by Jim Heskett
She chewed the inside of her mouth. “It’s like… oh, I don’t know. He would ask me to pick a movie to see on Saturday night, then I would have to present him with a few options and he would always have the final say. I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
Because you’re off your face and it’s not even noon, he wanted to say, but held his tongue.
She closed her eyes. “But, if I’d known before…”
She stopped speaking, letting the sentence hang for a few moments while she tapped her fingernails against the side of the glass. With a sigh, she pulled a chair around the table next to him and placed a hand on his arm. “What are we going to do with you until Reagan gets back on Friday?”
He wondered if he should put his opposite hand on hers. The woman must be hurting, after all. “My Physio from Austin gave me heaps of rehab exercises to work on. Also brought my laptop, thought I might work some on a mobile app I’ve been developing. But, can I ask you one question about this Tyson?”
She jerked her hand back. “Jesus, let it go. I told you that was nothing to worry about.”
He kept his eyes steady on her, unwilling to let her slink away or divert the topic yet again.
She pursed her lips. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
“What was the store he mentioned?”
“That would be A1 Lawnmower Repair in Broomfield. Look: I get that you’re bored, searching for things to do with yourself, but there’s no story here, officer.”
Lawnmower shop? Why would this man go to a lawnmower shop? He said he would be waiting there for her, so maybe Tyson was the proprietor. But what did he want her to do when she got there?
Spoon took the last bite of eggs and pushed the plate away. “It’s just that if you’re in some kind of trouble, maybe I can help out.”
“Trouble? You’re adorable. I can see why Reagan seems to care so much about you.”
“She does.”
“And I get why you like her. She’s smart, and pretty, and she can be a lot of fun when she’s in a good mood. The two of us haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but that’s probably normal. I am the stepmother, after all. She thinks I despise her.”
“Do you?”
She studied him before answering. “You’re young and have a long way to go to understanding women, my Australian friend. It’s a lot more complicated than that. But let me tell you something about getting involved with the Darby family. I had to learn this from years of being married to her father, but maybe I can spare you some time.” She paused to take a drink. “Reagan is not a well woman. I assume you know about her… issues.”
He nodded, even though he wasn’t sure what she was implying.
Her words were starting to slur together. “You’re a handsome guy. Plus, with that accent, you could have any American woman you wanted. Trust me, that exotic stuff makes college girls swoon. You have to ask yourself if you want to get involved in an uphill battle, or if there’s something better out there for you.”
He resisted the urge to reply straight away. It would be easy for him to get offended, but he knew that she was likely in pain and wanting to lash out. He could forgive that.
But there was something about Anne… every word out of her mouth seemed coated in some kind of protective glaze. This Tyson character was not the harmless lamb that Anne made him out to be, and if she wasn’t going to explain who this man was, then Spoon was going to have to find out for himself.
CHAPTER SIX
9:40 am
Reagan stared at her two cousins, unsure how to find the middle path between her desire to accommodate them with her desire to backpack into Rocky Mountain National Park alone. Maybe she was selfish, thinking that she should turn them away when she’d already discussed the route with them. They’d made the trip from Denver. They were ready and willing to help, and she appreciated that. Family mattered, didn’t it?
She finished preparing her backpack by adjusting the hip and shoulders straps on Dad’s awkwardly-shaped pack. A 70-liter Gregory pack, at least ten years old, once blue but now faded to an ashy gray. It wouldn’t fit as comfortably as her pack, but she could, hopefully, lessen the shoulder and hip strain by finding the right combination of tension on the various straps. The strange placement of the internal frame pulled her shoulders backward. While comfortable enough now, experience told her that by day three, her neck would be in knots. She wished she could pop into Granby to one of the camping shops and drop three or four hundred dollars on a new pack with better airflow and variable hip and shoulder suspension. And she’d also buy a new car and maybe a speedboat while she was at it.
With her gear ready and the car emptied, she locked it and put the car keys in the top pouch of the backpack. Across the lot, Dalton and Charlie were fiddling with their own packs.
She walked to the bathrooms, which were little more than outhouses shrouded in the shade of the gigantic pine and spruce trees surrounding them. While pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she paused at a wooden sign bolted to a pole, and ran her fingers along the lettering etched into it:
ENTERING ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
BIG MEADOWS 4.4 mi
GRANITE FALLS 8.8 mi
FLATTOP MTN 15.0 mi
BEAR LAKE 19.5 mi
Behind the sign was a larger informational board, with a small shingled roof above it. A large display case housed a collection of pamphlets, describing the trail that ran alongside Tonahutu Creek, warnings of Leave No Trace, park regulations about campfires and trash, warnings about bears and moose and mountain lions.
She went into the bathroom and examined herself in the metal mirror, its surface spotted and grimy and looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned all season. Her reflection came back warped and splintered. When she was little, Dad always had to convince her that the bathrooms were safe, despite the awful smell radiating from them. He would offer his handkerchief to cover her mouth when she went in to pee.
“You can still do this,” she said to the warped image of her face. She ran her hand along her hairline to tame the few wisps that had strayed from the rest.
The touch made her think of Spoon, how he liked to stick his fingers into chunks of her hair and twirl them into ringlets. She missed him already.
After leaving the bathroom, she hoisted her bag over one shoulder, then the other, then buckled the hip belt in the middle. The pack’s girth was overwhelming, so she immediately grabbed her hiking poles to keep from toppling over. Hiking thirty-plus miles with this monstrosity on her back was going to be like piggy-backing a child for an entire weekend.
Dalton and Charlie took their cue and started buckling their own packs.
“Dalton, don’t you have hiking poles?” she said as she crossed the lot.
He shook his head. “Don’t need ‘em. I’ll find a stick on the trail or something. Bruce Lee style.” He swung an imaginary staff.
“If we cross a stream and you end up on your butt, you’ll wish you had them.”
Dalton sucked through his teeth. “Charlie, give me your poles.”
Charlie pulled his hiking poles close to his chest. “No way. These aren’t even mine. I had to borrow them.”
“I’ll just take them from you while you’re sleeping tonight,” Dalton said.
Charlie lowered his head, dropped his pack, and skulked off toward the bathroom.
Reagan took a deep breath and leaned toward her cousin. “Listen to me. It’s fine if you guys want to come along, but I want you to be nice to Charlie. Understand?”
Dalton smirked. “I’m always nice to Charlie.”
“If you wanted poles, you should have brought them. Leave him and his hiking poles alone.”
Dalton blinked and flashed a used-car salesman smile. “Fair enough. Don’t worry about it, cuz.”
Charlie returned, but he didn’t look at his brother.
Reagan knew full well how Dalton’s offhanded comments could cut like razor blades.
&nbs
p; Dalton patted Charlie’s shoulder. “We’re all going to be like The Cosby Show up in this motherfucker, right? One big happy family.”
She turned from them and walked toward the trailhead, trying not to grit her teeth. Packs rustling behind her meant her two cousins were close behind.
Hiking with them could become an opportunity. Chance to heal, to be with family, to process everything. She wouldn’t let Dalton’s bullying get in the way.
Despite her new philosophy, as she crossed the trailhead marker and officially into the park, her day changed from white and numb to orange and irritated. If the orange became red, she would be in trouble. She recalled the breathing exercises she’d learned two years ago, and focused on the trail in front of her.
Memories flashed: bike rides from Denver to downtown Boulder with Dad, their bike shoes clicking on concrete as they perused the Saturday morning farmer’s market. Also, playing with her dollhouse when she was barely out of diapers, the gigantic Victorian house she kept into her teen years until she gave it back to her grandpa.
The first few hundred feet of the trail were paved. Then it abruptly became dirt, two long ruts like tire tracks through the grass. Occasionally, planks of wood cut diagonally across the path, probably to prevent erosion. Overhead, a mass of trees shrouded the morning sun. Fluorescent pink markers nailed high on the trees every few hundred feet indicated the path for snowshoeing.
The sound of her measured breaths and the regular click click of each hiking pole striking the ground did have a small meditative effect. Orange mellowed.
She turned to observe her trailmates, and Dalton was close on her heels, but Charlie was already falling behind. The hip and chest straps of Charlie’s pack pushed his belly into a square, drooping in front of him.
Reagan would have to slow down to accommodate them, but that also meant they might not make it to camp before the storms came in. She took deep breaths, reminding herself that she’d allowed them to come, so this was her choice. Her choice.
They approached a group of rowdy college kids, all with packs, hiking toward them. A long-haired boy in the lead winked at her, and she offered a little smile in return. Close to the trailhead would be crowded today and Friday, but deeper into the park, they should find few other people.
“Hey cuz,” Dalton said after the other backpackers had gone.
She slowed her steps to allow him to pull even with her. Didn’t respond, but tilted her head toward him.
“I was wondering,” he said, “if you ever got a chance to catch up on The Sopranos?”
She didn’t want to talk, she wanted to feel the ground under her feet, hear the birds, and smell the sharp fragrance of the trees. Dad had never insisted on talking while on the trail. They saved their conversation for camp, when there was nothing else to do. The trail was for focusing on the task at hand. One foot, then the next.
“No, I never watched it,” she said. “An episode or two here or there, I guess. What is it with you and all those old TV shows?”
“80s and 90s stuff is way better than the shit they make now. You gotta see Sopranos, though. Tony Soprano is like the original New Jersey gangster.”
“Spoon and I don’t have cable.”
“You’re cord-cutters? That’s cool. I got a torrent of every episode and I could float them to you if you got a Dropbox or G-Drive.”
“I’ve heard of Dropbox, but I don’t have an account, or whatever.”
“Oh, I gotcha,” he said. “Hate to drag you into the motherfucking 21st-century, like a normal twenty-five-year-old.”
“I’m twenty-four.” She increased her pace, hoping he would catch the subtle hint.
They hiked for several minutes through pine trees and rocks until the trail opened to a large meadow. Foothills ahead and to the right led to the towering points of Andrews Peak and Ptarmigan Mountain, but those rocky triangles seemed distant because of the expansive green plains before them. A creek snaked to their right while the trail hugged the less-dense crop of trees to the left. A thin row of trees separated them from the meadow. On the other side of the opening, green and gray trees blanketed the hillside.
Reagan checked the sky, expansive and blue save for a few clouds gathered above the mountains ahead. She powered on her phone to check the time. With no distractions, they could still make it to Granite Falls by two.
As soon as she pushed out into the meadow, Charlie started gasping for air. Deep, wheezing breaths. She stopped and saw him bent over, hands on his poles. Sweat pooled in the center of his forehead, threatening to drip onto the ground. He fumbled in the side pocket of his pack for an inhaler.
“You guys… wait… just a second. Can we take a break?”
She surveyed the area for larger rocks they could sit on, but there wasn’t anything. She walked back into the trees and unbuckled her pack, which sent an immediate rush of cool air where the sweat along her back had collected.
The pack fell to the ground with a thunk, and she was grateful for the weight off her shoulders. A quick check of the ground revealed no ants, so she sat on the damp grass. Dalton and Charlie joined her, dumping their own packs and groaning with relief. If they looked this exhausted after only an hour, imagine what hiking out on Friday would look like.
“Holy Moly. You hike so fast,” Charlie said, still catching his breath.
“We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
His eyes widened. “We do?”
“Just trying to get to camp before the clouds roll in.”
Charlie nodded and gave her the same sheepish grin he’d sported since he was two years old. “Oh, wow, I’m such a doofus. I forgot you mentioned that already. I’m sorry, Reagan, I wasn’t even thinking about that.”
Such a sweet kid. “It’s okay, Charlie. No big deal.”
Dalton sat up and stretched, and as he did, a creak echoed through the trees. He spun around. “What was that?”
Reagan looked at the dead pine trees. “Beetle-kill, probably,” she said. “Parasites that kill the trees around here.”
“Are we about to get crushed?” Charlie said, deep lines on his forehead.
Reagan stood, dusting the pine needles and dirt off her hands. “Let’s not find out.”
Dalton and Charlie jumped up and wriggled their packs into place.
They started back to the meadow and the trail. The wind had picked up, sending waves through the ample grass. Over the next few minutes, the trail weaved between the open meadow and back to the trees, and Reagan was grateful for the shaded tree sections as the sun had already risen high enough to bring dots of perspiration to every inch of exposed skin. Twelve hours from now, she would be huddled in her sleeping bag in 40-degree weather, but in the summertime daylight, she had nowhere to hide from the heat.
Underfoot, the trail changed from dust and grass into patches of gnarled tree roots, pebbles, shards of broken pine needles, and the occasional muddy patch created by horse hooves.
They pressed on and the meadow gradually ended as they began to gain elevation. An open space on the right moved closer to the trees on the left, the terrain became rockier, and the creek expanded into a collection of ponds. Through the rippling water, fish darted back and forth.
Up ahead, a deer drank from the creek. She came to a stop and held up a hand to get her companions to halt.
“Do you have a question?” Dalton said, laughing. “What’s up with the raised hand?”
The deer looked at them, and its ear twitched before it ran into the trees and up the foothills. The sound of trots faded underneath the drilling of a nearby woodpecker.
“Was that a deer?” Charlie said.
“Yes, it was a deer,” Reagan said, annoyed. Deep breaths. She put her poles out in front of her and continued hiking.
Soon after, they passed the turnoff for the Green Mountain trail, which would have lead them back to the Kawuneeche visitor center.
The sign read:
GREEN MTN TRLHD 1.8 MI
GRANITE FALLS
3.6 MI
They kept on their own trail, and the trail opened again to the widest section of meadow yet. The waving grass stretched for several football fields between the trees.
“Is this the big meadow thing on the trail marker?” Charlie said.
Reagan reached into the side pocket of Dad’s hiking pants and took out the park map. She located the Green Mountain trail split and nodded. She checked her phone. 11:38. “You guys ready to take a break?”
They both nodded vigorously.
***
11:40 am
Dalton groaned as he let the massive backpack fall to the ground. He hadn’t been this deep into the forest since Boy Scouts, and he’d quit that joke of a hobby at age fourteen. In the eight years since, never once had he felt the desire to give up all the comforts of modern society to sleep in a tent and become some bear’s afternoon snack.
Every step was another annoyance: piles of dirty snow soaked his boots, downed trees required acrobatics to cross, and half the time, branch barbs scratched his exposed arms. Around every turn was some new strange sound, and the thought of these “beetle-kill” trees breaking and falling on his head put a sour taste in his mouth.
But he wasn’t here to enjoy nature. Tyson wanted him here. And whatever Tyson wanted, that’s what Dalton did, as long as Dalton wanted to make money to pay his rent.
But dealing with Charlie was something else entirely. Charlie didn’t yet know why they were here because Dalton had fed him some bullshit. If he’d told his little brother straight out, he wouldn’t have agreed to come. Charlie needed to be presented choices as if they weren’t choices.
Charlie, we’re going to go with Reagan tomorrow to help her spread our uncle’s ashes in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Gee willikers, Dalton. That sure sounds swell.
Then the only problem was that eventually, Dalton would have to tell Charlie the real reason they came along for the trip. That would take some careful explanation since Charlie had proved plenty of times how terrible he was at extracting money or information from people who didn’t want to part with it.