Graphic the Valley

by Peter Brown Hoffmeister

  Blood seeped past my pressed palm, dripping onto my shirt.

  Carlos said, “You better get that stitched.”

  The other man walked around the car and stood next to Carlos. He’d put the pistol in his pocket, the handle sticking out. He tapped his thumb on the butt.

  Carlos stepped back and made a motion for me to get out.

  I was still looking out of one eye.

  “Go ahead and get out,” he said. “We’ll let you leave now. Let you think.”

  My palm was starting to slide around on the blood.

  Carlos took another step back. “Come on,” he said.

  I ducked my head and got out of the back of the car. Stood up full, still holding my face.

  Carlos said, “There’s a lot more going on than you think. So I’ll let you know.”

  “Let me know?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll let you know.”

  I pulled my hand away and the blood drizzled down my face.

  “Then you’ll see,” he said. “And you’ll trust me then.”

  “Trust you?”

  “Like I said, there’s a lot going on.” Carlos folded the blade of the mini-knife, and slid the ring back onto his key chain. “See you soon.”

  • • •

  I walked to the caves by the Ahwahnee and got Super Glue and duct tape from Greazy’s stash. Greazy wasn’t there, but I knew he wouldn’t mind. Then I went to patch myself in the Curry shower building where the mirrors are clean.

  The cut went down an inch next to my left eye then turned at the bottom toward my ear. I filled the torn run with glue first, then up, sealing and pressing as I went.

  I hit the hand dryers with my elbows over and over as I used both hands to press the edges closed in the warm air. Then I duct-taped a thin crisscross, laid a wide strip over, to the corner of my eye. The smell of Super Glue reminded me of my mother.

  • • •

  I didn’t see Carlos or anyone else for days. In the spring, during the week, the world of people broke apart like leaves falling across a stretch of river. Only a few cars looped the Valley road, elderly people checking off Yosemite National Park in their Park Service passports, their car heaters set on high.

  Camp 4 was quiet. A cougar walked through, head down, hoping for an over-fat ground squirrel. The cat leaped the boulder in front of me and moved uphill.

  I slept as much as I could. Woke to sip water and eat a tablespoon of peanut butter, then continued with hibernation. I had to re-glue the bottom of my cut twice, but the split was healing.

  • • •

  Warm air came in one night as the seasons wrestled. Then all of the snow disappeared from the Valley floor, and the high country went to patches.

  I hiked back up to Wawona, to the burn site. I walked around the house twice. Looked at it from every angle. I walked back and forth from the house to the woods until I saw something. Out by the trees, where the snow had disappeared, I found a patch of ground with no pine needles. The dirt was a mound there, soft. I dug the earth with my hands.

  The gas can was not deep, only a foot down. I pulled it up and scraped the mud off the sides. It was a five-gallon can, red, not small or plastic like the one I’d used to burn the forms. It was metal and heavy, and I kept it. I hiked that can back across the high country and down the slot. I buried it off the Cathedral Trail, near the Valley loop junction. I built a three-rock cairn to mark the spot.

  • • •

  I wandered Camp 4 West that evening, watched the layering of the sky.

  I climbed the boulders, grabbed an edge, and cut a flap of skin back from the pad of my index finger. I pushed and picked until the flap came off and a droplet of blood filled the divot. Then I sucked and tasted the sweet iron. I felt the cut next to my eye, but the tape and glue had held.

  The rocks dotted white and gray, runs of quartzite like snakes hanging on the boulders in the late evening. Graphic granite.

  A hiker walked by on the Falls Trail, his headlamp already turned on. He yelled back in Japanese to a woman behind him. She didn’t answer.

  I sat and let the night come. Squeezed blood out of the end of my finger and tasted some more. Then I began climbing in the dark. Easy routes at first, then harder. I don’t know what I was trying to do. I made four moves up Yabo, on the corner, bouldering in the dark, when my foot slipped. I fell and hit my knee, heard the bone thwack against the rock, the deep bruise filling with blood. I limped over to the base of an oak tree, its branches snarling through the stars above me.

  I thought of Lucy again. Our checkers game. I tried my knee but it would not bend. Saliva pooled in my mouth and I spit. Then I limped back to the face of the boulder, touched the rock in front of me, cool now in the dark, cool and white, glowing, the river and the story of the Yosemiti’s river treasure. But there was only one thing I wanted back from that water.

  • • •

  My father said, “When the soldiers came in, all the gold was hidden in a woven box with no opening.” My father pretended to hold a heavy box in front of him. He said, “It took four men to carry it.”

  He stood, and I watched him stumble around with the imaginary box.

  I was nine years old.

  My father reached down to pick up his coffee cup. He took a sip and said, “They dug out the bank at the turn, cutting down into the soft soil underneath the water. Then they lowered the box and placed rocks on top. Many rocks.”

  “Then what?” I said. “Did someone dig it up?”

  “No,” my father said. He took another sip of his coffee. “Not then. I wasn’t there then.”

  “But later?” I said. “You found it later?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I found treasure later. But that’s a different story.”

  “Wait, can you tell me?” I said. “Please?”

  “Maybe when you’re older.” He finished his coffee and turned his mug upside down. Tapped the grounds out of the bottom of the cup, then wiped with the three fingers on his left hand.

  • • •

  I stayed in my sleeping bag for days. The bruise on my knee went from red to blue to purple-black, dripping yellow lines off the bottom, down my leg. I got up and limped around. I hadn’t been this hungry in a long time. I’d been out of everything but peanut butter for a few days.

  I limped through the campground to find leftovers, the climbers’ camps best for lost food, and found a third of a loaf of wheat bread. The heel had greened from mold. I ate two pieces and tried to pinch the mold off the rest without wasting. I limped back to my cave and slept well with the bread in my stomach.

  • • •

  Three days later, I limped down to the northeast side of the Big Columbia Boulder. There were climbers there that I didn’t know. It was misting, spray floating from the south side around the boulder. The overhang kept us dry.

  A climber walked up and threw each of us a Budweiser pounder. He said, “Beer in Camp 4, stays in Camp 4.”

  I was eating white hamburger buns I’d found that morning. Almost a full pack and no mold. Not even stale.

  A French climber tried to move off the lightning hold on Midnight. His friends said, “Allez! Allez!” Then he fell.

  I cracked my can and took a sip. The beer was warm but still tasted good.

  The French climber sat and stared up at the rock. He and his friends discussed the moves that were difficult. Acted them out and shouted at each other in French.

  A young, dreadlocked man walked up and sat down next to me against the tree. He was a little older than me, wore a down jacket repaired with duct tape in many places. He hadn’t shaved, and his beard was like the hair on the underside of a blond elk. He was wet from the mist. Smiling.

  The cut steps in the old tree bark were above our heads, and we sat next to each other. I held out half of a hamburger bun. “Want some?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “Thanks. I’m Kenny.” He took the bun and shoved the whole thing in his mouth, chewing slowly and breat
hing through his nose.

  I nodded and drank my warm beer. We watched the French climber try Midnight Lightning again. When he fell off a second time, Kenny spoke with his mouth full. He said, “He’ll get it.”

  I said, “It’s pretty hard actually.”

  “No, he’ll get it,” Kenny said, and held out his hand. “What was your name?”

  “Tenaya.”

  “Like the Indian chief?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Like the Indian chief.”

  “Okay. Cool.”

  The French climber had started to climb again. He’d pulled off the ground and climbed through the first two moves. Then he lunged and stuck the lightning hold with his right hand. “Allez! Bien!” His friends were underneath him, hands up, ready to catch him if he fell.

  Kenny stood up. “Go, man! Allez, man!”

  The French climber pulled to the lip. I stood and joined the group underneath him, raising my hands as well. Then he lunged and caught the final big hold, pulling up and over, topping the boulder in the mist as everyone cheered. Kenny turned and bear-hugged me. I could smell the wet nylon of his jacket and the molding down underneath. That smell mixed with body odor was like hugging a drowned animal.

  He yelled in my ear. “Awesome, man! Awesome! Climbing Midnight Lightning in the rain!”

  The French climbers were jumping up and down, chanting what sounded like a nursery rhyme, clapping in unison. Kenny joined their rhythm and faked the words. I started to clap as well.

  One of the French climbers turned to us. He said, “You would like to join us at our camp for wine and fire?”

  “Wine and fire?” Kenny said. “Why yes.”

  I nodded too. My one beer was gone.

  • • •

  At their camp, the French climbers handed out metal coffee mugs, coffee rings brown in the bottom. I took my index finger and scraped the circle. Then a climber poured wine from bottles of Two-Buck Chuck.

  Kenny smiled and took a sip. “Cheaply delicious.”

  The French climbers didn’t speak much to us. They told animated climbing stories in French, pantomiming the moves with their whole bodies.

  Kenny and I drank our wine together. He said, “So you live here in the Valley, huh?”

  I took a gulp. “Yes, at Bachar Cracker caves right now. And the Ahwahnee caves before that. Maybe again soon.”

  “The Ahwahnee caves?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Kenny said, “Me too.” He took a ball of hair out of his pocket and dropped it in the fire, watching it crackle. He said, “But I only live there sometimes. I’ve been roaming for a while.”

  “Roaming?” I said.

  “Wherever. Just got back from Canada. Squamish. Colorado before that. Met so many good people.” He took a sip of his wine. “So many.”

  I said, “So you’re that Kenny.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “That Kenny?”

  I said, “I think I was sleeping in your cave a while back. Greazy set me up.”

  “That’s perfect,” he said. “Did it have a stove and a crooked pipe?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He patted his chest. “That’s me. I put that thing in myself. Works well, huh?”

  I said, “I didn’t use it because it wasn’t cold when I was staying there. But it looked good.”

  “Makes sense,” he said, “and it does work well when it’s cold.” He swirled his wine, then gargled a little in his mouth. Swallowed and sucked his teeth.

  I fingered a rock in my pocket, a trade from a visiting climber out of Monument Valley. Red sandstone.

  A French climber held a newly opened bottle toward us. “Vous voulez?”

  Kenny said, “Yes, please. I voulez,” and held out his cup.

  The climber refilled both of our cups.

  One of the Frenchmen was taking big, exaggerated steps, acting out running from something. Then he tripped and hit the ground right next to the fire. One of the others helped him up.

  Kenny smiled. “I noticed you’re limping.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Bad, bad bruise.” I pointed to my leg. “I took a boulder fall off Yabo’s. Cracked my knee pretty hard.”

  Kenny said, “Were you drunk?”

  “No,” I said, “just tired. It was late at night, and it was dark, and I was tired.”

  “The dark’ll do that to you.” Kenny laughed again. He seemed to laugh at most things. He said, “I was camping at the rim of the Grand Canyon once, April, near Toroweap. Way out there, and it was cold, and I didn’t think I’d see anybody for weeks. Have you ever been out there?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. You really should go. It’s wilderness there, real wild, man, lonely and remote. And anyway, this BLM truck shows up out of nowhere. And I’m disappointed because I think they might hassle me about not having a camping permit or some crap like that but it turns out they’re just two old college buddies hanging out, camping for the weekend somewhere pretty.”

  Kenny paused to take a gulp of wine. “Yeah,” he said, “they just flat-out proceeded to get drunk. Hammered. I mean obliterated.” He made big sweeping motions with his hands. “Then they went and pulled a juniper tree out of the back of their truck, an entire juniper tree, a young one, but an entire tree, maybe twelve feet tall or so, tall enough in fact that it hung out of the side of their truck by four feet, and it had a root ball and all. Then they started a fire underneath it.”

  I said, “The BLM guys burned an entire tree?”

  “Yeah, weird, huh? Big fire. They invited me over too. Then one of the guys started telling a story about high school prom, and in the middle of imitating someone else’s dancing, he just fell into the fire, right into the middle of it. I reached and grabbed him out, but this was the strange part: When I pulled him out, he rolled into a fetal position and started shaking, and I thought, Oh, man, he’s messed up. Burned bad. I couldn’t see his face or his hands, but I imagined that they were pretty bad. Then he fell onto his side and I realized he was laughing super hard.” Kenny shook his head. “This guy was laughing like falling into a huge fire was the funniest thing he’d ever done in his life. His buddy was laughing too, fell down laughing, and spilled his beer in his lap.”

  “Was the guy burned?”

  Kenny scratched his beard. “Probably,” he said. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem too bad that night, but he was drunk, so you never know. I went and slept in the shelter I’d built a quarter-mile away, and they left in their truck before I got back to their spot in the morning. So that’s all I know.”

  “Weird,” I said.

  “Yeah, weird.” Kenny pointed to my right hand. “What’s with the rock?”

  I’d pulled it out of my pocket and was rubbing it with my fingers. I said, “Sandstone. I got it from another climber. An old habit.”

  “Collecting rocks?”

  “No,” I said, “not just rocks. Rocks from other places. Places I’ve never been.”

  “So it’s like traveling?” Kenny said.

  “Right. Like traveling.”

  He took a sip of wine and sucked his teeth again. “Well, why don’t you just travel for real? Sandstone and pumice and obsidian can all be found in this great state of California.” He squatted down and patted the ground with his palm. He said, “This state right here.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve just never left the Valley.”

  “What do you mean never? Never at all?”

  “No,” I said. “Never at all.”

  “So you were born and raised here?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm,” Kenny said. Then he clinked his metal cup against mine. “Well, okay then. A true, born-and-raised Yosemite man. That doesn’t happen much, at least not anymore.”

  “Nope.”

  “But I like that,” Kenny said. “I like that a lot.”

  • • •

  Two weeks later, I ran into Kenny again. I was in the Yosemite Lodge
bathroom. Kenny came out of a stall while I was at the urinal.

  “Yosemite Valley Man?” he said. His hair was matted together in clumps of dreadlocks. He had a thick layer of dust on his down jacket as if he’d been rolling in dirt all night. Rings of mud around his wrists looked like rubber seals. But he washed his hands with soap.

  He said, “Are you scrounging in here too?” He meant the cafeteria.

  “Yes,” I said. “I always do when the tourists start to come back.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he said.

  We walked back into the dining room and waited for a family of four to get up and leave their breakfast trays. Then we sat down and finished the rest of their food. Half-links of sausage, a few bites of hash browns with ketchup, some scrambled eggs. Two mugs of lukewarm hot chocolate.

  “Delicious.”

  “Yep,” Kenny said. He smiled with his mouth full, hash browns in his teeth.

  I took a tray off the table next to us. Two and a half pieces of white toast with jam already spread. Kenny traded me a deserted mug of coffee for one piece of toast.

  “Still warm, huh?” he giggled.

  “Still good,” I said.

  We ate quickly and left before a cafeteria worker could bother us. As we walked through the door, Kenny said, “I’ve found that I can do that every other day during tourist season. Less often in the fall. But you look a little better than I do. So maybe you could do it more than me without being hassled?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My hair’s long. They probably look at that.”

  “But your hair’s in braids,” he said. “Looks good enough. You could blend in.” We were across from Camp 4 in the parking lot. He said, “Are you still staying over there?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Another couple weeks maybe. Then back to the Ahwahnee caves again.”

  We passed a crew of climbers racking up for a big wall.

  I said, “Do you climb some, Kenny?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I like to go up on El Cap.”

  The Three Brothers blocked my view of El Cap from there. I couldn’t even see the far edge of the East Buttress. “Big wall climbing, huh?”

  “Kind of big wall climbing,” he said. “I like to go up there and just hang out. I like to stay as long as I can.”