So, yes, I felt bad for sleeping with Avery. I felt bad for liking it as much as I did and for not being able to control myself and for really not even trying. I also felt bad that Avery had let me do those things to her in the first place, which I know isn’t fair and was the exact douchey logic she’d warned me against earlier in the day. But I loved Rose and loving her meant not doing anything that would push her away. So to atone for my cowardice, I resolved to hold her closer, as close as I could. That was the kinder choice, I told myself, because changing the past wasn’t in my control.
But Rose not knowing what I’d done to hurt her, well, that was the one thing that was.
20.
THERE WAS SOMEONE, however, that I did intend to apologize to. I could see no downside to that; he already knew what I’d done.
I waited until we’d hiked for another mile or so, winding higher and higher, as we followed the twisting turns of the Grizzly Creek trail. Creek, it turned out, was as big a misnomer as the boggy stream Avery and I had crossed earlier. Fed by the forty-three-acre glacial lake looming above at the mountaintop, this creek was a true force to be reckoned with. Our first face-to-face encounter with it featured the pummeling freight-train roar and sniper-fire spray of a massive twenty-foot cataract shooting down slick rock into a seemingly bottomless fern-lined pool.
For once, it wasn’t just me who was overcome by the physical wonders of the world. The whole group of us stopped and stared. Even Tomás was outwardly impressed, which felt a little bit like hell had frozen over.
“Is this Grizzly Falls?” he asked me.
“Check your map,” I told him.
He looked down to see what I already knew: that we were still a good mile or so from Grizzly Falls. By comparison, this section of the creek was so small and insignificant it didn’t even register on the trail map.
“Shit,” he breathed.
I nodded, letting a smile rise to my lips, willing to offer it to him, but he’d already turned away, walking swiftly over to where Shelby and Clay stood. I took that opportunity to slip my hand from Rose’s and sought out Mr. Howe, who was resting with his back against a boulder and letting the waterfall wet his face. I sat next to him. Gathered my courage.
“I’m really sorry about what happened earlier,” I said. “I screwed up. We shouldn’t have gotten separated in the first place. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He reached to squeeze my shoulder. “I’m the one who shouldn’t have left you alone with them. Especially knowing about your health. That was my mistake, you understand? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I nodded but only felt worse about things. My health wasn’t what had gotten us separated from the rest of the group or made me stick my hand down Avery’s pants or led me into the gorge and across the stream to lie in the grass with a strange woman I wasn’t sure I should trust. I’d done all those things on my own. Me and my poor judgment.
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“You should take it easy for the rest of the day. Rest when we get to the meadow. If the altitude gets to you or anything, you let me know. Okay?”
I nodded again before running my hand through my hair. “Do you hate me?”
Mr. Howe paused. “No, I don’t hate you. Not even close.”
“Oh, okay. Good.”
“I hate that you would think that.”
My shoulders twitched. “Sorry.”
“Is there something else you’re upset about?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. It’s dumb. Forget I said anything.”
“Well, you can talk to me,” he said. “Anytime. Even about dumb stuff. I’m a good listener. Lucia’s taught me well.”
I pushed my lips into a smile. “Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“Hey, what time is it?” I asked because I needed to change the subject. Disappointing people you cared about always felt worse when they acted so nice about it.
Mr. Howe pulled his phone out. “Almost two. Should take us another half hour before we get to the meadow. Then we’ll set up camp and do some exploring. But you should really rest.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
I pointed. “Your phone works out here?”
“Not really. There’s no reception.”
“But you’re able to check the weather?”
“What about the weather?”
“It’s just, well, I heard there was a storm,” I said.
“You heard?”
“Yeah. Those people we ran into earlier told me. One of them said a storm was coming soon. A bad one.”
“Who were those people? Archie said something about a church group?”
“They said something like that, but . . .”
“But what?” he pushed.
“But I agree with Archie. I don’t think they were who they said they were.”
“So who were they?”
“I don’t know. They said they were planning on camping for the weekend, but that we should leave before some storm came in.”
This got Mr. Howe to lift his eyebrows. “Sounds like they don’t want us here.”
That was exactly what I’d been thinking, and I was glad he agreed with me, but I still didn’t do what I should’ve done at that moment. I didn’t tell Mr. Howe about all the other things that were worrying me. Like Maggie lying about where they’d come from. Or the Preacher’s tattoo and how uncomfortable he made me feel. Or that I’d told them both right where we were planning on sleeping that night.
Worst of all, I didn’t tell Mr. Howe about the loaded gun in Archie’s backpack. I didn’t tell him about that or any of those things because I didn’t want to disappoint him more than I already had. And besides, right then, Mr. Howe started yelling at Archie, who was pretending he was going to push a clueless Clay into the river. It was a nice sort of yelling—he wasn’t mad—and pretty soon everybody was goofing near the water, splashing one another with sticks and throwing rocks in the pool to see how deep it was, and in the next moment Mr. Howe leaned back, turned his face to the sun, and gave this long sigh of contentment, like a dog who’d found his bone after digging for the thing all damn day.
Who was I to ruin that for him?
—
The afternoon stretched, lingered, and overstayed its welcome, but we finally reached the lush meadow where we were meant to set up camp. Grizzly Lake still wasn’t visible, but made its presence known nonetheless in the form of a towering waterfall. From hundreds of feet above, a great whitewater rush shot straight over sheer granite cliffs, arcing in a long, tumbling free fall that came crashing down onto huge piles of boulders. The air foamed with alpine spray as the river thundered through the meadow before continuing down the mountain.
Impressive as the sight was, I have to admit it felt strange knowing we’d be sleeping beneath such a massive—and yet unseen—body of water. That we’d have to trust nature would do just what it’d done for the last ten thousand years, which was to stay put and not kill us all. Faith, I guess, is the word I’m looking for. Or maybe suspense. Of the ticking-time-bomb variety.
Excused from doing setup work due to my “medical condition,” I walked out and sat alone on the far edge of the meadow and took in the view. Something rare and fearsome opened inside of me as I did this. Whether it was exhaustion from the day, my weakness, my migraine, I didn’t know. But rather than gaze up at the waterfall, at what lay ahead, I stared down at the valley we’d come from, at the road we’d driven in on and the snaking river we’d camped beside.
All of it, I realized from where I sat, was a reminder of perspective, of futility, of the fact that every system we thought we knew was in reality so much bigger than ourselves. Big enough that our insignificance—in time, in space—was all but guaranteed. This even got me thinking about God a little, whic
h wasn’t like me. Pondering questions about creation or the afterlife or how I might be punished for my sins was rarely worth the effort. Or so I’d found.
But introspection can only last so long. By the time I returned to the campsite, Rose had already gotten the tent all set up, which made me feel shitty. A dumb reaction, seeing as it was her tent in the first place and she knew what to do with it. I’d practiced setting it up on the lawn of the inn on numerous occasions but had yet to put it together on my own.
I crawled inside while she was changing clothes so that I could unroll my sleeping bag—well, that was Rose’s, too, since I’d borrowed most of my gear from her. The rest was on loan from Mr. Howe. In fact, the only piece of backpacking equipment that was actually mine was my compass, which had been my grandfather’s. My mother had hated him with a passion, so when I’d found it in the garage in a box along with some of his other stuff, including his ashes, most of which had spilled everywhere, I didn’t bother asking if I could have it. I just took it.
“Want to lie down with me?” I asked Rose with as much optimism as I could muster. I thought it would be nice to close my eyes and put my hand between her legs.
“Can’t,” she said as she double-knotted the laces of her Nikes. “I told Shelby I’d walk with her.”
“Walk where?”
“I don’t know. Up by the waterfall I guess. Avery’s got a camera. She wants to take pictures of us.”
“Since when are you friends with Shelby and Avery?”
“Since when am I not?”
I didn’t have an answer to that question. Not one I wanted to tell her about, anyway, so I tried a different approach. “Well, aren’t you tired?”
“What’s there to be tired of?”
“Not being with me.”
“I’m sure we’ll have time for that later.” Rose squeezed out of the tent and started to walk away.
“Time for what?” I called out.
She didn’t look back. “For me to get tired of you.”
—
When the girls were gone, I wandered over to where Dunc and Tomás were arguing over how to build a fire. They’d even made this giant ring of rocks and piled a bunch of sorry-looking twigs in the middle of it.
“You know you can’t do that,” I told them.
“Why not?” Dunc swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand. He’d gotten an awful sunburn on his face, despite repeated sunscreen warnings from both me and Mr. Howe, and currently looked like a cross between the lady who worked at our local tanning salon and fucking Donald Trump.
“You’re going to burn the mountain down,” I said. “Also, it’s illegal. Or did you not see the ABSOLUTELY NO FIRES ALLOWED signs when we drove into the park?”
Tomás pointed one of the twigs at me. “You know, you can be kind of a dick.”
“Thanks.”
Dunc sniffed. “Those people we met had a fire.”
“Those people we met probably had a lot of things they weren’t supposed to,” I muttered. “Doesn’t mean we’re having a fire.”
“Who were those people anyway?” Tomás asked.
Dunc kicked at the rock circle, sending stones rolling. “Dude said he was some sort of preacher, but he was full of shit.”
“A preacher? Like, a religious person?”
“Yeah. A preacher. That’s what I said.”
I nodded at Dunc. “Why’d you think he was full of shit? I mean, I thought that, too, but I want to know why you did.”
Dunc kicked a few more rocks, then shoved a pile of Skoal in his lip before answering. “Don’t tell anyone, but Archie went through some of their stuff while you were lying down in the grass with that lady. Let’s just say some of the things he found in that tent of theirs sure didn’t make it seem like the guy was a preacher.”
I gaped. “He seriously did that?”
“What lady?” Tomás asked.
Dunc sighed. “Yeah, he seriously did that.”
“What’d he find?”
“Just some booze and stuff. Arch might’ve taken some.”
“Taken some what?”
“Booze.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“What lady?” Tomás asked again.
A line of brown drool ran down Dunc’s chin. “One of the Preacher’s acolytes. He had two of them. Apparently their God-given job is to walk around naked while he prays for more ass or something. Arch and I got an eyeful before Gibby and Avery showed up and ruined the whole thing. It was a pretty nice scene to come across. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Tomás?”
“Know about what?”
“The pleasures of naked girls.”
Tomás looked at me. “What were you doing with Avery?”
“We were just, uh . . . taking some pictures.” I fumbled for the lie, and even I could hear how awkward my words sounded.
“Yeah, I bet you were,” Dunc said. “But hey, Arch thinks he knows who those people really are.”
I blinked. “How’s that?”
“He told me he heard about two convicts escaping from that state mental hospital down in Napa yesterday, then robbing a bank. Guess they were last seen heading north with two female accomplices.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I heard that, too. It was on the news at the gas station. That’s not them. No way.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, first of all, we only met one guy down there. Not two.”
Dunc shrugged. “Arch says there were four sleeping bags in that tent.”
“Why would they come here?”
“Why wouldn’t they? I’d hide out somewhere remote if I were them. Apparently they’re carrying half a million dollars in cash.”
Half a million dollars. I’d missed that part of the news story. And I shivered a little, picturing all that money and what I could do with it. But I also recalled that eerie movement I’d seen in the woods behind the campsite. Maybe that hadn’t been some migraine-induced trick of the eye. Maybe I really had seen something.
Or someone.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know who those people were, but there was something off about them. That woman I was talking to? Maggie? She told me they’d driven here from Arcata.”
“Arcata sucks ass,” Dunc said.
True, but not relevant. “Yeah, but later she told me about a weather report she heard all the way down in Willits. That doesn’t make sense. That’s almost three hours in the other direction.”
Tomás looked at me. “What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. It just makes me wonder, you know?”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Dunc wagged a grubby finger at me. “It is them. It has to be. Coming from Napa, they would’ve gone straight through Willits. I bet they have that cash on them. That’s why they were so sketchy earlier, following us around everywhere.”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “But then why’d the Preacher call us down there in the first place?”
“To find out who we were. What we’re doing here.”
“I guess.” It still didn’t make sense to me, though. He’d let Avery photograph him. In fact, he’d invited her to do so.
“Think we should tell someone?” Tomás asked me.
I looked at him. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Dunc tipped his head as he spit again. “Yeah, I don’t know, either, but you better be careful telling Archie any of this. Give him proof he’s right about who those people are, he’s going to go after a whole hell of lot more than a bottle of Jim Beam.”
Tomás gave an exasperated sigh. “We’re talking about fugitives who broke out of a state mental hospital. That means they were waiting to be assessed to see if they’re criminally insane.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need to wait for someone else’s assessment. This is Archie DuPraw we’re talking about. I know insanity when I see it. Hell, Gibby, you ought to know better than the rest of us. Takes one to know one.”
“I guess.” I didn’t have the energy to get sucked into the taunting nature of his words. No one had ever said I was criminally insane; I just had to see a court-ordered therapist for a year or so after what happened with my stepfather. I was also assigned a social worker, who made sure my mother got on disability on account of her back injury and did his best to keep her sober. Trust me, even though I’d killed someone, to everyone outside of our house, I was seen as a victim. I was treated like one, too.
This time, though, I doubt I’ll be so lucky.
21.
AVERY FOUND ME after dinner when I went to get water from the river so that Clay and I could wash the dishes. The sun was setting and the sky was bursting with color—bright pops of it, here and there and there—and even though I didn’t plan it like that, my whole body kind of felt the same way when I saw her walking toward me.
That long black hair.
Those soft, soft thighs.
She sat on a rock by the water’s edge, at a spot where the river ran wide, taking pictures of the sky and the dragonflies and maybe of me. For my part, I pretended not to see her while I crouched to fill the dromedary sack, which was just a fancy name for a nylon bag that held water. We were hidden from the others by a thicket of weeping spruce and feather grass, and I don’t know how it happened, but pretty soon we were sitting together and letting our knees touch and talking about things that felt urgent and deep, like how much we liked each other but didn’t want to hurt Rose. Pretty shitty stuff, I realize now, looking back on it, because if I were getting played, the last thing I’d want my significant other talking about was how bad she felt for cheating on me. But in that moment I was stupid and eager and maybe there was a certain chaos I craved.
When I Am Through with You Page 10