Barefoot Sisters: Southbound

by Lucy Letcher;Susan Letcher

  "That was awesome;' Waterfall said. "Nobody's given you a trail name for that?"

  "Well, a couple I met early on wanted to call me Songbird. I didn't like it, though. Too ... delicate."

  "I'm gonna call you Highlander, 'cause nobody but a real highlander could sing like that"

  "Highlander. I like it. `There can be only one,"' he said in a deep mockheroic voice. "Does anybody else have a song?"

  "Actually, I write songs," Waterfall said. Her voice was suddenly shy. "I don't usually sing 'em in front of people-" but with all of us cheering her on, she eventually gave in. Her soft, sweet soprano rose through the dark air of the shelter. We all grew quiet, and even the rain on the roof seemed to hush and listen.

  The evening went by in song and stories. O.D. and Bugbiter sang an Irish drinking song, the newly minted Highlander recited a trove of Ogden Nash poems, Isis recited "The Raven," and I sang a song I had written in college. The fire died slowly, hissing, in the rain.

  Tenbrooks had been silent all evening, but as the coals began to wink out, he started a story in his Southern drawl. "Once upon a time there was an old, old nian, who knew he was dyin'. So he called his grandchildren to him, and he said to them all, `Before I die, I want you to bring nie the most beautiful thing in the world'

  "The oldest one went out first. He walked out across the land for days and days, and he saw many beautiful things. He saw the sun comin' up over marshes and woods, and the sun goin' down over hills and lakes. He saw birds of all colors, and flowers, and butterflies. At last lie came to the sea, and at the edge of the sea he found a stone. It was round and green, and it sparkled just like the water. So he took it back to his grandfather and said, 'I have found you the most beautiful thing in the world.'

  "And the old man looked at it, and said, `That is beautiful indeed. Thank you for bringin' that to me. But that is not the most beautiful thing in the world.'

  "So the middle child went out lookin'. She went up into the mountains, and she too saw beautiful things everywhere. She saw the stars reflected in rivers, and the moon goin' down among the silver peaks. At last she got up to the highest mountain of all, and she found a flower the color of moonlight growin' there. The wind came up and shook its petals off, and she gathered them up and took them to her grandfather.

  "And he looked at them, and he said, `These are truly beautiful. Thank you for bringin' them to me. But they are not the most beautiful thing in the world.'

  "And so the youngest two, who were twins, went out lookin'. They walked together, through a giant forest where the sun came down like light from high windows. They slept out on a mountain, and watched shootin' stars, and saw the sunrise come up like a cup of fire poured into the sky. They saw deer runnin' in the forest and horses runnin' on the plains. One night the frost came. It was bitter cold and they were afraid, and they huddled together under a blanket of leaves.

  "The next day they went back to their grandfather, and they said, 'We haven't brought you anythin'. We got cold and we were scared, and so we came back.'

  "He said, 'Tell me about your journey.'

  "So they told him about the shady forest, and the mountain with the shooting stars, and the sunrise, and the deer, and the horses. They told hill what it was like to be afraid when the frost came. But we were never really scared; they said, 'because we were together."'

  The coals had almost died in the fire now, and somewhere out in the wet darkness an owl hooted. In the cave of the shelter, we waited for the end of the story.

  "The old man said, 'My children, truly this is the most beautiful thing in the world. Your story. It is beautiful that you have seen these things, and that you were together. It is beautiful that you have come back to tell me this.'

  "And he passed on into the endless dream.'

  On the fourth of July, we crossed Moxie Bald Mountain late in the afternoon. It was the highest peak we'd seen in many miles. The summit, an open expanse of granite ledges, glowed pink in contrast with the steel gray of the sky. The rock felt cool and rough underfoot, and familiar; it was so much like the mountains of our childhood home on the coast. Stunted spruces grew here and there in the cracks between sheets of rock, with a few low-growing shrubs of rhodora, bearberry, huckleberry, and sweet fern. In the low places where rainwater pooled, sphagnum moss, cranberries, and small rushes grew. We could see all the way down to the valley, where Moxie Pond reflected the quiescent clouds. An island stood in the center of the pond, and in the flat calm all the trees on its shore were mirrored perfectly in the water.

  "This would be a great place to watch the fireworks," Isis said.

  -Do you think we could see the Greenville show from here:

  We heard someone calling from the next knoll of granite. "Hey, ladies! Good hike today?"

  "Tenbrooks!"

  He sat on a tilted rock ledge, dangling his legs over the side. Molly lolled on the rock beside him with her little pink tongue hanging out. I dropped my pack by the side of the trail and scrambled up the rock to join them. "You want to camp up here and watch the fireworks?"

  "I was thinkin' about it." He brushed his dark blond hair back from his eyes and grinned. "Seems like we might get some natural fireworks, too, though, and this doesn't look like the best place to be if we do"

  As if in answer to his comment, there was a low rumble of thunder in the southeast. Isis and I had been so preoccupied with the beauty of the lake down in the valley that we hadn't looked over in the other direction. When we did, there was a solid wall of towering clouds, still distant but moving closer every moment. Sheets of rain hung like dark veils from the underside of the storm, and I saw a flash of lightning illuminate one of the spires.

  "Time to get out of here," Isis said, and I didn't argue.

  We reached Bald Mountain Brook Lean-to just as the rain began and jumped into the crowded shelter.

  "That was a close one," Tenbrooks shouted over the sound of rain drumming on the tin roof. "I love stayin' dry." Molly nuzzled up to him as if in agreement.

  The shelter was a jumble of people, gear, and packs; Waterfall lay in the corner, writing in the shelter register, Matt and Blue Skies sat on the porcupine trap cooking dinner, and O.D. and Bugbiter lounged against the back wall, wrapped in their sleeping bags. There was the familiar rank atmosphere of unwashed bodies, wet gear, and old sweat, but in the few weeks we had been on the Trail, I had ceased to mind it. It was a warns, woolly manurial scent, like a barn full of horses, and in my mind, the shelter smell had come to represent security and companionship.

  The rain let up after half an hour, and a troop of Boy Scouts, who had camped down by the brook, came out of their tents to cook supper on the fire ring. The gangly ten-year-olds jockeyed for position on the logs and rocks around the fireplace. In a short while, they had a roaring fire going. One of the leaders raked some of the coals to one side so they could cook.

  The troop had brought inordinate amounts of food; cans of soup and ravioli bubbled in the coals next to a heap of foil-wrapped potatoes, and shish kabobs rested on the battered iron grill. I fed a few twigs into the Zip stove and stirred our pot of hamburger-less Hamburger Helper, trying not to stare at the Boy Scouts' feast. The famous hiker appetite had kicked in at last, after two weeks on the Trail, and I was constantly hungry; I couldn't carry enough food to make tip for the effort of hiking. In Monson, I'd been astounded to see a northbounder consume an entire large pizza by himself. Now I felt sure I could do the same, if a large pizza happened to cross my path.

  The Boy Scouts finished oft their kabobs, but the stack of potatoes was almost undiminished, and six cans of stew and ravioli were untouched.

  The scoutmaster turned to the shelter. "Hey, are you guys hungry:

  A chorus of affirmatives came from the thru-hikers. Isis climbed out and passed the potatoes back to the shelter, where we split the stack carefully into eight portions. Isis and I got the ravioli, since it was vegetarian; the other hikers split the stew. After half a pot of Hamburger H
elper (which congealed suspiciously as it cooled and tasted of some unidentifiable preservative), the ravioli and the hot baked potato were like manna from heaven.

  "Thank you so much!" I said between bites.

  Matt put down his can of stew and smiled at the scoutmaster. "You guys are angels," he said.

  "Oh, 1 wouldn't go that far! If you guys eat it, me and the boys don't have to pack it out"

  "No, there's a tradition on the Trail. When anybody helps out hikers, especially by giving them food, it's called trail magic, and the people who do it are called trail angels. So you guys are angels."

  "Jeez, I've never been called an angel before. Maybe I oughta feed hikers more often!"

  "That's the spirit!"

  After supper, as the woods began to fill with twilight, Tenbrooks went to his pack and took out a small bundle wrapped in plastic.

  "Happy Independence 1)ay," he said, and passed out sparklers. There were just enough to go around between the hikers and the Boy Scouts. We lit then) in the coals of the fire and danced around the clearing. The brilliant cascades of sparks cast a warm golden light on our faces.

  The scoutmaster waited until most of the sparklers had gone out, and then he leaned forward. A fountain of crackling white light erupted from the coals. He stood up, holding the sparkler high, and began to sing in a rich baritone: "O, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain ..

  The dancing stopped, as if on cue, and all of us, scouts and hikers, came to stand beside him, watching the coals and the last sparkler burn down. Our voices joined in, one by one, until the chorus swelled to fill the dark clearing with sound as the sparklers had tilled it with light.

  The last sparkler went out. "Time for bed," the scoutmaster said softly, and the boys trooped out of the clearing and down to their tents.

  Before the man left for his own tent by the brook, he stopped to talk to Tenbrooks, who was sitting on the porcupine trap staring into the fire. "Thanks. This was the best Fourth I've had in a long time"

  I could just see the gleam of Tenbrooks' smile. "Me, too."

  As I drifted off to sleep, I heard Bugbiter slap another mosquito. "Man, why do they always go after me?"

  ... Cause you taste better than an old duffer like nie,' O.D. said, and he rolled over in his mummy bag. He was snoring in a few moments.

  "Do you think we can make it to Caratunk tonight?" I asked. We were a few miles into the day's hike, and the sun was still low in the morning sky.

  "Hope so. Waterfall said there's a hostel there that's supposed to be awesome."

  "What is it, like, fifteen total?"

  "Yeah."

  "Any big lumps in the way?" We had taken to speaking about bumps in the elevation profile this way; somehow "big lump" sounded less threatening than "mountain."

  "Mmm, a few. Not too bad"

  "What is that smell?" I wrinkled my nostrils and sniffed the air. A rank and salty odor drifted toward us on the wind. "D'you smell it too, Isis?"

  "Yeah. Smells like a big mammal of some kind."

  "Do you think it's a moose? Maybe a bear . .

  But we stopped our speculation, because at that very moment the source of the smell hove into view.

  It was a nian, coming north on the trail. He was tall and looked to be in his mid-forties, with gray hair and a gray beard so tangled that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. He wore a ratty white t-shirt, khaki shorts, a small overnight pack, and, improbably, red penny loafers with shiny new pennies. A cloud of palpable odor surrounded hin).

  "I am Starman," he said, when we came close. We gave our trail names, but he appeared not to hear, and continued speaking in a low, intense voice. His hazel eyes wandered disconcertingly. "I have considered changing my trail name to Shaman. Maybe I will."

  Then he glanced down and noticed our feet. "Barefoot!" he said. "Well, I know some people who hike naked. One guy hiked the entire length of the Trail in Maine with no clothing .. "He regaled us with stories of naked hiking for perhaps ten minutes, his voice charged with concentration. Then, abruptly, he stopped in midsentence. "I must go!"

  He strode off up the trail, leaving a slowly dissipating stench and a sensation of utter disorientation. When he was gone, I turned to Isis. "He was possibly the strangest person I've ever met"

  She shrugged. "Certainly the most fragrant"

  Most northbounders, at this stage in the Trail, were pretty odd looking: hairy and scruffy, pared down to muscle and bone. Starman was the strangest by tar, though.

  We stopped for a snack at Pleasant Pond Lean-to. A young hiker sat on the porcupine trap, thumbing through the register. He was rail-thin, with a mop of blond hair and slightly protruding eyes that gave him a studious look. He reminded nie of the hero of a Thomas Hardy novel.

  "Oh, hi," he said, glancing up as we set our packs down. "I'm Nightmare.'

  We introduced ourselves. "How'd you get a name like that?" I asked.

  His face relaxed into a smile. "Last year I hiked the Presidentials in August with a couple friends. I don't know if you guys have done much hiking in the Whites. The weather there can be absolutely brutal, even in summer."

  We had never done any hiking in New Hampshire, but we had heard the stories of snow in August, eighty-knot winds, and unpredictable, violent storms.

  "Well, the thing was, the whole week we were there it was sunny and seventy-five degrees." He shrugged. "It was so warm and calm on Mount Washington that I stood outside in shirtsleeves eating a freakin' ice cream cone. Up there at the summit, we got to talking about my thru-hike, because I was planning it at that point. The other guys started ribbing inc about weather karma, saying, 'next time you hike the Whites you're dead meat! Hiking with you is gonna be everybody's worst nightmare!' And so one of them, who'd hiked about half the Trail, said I should take that as my trail name. I like it. It keeps the riffraff away." He flashed us a maniacal bug-eyed look, and then burst out laughing.

  "Speaking of riffraff, did you meet that guy-"

  "Starman? Oh yeah. I could smell him before I saw hinm. I was filtering water at the lake, and he came right down and sat next to me. He started in about how filters are worthless and Giardia is a myth perpetuated by the government. He ranted on for about ten minutes, and then he stood up all of a sudden, and he said, 'I've got forty dollars and a decision to make!' And then he took of." Nightmare shook his head. "Takes all kinds."

  We made good time all day, although, as usual, there were many small elevation changes that didn't show up on the profile map. The sun was still above the trees when we reached Caratunk, Maine, population 98: one street of high Victorian houses, a church, a school, and a post office. The Kennebec River, a clear dark torrent over rounded stones, framed the town on one side, and on the other side the hills rose up, covered with thick pine woods. A little ways out of town on the main road, a converted trailer served filling, greasy food. Most of the customers were logging truck drivers, who left their vehicles idling in the wide gravel parking lot as they ate. Isis and I filled up on town food-pizza, French fries, and onion rings. (It turned out that I still couldn't manage a large pizza by myself, especially after appetizers, but a pair of nobos turned up just in time to bolt down the last two slices.) We slept well that night at the Caratunk House, a luxurious Bed and Breakfast with hiker rates so reasonable that I thought I had misheard the owner. Matt, Tenbrooks, and Blue Skies tented in a field near the edge of town.

  The next day we crossed the Kennebec. It was one of the strangest sections of the Trail, because we didn't walk at all-we paddled. The trail came out of the woods on a wide gravel beach, and there we found a tall, lean, red-haired man waiting with a canoe. "I'm Steve Longley," he said. "The ferryman"

  "Pleased to meet you" We had heard rumors of the ferryman along the Trail, and a nobo had told us his story; apparently several hikers had drowned trying to ford the Kennebec, many years ago. The Appalachian Trail Conference, the A.T.'s managing organization, had searched for a saf
er crossing. The nearest bridges were twenty miles in either direction. Instead of rerouting the Trail, they had decided to hire Steve, a former raft guide, to carry thru-hikers safely over the river. From May to October, rain or shine, he had paddled his red canoe across the Kennebec for fifteen years, dispensing words of wisdom to his passengers.

  "Stow your packs in the canoe " He caught sight of our feet, and a spark of interest glowed in his eyes. "You must be the Barefoot Sisters. I've heard a lot about you. Tell me, why do you do it?"

  "Because it feels so good sometimes," Isis said. "You can feel the living earth under your feet"

  Steve nodded shortly. "I figured it was something like that. People told me you must be crazy, or doing some kind of penance. I didn't think so. We all have our reasons for what we do"

  "What about you?" I asked him. "Why do you cross the Kennebec over and over?" I knew that most raft-guiding jobs must pay better than this, and certainly there wasn't much excitement to be had in ferrying people across the same stretch of relatively flat water.

  He regarded me with an inscrutable stare, and then turned to look out over the flow of small rapids. "Because it's never the same river twice"

  We moved the red canoe into the current. Isis sat in the middle with our packs, and I paddled in the bow. Steve was in the stern, standing upright with his paddle in hand. The river was wide and low, barely four feet of brownishgold water over the rounded cobbles. As I watched, the water level on the far bank crept upwards. "What's happening?" I called to Steve. "Why is the river rising?"

  "Hydro dam release upstream" He kept the canoe steady without effort. "That's why we tell people not to ford the Kennebec. Depth changes fast, and that current's pretty strong.' Looking over the side of the boat, I saw that six feet of rushing water now slid past underneath us. We were still in midstream, equidistant from the banks. I shivered, imagining what it would be like to get caught by that current while fording the river with a pack on.