The Trail

by Meika Hashimoto

  The cook invites me to spend the night in one of the bunkhouses, but I tell him that I’m fine. He directs me to a stealth site half a mile farther down the trail, where I set up camp. That night, I let Moose into the tent. I keep my arm around him until he falls asleep.

  The next morning I pack up early and head out. It’s another 275 miles to the top of Katahdin. I have been on the trail for eleven days. I have forty days left before school starts. Before I’ve told Gran I would be back.

  Plenty of time to make it.

  Getting on late afternoon, I meet a southbound thru-hiker named Washboard. He’s got a gnarly heap of dreadlocks piled around his head, and his shirt is nowhere to be seen. His stomach ripples every time he moves. It’s easy to see how he got his name.

  Washboard looks me over. “You got some rough stuff ahead of you, man. You ever hear of the killer mile?”

  “The killer mile?” I scoff. I’m about to tell Washboard that I’ve already gone a hundred miles, over the wind and hail of Washington, and I can handle myself, thank you very much, but then I catch a closer look at Washboard’s bare skin. It is covered is scrapes and scratches. It looks like a panther tore up his right side. I shiver. Washboard looks like a hard-core hiker. It must have taken some nasty trail for him to get so beat-up.

  “They call it the hardest mile on the whole AT. Took me an hour and a half to get through it.” Washboard shakes his head. “Man, I’m glad I’m done with that piece.”

  “How far up ahead is it for me?” I ask.

  “Oh, I would say about thirty miles. When you see a peeling birch tree with two banged-in trail signs, one that says something about Goose and another that’s got Speck on it, that’s when you’ll know that the trail is about to get real hairy.”

  Washboard points to the scratches on his belly. “I got these scrambling over boulders.” He turns and shows me a long line of scrapes down the right side of his back. “And I got these scrambling under boulders. And these,” he says, turning back around and pointing downward, “are from tripping over all the roots on the ground.” It looks like a few baseball bats went swinging at his knees. They are covered in dark, angry purple bruises.

  I thank Washboard for the warning and continue on my way. The weather is hot and fine, and my legs carry me over thirteen miles and seven peaks before I make camp at the Rattle River Shelter for the night. As the sun sinks I boil up some pasta and fork the noodles down as I spread open a trail map of northern New Hampshire and Maine.

  If I keep going at my pace, we’ll be in Maine in a day or two and at the top of Katahdin in three weeks.

  “You and me, we’re gonna make it,” I tell Moose.

  Moose woofs. That night, my aloneness feels different from the first few days when I went on the trail. I have a dog outside protecting me. I am no longer a starving, clueless kid.

  “Hey, Lucas,” I whisper into the quiet of the tent and the stars above my head. I can feel him smiling down at me. “I’m doing it, buddy.” I fall asleep to the sound of crickets chirping and the rustle of the wind through the trees.

  The next morning I wake up to quiet. I make a bowl of oatmeal and swirl a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter into it. Moose wags his tail expectantly, and I plop out some of the nutty oatmeal for him. Moose laps up the oatmeal and is still looking at me with hungry eyes, so I dig into my pack and feed him the last of the dog biscuits I had gotten at Lonesome Lake. He wolfs them down, finishing off the last crumb.

  Once Moose is fed, it is time to go. After cleaning my cookware in the nearby river, I refill my water bottles, wipe them dry on my shirt, poke my sleeping bag back in its stuff sack, deflate my sleeping pad, and push them into my pack. I break down the tent and lash it to the outside of my pack. I call to Moose, and we are off.

  In less than an hour we reach a road. I pull out my map. It’s Route 2. About two miles west is the town of Gorham. I know from the lightness of my pack that I need to resupply.

  Moose and I walk along the real road into Gorham. I tell him to stay outside as I enter a Cumberland Farms gas station. Inside, I grab energy bars, pasta, and boxes of rice and beans, as well as a three-pound bag of M&M’S. I find the pet aisle and stock up on a ten-pound bag of Purina for Moose. I also get trail maps for Maine. The map Andy had given me only covered New Hampshire.

  At the register, I unroll three twenties. As the cashier hands me my change of sixty-seven cents, I study a plastic March of Dimes donation box on the counter. With so much food weight, I’m trying to figure out if the coin weight is worth it.

  I realize that I’m thinking about weight this way. A small curl of pride courses through me. I’m thinking like Wingin’ It. I’m thinking like a thru-hiker.

  I drop the coins in the donation box and head outside. With my pack full and heavy, I pick up Moose and we return to the trail. Despite the weight, I hike another thirteen miles before setting up camp at a shelter. I’m doing great.

  The next day, the trail climbs through thick spruce forests, and I pass the sign that Washboard told me about. Soon the trail is choked with boulders. Some of the rocks are as big as houses. We’re descending into Mahoosuc Notch. The killer mile.

  The temperature drops about twenty degrees. Even in July, there are patches of ice tucked in corners underneath freezing rocks. Broken rocks scatter at my feet, as if giants had been hurling them like snowballs. Fallen trees lie with their mud-encrusted roots fanning out to form humps of writhing earthworms and rotting bark.

  It is creepy here. Even the birds seem to have abandoned the place, choosing the warmer temperatures above the notch.

  The trail narrows until it is just a waterfall of fallen boulders. When a thick brown arrow marking the path points under a stack of looming rocks, I think about Washboard and his scrapes and bruises.

  Mist descends on us, thick and cloudy as milk. Granite cliffs rise above. I feel like I’m gradually being squeezed between a rock giant’s hands.

  I squirm between two boulders the size of cars. My pack scrapes along the sides, and a water bottle clunks onto the ground, dislodged by the rocks. I pick it up and stuff it deep into the side pocket. After it does it a second time, I stop to mash both bottles inside my pack.

  The trail sprouts jagged blades of rock that become more and more difficult to navigate. Moose keeps trotting forward, then dancing back, running into me over and over again. Sometimes I have to pick him up and carry him over slick, steep boulders. I’m not very good at it, and more than once I almost drop him. Even though I’ve built up a lot of strength on the trail, Moose has been getting heavier. I’m sure I’ve been feeding him far more than his previous owner. Plus, all the gas station food and all my gear have made my pack bulky. It scrapes against the rocks at every turn.

  It takes me and Moose three hours to get through the one mile of the notch. After the ups and downs, the trail turns into marshes and bogs, with nowhere dry to set down a tent. The last glimmers of sunset are fading by the time I reach a shelter.

  The next day, the trail spills into an empty parking lot. I pour out some Purina for Moose, and he wolfs it down. As I devour a Snickers and reach for a water bottle, I realize that I have only two mouthfuls of liquid left.

  There is a river next to the road. I fill up on water and root around my hood pocket for my iodine pills.

  I can’t find them.

  I pull everything out, checking and rechecking and triple-checking. They are not there.

  That nagging voice of doubt that I thought I had conquered on top of Washington is suddenly back. Did you really think you would be rid of your rotten luck? it whispers to me. Of course you would lose them.

  I try to ignore the voice. At least I’m by a road, where I can hitchhike into a town and get another bottle of iodine pills. I pull out my map and check. I shove everything back into my pack and stick my thumb out.

  FOUR HOURS LATER, I realize how dumb I was to believe it would be easy to hitch. According to my map, the stretch of road where I’m tryi
ng to thumb a lift is ten miles from the nearest town. Only three cars have passed, and none have stopped for a scruffy-looking twelve-year-old standing next to a huge battered backpack and a scrawny dog.

  Another hour passes.

  It’s nearly evening, and I’m just about ready to give up when a car roars up. It is black and shiny and expensive-looking. The windows are tinted.

  The window on the driver’s side rolls down. A middle-aged man with greased-back gray hair turns his head toward me in the dimming light. He is wearing reflective sunglasses. I can’t see his eyes. “Hey, kid,” he says. “You want a ride?”

  There is something funny about the way he is saying his words. They are thick and sloppy, like an oil slick. Moose barks once. Then again, loudly. This time, I can hear the warning in his voice.

  “Come here, kid,” says the driver. He pulls his sunglasses away. His eyes look strange and very bloodshot.

  I don’t know what to do. I could accept a ride with this stranger. I may not like the way he looks, but I need the iodine pills.

  The man crooks his finger at me. “Kid. Come. Here.” His voice is commanding. Hypnotic.

  I walk to the car. Up close, I can see the sweat stains under his button-up shirt. His teeth are yellow. There is a smell coming from him, old tobacco smoke and something else. No one else is in the car with him.

  “I want you to get into the car. Right now.” The man glares at me. His hand reaches for the door handle.

  It hits me. Booze. The man smells like booze.

  Moose barks crazily as I step back. The man opens the door as I turn around and run. I reach my pack and for one moment my hand goes down to scoop it up. It is my lifeline in the woods.

  But then the man is behind me and closing in fast. Moose jumps in front of him, growling, his teeth bared. The man curses. And then he kicks Moose in the side. Hard.

  Moose yelps and stumbles back to me.

  I abandon my pack and pick up Moose. Holding my dog to my chest, I run full tilt into the darkening woods.

  “Kid! Kid!” screams the man.

  I ignore him and scramble into a thicket of scratchy briars. They dig into my pants, but I pull free and keep running. I am not on the trail. I am trying to get lost somewhere in the forest.

  The man’s voice fades, then goes away completely. I slow down, panting, listening for him. Nothing. Moose is trembling in my arms.

  I see a felled tree trunk lying across the way. It is a huge beech tree with its branches spreading out like angel wings. I gently place Moose under the tree and wriggle beside him.

  “Don’t bark, Moose,” I whisper to him. “Don’t make a noise. It’s gonna be okay, boy.”

  We lie there, frozen, until the last of sunset fades through the trees and nighttime blankets the woods in a protective dark. Only then do I dare to move.

  There is no sign of the man. No hint of flashlight, no footsteps, nothing. I am safe.

  I pick up Moose again and try to retrace my steps. But as the night grows deeper, I realize that I have no idea where I am.

  A twig breaks behind me, and my heart explodes with fear. I begin to run blindly, tripping over unseen rocks and roots. It isn’t until I smash into a tree and Moose whimpers that I realize I cannot panic.

  I stop. In the utter dark, I realize something. Moose depends on me. And right now, in this moment, I need to depend on myself. For us. I can’t huddle into my sleeping bag and feel sorry for myself. I have to get us out of this.

  “Think, Toby. Think,” I say to myself. “What do you need to do to stay alive?”

  I have no food. I have no water. I have no tent. There is no wooden shelter to protect me. It is full-on dark. I’ve completely failed my keeps list.

  But there is that tree. And a rising moon that is softly illuminating the forest.

  I can keep warm.

  In the pale ghostly light, I make my way back to the dead beech. I scrape together a pile of leaves and push them against the trunk, then put Moose inside and shuffle in next to him. I curl into a tight ball around my dog.

  The leaves rustle and shift, covering me. Me and Moose aren’t exactly comfortable, and I don’t get a lot of sleep. But when the pale streaks of dawn come, we are still very much alive.

  BY MORNING, MOOSE’S side is swollen and tender, but he is able to walk. Dawn gives way to a leaden sky as we make our way back toward the road, toward my pack and the supplies in it. In daylight it is a little bit easier to see my tracks. I can see where I had fled off the trail and through the thick brush. But when I finally get back to the real road, what I see makes me so angry, I could spit.

  My pack has been ripped open and emptied, its contents scattered across the road. My sleeping bag is half out of its stuff sack. When I pick it up, it is heavy. It has been zipped up and filled with dirt and stones. My pad is next to it, an ugly gash slashed into its side.

  Lucas’s Stansport tent lies like a wounded bird, flapping sadly, wrapped around a tree trunk. I run my hands over it, searching for holes and rips, but the nylon and zippers have withstood the fury of their attack. The tent poles, however, are bent at crazy angles or broken. I wrap the poles in the tent like a shroud. Even though it is most likely beyond repair, I’m not letting go of it.

  I find my cookware and headlamp flung wide but unharmed. My first aid kit has been unzipped, the Band-Aids ripped in half, gauze and tape and scissors and bandages missing.

  My maps have been torn to pieces. I only know because I find bits of them fluttering in the low branches of a few young maple trees next to the road. The backpack itself has tire marks on it, as though it has been backed up on and run over. It is damaged and dirty, but there are no gaping holes that would make it useless.

  Every single bit of brand-new food that I just bought has been opened and dumped and stamped into the dirt. Birds are pecking away at grains of rice on the tar. I see a squirrel make off with a bit of Snickers.

  And then I see it. My iodine bottle. I must have not searched for it hard enough. Only now the bottle is in a thousand pieces, smashed against a rock. There are no pills among the shattered glass. The man must have emptied the bottle before destroying it.

  I don’t cry. Instead, I collect the bits of food that are salvageable—a few energy bars, mangled, but still edible. A handful of M&M’S. I carve away the smears of dirt on a block of cheese and eat the rest of it for breakfast, along with a nearly intact bagel that had been thrown into the brush.

  I empty my sleeping bag and brush it out as best I can. I gather up my ripped and scattered belongings and put everything I can find neatly and quickly back into my pack. I check the hidden pocket inside the hood and breathe a small sigh of relief. My Ziploc full of money is still there. So is the List. The man must have not noticed the inner pocket in the dark.

  I have to make a decision. I remember the lines and the mileage from studying the map the night before. I can make my way thirty-four more miles down the trail to the next real road. From there, it is only a few miles to the town of Rangeley. I can walk there to restock. Or I can try again to hitchhike from where I am.

  Both options are terrible. I am in trouble. But I don’t let myself panic. The past few days on the trail have taught me better. If I hiked, I would be in danger of running out of food. I’d have to plan things out carefully. Really test my ability to survive. To be in the woods, alone and hungry.

  But then I think about those dark sunglasses, the sharp rotten stench of liquor, and I know I can’t expose myself for ten miles down that stretch of road. I’d rather stick to the challenges of the trail than risk running into that man again.

  I pick up my pack. “C’mon, Moose,” I say, and head down the trail.

  I walk steadily and carefully, conserving my energy. I run through my little stockpile of food in my head, calculating and recalculating how much I can eat over the next three days when I will run into another, hopefully friendlier road. I have about thirty miles to go on some candy bar bits and a small cluster
of mud-covered M&M’S.

  The first day, I eat my remaining food in spare bites. I can only give Moose half an energy bar, but he seems to understand and doesn’t beg for more. For lunch, I break out my stove and boil water. It’s the only way I can sterilize it now. I pretend it’s hot chocolate as I drink it. Hot chocolate loaded with gigantic fluffy marshmallows.

  My stomach howls.

  Thunder grumbles and threatens, but the rain doesn’t come until late afternoon. We have been hiking since dawn, and by that time I have found the shelter. I use the broom in the shelter to sweep out the encrusted dirt in my sleeping bag and settle in for the night. By my calculation, I have only eighteen miles left to go.

  Moose and I pass no one on the trail.

  The next day I awake to thick, pounding rain. It is cold and heavy, and by the time I finish my meager breakfast of hot water and the last of my M&M’S, it has grown to a full-on lightning and thunderstorm. It is the first time that I’ve thought the phrase “rain coming down in sheets” and realized it could be so true.

  I can’t hike in this weather. I don’t have enough food to keep me warm. I am eighteen miles from the road up ahead and sixteen miles from the horrible road behind me.

  I decide to wait until the weather gets better. In the meantime, I open my water bottles and prop them up on a rock outside so they can catch the rainwater. I have no iodine and will need to capture as much rain as I can. And if it doesn’t rain for a while and I run out, I’ll need to boil it. And if my fuel runs out, I’ll have to risk it with untreated pond water.

  After setting my bottles outside, I return to the shelter and huddle in my sleeping bag with Moose. I boil more hot water, sipping it in slow gulps, conserving my energy. I watch as the rain and wind lash at the trees, painting dark streaks across their bark.

  By the time the sky finally clears, it is early afternoon and I am down to half a Snickers bar and my fuel canister is rattling toward empty. I have no more food for Moose. As I pack up for my eighteen-mile hike, I hesitate when I spot the battered, useless tent. Lucas’s tent.