Reagan's Ashes

by Jim Heskett

  After a few twists and turns, she spied the parking lot, which was an open clearing littered with mud-caked Subarus and other four-wheel vehicles. A line of them sat next to the wooden fencing that enclosed the area.

  She eased into an open spot, the last one available. Lucky there was even one left, given how late in the morning she’d arrived. The lot butted up to a thicket of trees that served as an entrance gate to the park. Above the pointy treetops, the tips of nearby mountain peaks poked out like triangular hats.

  As she killed the engine, she put the park entrance receipt and parking lot permit on the dashboard, then searched the front seat of the car for stray bits of food or food packaging that might bring the woodland scavengers. Dad had always been relatively clean and organized, and she found nothing in his car that might get her into trouble.

  Checked her phone, no return text from Spoon. Probably still asleep. She held the power button on her phone until it turned off. No contact with the outside world until Friday.

  She kicked off her brown strappy sandals and slipped on her hiking boots, and they felt instantly familiar. Like Sunday afternoons hiking in Boulder with Dad. Eating ice cream afterward, both of them giggling while they tried to convince each other that the amount of calories in the ice cream was definitely nowhere close to the amount they’d burned on the trail.

  She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the car’s heater since she wouldn’t feel it again for days. Cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon. Despite ranging from eight thousand to twelve thousand feet, midday in Rocky Mountain National Park could reach into the eighties.

  She turned off the ignition and placed a foot on the ground, relishing the crunch of gravel under her boot. She opened the back seat and yanked the backpack free. To make room for four days of clothes and gear inside Dad’s pack, she’d had to strap her sleeping bag to the bottom, which made maneuvering the beast clunky and awkward.

  There was a rustling across the lot, which she ignored at first since there were other people around, stretching, applying sunblock, and locking up their vehicles for their own journeys up the Tonahutu trail.

  Then the sound of shoes on gravel came closer. “There she is,” said a familiar voice behind her, cutting through the quiet warble of chirping birds.

  Reagan whipped around and found herself standing only twenty feet away from her cousins Dalton and Charlie.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  7:10 am

  Liam Witherspoon—known only as “Spoon” to everyone except his parents and grandparents—woke in Reagan’s old bed to the muffled sounds of an argument.

  He’d been dreaming that he was with her in New Orleans, where they should have woken up this morning had it not been for the terrible news of her father’s death. She skipped along Bourbon Street toward a crowd gathered around a street musician, and Spoon followed. Her long hair flowed down her back, bouncing with each step like a bedsheet in a breeze. She was barely out of reach.

  He had a drink in his hand. In his dreams, he always had a drink in his hand.

  She turned to him, radiance in her eyes and a lopsided grin on her face exposing straight white teeth. She was glowing and happy. Happy as he’d never seen her.

  All around them, tourists drenched in beads drank from plastic cups, dancing and yelling and absorbing the decadence of Bourbon Street. But he hardly noticed any of them; he only saw Reagan, and she was always a little out of reach.

  At first, the muffled argument came into the dream disguised as the sounds of trumpet and trombone from the street musicians, then more distinctly as actual voices. Someone was arguing, but the voices appeared to come from the sky.

  He stirred in bed during the split second when the dream world and the real one collided. Then he knew he was in a strange house, in a strange bed, in Colorado, not in New Orleans or at home in Austin. The skin on his hands and face felt as dry as an old well.

  The muffled sounds were coming from downstairs, inside the house.

  He opened his eyes to unfamiliar walls, covered with posters and magazine clippings. In a few seconds, his eyes adjusted and he remembered where he was. Details about the dream came back, and he sighed a little bit in relief that there was no drink in his hand in the real world.

  “Damn it, Anne, I am not fucking around with you.”

  Each word came through clearly this time.

  Spoon swung his legs to the side of the bed and he planted his good leg on the floor so he could reach forward and grab his crutches. He leaned until he had placed one under his armpit and pushed his weight on it to stand. He retrieved the other crutch and looked down at himself. Because he’d slept in only his grundies, he threw on a shirt, then headed for the bedroom door.

  After opening the door, the conversation continued. A man and a woman were arguing, and the woman was Reagan’s stepmother.

  “I’m not sure what else I can tell you,” she said. Her voice was tentative.

  The stairs leading down into the living room were three meters to Spoon’s left. He slid along the path as quietly as possible, the rubber tips of his crutches sinking into the carpet. “Alright, Spoon,” he whispered. “Not a peep.”

  When he reached the edge of the stairs, he angled his bad leg straight, and used the crutches to lower himself to a sitting position at the top of the stairs. A partial wall running the length of the top five steps obscured his view into the living room.

  “You know something,” the man said. “Sounds like you don’t want to tell me. This better be the only time I have to come here and ask you about this.”

  Spoon leaned forward far enough to bring the arguers into view. Anne stood in front of the door, clutching a stack of papers in her hand. Across from her, in the doorway, was a large man in a bright-white wifebeater t-shirt and jeans. He was balding, with a goatee and a banana-shaped scar under one eye.

  “Tyson, I promise you,” she said, holding out the pages. “I’ve told you everything it says in the will. I don’t know what else you want from me.”

  Tyson brushed the papers aside, knocking them to the floor. “I don’t care what it says there. You and I both know that everything in there is horseshit. Don’t try to tell me you had no idea what he’d really been doing.”

  So Anne and this man Tyson were having some kind of disagreement about Reagan’s father’s will. That much was clear. But no clue as to who Tyson was and why he cared about it.

  “Do you think if I’d known what he was doing, I would have stayed all this time?” Anne said.

  “How the hell do I know why you stayed with him? That’s not my problem. I think this poor little widow routine is one big fat lie. You and him worked something out so you could keep for yourself what should be mine, and now you’re going to trot out the sad face to make me give up.”

  Spoon leaned a little toward the living room to hear better, then realized he was sitting too close to the edge of the stairs and was dangerously close to slipping. With the bad leg straight and draped over the staircase, he didn’t have any leverage to stop it. His bum eked over the edge. He tried to throw his hands toward the walls to stop his forward motion, but that only threw him off balance.

  He slid down four steps, in full view of Anne and Tyson. They both jerked their heads to look at him.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Tyson said.

  “That’s… that’s Reagan’s boyfriend. He’s staying with me for a few days.”

  Tyson took a step back and bared his teeth, which sent a shudder up Spoon’s spine.

  Tyson flashed his eyes at Anne. “Goddamn it Anne, I thought we were alone. You need to tell me these things. I’m done playing with you and doing this housecall shit. If you come to your senses, I’ll be at the store.”

  Store? What store was he talking about?

  Tyson grabbed the handle of the front door and slammed it behind him as he left.

  Anne put her hands on her hips and glared at Spoon. “How long have you been sitting there?”

  �
�Just a minute or two. I heard shouting.”

  “Whatever you heard, or whatever you believe you heard… it’s not what you think it is.”

  Spoon didn’t know what he thought it was. “I didn’t mean to trouble you or anything like that. It’s just… was that bloke bothering you?”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, and don’t need to know.” She waved a dismissive hand and tapped her foot against the floor. “Since you’re up, I made some eggs. I don’t have much of an appetite, so you’re welcome to them.”

  She walked out of view, and Spoon reached behind to grab his crutches. Whatever Anne was into, he was going to find out.

  ***

  9:35 am

  Reagan blinked a few times to make sure what she was seeing was the real thing. Her cousin Dalton stood next to his brother Charlie across the dirt and gravel parking lot. One thin, wiry, and two years younger, the other pot-bellied and four years younger. Dalton was tying his shoe, but Charlie was looking straight at her.

  He raised a hand and gave her a timid wave. As he did, Dalton took notice and straightened up.

  “Hey there, cuz,” Dalton said, yawning. “We were wondering when you were going to show up. Been here for hours.”

  She dropped her backpack, half in shock. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

  Charlie pointed at Dalton. “He told me about your trip and said it wasn’t right that you should go alone. So we packed up all our gear last night and headed out here early.”

  Reagan was still confused. “Packed up your gear? Why?”

  “We’re coming with you,” Dalton said. “We’re going to help you put Uncle Mitch’s ashes in lake… whatever you called it. Lake Nono or whatever.”

  “But…”

  Charlie swatted a mosquito against his neck. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone, you know… not after everything you’ve been through. We want to help.”

  A million questions ran through Reagan’s head, colliding and mixing. “But, do you guys even have all the right gear? Do you have sleeping bags, headlamps, your own tent, four days of food…”

  Dalton trotted to her and put his hands on her shoulders, massaging them with a little too much force. She peeked at his arms, now covered in tattoos down to his wrists. He’d added a few since the last time she’d seen him.

  “Hey, cuz, everything’s good. We got everything we need to slog in the woods for a few days, so don’t you worry about all that. We’re out here because we want to help. All you gotta do is lay out the plan, and we’re going to be with you, every step of the way.”

  A sudden change in the number of travelers on this trip from one to three jarred her. She looked at her prospective trailmates for the next four days. She’d never known Charlie to spend any time outdoors in his whole life, and Dalton had always been too stoned to participate in the family camping trips when they were teens.

  She’d gone from the silver lining that she’d be able to lay Dad’s ashes to rest by recreating their old trip, to having to make the trip with alternate campsites, to now not being able to make the trip alone.

  Was she supposed to tell them to get lost, after they’d driven two hours from Denver to get here? Part of her wanted to say no thank you. This was supposed to be her time alone.

  “I don’t know about this,” she said.

  “What’s not to know?” Dalton said. “Times like this, that’s when you need family the most.”

  She watched her cousins, quietly waiting for her to accept their offer.

  Maybe Dalton was right. Maybe the trip would be better if she had the support. She remembered what Spoon had said the night before, something about not always knowing what’s best for ourselves.

  Deep in Dalton’s eyes lurked pain. He had lost his uncle and wanted to help. She could understand that. Grief needs an outlet. If this was how he intended to cope, maybe she could change her plans and it would be good for everyone.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” she said.

  “Absolutely,” Dalton said, his face lighting up. “We’re here for you.”

  Family time would have to take priority over her previous plans. She sighed and took out the park map, then laid it on the trunk of Dad’s car. She waved for them to come closer, then took a pen from her pocket and pointed it in the bottom left quadrant of the map.

  “This is us, at the Tonahutu and North Inlet trailhead.” She drew a line up the map. “We’re going to hike up along the Tonahutu creek until we get to the Green Mountain trail, then we turn right, which is east. There we keep on the Tonahutu trail toward Granite Falls, and camp at the site there. It’s about eight miles today. Tomorrow, we hike along the trail, and we’ll take a detour to Haynach lake, then get up over Flattop Mountain and south back down to July camp at the base.” She curved the line of the pen to make the eastern section of the loop over Flattop mountain. “Then we turn back west to Nokoni and Nanita on day three. They’re both on the same side trail.”

  The pen had made three-quarters of a circle to indicate the first three days of the trip. Dalton pointed in the middle of it, then drew his finger from the top to the bottom points of the circle. “Couldn’t we save an assload of time if we skipped right across here before we get to Haynach? We can cut a whole day out if we go straight over this pass and right to Nanita.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t get it. Seems like going all the way to Flattop is out of the way.”

  Reagan took a deep breath, aware that things had changed, and reminded herself that she didn’t need to explain to them the importance of repeating the trail she and Dad had followed last time. “Because this is the trip we’re going to take.”

  Dalton raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, cuz, it’s totally cool if we do it your way. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  She realized the pen in her hand was about to snap in half from her grip. Forced herself to relax and focus on this new plan. “After Nanita, we hike back out to Porcupine camp. Thursday will be a short day, just to the lakes and back. Then on Friday, we hike back to here.” She moved the pen over the last leg, and the ink pattern on the map resembled a pork chop, with two jagged lines for the side trail excursions to Haynach on Wednesday, and Nokoni and Nanita on Thursday.

  The boys were both nodding their approval.

  “Tomorrow’s the hardest day,” she said. “Most of Flattop is above treeline, so we need to be up and over by afternoon. With no trees, there’s nowhere to hide. You don’t want to be the tallest thing on the mountain if there’s lightning.”

  Reagan frowned as Dalton lit a cigarette. “You’re going to pack out all your garbage, right? No cigarette butts on the trail.”

  He took her shoulders in his hands again, and this time, something about his grip made her uncomfortable. His fingertips sunk into her flesh.

  “Relax,” Dalton said, cigarette dangling from his lips. “This is going to be a great trip. We’re going to go out there and do what we need to do, and you’ll feel a crap-ton better when it’s done. Trust me. You’ll be glad we came.”

  His look betrayed his false confidence. Reagan needed to be caring and giving at this moment, but telling herself that seemed easier than believing it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  7:15 am

  Spoon followed Anne into the kitchen and she set out a brekkie of scrambled eggs and American-style crispy bacon on the table, next to a glass of orange juice. She poured her own glass of juice, opened a bottle of vodka, and added a generous amount.

  Spoon pointed at his orange juice. “You didn’t,” he said, trailing off as if it were a question.

  She lifted the vodka, jiggling it at him. “No, why? Do you want some?” her voice was smoky and sultry, the way he remembered actresses speaking in the black and white movies his parents watched when he was an ankle biter.

  He shook his head. “I’m alright.”

  She dropped her plate on the table, half a grapefruit and one piece of bacon. “Sorry, I don’t
have any Vegemite for you.”

  “No worries. This looks delicious all by itself. Maybe while we eat, you can tell me what all that was about before?”

  She cleared her throat. “I love your accent. Australia seems like a lovely country, but it’s so far away. I’ve always wanted to go, I could just never find a way to get there.”

  “They have airplanes and boats that go there.”

  She grinned. “You’re feisty. I like it. My roommate in college was dating an Australian guy. You seem to have such funny words for everything. I seem to remember that he called air conditioners ‘egg-nishers’. Always cracked me up.”

  “I had an uncle who said egg-nishers. I call them air cons, like any ordinary person. Now, about that guy…”

  She gripped her spoon and thrust it into the grapefruit. A jet of juice splattered on the table. “That was nothing. Just Tyson. We were having a disagreement.”

  Spoon watched her as she ate a mouthful of grapefruit then gulped down half her vodka and orange juice. She grimaced, then emitted a small moan of pleasure, but there was a diffidence in her eyes. They kept flickering between him and the table.

  She was hiding something. This man Tyson was clearly not nothing. “Seemed quite peeved to me. He a friend of the family or something?”

  She drained the rest of her drink. “Really, don’t concern yourself with him.”

  He studied her face: cold, impersonal, a wall of protection surrounding her features. The straight-on tactic was not working.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” he said. “You and I didn’t get much chance to have a chat yesterday.”

  She walked to the counter to refill her drink, this time forgoing the orange juice mixer. She stared over Spoon’s head as if he weren’t there. “Five years… Mitch treated me more like an employee than a spouse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t even know why I said that. You probably wouldn’t understand.”

  Spoon shifted in his chair. “Try me.”