Accidentally His

by Brooks, Sarah J.

  “Sure, you have that GPS thing, right?”

  Emma was talking about the locator device I bought online and brought in to show her the previous week. It was listed as one of the essential items for hikers. I’d actually ordered it before I knew I’d have to go on the hike alone, but I did feel better about the idea of going hiking by myself if I had this device with me.

  “Yep, I have it.”

  “What else could we do to make sure you are safe?” Emma asked as she pulled out her phone and did a little research.

  “I’ll give you the location of my hike and my estimation of where I’ll be going. I probably won’t even make it the week and I’ll end up turning around after the first night. But we can make a plan for the possibility of me finishing the whole week. I’ll need you to pick me up since I have to leave my car at my house.”

  “How are you getting to the trail then?”

  “Uber,” I said with a shrug of the shoulders. “Unless you want to drop me off.”

  “I can drop you off before I leave for the retreat. It will have to be really early on Saturday morning, though. Like five o’clock.”

  “Perfect. A good hiker should get started early in the morning.”

  “So you’re really going to do this, Jordan? Alone? Wow, I’m impressed. You are a brave person.”

  “Thanks,” I said without feeling I was brave at all.

  I was terrified of going hiking alone. I definitely needed to do some research and prepare a little more for this trip. But if I actually went hiking for a week alone and finished the whole thing, I knew I’d feel different about myself. I’d have confidence in myself again and my ability to take on this world without fear. It was an awesome prospect and excited me enough to motivate me to work through my fears.

  “I’ll come over after work, and we can go down to the park so you can practice setting up your tent and stuff. Will that help?” Emma asked.

  “Yes, that would be amazing. I’m most worried about the portable stove. It’s really tiny, and I’m not sure how to work it at all.”

  “Then we will make some dinner while we are out there. I’m down to eat a little beans and slop for a friend.”

  “Thanks, Emma. I can’t believe I’m going to do this.”

  “Me either.” She laughed.

  Chapter 4

  Caleb

  I didn’t even have to start a fire in the mornings the last few days. It was still unseasonably warm, and that made it so much easier for me to work on my shed. I was nearly done with the exterior and just had to finish the roof with solar tiles before moving into the interior.

  The solar tiles were an essential part of the project because they would be powering some electronic projects I planned to work on in the shed. Although I’d told my brother I was perfectly content up at my cabin, I was growing bored with the mundane building projects and decided to start the infrastructure to work on more technically advanced ideas I’d been thinking about. Sustainability in the new millennium was about more than just providing enough power and water to live off; people wanted to stay connected to the outside world, so that was the goal of my new projects.

  “Excuse me,” I heard a man yell from a hill nearby. “Can you tell me where the PCT is?”

  I rolled my eyes in annoyance. How hard was it to stay on that damn trail? Over the last few weeks, I’d had dozens of hikers wandering in my direction without any clue that they were so far off the trail. I could only imagine how many hikers ended up dying while trying to take on that massive trail. But I took a deep breath and tried not to be an asshole.

  “It’s down that way.” I pointed to the road. “About a mile if you stick to the dirt road.”

  “Thanks,” the guy said without arguing with me.

  “No problem.”

  It was refreshing to have someone actually believe me the first time I told them where to go and not continue to question me. So many people questioned that I knew what I was talking about. How did they think I survived up in the woods if I didn’t know my way around? It was rather amusing, and annoying, how hikers always questioned me when I told them where they needed to go. They would say, “Really? I thought it was over here,” like I was just making it all up.

  “Hey man, do you happen to have any fresh water? I’ve been lost for a bit, and I think I’m going to run low before the next fill up,” the hiker said as he turned back toward me.

  “Sure, come on down. I’ve got all you can carry.”

  “I’m very grateful,” the man said as he held his hand out to me when he got close enough to shake. “I’m trying to get down to the other side before the snow hits. Have you heard when the storm is coming?”

  “Nope,” I said without elaborating.

  I opened my rain barrel so he could fill his water bottles. Talking to a complete stranger wasn’t exactly on my list of things that I liked doing, but if he needed water, I wasn’t going to turn the guy down.

  “I heard it was coming next week, but a few guys that passed me early this morning said it was coming tomorrow. So I want to keep moving, you know,” he said looking at me for some sort of response.

  He was a clean-cut guy wearing a sweatshirt and hiking pants. He didn’t look as dirty and gaunt as many of the hikers I’d seen. Sometimes hikers took a few days off in town and got a hotel and rested up for their next leg of the journey. I just assumed he had done something similar and was now back on the trail trying to finish the hike of his lifetime.

  “Yeah, best keep moving. It’s at least a day of hiking before you get down the other side of this mountain. Assuming the weather doesn’t hit you first,” I said in a matter of fact tone. “If you’re going all the way to The Bridge of Gods, it’s at least a week through the mountains. You definitely will need to hunker down when the snow comes. The trail is impassible with just one foot of snow.”

  “Okay, thanks for the water and the advice. I’m planning to stop at that small town on the other side of the mountain to wait out the weather before continuing. I heard there’s another couple of weeks of warmth coming after this storm,” he said again shaking my hand. “Take care of yourself in this weather. Thanks again.”

  “Thanks. I will. Good luck,” I said trying to be friendly.

  It was exhausting to be that nice to people. I really didn’t know how people did it all the time. I was a little concerned about the weather coming in before I could get the tiles on my shed, though, so I grabbed my weather radio and brought it out with me while I finished up the roof.

  Most of the reports were calling for a light flurry in the mountains later in the week. Nothing too outrageous and pretty much on par with the warm weather we were having. It was impossible to get a good forecast for where I was because most people just wanted to hear what the weather was going to do to the city; they didn’t care so much about what happened in the mountains.

  By noon I had my shed roof complete and was sitting on my porch wearing a T-shirt, eating a sandwich, and enjoying the fifty-degree afternoon. I still had some things on my porch that I needed to put away from my trip into town and was going to do that after lunch. Then I had big plans to do nothing the rest of the afternoon. My days usually were busy until the sun went down, but my shoulders were killing me from working on the shed and giving my muscles a break seemed like the right thing to do.

  As I started putting my items away, I came across the camping stove I’d bought in town. It was a simple mini wood stove that supposedly gave off enough heat to cook food. It was the smallest one I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t help buying it to add to my emergency supplies. In fact, I was considering going out to the trail and hiking overnight just to test everything out before packing it up to prepare for the snow.

  After an hour of messing around with the stove and confirming I knew how to operate it, I grabbed the rest of my emergency supplies and loaded up a backpack. Resting was never my thing, and before I knew it, I was off hiking toward the Pacific Crest Trail ready to do a live tes
t of all my camping supplies. I went out a few times last fall but hadn’t tested everything in a while, and this was the first time I had the new lightweight tent and stove.

  I’m not sure what I expected to find when I got to the trail, but when I saw a group of young men hiking up beside me, it caught me off guard. It was February and they were out hiking too. This was getting really ridiculous; didn’t any of these people realize that even if they made it through my mountain, there were dozens more before they got to Canada?

  “Good afternoon,” one of the young men said cheerfully. “Haven’t seen you on the trail before, we are The Trio.”

  “The Trio of what?” I snorted back at him.

  He laughed like I had made a joke and wasn’t mocking him for his little team name. They looked more like frat boys than serious hikers, but they were gaunt and dirty like the dozens of hikers I’d seen before. “Just the Trio. We’ve been hiking since April. They should probably call us the Old Man Trio.” He laughed. “It’s taking us much longer than we originally planned.”

  They definitely weren’t old men. Instead, the group of guys looked like they were barely old enough to have a beer. It was surprising they were taking so long to finish the trail. From what I’d heard, most hikers could finish the PCT in five to six months, and these guys had been hiking for ten and a half months.

  I just nodded my head and stood to the side so they could hike past me. There was no way I wanted to get stuck hiking with this group of hyper twenty-somethings. The whole idea of coming out for a hike was so I could test out my gear, not listen to some frat boys talk about their adventure.

  “You can hike with us if you want,” one of the other boys offered.

  “No thanks.”

  “Come on. We won’t bite,” the first guy joked.

  “I do bite,” I said with a stern stare so they would leave me alone.

  “Okay then, have a good hike.”

  They took the hint and continued up the trail without stopping or looking back at me again. It was probably better that I didn’t hike with anyone else. People really just annoyed me. The longer I stayed up on the mountain, the less patience I had for stupid people. Maybe Jeff was right; maybe I’d never want to come back to the real world.

  My plan was to make it to the summit and camp up there. The view of Mt. Hood was amazing, and I had a spot I called mine up there. It took me less than three hours to get to the top of my mountain, and the sun was just about to set. I couldn’t wait to get my tent up and sit back and enjoy the view.

  As I turned a corner and neared my favorite camping spot, I saw a tent already set up in it. It was a larger than usual tent for out on the trail, and there were a plethora of camping supplies all around it. I could tell by the quality of items that whoever was in that tent didn’t have backpacking experience. The tent was a popular brand name but not meant for cold winter nights, and the sleeping bag still in its store-bought bag wasn’t rated for below freezing weather.

  I was annoyed that my spot had been taken, and I wasn’t about to camp next to someone else. There was another good spot about a mile down the trail, and I’d just continue to that spot.

  “Hello,” I heard a young woman’s voice say. “Hi, I’m Jordan. You’re welcome to set up camp here with me if you’d like.”

  I turned to where the voice was coming from. At the edge of the tree line, there was a stunningly beautiful blonde-haired woman. She was a tiny thing, probably only about 5’4” and she couldn’t have weighed much more than 100 pounds. The sight of her standing in the midst of the wilderness caught me off guard. I’d seen some female hikers before, but none of them were as beautiful as this woman. There was no way she was out in the woods alone.

  “No thanks, I prefer to camp alone,” I said and waved at her as I continued walking.

  “Yeah, me too,” she huffed back at me.

  I couldn’t help snickering at her annoyance toward me and the fact that she was alone on the mountain. She was a brave girl to be out camping alone, or a stupid one; I wasn’t sure which.

  “Enjoy the sunset,” I said without looking back at her.

  “Wait, can you help me start a fire? I can’t get it going, and I need to cook some food,” she asked sheepishly.

  She was holding a pile of kindling wood in her hands and motioned to the makeshift fire pit area that she had made near her tent. There was also a cooking stove nearby, but I noticed right away that it had not been assembled properly.

  “Do you want to eat, or do you want a fire?” I asked.

  “Both would be nice.”

  “If you’re starting a fire, it’s going to be tough. All the wood is wet from the snow and melt off, but I can help you get that stove working so you can eat.”

  “Okay,” she replied eagerly. “I’m Jordan,” she said again and held one of her hands out.

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “What did you do to this thing?” I asked, looking at the stove. “Did you test it out before coming up here?”

  “Of course I tested it. But when I took it out of my bag it fell, and a piece fell off and now I can’t get it back together and working.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I concentrated on fixing her stove and getting it started so she could cook. From the looks of it, she could use all the food she could get. Plus, it was rapidly cooling off as the sun set, and I suspected her sleeping bag and tent weren’t going to keep her very warm overnight.

  Jordan stood close to me, and I could smell the delicious scent of her coconut lotion. She wasn’t one of those backpackers that was doing a long-distance hike. I pegged her as a city girl who was out for the weekend to pretend like she was a hiker, instead of an actual serious hiker.

  “There you go,” I said as the flame started and I set her small pot on top of the stove. “Enjoy your dinner.”

  “Do you think I can make it to the Bridge of Gods in five days?” Jordan asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not? Because I’m a girl? You know, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I can’t hike. I appreciate you helping me with the stove, but it doesn’t mean I’m incapable.”

  “For your information, it’s going to snow this week, and I said no because there’s no way you can get all the way up there before the snow comes.”

  “Oh,” she said and looked down at the ground.

  “I’m going to go get myself situated for the night.”

  “You don’t want to camp here?” Jordan asked again pointing to the wide-open area around her.

  “No.”

  I grabbed my bag and headed back to the trail. I was nearly out of earshot of her when I heard the patter of her feet behind me.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Cal,” I said without turning around.

  “Is it short for something? That’s kind of an old man name, and you’re not an old man,” she babbled behind me.

  “Caleb, but I go by Cal. Goodnight. Watch out for the coyotes,” I said with a grin.

  “Yeah, I will. It was nice meeting you, Cal. Thanks for the help.”

  “Yep.”

  I continued walking and didn’t turn back to look at her. By the time I got to the next campsite, the temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees and a light flurry of snow had started. It didn’t worry me much, though. I intended to test my new gear, and this was the perfect opportunity.

  Within minutes, I had my tent up and was zipped up inside of it. The sun had set, and the darkness of the night was offset by the light flurries of snow reflecting off the moonlight. I smiled at the thought of Jordan and her haughty independence. She was going to be really cold tonight. It was already around 32-degrees, and the temperature was going to plummet more as the evening wore on. She certainly wasn’t going to die, though; I didn’t suspect the weather would drop too much farther, maybe another ten degrees or so.

  I pulled out the self-help book I was currently reading. Befor
e coming to the woods, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken the time to read a book. Now I was reading at least one book a week. I’d plowed through a long list of books I’d wanted to read and was now just picking up random books while I was in town. I didn’t always read non-fiction; I’d found time to catch up on a variety of big-name novels as well as a few lesser-known books.

  This particular book was about finding the career that was best for you. It had questionnaires to assess your skills and a bunch of tests to see where your aptitude was. I grabbed it at the big box store on a whim, but it was more fascinating than I’d expected it to be.

  Under the warm light of my hanging lantern, I devoured four chapters before sliding into my sleeping bag and closing my eyes for the night. Even though I had a highly-rated sleeping bag, I was cold. A shiver rushed through me, and I couldn’t help thinking about Jordan and how freezing she must be. It was a good lesson for her to learn, though. Hiking in the mountains was dangerous and certainly not something a girl like her should be doing on a whim.

  It was a quiet night as I lay there with my eyes closed. I could see the snow piling up around the tent and estimated it was falling at about an inch per hour. I had a good six inches around my tent and could only imagine how difficult it was going to be to get back to my cabin in the morning.

  By midnight, I couldn’t sleep. It had to be near zero degrees out, and the snow was still falling. I’d never been considered a particularly caring guy since moving up to the mountains, but I couldn’t let Jordan freeze to death. She didn’t have the sort of gear for this temperature, and I had to go back up and check on her.

  Chapter 5

  Jordan

  Everything hurt. Even my pinky toe was aching from the ill-fitting shoes I had on. I was miserable, and all I could think about was hiking back down the mountain and getting back to my apartment.

  Up until the moment that Caleb walked up to my tent I was totally set on trying to make it back down the mountain. Unfortunately, I was so wishy-washy in my decision-making that I ended up staying at the campsite too long and had to tough it out for the night.