Race Across the Sky

by Derek Sherman

  They moved wordlessly along the dark trail under the clouds and the moon. Only the sounds of their breaths, deep and steady. Only the sounds of their soles against the dirt. Only the sounds of nearby animals and insects. Only the sounds of the real world, far from man. For hours Caleb moved through this sweet path, in a light sweat, June in perfect rhythm beside him.

  Some hours later the trail hardened to pavement. The sky ahead threatened to lighten. June touched his arm and pointed to a sign. In the sliver of moonlight, he saw they were at the lodge.

  “Stay here,” she whispered.

  Caleb found a grove of laurels on the far side of the road and slid to the ground; his palms grazed fallen acorns. He had a vivid dream about an old client. Then he snapped his eyes open in fear; how long had he been out? He was about to go inside when he saw June emerge from the old lodge with Lily perched atop her shoulders in their purple hiking backpack. When they met on the wide paved road June handed him a bottle of water, and he chugged it dry.

  “What did you tell the woman watching her?” he whispered, wiping his chin.

  “That I wanted my baby. She was half asleep anyway.”

  “We better hurry.” He reached for the purple pack’s thick black padded straps. “I’ll take her.”

  June knelt, and Caleb slid the backpack onto his shoulders. He snapped the plastic harness around his waist, tugged it good and tight. Lily’s arms and legs dangled freely above and behind him. He could feel them moving. He shifted his stance, adjusting to its weight. He guessed the pack, with the baby, was around twenty-eight pounds. He had run with heavier packs, but there was no anticipating this living weight, which moved and shifted and pulled playfully at the tops of his ears.

  June had also brought a small yellow nylon backpack filled with minimal clothing, things for Lily, and cash that Mack had given her to buy baby food during the drive from Boulder. She slipped it over her shoulders, and they turned onto Big Oak Flat Road.

  It was a race now, he thought. Either the sun would come and reveal them like prisoners in a searchlight, or they would get to town, where no one would distinguish them from any other backpacking family. From there they would call Shane to come get them. They passed RVs and campers, heard the first stirrings of morning, and slowed to a fast walk, lest they attract any attention. A mile farther, Caleb spotted the entrance to the park. A booth stood beside the road. A ranger sat inside, ready to begin collecting fees and handing out maps. And the sky turned pink.

  Already cars waited in a short line to get inside, engines idling, spewing exhaust into the trees. Caleb swallowed. It had been six or eight hours since they had disappeared from the race. He supposed word could be out among every park employee.

  They waited awkwardly while Caleb tried to think. An SUV drove up, its window began to lower, and the ranger stuck his hand out for money.

  Caleb took June’s wrist and led her around the other side of the booth. Nobody called after them.

  They walked onto the blacktop of what a sign told them was Evergreen Road. They picked up their pace, surrounded by the mountains and the sky. Caleb reached up and behind him, and squeezed one of Lily’s ankles. She tapped the top of his head. The day broke open.

  • • • • • • •

  Evergreen Road curved like an undecided thought.

  They jogged along its shoulder, staying clear of a sudden and endless drop on their right. Caleb guessed it was sixty degrees out here, perfect weather for a run. Lily was strapped comfortably into her padded Kelty, wearing a warm fleece hoodie, her beautiful blond-red head supported by a built-in neck rest. She seemed as comfortable as could be, even more, he thought, than in the car seat in the van.

  Cars, RVs, buses, motorcycles, SUVs, all sped past across the road from them toward Yosemite. They stopped after a while to take Lily from her pack, stretch her legs, change her. Some hands waved from passing cars, and Caleb and June waved back, friendly, smiling, nothing wrong here.

  They passed an ancient gas station, and a mile farther, the first shops of a town. Evergreen turned into a main street. It must, he thought, be called Groveland, for Caleb saw its name everywhere: Groveland Sweet Shoppe, Groveland Souvenirs, the same Ansel Adams posters in every window. On their left, small triangular ranch buildings stood like good neighbors, home to car-insurance and realtor offices. One of them held the Groveland Mini-Mart.

  June helped him slide off the Kelty pack. She lifted Lily out and hugged her madly. The baby seemed in good spirits.

  “I’ll get food,” June offered.

  Down the street Caleb spotted a pale yellow building with white painted balconies, like something out of New Orleans. An old-world sign hung in front: THE GROVELAND HOTEL.

  Caleb gestured, panting. “I’ll tell Shane we’re here.”

  He was feeling better, he considered, than he had any right to. Though his neck felt stiff, his shoulders and knees had handled the backpack nicely. He could wait here for hours, no problem. Certainly Mack would not expect to discover them in the lobby of a hotel.

  Inside an elderly man stood behind a long front desk.

  Caleb tried to smile patiently. “Excuse me? Where are your pay phones?”

  The old man looked at him quizzically. Whether it was because of his appearance, or smell, or the oddness of the question, Caleb could see he had done something unwise.

  “Ain’t had a pay phone in years. Don’t you got a phone?”

  “I lost my cell,” Caleb tried. “Do you have a phone I can use?”

  The man exhaled and handed him a black cordless phone from under the desk. Caleb swallowed and dialed information.

  “San Francisco. Shane Oberest,” he responded to the automated question.

  After a moment, a human voice clicked on. “I have one Shane Oberest in San Francisco, California. On one hundred twenty-two Bay Street?”

  “That’s great.”

  “I’ll connect you now.”

  Caleb gripped the phone tight, heard its distant ringing. He pictured Shane walking across a room, his own baby in his arms. He might need time to get to his phone. A woman’s voice answered, but it too had been recorded: “You’ve reached Shane, Janelle, and Nicholas. Please leave us a message.”

  Caleb shut his eyes tight. He had not anticipated this.

  In an even voice he explained, “Hi. It’s Caleb. I’m with June and Lily. We’re in Yosemite, in a town called Groveland. At the Groveland Hotel. I’m wondering if you can get us. I’ll call you back in a bit. Thanks.” After a beat he added, “Love you.”

  Hanging up, he smiled at the man. “Thanks.”

  Caleb walked back out into the warming morning, rubbing his temples. He saw June on a bench in the sun, poking through a white plastic bag. Sitting beside her, he kissed Lily, who was chewing a banana, and tore into a burrito and Powerade.

  June frowned. “I forgot napkins. I’ll be right back.”

  She handed him Lily, a plastic spoon, a cup of applesauce, and walked back to the Mini-Mart. She took the two steps, pulled open the wood door, made her way to the register. She was smiling, prepared to shrug and explain her reappearance to the clerk, but someone else was already there. A thin middle-aged park ranger, with short black hair under her tan hat, leaned against the counter.

  “. . . having this crazy race. Up the old trails, all around the park. We’re so pissed off about it I can’t tell you. They said people was gonna get hurt, lost, we’re going to be in and out trying to find them.”

  “What was a baby doing there?”

  June took a step back, into the aisle. Panic spread throughout her body like an anaphylactic reaction.

  The ranger was shaking her head sadly, “I guess it was part of this weird group. This guy who’s in charge of them came to the main station and notified Emilio. Emilio said he was saying that two of his people have a sick little baby, and that
they left the race to go to San Francisco or something. He was really concerned. They just took off with no money or food with this sick baby. Can you believe people?”

  “Sick, how kind of sick?”

  “Emilio said the guy just said that she isn’t being taken care of right, and these two people aren’t in their proper minds, and that we should find them right away. So we’re all looking for them now. And that’s on top of twenty of these idiots being took to the hospital. A bunch got lost in there, got a couple of broken ankles. Puking all over themselves. Now I got to drive around by the bus stop looking for this loony family. I tell you I’ll be back here this evening for some of that wine.”

  June walked quickly back outside, down Main Street, to the bench.

  “Oh God, Caley,” she whispered into his ear as she bent over him.

  Caleb listened to her, still as stone.

  “He told them that,” she almost shrieked when she had finished.

  He looked at her. A ranger, a police officer, would see their dusty hair, dirty faces, the scratches along their forearms from the backcountry branches, the pallor of Lily’s skin. Things might not progress well from there.

  Caleb calmly stood up and unzipped June’s yellow backpack. He found sunscreen and gently rubbed it into Lily’s soft face and throat and neck and shoulders. Circles of dirt appeared over her cheeks; it must have been his fingers. He took out a soft white sun hat and tied it under her chin.

  “Did you hear me?”

  He fit Lily snugly into the purple pack and slipped it back over his shoulders, adjusted his weight, and snapped the belt around his waist. He blinked into the sun.

  Then he started to run.

  2

  • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Shane stood in their narrow kitchen, sweat running down his forearms, and began removing the contents of their open refrigerator.

  He looked at the eggs, leftover pho, bacon, and milk at his feet, trying to judge which of them possessed some intrinsic right to stay.

  “What are you doing?”

  Janelle surprised him; he nearly jumped. He’d thought she was out for the afternoon with Nicholas. He turned to face her. She wore a thin black raincoat for the May drizzle, house keys still grasped in her right hand, Nicholas napping in his plastic bucket seat behind her.

  “Close the front door?” he asked her quickly.

  “Shane . . .”

  “If the doorbell rings, don’t answer it.” He blinked rapidly. “Or the phone.”

  Janelle stepped closer, looking at the food on the floor, its condensation pooled on the tile like the blood of a mass murder. She arched her eyebrows questioningly. Shane steeled himself and pointed to the styrofoam cooler propping the refrigerator door open.

  “It’s the medicine.”

  Janelle hesitated, processing. Then she stepped backward. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “It’s not body parts, for God’s sake.”

  “You really did it.” She repeated to herself quietly. “You really did it.”

  “I just need to hold this here for a few days.”

  “Hold it here? You sound like a coke dealer.” She came closer, peering at the cooler. “Why can’t I answer our phone?”

  “Because,” he offered helplessly.

  “You want to elaborate?”

  “Because Helixia found out. They know everything. They sent some asshole, he tried to take it.”

  Janelle’s eyes narrowed furiously. He was fairly certain he had never seen this look in them before. “Who?”

  “Jon Benatti? He knocked the cooler out of my hands. Some of the vials broke.”

  “They what?”

  “I just need time to find a medical storage facility for what’s left. These have to stay at fifty-one degrees until then. I found the temperature control on the fridge.” He pointed, nodding. “It’s inside the door.”

  And then, as if some biblical demon had suddenly abandoned her, Janelle pulled off her black raincoat, let it fall, and knelt beside the cooler. She pulled off its styrofoam top with a squeak. The vials emitted a smell like contact lens fluid. She ran her hands along a row of vials.

  “They’re cracked,” she agreed.

  Shane joined her on his knees and pushed the glass aside. “The layers underneath look okay. But there might be some microscopic cracks. I don’t know.”

  Janelle opened a cabinet above the sink and found a large glass mixing bowl. She began wiping each vial with a tissue, and inspecting it, holding the tissue to the light. If it was dry, she wrapped that vial carefully and placed it delicately into the bowl.

  He joined her. They worked together quietly, checking the small vials with red stoppers and transferring the surviving ones from the cooler into the bowl. For the first time in months, Shane felt the sense of entwinement, and when his hand grazed hers she allowed him to linger.

  “Twenty-one,” Janelle counted, when the cooler was empty.

  “I got twenty-two.”

  “Trust me, it’s twenty-one.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “How many did you guys make?”

  “Forty.”

  In a gentler voice, she asked, “How many do you need?”

  “If it works? She’ll need two shots a year.”

  “So, there’s enough to last until she’s forty-three.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  “No,” she agreed, “it isn’t.”

  “The world,” Shane told her, “will have to get on it by then.”

  From the living room Nicholas broke into a full cry, and they each tensed.

  “I told you something like this was going to happen,” she whispered.

  “You did.”

  “You did it anyway.”

  “Look, I just have to get this to Caleb. Then it’s all over.”

  “How are you doing that?”

  Shane shook his head in frustration. “I can’t reach him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He stopped working at that store, and he’s not answering any letters. I think I should drive it to Boulder, explain to him how to store it.”

  “Jon Benatti?” she shook her head. “I can’t believe that little douchebag.”

  “I almost put him through a windshield.”

  “Calm down. You’re shaking.”

  Shane sat in a kitchen chair and pushed his hand through his hair. “You can’t ever see things coming.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Shane sighed deeply. He had never, he realized, felt this exhausted.

  “I’ll get Nicholas,” Janelle said quietly, and left the room.

  He heard her speaking gently to the baby, carrying him upstairs, singing sweetly into his ear. Shane took deep breaths, trying to find the comfort his son was feeling just hearing her voice. It was not, he saw, forthcoming.

  • • • • • • •

  The souvenir shops faded away, leaving only sugar pines along the sides of the road.

  The road took a stunning sweep into the Sierras, during which Caleb almost forgot to count his breaths, or to recite his affirmations, almost forgot about the weight of Lily on his shoulders. He was lost in the curves and turns, the undulating ascents and descents over sheer granite, the mountain wall on his left and the rolling green mountain fields below him on his right. The energy he took from them was real and wonderful. It was so different from the blankness of the void. Running out here was like being plugged directly into the inner workings of it all. He felt alive and untethered to the earth.

  Every so often a car would pass them from the other direction, headed toward Yosemite. So far only a handful had passed on their side. Each made June grab his arm and squeeze, for they knew no drivers were expecting to encounter them on the narrow shoulder. They could be hit or run off the
road ridiculously easily. But at least none were police cars. They should hit the next town soon, Caleb thought, and then June could rest and he could try Shane again.

  Some miles later the land flattened out and the green hills turned into hay-colored marsh. The geography out here was so new to him; he supposed he had never seen anything like it. The highway was sun-bleached, faded and forgotten. They found themselves in an almost lunar landscape of bare red clay, spotted with occasional green shrubs as if a bored road worker had lazily tossed them there. The light, undulating road reminded him of sound waves.

  In the middle of this, June gripped his wrist hard.

  He looked to her.

  “I need to stop.”

  He could feel Lily in the backpack above him, playing with the ends of his hair. “No, breathe with the air.”

  “I don’t think I can go anymore.”

  “You have to. Let go. Smile at the sky.”

  A halting hour passed. They moved in perfect solitude.But June began limping noticeably, holding her side. Caleb could see the energy dripping out of her and onto the gray road. They slowed to a walk, and he took her hand.

  “You can do it,” he told her. “We can’t be far.”

  And then a noise gathered from the distance. It reminded him of something, a thing he had heard before, a rumble of sound, increasing, accelerating. And suddenly their mountain road was cut off by an explosion of eighteen wheelers coughing black spray, speeding SUVs, small cars whipping past them, blurs of color, deafening sound, a horrid thickening of the air. Lily burst out crying. Caleb stopped, his chest heaving, body dripping sweat, staring unbelievingly as they faced the onslaught of Interstate 120. It shot across their quiet road on a brutal and unforgiving diagonal, cutting them off.

  There was no way across.

  June bent over, panting. Above him, the baby was unhappy.

  Caleb exercised a deep squat, and June took her from the backpack and sat down on the last patch of gray earth with her. She stroked Lily’s head as she rummaged through her yellow pack. Caleb watched the thunder of the interstate, hands on his hips. He turned as June found a jar of baby-food peas and popped it open. Bugs emerged abruptly from everywhere. The smell was so thick that he became nauseated.