“Well, he’s partly right,” August corrected. “It would be really hard for me right now to call climbing a good example of the most important pursuit in a life. When I can barely hike a half mile uphill to Weeping Rock.”
Seth righted his chair and pulled himself up, leaning on it, gasping for breath. “I’m sorry, August,” he said. “Really I am. I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m saying. I shouldn’t even be talking.”
“No, don’t apologize,” August said. “You’re right. I’m being an ass.”
Silence and lack of movement ruled for a long, awkward moment.
Then Henry said, “I’ll go get you another glass of water, August.”
“No, it’s okay,” August said. “I think that knocked me out of it. I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up anymore.”
Henry scuffled inside without a word. And did not come out again.
“So, what’s the other part?” Seth asked, poking at the dying embers with a rough stick.
August was amazed the young man was still awake and talking. August sighed.
“How can I explain this? It’s like everybody lives every day knowing something terrible could happen. That this could be the day they get ‘the call.’ You know the one I mean. That dreadful call regretting to inform you that the worst has happened. I mean, we don’t think about it every day. But if we thought about it, we’d know it could happen. But it seems like this weird quirk of human nature that we don’t think it ever will. It never did before, so we figure it won’t. Someone else will get the call. Someone who isn’t us. But then you get the call. And it seems so real that you could again. Maybe even that you will again.”
“We studied that last semester in school,” Seth said. “The way our subconscious tells us that if it never happened before, it never will. But if it happened, especially pretty recently, it tells us it’s about to happen again. Like if somebody gets mugged on a certain corner in the city, every time they go through that intersection, their heart will beat faster. They’ll break out in a sweat. Consciously they know it’s not going to happen again just because of the location. But this reptilian part of our brain is giving off different signals.”
August sat in the dark for a time before answering. Woody barked from inside the motor home, and they looked up to see Dwayne standing at the edge of their campsite.
“Dawyne-o,” Seth said. “What’s up?”
“I was going through my equipment, and I have a couple things of yours. I have your belay plate. And this ascender.” He held it up in the dark.
“Can’t believe you walked all the way over here tonight. I’d have thought you’d want to sleep first.”
“Yeah. Well. We’re heading out first thing in the morning. And this is a nice ascender. These things aren’t cheap.”
“Yeah, my dad gave me that,” Seth said.
Seth still wasn’t getting up. August wondered if he even could.
It made August’s stomach a little rocky and cool hearing that Seth’s dad had given him a nice piece of expensive climbing equipment. So Seth’s dad was supporting him in ways August couldn’t manage. Wes was better at something.
“I haven’t even sorted through my stuff to see if I accidentally got anything of yours.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dwayne said. “Nothing missing that I care a damn about. We may have gotten some of each other’s ’biners. But I have the right number, and the right number of locking ones. And all our ’biners are in good shape. So who cares?”
“ ’Preciate your coming over, man. Not sure where you found the energy.”
“No worries. Have a good life. Climb high.”
And he set the belay plate and the ascender on the picnic table and walked back into the darkness from which he’d come.
August didn’t know what to say to Seth. So he just said, “You sound so awake. Alert even.”
“I know. I was just marveling at that myself. So why do you not get these panic attacks over driving? Since that’s how it happened.”
Oh, August thought. We’re still talking about this. Too bad.
“I don’t know. I guess because I blamed it on the alcohol. The combination of the alcohol and the driving. But I don’t even know if I’m right.”
“Maybe we go exactly when it’s our time to go, no sooner and no later, and the odds don’t mean a thing.”
“I’m a science teacher, Seth.”
“Right. I think I better go to bed, August. I’m sorry. Again.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be. I think it was mostly my fault.” As he watched Seth shuffle through the dirt like an exhausted old man, August asked, “Any more big walls on this trip?”
“Yeah. One. At the very end of the summer. Yosemite. El Cap. Some climbing friends are going to meet me there. I won’t be alone. Or with strangers.”
“At the end of the summer. Good. That gives me a little time. I’ll try to do better by then.”
Seth smiled. But it was a sad smile. At least it seemed sad to August.
Chapter Seven:
OR BUST
“There it is,” Seth said, and pulled off the highway into a visitor center parking lot.
“So that’s Pikes Peak?” August asked.
“It is.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’ve seen a lot of pictures of it.”
They stepped out of the rig and took a few more. Gave Woody a chance to stretch his legs and pee.
August was surprised there was still snow on Pikes Peak—and the surrounding mountains—in June. But maybe he shouldn’t have been. Since it was over fourteen thousand feet.
“But that’s not a climb, right?” August asked.
“No, there’s a trail all the way up. It’s a long hike.”
“How many feet of elevation do you gain?”
“Hmm. Don’t remember exactly. It’s something like twelve miles and over seven thousand feet.”
“That’s a lot for one day. You’re doing it in one day?”
“If nothing unexpected comes up.”
“That’s a big hike. But, still . . . I can understand that. I can understand wanting to trudge up twelve miles and seven thousand feet in one grueling day.”
Silence. From both boys. August wondered if it was that silence. The one that meant they were holding something back. And why he seemed intent on distinguishing one silence from another.
“In fact, I wish I could,” he added.
But he never got an answer.
Two days later it still hadn’t come up again.
Henry and August drove out of their RV park in Manitou Springs at ten in the morning, and Henry did an amazing job of navigating the steep, narrow, twisting streets up to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway station. It was in essentially the same location as the trailhead for summit hikers, and alive with tourists on this June midmorning. Cars sat jammed into tight parking places on both sides of the street, making the traffic lanes almost too narrow for the big motor home, but Henry stayed calm. He went slow, occasionally asked August to check his clearance on the right, and when pairs or groups of people came walking through those narrow margins, Henry just stopped and let them by, not seeming to worry about the patience of any drivers behind him. Nobody honked.
When they finally turned into a big parking lot, where a train station employee pointed them up the hill to a second lot for larger vehicles, he heard Henry let out his breath. It was August’s first indication that the stress of the difficult driving had gotten to him.
“You stay here, Woody,” Henry told the dog when he’d parked, and set the brake. “Oh no. Look at that, August. Look how his ears always go out and down when I say that. That’s so sad.”
“No dogs on the cog railway. That’s just the way it is.”
“I guess,” Henry said.
He didn’t bother to add, “But I hate that it makes him sad.” It was more or less memorized by then.
August tried to give Henry the window seat on the train, but he
wouldn’t hear of it. A uniformed docent began a narration as the train pulled slowly up the grade. But August wasn’t listening. Henry leaned over August slightly to watch the view out the window. Even though it was only trees so far. It made August feel close to him, in more ways than just the literal one.
“I think we might be making a big mistake in how we’re handling this thing with your dad,” August said.
“Making a mistake how?”
“Well. Every day he calls. And gets madder and madder.”
“How could we be making a mistake? We’re not doing anything.”
“Exactly,” August said. “I think that might be the mistake right there.”
A long silence. Very long. It lasted until they were well above the tree line.
Then Henry said, “What do you think I should do?”
“Maybe call him.”
“And tell him what?”
“I’m thinking maybe the truth. Since he seems to know it already.”
“That’s not going to be pretty.”
“Maybe not. But maybe neither is this.”
Henry sighed. Chewed on his lip a moment.
Then he said, “First I want to get to . . .” He stopped himself abruptly. “Um. Where we’re going. If I don’t get there with you guys, I swear . . . I just can’t let him stop me until after that, August. It’s too important to me.”
August nodded. Didn’t speak.
“I mean, unless it was more like . . . you know . . . an order. That I call him. Not so much a suggestion.”
“It wasn’t an order,” August said. “More like a question. I really don’t know what the right thing is. I just keep getting the feeling this isn’t it.”
“Whoa,” August said as he waited in the line of passengers slowly shuffling off the train. “You can really feel how thin the air is.”
“You okay, August?”
“I think so. It just makes every move harder.”
“Here, put your arm around my shoulder.”
August started to object, almost out of force of habit. Then he shut his mouth again and leaned on Henry’s narrow but solid shoulders. They stepped off into patchy snow on the summit. And cold.
“I haven’t been cold for a long time,” Henry said. “So where does the trail come up? Where’s the top of it?”
“No idea,” August said. “We’ll have to go inside and ask.”
“You stay right here and look at the view. I’ll go.”
August planted his canes carefully and looked around. The long red train comprised nearly half of his view. The summit looked as rocky and desolate as the surface of the moon. A place where nobody lives and nothing grows. And yet if he turned around he’d see a restaurant and gift shop behind him. So he didn’t turn around.
He looked up to the sky. It was the most amazing color of blue. Brilliant and uniform, but a light blue. The few filmy clouds looked like cotton candy that someone had dragged a sleeve through.
He looked out into the distance and saw mountains and green valleys and lakes, and maybe even states beyond Colorado. He’d heard that on a clear day you could see several states from the summit of Pikes Peak. Off in the distance the clouds looked much darker and more serious, maybe the start of a classic mountain afternoon thunderstorm. But a good long way off.
Seth was a strong hiker. He’d beat it.
He closed his eyes and thought, It’s a good summer. A full one. With lots of good firsts. Which is good. Since it’s the last.
They sat on some rocks that were a bit too low for sitting, as near to the edge of the sudden grade as they dared, and let the train they’d taken up go down without them. And waited for Seth.
“You really can’t see the trail from here,” August said.
“No, but we should see him when he gets up here. They said it gets sketchier as it gets up to the summit. Less like a trail and more like just finding a good spot to scramble up. But they said most hikers come up right around here. We’ll see him.”
“I’m getting hungry,” August said. “But I don’t want to eat without Seth.”
“Me neither.”
August closed his eyes and pulled his jacket more tightly around himself. It was barely forty degrees, and the wind kept trying to cut right through his clothes.
“Hope he beats that storm,” August said.
Henry shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand. “Oh, that’s a good long way off,” he said. “Seth knows all about getting up here by noon. He knows enough to be scared of lightning. Why do you think he hit the trail at three in the morning?”
They waited in silence for a few more minutes, August hugging himself against the cold.
“I’m jealous of Seth today,” he said.
That just sat there on the summit edge with them for a moment. Henry didn’t answer.
“I look down there and I think, ‘My God. What a huge job. What a huge undertaking to have ahead of you. To accomplish all in one day. So many hours of exertion.’ And yet I envy him. Because I know how he’s going to feel when he comes trudging up over that last rise. I totally understand a challenge like this one. I wish he’d do more of this and less of the hanging on sheer walls. I keep wondering why this much adventure and challenge isn’t enough.”
Henry stayed dead quiet.
“Penny for your thoughts,” August said.
“It shouldn’t matter whether you understand it or not, August. Or whether it would be enough of a challenge for you or not. It’s Seth’s dream. Not yours. And I really hope that when he gets up here you won’t say anything like that to him.”
“Oh,” August said. “Right. I just did it again, didn’t I? I don’t even see them go by sometimes. They’re just there. And they seem so natural and so right until you point out otherwise.”
“I’m really sorry Phillip died, August. You know I am. But that doesn’t mean Seth will.”
Before August could even open his mouth to answer, he was startled by a voice from behind.
“What’re you guys doing out here?”
The surprise almost knocked him right off his rock. He turned to see Seth standing on the summit behind them, his pack slung over one shoulder. He looked relaxed. Not out of breath at all.
“Where did you come up?” August asked, struggling to his feet. Both Henry and Seth rushed to help him up. “We were told you’d come up somewhere right around here.”
“I came up right around here,” Seth said. “But over two hours ago. I’ve been sitting in the restaurant waiting for you guys. I’m starved. Come on. Let’s go have something to eat.”
Before they boarded a train together to ride back down to Manitou Springs, Seth asked another tourist to take a picture of them in front of the sign. The Pikes Peak summit sign that announced they stood 14,110 feet above sea level.
While he was posing for the photo, without canes, under the dark and gathering clouds, one arm around each boy’s shoulder, August wondered two things about the finished photo. He wondered how much different it would feel to look at it the way Seth would after climbing to 14,110 feet above sea level. Not sitting on a plastic train seat and being hauled up the incline. And he wondered, in years to come, when he was stuck home for the summer, if looking at the photo memory of this moment would make him feel better or worse.
Chapter Eight:
THE TRUTH
August woke with a start to find himself in the passenger seat of the rig. It was dark, and Seth was driving. He’d been driving all day, making time. But making time to where? August still wasn’t sure.
He looked through the windshield as the landscape slid by. Wherever they were, it was flat here. There didn’t seem to be much around in the way of habitation.
“Where are we?” August asked.
“Kansas,” Seth said.
“Really. Kansas.”
“Does that seem surprising?”
“It does, actually. In all the time I’ve had this motor home—I mean, in all the time I had it—I neve
r took it this far out into the world. I never left the Southwest, I think, except for Yellowstone. No, that’s not true. I took it up to the Pacific Northwest once.”
“Yeah, well, you’re with us now.” Seth smiled a little, as if to and for himself. Then he said, “Here’s what I want to know. It’s still June. How in God’s name did you make a trip like this last all summer? I swear I don’t remember.”
It was August’s turn to smile. “You’re rushing,” he said. “You’ve got a few activities, a few destinations lined up. And you’re rushing from one to the other. My pace was different. It’s just a whole different mindset. It’s more about being than doing. When you find a place you like, you just be there. You don’t have to have something special to do every day. You don’t have to move on to the next place just because you don’t have plans. You camp for the sake of camping. You sit by your campfire in a park and just glory in the fact that you’re there.”
“Wow,” Seth said. “Sounds so unlike me. Did I do that eight years ago?”
“If you didn’t, you kept it to yourself.”
“Well anyway. I promise we’ll try that. Later in the trip. Right now we’re rushing on purpose.”
“Why is that?”
Henry’s voice from the dinette area. “Because he promised me he would.”
August wasn’t sure why he had assumed Henry was sleeping.
Seth said, “Henry’s afraid Dad’s going to freak out and come looking or report him missing or something. Before we get to . . . this place. That it’s important for us to get to. If he’s going to get yanked off this trip, he wants to get to this special place first. So bear with us while we make some miles.”
August settled back, more than happy to bear with them, and let his eyes drift closed.
When he opened them, dawn was just about to break. They were not moving. Not making miles.
The highway stretched out into nowhere, seeming to go on forever before narrowing to a point at the horizon. This world was flat. They were out on some kind of plain. No homes as far as the eye could see, but now and then another car passed with a whoosh of air, slightly rocking the rig.
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