The Trail

by Meika Hashimoto

  The first things to greet me are long wooden tables with benches tucked neatly underneath them. A chalkboard announces the name of the crew working in the hut as well as the dinner menu for the night—anadama bread, split-pea soup, beef tips, couscous, steamed veggies, and a surprise dessert.

  A wooden counter with a stainless-steel top and three sinks divides half the eating area from the kitchen; a sales counter divides the other half. The sales counter is full of stuff to buy—extra socks, headlamps, AA batteries displayed in a glass case at knee level. Appalachian Mountain Club T-shirts for sale hang from a clothesline above.

  A fully stocked kitchen lies behind the counters. The wooden shelves are lined with plastic spice containers, full of cumin, cinnamon, curry powder, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, basil, and onion and garlic powder. Gallon jugs of molasses, oil, and barbecue sauce rest on the windowpanes. White plastic rolling bins have been wheeled under a stainless-steel table. Traces of flour and oats dust their lids. Five-gallon pots hang from metal hooks dangling from the ceiling.

  A guy with wiry brown hair and a scruffy beard stands in front of a six-burner stove, unloading a heap of chopped onions into a soup pot so big, a baby could swim around in it. He’s got on a light-green T-shirt with the white blocky outline of a spruce tree across the front. His Carhartt workpants are stained with paint and dirt, and his feet are covered with bright orange Crocs over a pair of thick wool socks.

  If Lucas and his dad were here, they’d already be chatting with this guy, asking him what’s for dinner, how he likes working in the huts, what his favorite color is. I’d be in the background, waiting until they were done talking so I could have Lucas to myself.

  But they aren’t here, and I have to talk to this guy if I’m going to get supplies from the hut. I’m about to ask where to get something to eat when I spot them. Lying like open treasure chests on top of the sales counter. Boxes of energy bars with their cardboard lids peeled back. Clif Bars, Luna bars, PowerBars, KIND bars. Flavors that sound like angels have been in the kitchen: chocolate chip peanut crunch, chocolate almond fudge, chocolate-dipped coconut, dark chocolate cherry cashew, peanut butter chunk chocolate.

  And there are Snickers bars. Oh, there they are. Lovely Snickers bars.

  I feel like a half-starved bear stumbling out of hibernation as I approach the counter, wobbly kneed and achy stomached. I set my pack down slowly. I’m so close to food that I’m trembling, and I’m worried that if I’m not careful I’ll lose it and start cramming energy bars in my mouth, wrappers and all. I unzip the top of my pack and find the Ziploc with the rolled-up twenties.

  The guy in the kitchen sees me unpeeling a twenty and comes over. “Hi there. What can I get you?”

  I hand him the bill and reach for the closest box. I take out a chocolate almond fudge Clif Bar. My hands shake as I make a diagonal tear down the wrapper. The inside foil glints in the sunlight as I raise the bar to my lips and take a bite.

  Sugar and chocolate flood my mouth. Before I can stop myself, I am ripping off huge chunks of the bar and swallowing them so fast I stop breathing. The whole thing is gone in about ten seconds. I am dizzy with happiness.

  The guy has my twenty, but he seems to have forgotten that he’s holding it. “When was the last time you ate?” he asks.

  “I had half a Snickers bar this morning,” I mumble. I don’t want to tell him that I’ve completely run out of food.

  The guy leaves the twenty on the counter. He walks over to the sinks and pulls a rack of dishes out from under them. He takes out a plate, removes a fork and a knife from a silverware holder, and hands them to me. “Sounds like you’ll be needing breakfast, then.” He points to a shallow pan with a lid over it on one of the long dining room tables. “Pancakes are over there. Have as many as you want.”

  I wanted to get supplies and get out, but the promise of more food is too powerful. I go over to the pan and slide off the lid. There are at least two dozen fluffy pancakes nestled inside, each as big as my hand. “Thank you, s-s-sir,” I stutter.

  The guy laughs. “You can call me Andy.”

  I pull the bench back and set myself down next to the pan, spear half a dozen of the pancakes on my plate, and begin to stuff them whole inside my mouth. I don’t need the knife.

  Andy comes over with a bottle of maple syrup. It’s not the fake kind that they normally serve in the huts because people use so much of it—it’s Maine-made honest-to-goodness real maple syrup that he must have gotten from the crew’s personal stash. He also brings a full stick of butter.

  “Here you go,” he says as he sets them on the table. “I’m making you some eggs, too.” He goes back to the kitchen and takes a cast-iron skillet down from a hanging hook. A few moments later I hear the hiss and sizzle of frying eggs. “Do you eat meat?” he calls.

  “Mm-hmm,” I answer.

  I’ve gone through about a dozen pancakes when Andy sets down a second plate in front of me. There are three fried eggs and six sausage links on it, plus a toasted sesame bagel piled high with cream cheese and slices of avocado. “This here’s what we like to call hiker’s delight,” he tells me.

  “Thank—”

  “Just eat,” he says.

  I have gobbled down the eggs and half the avocado bagel before I remember. I take my plate and go outside. One by one, I toss the sausage links to Moose, ignoring the urge to save one for myself. I give him my other bagel half, too. Moose snaps everything up in a few gulps.

  We are fed. We are full. We are doing all right.

  WHEN I GO back inside, Andy is in the kitchen pouring a can of tomato puree into the soup pot. He comes up to the counter when he sees me. I pass him my dirty plate. I figure my breakfast will cost a fortune, but it was worth it. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Two bucks for the Clif Bar. Nothing for everything else.” Andy hands me eighteen dollars, change for my twenty.

  “No.” I am determined not to owe him. I give him a ten back. He waves it away, so I shove it into a tip jar on the counter.

  Andy sighs and leans his head toward the front windows. “Looks like your friend enjoyed the sausages.”

  Andy seems like the kind of person who wouldn’t gossip about stray kids in huts. I decide to open up to him a little. “I’ve been giving him what I can. He doesn’t have an owner and has been following me since the Kinsmans.”

  “You can feed him what’s left of the pancakes. And I have some dog treats that a hiker left here last week. Take them, too.”

  Andy takes a box of Milk-Bone biscuits off one of the shelves and hands it to me. This act of kindness almost breaks me. After nearly giving up on the trail yesterday in the miserable pelting rain, too many things are going right. I haven’t had this much stuff work out for me. Ever.

  I can feel tears welling up. I jerk around and scrub my eyes, hoping that Andy hasn’t seen. When I turn back around, Andy is staring at me. He has a curious look on his face. “How far are you planning to hike, kid?” he asks.

  I decide to tell him the truth and hope that Sean and Denver don’t compare stories with him. “I plan to go straight through the White Mountains and on to Katahdin.”

  “That’s a far ways. You traveling with anybody?”

  I nearly tell him that it’s just me. Then I think about how weird that would sound. A young kid hiking hundreds of miles by himself. “I’m hiking with my dad, but he’s real slow. I don’t think he’ll be here for another hour at least.” I swallow hard. The lie is a lump in my throat. My face is turning hot. I hope Andy doesn’t notice.

  “Think you and your dad are going to make it?” he asks.

  “I’ve—We’ve got to.”

  “And why is that?”

  I think about the List. About the way Lucas would cup his hands over a newly lit fire to keep the small flames burning. About promises I have made. I look the guy square in the eye. “I’ve just got to.” My voice is steel.

  The hut goes still for a moment.

&nb
sp; I expect Andy to poke further, to ask more questions that I have to make more lies for. Instead, he folds his arms. “Wait here,” he says. He disappears down a corridor past a sign that reads “Croo Only.” When he comes back, he is holding a glass marble between his thumb and forefinger. It is perfectly clear except for a ribbon of blue swirled through the center.

  “This belonged to my great-grandfather.” Andy tosses the marble in the air. It winks in the sunlight before disappearing back into his hand. “He was a fighter pilot during World War II. Before he went to war, his five-year-old son gave him this marble. Told him it would keep him safe.

  “Not a lot of pilots survived Nazi artillery, but my great-grandfather did. He kept the marble tucked in a special pocket he sewed onto his uniform. At the end of the war, he gave the lucky marble back to his son, who gave it to his daughter, who gave it to her eldest son.” Andy taps the marble against his chest. “Me.” He holds the marble out to me. “This is for you. You’ve got a long way ahead of you, and a little luck wouldn’t hurt.”

  “No.” The word tumbles out of my throat. I don’t deserve this generosity. This faith and trust in me, when I barely have faith in myself.

  Andy folds his arms. “I’m not telling you that you can keep it. When you reach Carter Notch Hut, give the marble to the crew. They’ll get it back to me. But you look like you could use some help. At least take it through the huts.”

  I think about it. All my life I’ve done nothing but screw up. It wouldn’t hurt to have something lucky to balance out all the bad luck that weighs my every step.

  I hold out my hand. Andy drops the marble into my palm. It is small but surprisingly heavy. Then he goes to the front counter and begins taking Clif Bars and PowerBars out of their boxes. “Open your pack. You’ve got a ways to go, and you’ll be needing supplies.”

  Half an hour later, my pack is ten pounds heavier and I have one hundred and ninety one dollars remaining in my money Ziploc. Andy has stuffed in boxes of Annie’s macaroni and cheese, a dozen instant oatmeal packets, Gatorade mix, a two-pound block of cheese, a jar of peanut butter, three plump summer sausages, and about twenty energy bars. It should be more than enough to get me and Moose through the next couple of days.

  I’m tempted to buy a water filter, but the one in the display case is almost a hundred bucks. It’s way more than I can afford, so I figure I’ll fill up on water in the huts. Plus, Denver’s iodine pills should last me a good chunk of the trail into Maine.

  And most important, tucked in my hood pocket is a Ziploc sandwich bag with a square of glossy paper detailing all the trails and contour lines of the White Mountains folded inside. I’ve got a map again.

  I AM OUTSIDE, feeding handfuls of dog biscuits to Moose, when Sean and Denver come down the trail. I say hello, and they go inside to have lunch. Moose and I head to the lake, where I avoid families of hikers and find a deserted patch of shore. I skip stones over the calm water while Moose snuffles around the reeds.

  When I run out of smooth, flat stones, I sit on the rocky shore and think about the last time I had felt this peaceful by the water. It was the day when Lucas and I had officially gone about tackling the List.

  It was only a week after that fateful pancake breakfast. Lucas’s dad had strapped the family canoe to the top of the Subaru and had driven us to Lake Winnipesaukee. We’d caught four wriggling trout, and Lucas’s dad had scaled and gutted the fish on the picnic table at our campsite. After throwing the scraps to the birds, Lucas and I had rolled the fish in bread crumbs and his dad had panfried them to a crisp golden hue over a roaring campfire.

  That night, we had feasted on fresh-caught fish, and as we sat by the lake digesting our meal and watching the stars glitter across the clear night sky, Lucas had pulled out the List and made one long slash across #1: Go fishing. “One down, nine to go,” he had said. We had whooped and high-fived our greasy hands.

  “Gah!” A sharp prick on the side of my neck brings me out of my daze. I slap at my skin. When I take my hand away, there is a squashed mosquito on my palm, as well as a smear of my blood. My neck is already starting to itch.

  I look down and see an army of flies crawling over my pants. Another mosquito lands on my knee and stabs down into my quick-dry pants.

  Biting insects are the worst of the bad littles. I bat at my pants, and the flies whirl into my face. I accidentally snort up a bug, but before I can snort it back out, it bullets through my nose and down into my throat. I try not think of how many eyes it has. I decide that I am done with the lake.

  I stand up. Moose is waiting for me, his long tail thumping against the rocks. I lean over and scratch him behind the ears. “Hey, buddy.”

  Moose wiggles his head into my fingers. A stinky pink tongue licks my wrist, and his mouth curls into what I swear is a smile.

  I give Moose a final scratch, then head back to the hut. Inside, Sean and Denver are refilling their water bladders in a small silver sink. Andy is nowhere in sight.

  “Hey, Tony!” Denver greets me. “You heading out now?”

  I nod. “Just got to fill my water bottles and I’ll be set.” I nervously check the hallway leading to the crew room. If Andy sees me talking with Sean and Denver, he may become suspicious of my story about hiking with my dad.

  I hurriedly fill my water bottles and shove them in the side pockets. I sling my pack over my shoulders and nearly fall down. It’s a lot heavier than this morning. “Let’s go.” I am impatient to get out of the hut before Andy reappears.

  Sean immediately heads out the door, but Denver waits in the hut until I have clipped my chest and hip straps closed. I stagger out of the hut behind him. We meet up with Sean and get back on our way.

  As Denver and Sean stride down the trail, I quickly realize that the only reason that I could keep up with them before was because my pack had weighed half as much as it does now.

  As the trail descends, I stumble behind Denver and Sean. My pack straps bite into my shoulders, rubbing them even rawer than before. Every time I lift my foot it’s as if I’m sloughing through deep water. I am silently grateful that we are going down instead of up. But even with gravity on my side, the distance between us grows longer and longer. Every once in a while Denver glances behind and waits a few seconds, but Sean does not stop or turn around once. He seems determined to lose me.

  After a few miles, the trail comes to a whizzing highway. Up ahead, Denver shouts something to Sean, and he finally stops. He turns and glares at me until I have caught up.

  “You’re slowing us down,” he says sharply. “We’ve got over nine miles to go before the Garfield Ridge Shelter, and it’s already noon. We want to be able to set up camp before dark, but we won’t with you hanging on to us like some sort of parasitic tick.”

  “Easy, Sean,” says Denver.

  Moose growls. I put my hand on his head to calm him. Sean’s words hurt, but he is right. It has been too easy for me to follow them. But I’m not on the trail to be a follower. “You guys go ahead. I’ll see you at the shelter.”

  “Are you sure?” Denver asks.

  “Yes, he’s sure,” Sean says. “C’mon, D. Let’s go.” He turns his back to me and begins walking. Fast.

  Denver looks at me. I nod. “Go. I’m going to stop and feed Moose, anyway.”

  Denver sighs and hurries after his friend.

  I set down my pack. Moose whines as I dig through my supplies and snaps up the handful of dog treats I feed him. I polish off a Clif Bar as he scarfs down his food, and we are off again.

  The trail climbs steeply past the highway. I plod along slowly, but I don’t stop. Step. Breath. Step. Breath. I chant this in my head as I climb past the tree line and into a boulder field.

  I realize that even at my snail pace, I’m making better progress on my own than if I had tried to keep up with Sean and Denver. I probably would have pooped out within an hour and needed to rest for another hour. And then I would have felt bad. Now I am making my own pace. It doesn’t feel sp
eedy, but it feels right.

  The wind picks up. I pull on my Windbreaker and cinch up the hood. The sky is sharp and blue, and I can see the mountains all around me—the summer green of the maple leaves, the dark spruce and pine dotting the upper elevations, valleys on either side of me, and a wave of mountains in the distance, stretching all the way to Canada.

  I look at these mountains and feel the wind pressing into my cheeks and close my eyes. A little piece of me opens up to being outside, with a dog at my feet and food in my belly.

  Moose and I fall into a rhythm. He bounds ahead for thirty feet, then circles back to make sure I’m still there. When he reaches me he wags his tail, gives me a drooly smile, then turns around and leaps forward again. Even though he has far more energy and strength than me, he never goes out of my sight. It’s like he’s afraid of losing me. It’s probably just because he knows I’ll give him food. But I don’t mind.

  Like bumps along a camel’s back, we hike steadily over peak after peak. Franconia Ridge is made up of a bunch of L-named mountains—Liberty and Little Haystack, Lincoln, and finally, the beast of the range, Lafayette, which stands nearly a mile tall.

  On top of Liberty, Moose and I happily wolf down a few energy bars. We pass a bunch of folks on the ridge, but I don’t talk to them. I’m still trying to keep myself as forgettable as possible so no one gets suspicious and raises the alarm.

  By the time we get to Little Haystack, I’m starting to slow down. Moose is running only twenty feet ahead of me instead of thirty. On Lincoln he has stopped running ahead completely. After we have another snack, Moose stays by my side, tiredly panting as we slog forward.

  As the afternoon turns into evening, the steady stream of hikers trickles to one or two an hour, then none. By the time we reach the top of Lafayette, the sun has set. I pull my map out in the fading twilight and trace the trail to the Garfield Ridge Shelter. My heart sinks. I still have four miles to go.

  It’s cold on the rocky peak. A wind whips up, and Moose shivers. I look down at him. His head is drooping and his tongue is hanging out. He’s tired, too.