Reagan's Ashes

by Jim Heskett

  He frowned at the brace imprisoning his knee.

  “I understand,” she said. “You’re going to have to trust me that I’ll be okay.”

  He forced a smile, and she kissed his cheek. He didn’t seem to believe her, but that was okay. He was probably feeling impotent and overwhelmed. She could understand that.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, and walked downstairs and into the garage to search for boots. In a cardboard box marked “shoes,” she unearthed a pair of Merrell boots she hadn’t seen since high school. Beige and green, no tears in the fabric and laces that appeared to be sturdy. The problem was the tread on the bottom… nearly worn flat, which meant no grip on slippery surfaces. They would have to suffice. She couldn’t afford to stroll into REI and drop 150 bucks on new boots.

  Next, she went into the kitchen to hunt for a pocket knife. There wasn’t one in the garage gear collection, so she began rifling through the drawers in hope of finding something passable.

  Newly-widowed Anne faced away from her at the kitchen table, glass of wine and bottle in front of her. She didn’t bother to look at Reagan.

  In the back of the junk drawer, Reagan located a rusted Swiss army knife. Technically, it was hers, because Dad had given it to her when she was old enough to join him on camping trips. She must have left it here after their trip into Rocky Mountain National Park two years back. Too heavy for a backpacking knife, but so were Dad’s tent, backpack, and sleeping bag. She had lost all hope of traveling light on the trail, which meant sore knees and an aching back at the end of each day. She reminded herself to hunt around for a golf ball later, one she could rub against the bottom of her feet each night to prevent foot cramps.

  Sticking the knife in her pocket, she considered saying something to Anne, but all of the various comforting phrases she mulled over dried up and vanished on her lips. Anne would only snap at her, anyway. They were never more than passing acquaintances, tied together by a man who was no longer their glue. Would Anne stay? Would she go back and be with her own family? Part of Reagan wanted to ask, part of her thought Anne’s future was none of her business.

  On her way back up the stairs, Reagan decided that Spoon needed his own time to come to grips with the events of the last few days. She glanced at the door, which she’d once covered with posters of festivals she’d always wanted to attend but never did… Burning Man, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo. The same doorway she used to stagger through, exhausted after staying up late into the night talking with Dad on the couch in the living room. She would beg him to tell her stories about the girls he dated when he was young, before he met her mother. She would puzzle over each story, wondering what he saw in them or how those girls saw him. She could never do that again. Never again.

  She entered the room and Spoon flipped her a restrained smile, pointing at a picture of her cousin Dalton’s yearbook photo. “Is he in uni somewhere around Denver?”

  She shrugged. “His brother–my other cousin Charlie–goes to Regis. Dalton’s not the college type.”

  “What does he do for work?”

  “That’s a good question. He used to sell weed, but now that it’s legal here, I have no idea.”

  “I almost forgot to tell you,” he said, “I changed our flight. We’ll fly back to Austin on Saturday morning.”

  She sat next to him and put a hand on his chest. “You’re a good guy to look out for me.”

  “My mates keep telling me I’m punching above my weight with you. I’m the lucky one.”

  “I need to say goodbye to my dad. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “I appreciate that you’re concerned, but I need you to believe that I’ll be okay.”

  He ran a finger up and down her forearm, which sparked an outbreak of goosebumps along her exposed flesh. “I can try.”

  “I know you’re going to be stuck here without me for a few days, and I feel awful about that.”

  “No worries. I’ll find something to keep me occupied.”

  “Whatever happens,” she said, “there’s just one thing you have to keep in mind.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Don’t trust my stepmom.”

  Tuesday

  CHAPTER THREE

  6:00 am

  While the day before had been blue and hollow, today felt white and numb. She wondered when Dad had written that letter asking her to take the ashes… he must have intended for her to undertake that journey many years from now, so recreating their own trip would feel nostalgic. Now, only two years removed from dropping out of college and the chaos that followed, the task before her felt like a dreamy continuation of the same backpacking trip.

  But through her numbness, there was a certain amount of determination, because now she had a purpose. She would hike the thirty-mile Tonahutu loop around Flattop and onto Lake Nanita, spread his ashes and say goodbye to him in the way he would have wanted. This was better than dribbling tears onto an empty casket. This was tangible; an actual manifestation of grief instead of an intellectual exercise. Reagan understood this.

  The alarm on her phone roused her at an ungodly hour. Since she’d been waiting tables at various bars and restaurants around Austin, she usually took evening shifts, and waking before sunrise seemed like a cruel punishment. Even on their regular Saturday morning bike rides, Spoon let her sleep in until 8:30 or so.

  She rolled over and looked at him. He was on his back, mouth open, a tiny spot of drool shining on his lip. She brushed his hair back from his face and debated waking him.

  He stirred, batting his eyes. “Morning.”

  “I have to go in a minute. But I was wondering if you’d tell me the story of the crabs again first. You know… the beach ones who dig. Please?”

  “Of course.” He propped himself on his elbows and cleared his throat. “It’s the same story as last time. In Queensland, little crabs called soldier crabs–no bigger than a two-dollar piece–live buried in the sand most of the time, but when they get hungry, they emerge in these massive armies and scour the beach, eating sand. They pick out the food bits, and leave the sand in pea-sized balls everywhere. When you’re walking the beach, you can see thousands of tiny holes and balls of sand everywhere.”

  “Why do they ball up the sand?”

  “So they know what they’ve already looked through, I reckon. They’re pretty cluey for such little beasts.”

  She searched his eyes for a moment and hoped that when she would see him again on Friday that she’d have some perspective on the events of the last few days. What he was going through was hard too… being unable to come with her on this trip, sitting at Dad’s house, powerless and alone with her stepmom.

  “Take your shirt off,” she said.

  He grinned and cocked his head, but did it anyway. She folded the shirt and tucked it under her arm. “Taking this with me, if that’s okay.”

  “No worries.”

  She kissed his cheek and reveled in the scratchiness of his day-old facial hair. “I love you. Go back to sleep.”

  He nodded and closed his eyes.

  With a grunt, she got up, went to the bathroom, and splashed water on her face.

  She considered a shower, since she wouldn’t get the chance to have another for four days, but didn’t want to spend the time. No makeup, either, not that she would be much in the mood to apply any, even if she weren’t hiking today.

  She took her morning allotment of pills and sneaked the gear out of the bedroom, then packed all of it into Dad’s car. Anne had rolled her eyes when Reagan had asked to borrow it the day before, which Reagan took to mean as consent. Anne had her own car.

  Her destination was the North Inlet trailhead on the less-traveled west side of the park, most easily accessible from Denver via I-70. She navigated from her old neighborhood toward the highway. Across the street was the First Baptist church, where her mother had insisted they spend every Sunday morning until she moved out. Reagan’s mother also went to that church two even
ings a week, but would dodge questions about what she was doing there. A mystery Reagan never solved.

  First stop would be the Kawuneeche Visitor Center on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park to apply for a backcountry permit. Normally, to get a permit for a summertime backcountry site, she would have applied a month or two in advance, but no such luck this time. She had to hope that there would be spots available for three nights so she could hike up to granite falls then loop around to Lake Nanita and complete the circle back to the North Inlet.

  I-70 took her out of Denver and to the west toward the mountains. She drove through Golden, the first city on the edge of the Front Range mountains, and home of the Coors brewery. Unlike other Colorado towns, the hills and mountains around Golden were oddly treeless.

  Past Golden, the highway climbed hills and valleys. After spending several years in the flatlands of central Texas, each time she came home for a visit, she experienced at least one moment of pure awe. The polluting cars screaming along the roads stood in stark contrast to the wonder of the universe manifested in her home state. Tectonic plates colliding and thrusting upward to create these massive bumps along the surface of the earth… she could lose herself thinking about it.

  In Colorado, mountain towns snaked through the valleys, nestled in the cracks like tobacco sprinkled into paper. Usually only two or three streets wide but miles long. Reagan drove through Idaho Springs and then Downieville, then turned north. To get to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, the drive would take her past the southern edge of the park and then back around.

  She climbed the steep and curvy road toward Winterpark, slowing occasionally behind gaping tourists leaning out of their car windows to snap pictures of the massive peaks and occasional elk or big-horned sheep that dotted the landscape. Approaching the town, houses like specks of black and brown jutted up from the hillsides.

  As she rounded Lake Granby and approached the west entrance of the park, the trees grew taller and the air crisper. The altitude adjustment of changing from Austin’s sea level to a mile high in Denver recurred now that she was over eight thousand feet.

  She drove to the entrance booth, paid the fee, and pulled into the Kawuneeche parking lot at fifteen past eight. If she could get in and out of the backcountry office by nine, she could be on the trailhead by 9:30, then to the Tonahutu Meadows campsite by two, which would give her time to get the tent set up before the obligatory summer afternoon rainstorm assaulted the park.

  The backcountry office was a small stone and wooden building to the side of the main visitor center. She pulled the door and found it locked, so she rapped the side of her fist against it, first gently, then hard enough to make the door reverberate against the frame.

  A minute later, a portly man with thinning gray hair and round glasses came to the door. He was wearing the typical park ranger gray button-down shirt and green slacks, both prominently displaying the Rocky Mountain National Park arrowhead patch.

  “First customer. We’re not technically open yet, but you can come on inside,” he said, beaming and beckoning her with a wrinkled hand.

  Reagan entered the small office. On a dry-erase board hung on the wall:

  Protect our bears! Never leave items unattended.

  There is no such thing as bad weather - just wrong clothing choice.

  The ranger stood behind her, and she pointed to the North Inlet trailhead on the park map taped to the counter. “I need backcountry camping sites for three nights, starting here.”

  The ranger adjusted his glasses and peered over her shoulder. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got available.” He stepped around the counter and tapped on an ancient keyboard connected to a monitor that looked like something her grade school computer lab would have used.

  He spent a full minute clicking and peeking at the screen over the top of his glasses. “And where’s your destination?”

  The park designated specific areas sanctioned for backcountry camping, to minimize the impact on the land. Across the park, there were more than a hundred of these, and each was only big enough for a couple of tents. She’d looked up a map of the sites last night, to pick out the same ones she’d stayed at with Dad.

  “I’d like sites 90, 81, and 78. 90 tonight, 81 tomorrow, and 78 on Thursday night. I’m going to cross Flattop tomorrow, then past Nanita and Nokoni, then back to North Inlet by Friday afternoon.”

  “How many tents?”

  Empty casket.

  “Just me. I mean, just one.”

  “Okay,” he said. More clicking. “Well, I have good news and bad news.”

  Her heart sank and she gripped the edge of the counter.

  “78 is taken for Thursday, and site 90 is taken for tonight. 81 is free for tomorrow, so there’s the good news. Usually, we ask that backcountry sites are reserved in advance because we tend to fill up quickly in the summertime.”

  Obviously, she knew that, but family tragedy in the form of a heart attack hadn’t given her advance warning. She cleared her throat. “Are there nearby sites?”

  “There very well might be. Let me check.” The clicking continued, but this time he threw in some small talk to offset the awkwardness. “Home from college for the summer?”

  She shook her head. “Please, it’s important that I get these sites.”

  He frowned and threw sympathetic eyes at her. “Well, I can get you in at Granite Falls Camp tonight, and Porcupine Camp on Thursday. That’s 89 and 77. Pretty close, I’d say.”

  But Reagan and her dad hadn’t pitched their tent at Granite Falls and Porcupine. They’d stayed at the sites she’d requested.

  The ranger dipped his head, glancing at her over the top of his spectacles. “Would you like me to reserve these?”

  Not the same trip. This wasn’t right. Tears began to swell in the corners of her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “Okay,” she said in a meek voice, feeling already guilty for making compromises.

  The ranger typed out the itinerary while he slid a waiver form across the table for her to read. Standard warnings about setting up camp away from dying beetle-kill trees, the variable weather conditions, bears, moose, mountain lions. Reagan had read the information so many times, she could probably perform it as a one-act play.

  “You have a bear box?” the ranger said.

  Back in Austin, she had an ultralight clear polycarbonate bear-proof food canister. Dad’s bear box was heavy and undersized, so fitting four days’ worth of food inside had been a challenge. But necessary, since they’d banned tree-hanging food due to those pesky bears becoming wise to the scheme.

  “I do have one. Has there been much bear activity?”

  He tilted his head from side to side. “Not to speak of. Car or two been broken into, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve got all of your trash out before you go.” He repositioned his glasses and his eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “What you really have to be cautious about this time of year isn’t the bears, it’s the moose population. We had an injured hiker just last week because he found himself between a mama and her calf.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  She filled out the backcountry form, listing Spoon as her emergency contact, and wrote a check for the backcountry fee. She slid the check and the paper into a slot at the corner of the desk.

  The ranger gave her a piece of wire and a waterproof slip of paper with her trip itinerary, which she was to attach to her tent each night, in case rangers came and she wasn’t nearby. They dutifully regulated the camping system … no staying at non-site areas, and no camping at sites without a permit.

  “Still some snow in parts up there,” he said. “Pretty well-packed on the trail, but you’ll probably want snowshoes if you go off trail at all over ten thousand feet. And watch out crossing Flattop, you don’t want to get caught above treeline during the afternoon.”

  “Right. Got it.” Getting out of this office and out into the fresh air tugged at her. Not the trip she’d expected. The
more she considered that fact, the closer she came to crying, and she didn’t want to let loose in front of Ranger Spectacles.

  At least she would have four days to herself in the park, alone for the first time since the news about Dad.

  “Great time of year to get on out there. Have a good time,” the ranger said, then went back to clicking.

  ***

  9:15 am

  Outside, the scent of pine and dirt filled her nostrils and cleansed her palette. That was the last time she’d be indoors until Friday. While she didn’t relish the thought of oily hair and body odor bad enough to turn heads, there was something freeing about escaping civilization for a few days.

  A few more cars had joined her in the parking lot. From a car with Kansas plates emerged three kids and two butch women. All of them were in shorts, and they started shivering within seconds. Tourists always seemed to forget that summer mornings at eight thousand feet were quite chilly.

  Her phone showed one flickering bar of service, so she sent a text message to Spoon:

  About to enter no-service area. Going to turn phone off now. Love you, will see you on Friday.

  She drove back through the tiny town of Grand Lake, since the Tonahutu/North Inlet trail began at a dirt parking lot outside the park. Grand Lake was little more than a few bait shops and restaurants filled with backpackers ripe from days out on the trail, but dying for a non-freeze-dried meal. She surveyed the town, weighing her options for where she might eat on Friday after completing the trip. While not a usual red meat eater, a steak might be in order. Dad always loved a good rare steak.

  She turned onto a dirt road that would lead her to the trailhead, and the low-clearance Honda Accord bounced and rumbled across the bumpy terrain. Tires kicked up dust in clouds of brown, contrasting the massive green trees on either side of the one-lane road.