you don’t want to hang around for that.”

  “Don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me. It’s natural.”

  “Well, I’d really just prefer to be by myself right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll just hike a little bit in front, in case you need me.”

  Need him? I didn’t need him. What I desperately needed was to get rid of him! I had tried everything I could think of to free myself of Moot, except being brutally honest—which probably would have worked, but it wasn’t in my repertoire. I had tried to hike fast, but Moot was faster. I had tried to hike really far, but Moot kept up. I had tried to hike painstakingly slowly, but Moot decelerated. And when I told him I really liked hiking solo and could not imagine having a hiking partner, he agreed!

  The small gap between us that morning served as a temporary respite, but soon Moot was waiting for me every few minutes to make sure I felt okay. He also decided to alternate hiking just a little ahead of me and a little bit behind me so he didn’t create a large gap.

  Once, when he was hiking behind me, I had the idea to hide in the woods and force him to pass me unknowingly.

  I began to speed up. I needed to gain some distance if I was going to be able to dash off the trail unnoticed. After a quick burst of speed, I noticed a well-covered grove a few dozen yards off the trail. This was my chance!

  I shimmied up underneath the branches of a broad rhododendron. There, covered with leaves, with my chest against the ground, I waited.

  I peered up with anticipation, knowing that Moot would soon be passing just a few hundred feet away and hoping he wouldn’t see me. But what if he did? What would I say? I cowered even farther beneath the cover of the rhododendron, then stilled everything but my heavy breathing and my anxious heart.

  As the seconds slowly passed, I began to wonder how a reasonable twenty-one-year-old girl could find herself hiding under a rhododendron tree to escape the only human companionship for miles around. Lying there with my nose pressed close to the organic smell of the earth, I didn’t feel clever or elusive, I just felt pathetic. I didn’t know which was worse, not being able to honestly tell Moot that I didn’t want to hike with him, or trying to hide from him under a bush. My body felt warm with nerves and shame. I wanted to get rid of Moot, but this didn’t feel right. I hadn’t come out here to hide from my problems, but to face them.

  I decided that instead of playing the victim, I was going to stand up, walk back to the trail, and when Moot arrived, I would tell him that I no longer wanted to hike or camp with him.

  Ten seconds after I returned to the trail, Moot rounded the corner behind me.

  I tried. I really did. I even got out most of the words. “Moot, I don’t want to hike with you anymore . . .”

  But then I paused. The look on his face suggested that I had just run him through with my hiking stick. I couldn’t handle the guilt or his pathetic attempts at sputtering out a response. So I interrupted.

  “Moot, I don’t want to hike with you anymore . . . today.”

  When he heard the word “today,” the gleam reappeared in his eyes.

  “That’s okay,” he said, ready to compromise. “I know you’re having a hard day so I’ll hike ahead and hitch into Pearisburg to find the hostel. I’ll save you a bunk and see you when you get to town.”

  Staring at the ground, because I couldn’t look Moot in the eyes, I replied, “Okay, I’ll see you in town.”

  I knew I would have to go into town that evening to resupply, but I was determined to make it back to the trail before nightfall and elude Moot. There was no way I was stepping foot inside the hostel!

  So now I was lying. Why was it so hard for me to be honest? I should have just stayed underneath the rhododendron—I’d rather be a coward than a liar.

  As I hiked slowly towa
rd the road, I came across Chilly, who had passed us both that morning. He said Moot had leap-frogged him an hour ago and was more than likely already in town at the hostel.

  When we arrived at the road, Chilly stood a bit behind me, and I stuck out my thumb for a hitch. Guys always love hitching with girls, because it considerably increases their odds of getting a ride.

  We climbed into the first truck that passed us and dismounted five minutes later on the outskirts of Pearisburg. I quickly thanked our driver, then raced across the street to the Dairy Queen that had caught my eye.

  Pearisburg was a big town, at least compared to Hot Springs and Damascus. Then again, if a town had a fast-food restaurant or a supermarket other than Dollar General, I now thought of it as a big town. Even if Pearisburg did look a little rundown, it still felt great to be in a big town, especially one with a Dairy Queen.

  I dropped my pack at the door and ran to the counter, where I ordered the most decadent Blizzard on the menu. As I walked back to my pack to fetch my wallet, I felt a strange uneasiness, as if something were missing. Looking down at my belongings, I realized I had forgotten my hiking stick in the back of the pickup truck.

  I ran out of the Dairy Queen and sprinted toward the gas station where Chilly and I had been dropped off. I looked at the pumps, in the parking spots, and behind the building, but the truck was gone, and so was my stick.

  I couldn’t go back to the trail without my stick! The constant ups and downs with thirty pounds on my back were very hard on my knees, and without a stick they would be unbearable. My hiking stick had become an extension of my hand—I was lost without it.

  I started to tear up at my loss, not so much over the stick itself, because unlike most hikers, I hadn’t spent $100 on hiking poles; instead, I used an old ski pole that Warren Doyle had given me at his Appalachian Trail Institute. He bought single ski poles at thrift stores, typically for about a buck, and handed them out as mementoes at his workshop. It was more the situation that upset me than the loss of the stick. If I couldn’t find a replacement stick tonight, I would have to stay at the hostel—with Moot—and try to find an outfitter and a new hiking pole the next morning.

  Chilly reappeared from inside the gas station and came over to check on me. He walked me back over to the Dairy Queen, helped me collect my pack and my ice cream, and reminded me that if there was anything that would make the situation better, it was an Oreo, brownie, and chocolate chip Blizzard. I nodded in agreement and, ice cream in hand, we walked together to the nearby grocery store to buy rations for the next few days of hiking.

  The two of us bought provisions for supper as well. We were enjoying an evening picnic outside the rundown shopping center when I noticed a Magic Mart at the end of the strip mall. I had never heard of a Magic Mart before, but I asked Chilly to watch my belongings while I went to see if they had a sporting goods section.

  The Magic Mart looked like a small, dilapidated Kmart. I was disheartened to discover that they did not have a sporting goods section, but on my way out the door, the store earned its name when something magic caught my eye. To my right, I noticed a broom—which, minus the bristles, resembled a sturdy, albeit heavy, walking stick. Then I spotted a more viable lightweight alternative.

  Three dollars and one bright yellow mop stick later, I had my new hiking pole.

  I walked out of the store, unscrewed the gathered rope on top of the shaft, threw it away, and walked back toward Chilly. As I approached, he clapped his hands and laughed approvingly. With my problem solved, I threw my pack on my shoulders, said good-bye, and headed off into the setting sun.

  Instead of hitching, I walked the mile and a half back to the trail on the shoulder of the highway, holding my bright yellow mop stick in one hand and my recharged cell phone in the other. I was such a spectacle that I actually caused rubbernecking on the highway. But I didn’t care how absurd I looked, because I was on my own once again.

  I enjoyed a new sense of liberation and continued on in the dark. I hiked several miles until I found a level camping spot underneath a brilliantly lit sky. It was the first night on the trail that I was able to fall asleep without wearing my winter hat and gloves, and it was the first night in almost a week without Moot camping nearby. My escape was hardly honorable; I regretted not being able to be up-front with Moot, and vowed that in the future I would be clear with potential stalkers from the start. But at last I was free!

  10

  DISCOMFORT

  OUTSIDE PEARISBURG, VA, TO

  TROUTVILLE, VA—92 MILES

  The stretch between Pearisburg and Roanoke is surprisingly rocky. It’s like a small sampling of Pennsylvania stuck in Virginia. The first mountains outside Pearisburg greet you with extended rock fields, and the rocky spine of the Dragon’s Tooth requires some novice bouldering moves. The finale of the section includes scenic McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs, which both feature rocky ledges, rocky views, and rocky footing.

  After being smothered by Moot for six days, I went the next thirty-six hours without seeing anybody. I saw more than fifty deer, but not a single, solitary person.

  I think very few people have a day in their life when they don’t see or interact with anyone else. It’s kind of weird and disorienting not to see anyone for that long. I did a lot of singing, I talked to God for company, and I wondered if there had been some catastrophe that had caused everyone to go into hiding.

  Because of the not-too-distant memory of 9/11, there had been several times on the trail when I had wondered what would happen if the country suddenly went to war, or an epidemic started, or the stock market crashed. How would I find out? What would it mean for my hike . . . for me?

  As for everyday news, I didn’t miss it at all. Politicians running smear campaigns, erratic Wall Street trends, the demigods of professional sports, celebrity gossip—even though I hadn’t paid much attention to mainstream media when I was still at home, I began to realize how much it had pervaded my life.

  I started to realize how what was important in my life had changed. Out here I wasn’t worried about the government or the economy, fashion or pop culture. Instead I was concerned about whether or not I had enough food to make it to the next resupply point, where my next water source would be, and whether my clothes would keep me warm and dry.

  For the first time in my life, I was experiencing real hunger and thirst, freezing nights, and prolonged physical weakness. For the first time in my life, I was experiencing real pain. And even though it hurt, it made me feel more alive than I did in the controlled comfort of society.

  That afternoon, I felt painfully alive with every step.

  After traveling on dirt trails through the woods and across the trodden grass of vast meadows, I arrived at my first rock field. I had heard about rock fields, but I didn’t really know what they were, or what to expect.

  It turns out that a rock field is a section of earth completely covered with big, jagged stones, with no soil to walk on. It is a minefield of potential injury. Each step could lead to a fall or a sprained ankle. And if your feet don’t start to hurt from the sharp, pointed topography, your neck will ache from constantly looking down.

  That afternoon, both my feet and my neck hurt, but especially my feet.

  While I was conscientiously focusing on foot placement, I noticed a burning irritation on the bottom of my feet. My soles felt hot and sore from stepping on the uneven rocks, and while it was annoying at first, the pain soon escalated to an unbearable stinging sensation. With each step it felt as if the skin on the bottom of my feet was ripping apart.

  If I could have stopped and set up camp in the rocks, I would have. The ache was so overwhelming that it caused me to tear up, which made it even harder to focus on the uneven tread. Although the rocky obstacle course was only two miles long, it took me nearly two hours to make it through.

  I have never been so happy to see dirt. When the rock field ended and I could place my feet on soft earth, I stopped to set up camp. There were st
ill several hours of daylight left, and I was four miles from the shelter where I had planned to spend the night, but I couldn’t travel any farther on my battered feet.

  After setting up my tent, I took off my shoes and socks to inspect my feet. As soon as I slid my wet, mud-stained socks off, I was assaulted by an overwhelming smell of mold coming from my feet. I admit that I had experienced foot odor on the trail before, but now the stench suggested that my feet were rotting off. It was one of the worst things I had ever smelled, much worse than the diapers I’d changed as a babysitter, and on about the same level as the hog farm and sewage-treatment plant that I had visited on school field trips.

  Examining my feet was only slightly more tolerable than smelling them. The flesh was wrinkly and white, the top layer flaked off when I touched it, and the skin between my toes was cracked and bleeding. Worst of all, the soles of my feet were covered with strange Dippin’ Dot–sized indentions.

  I knew that some of the pain was from the rock field, but I also determined that the damp, putrid socks I had been wearing since Damascus were part of the problem.

  With so much time on my hands before sunset, I built a small fire and burned my socks. I had a clean pair in my pack, so I offered the non-wicking, sadistic foot coverings up as a sacrifice. I thought that perhaps if I burned my socks, I would also burn away the pain that afflicted me. And while I wasn’t physically healed, it was emotionally gratifying to watch the synthetic threads melt into the hot embers.

  The sacrifice worked. The next morning my feet felt better, and thankfully, instead of traversing another daunting rock field, the trail spent much of the morning hugging farmland, wandering through hay fields, and traveling through paddocks.

  There are places in southwest Virginia where the trail travels across private farmland. The landowners are very generous to allow hikers on their property, and there are signs posted regularly that make it clear that hikers are at no point supposed to wander off the trail.