Alpaca My Bags

by Jenny Goebel

  My brothers trucked ahead while my parents hung back with me. They didn’t say I was slowing them down, but I could tell I was. They carried on a conversation. I was too winded, or maybe just too disappointed, to speak.

  Mom inhaled deeply. “Ah, I love breathing this crisp mountain air.”

  “Yep. Feels good to get the blood pumping,” Dad said.

  “I’m looking forward to writing again,” Mom said. “And something inspirational … Not that my closing arguments weren’t persuasive …” Mom didn’t have the same distinguished-looking eyebrows as the rest of us. However, she could employ her thinner, lighter brows to do amazing things. She arched one in a cunning curve as she spoke. “But they weren’t the sort of thing most people would consider enjoyable reading. Writing for the Zhangs’ blog will be different. Fun, I think.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. It’ll feel good to be contributing to something,” Dad piped in. “You know, feeling productive, and like we’re a part of something bigger. I’ve missed that.”

  My stomach churned. Working at the alpaca ranch felt good. It made me feel like I was part of something bigger. But listening to my parents—it would take getting back on the road for them to feel that sort of satisfaction. I hated that my happiness and their happiness always seemed to be at odds. Lost in thought, I stumbled on a small rock, and Mom turned to check on me.

  “Are you feeling all right, honey?” Mom asked. “You’re looking a little pale.”

  “My stomach hurts. Not too bad, though,” I said. “Maybe it’s the altitude.”

  Concern trickled onto Mom’s face. She scrunched up her forehead. “Okay. Let me know if it gets worse. Altitude sickness is nothing to mess around with.”

  By then, we’d been hiking for several hours. There were fewer and fewer trees as we gained elevation on the mountain. Without the forest to block the wind, we kept getting blasted by gusts of frigid air. Plus, there were trip hazards galore as the dirt trail shifted to jagged steps made from large rocks and boulders. I kept my eyes glued to my feet and trudged along.

  “Slow and steady,” Dad said. “It’s as much a mental feat as a physical one. Just think how good you’ll feel when you reach the top.”

  Will I? Feel good, that is … I knew my parents and brothers would feel a rush of something when they summited. But it was hard to get excited about something that wasn’t on my own bucket list, especially when I was feeling guilty for ditching Rachel. Was she wondering where I was? Had she dropped by our trailer looking for me? Maybe her daughter-in-law forget to mention that I’d agreed to work today. But I doubted that. Rachel had been so kind to me. I’d stood her up in return.

  My stomach revolted on me again. I sipped on the hose from my hydration pack and tried to relax. Then I rounded a bend and was hit with a view that made my head spin. The side of the mountain fell away. I could see for miles and miles. It was breathtaking and terrifying all at once. It was at least a level four on my fear rating scale.

  The exposure to heights didn’t seem to bother my parents in the slightest. And Neil and David must’ve whizzed right by since they were nowhere to be seen. Mom and Dad paused a moment to take in the sights, then started walking and chatting again, like it was no big deal that a stumble could send one of us (I was the most likely candidate!) plummeting over the edge. I knew they’d just be bemused if I said anything—like the thought hadn’t crossed their minds—so I hugged the non-steep side of the trail and crept on.

  The hike wasn’t all misery. The views were amazing, and I especially liked the little creatures that kept popping up once we were past the tree line. Mom said they were called “pikas.” They reminded me of little bunnies, only with rounded mouse ears. They made sharp chirping noises before scurrying back into their holes.

  We also came across three white mountain goats. They were somehow both muscular and fluffy. Their pointed horns and buff bodies were more than a little intimidating. Luckily, they showed way more interest in grazing and hanging out on the rocky cliffside than in me and my parents.

  I thought I was making okay progress, all things considered, until Dad stopped in his tracks, scanned the sky, and said, “Amelia Jean, you’re gonna have to pick up the pace. I don’t like all these clouds rolling in.”

  I turned my eyes upward. A cotton ball haze was beginning to sponge out the blue skies, but the billowing clouds looked pillow soft and far less threatening than the jagged rocks we’d have to scramble over to reach the mountaintop.

  Regardless, I quickened my step for a few meters before my body resisted moving forward and climbing up. I fell back into a slump and dragged my feet up the trail.

  When Mom glanced over her shoulder and noticed the growing distance between me and them, she nudged my father. Dad swiveled between measuring the distance to the peak and worriedly gazing back at me. “Let’s go, Amelia Jean!” he prodded.

  Neil and David were waiting for us at the top by a crystal clear mountain lake. It appeared out of place to me, so high on the mountain, surrounded by craggy walls of rock.

  “What took you guys so long?” Neil asked. Then his eyes grazed mine and he quickly changed the subject. “We should eat,” he said. “Quickly. Before the weather changes.”

  My brothers had packed in our lunches. I found a place between two boulders, where I was sheltered from the wind. I was starving. As such, I nearly inhaled my ham and provolone on ciabatta bread, washed it down with sips from my hydration pack, then unwrapped a chocolate chip cookie from cellophane.

  David was watching me. “Yeah, hiking makes me hungry, too,” he said kindly. Being the middle child, David bridged more than the age difference between Neil and me. David loved heart-pulsing action and excitement every bit as much as Neil. But he was quieter, less intense. No doubt, he gravitated more toward Neil most of the time. But every now and then, he’d say or do something that made me feel included. I grinned back at him and polished off the chocolate chip cookie.

  My parents and Neil were seeking shelter on the opposite side of one of the boulders. The wind drowned out their voices. I knew it would drown out mine and David’s, too. My stomach felt better, and I’d shed some of the guilt and worry I’d been carrying around with me all morning. There was nothing I could do now about standing Rachel up.

  “Do you like it here?” I asked. When you shared a trailer the size of a large bedroom with four other people, there weren’t many opportunities to speak to any of them alone. I didn’t know what my family members really thought of Winterland. But if anyone else was having doubts about leaving, it would be David. I’d seen the sad look he got in his eyes whenever Annie wagged her tail and stared up at him like he was the most wonderful person on the face of the earth.

  “Yeah,” David said. “It’s prettier here than the place we hiked to last week.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said. “Do you like it here, in Winterland?”

  Sometimes I forgot that David wasn’t eons older than me. It’d always been the two of them, David and Neil, the boys in the family, and I’d felt separate because I was a girl and because I was the youngest. But David was fourteen. He was barely out of middle school.

  He nodded, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable. “I do. I like … Don’t laugh, okay?” The shy smile on his face made him look even younger somehow.

  “I won’t.”

  “I like high school. I joined a rock-climbing club, and there’s all these other after-school activities and electives. And I like being around other ninth graders. Neil and I are tight, but he’s always a step ahead of me. At school, the other kids are impressed with all the places I’ve been and things I’ve done. It’s nice. I’m sure it’s the same for you.”

  We never talked like this and I didn’t want him to stop, so I didn’t interrupt and tell him that, no, it was nothing like that for me.

  “Then there’s … Annie,” he said.

  I offered him a sympathetic smile. “I know.”

  His face cl
ouded. “I don’t want to leave her.” His voice cracked and he looked kinda embarrassed about me seeing him so upset.

  “I know,” I said again. “I don’t want to leave her, either.”

  “She’s always so happy to see us. We earned her trust and we’re just going to leave her behind? It doesn’t seem right.” David sniffled before shifting and straightening his position on the hard, uneven ground. Then it was like someone flipped a switch and he was back to being my invincible brother. “It’s worth it, though,” he said in the more soldier-like voice I was used to hearing from him. “How many people get to see the country the way we do? There are going to be sacrifices, right? But it’s worth it,” he said a second time, and I wondered if he was trying to convince me or himself.

  Maybe for him, it didn’t matter. He’d miss Annie, but David’s open and friendly manner won him friends wherever he went. And Neil’s boldness commanded respect. It was so simple for them to break the ice with Cat, I thought with a touch of jealousy. Was it really too late for me, though? The entire way up, I thought I’d never make it to the top of this mountain, yet here I was. What if there was a way for Cat and me to still be friends? I decided to ask my brother for pointers.

  “David—” I started, then Dad popped his head around the boulder.

  “Time to roll!” he said.

  A large drop of rain splattered on the rock beside me, turning it slick and dark. Then another and another. Lightning severed the sky. Thunder cracked the air. I jumped to my feet, slithered into my rain gear, and quickly gathered my belongings.

  “Come on, kids,” Mom said. She sounded nervous, and Mom never sounded nervous unless we were in real danger. She trusted herself. She trusted the equipment we used on our adventures. But the one thing Mom said she never trusted was nature. Nature was unpredictable. Nature could be deadly. “We need to move. NOW!”

  Next thing I knew, we were racing down the side of the mountain. Another bolt of lightning splintered the clouds, followed seconds later by a crackling boom. A jolt of fear coursed through me, and I ran faster. I ran like I was running for my life—because maybe I was.

  The best thing to do in a lightning storm is to get indoors, but anything remotely resembling “indoors” was miles away. Dad held back and ushered me in front of him on the narrow trail. “We have to get down quickly, find some cover. But don’t get careless. Watch your feet.”

  Caution, fear, and panic swirled inside me, nearly bringing up my lunch. The rain-soaked rocks were slippery, and the freezing droplets blurred my vision. I shivered while trying to hurry and while trying to keep my wits about me, and while trying to keep track of my footing.

  “That’s it, Amelia Jean.” Dad raised his voice to be heard above the storm. “Keep moving.” More deft and agile than me, Mom and my brothers were speeding ahead.

  I hurried around a bend and hit a patch of wet, loose stone and gravel. My feet lost connection with the ground. My arms shot out in a desperate attempt to grab hold of something, but it was no use. The rain had washed the trail right out from under me.

  The world went slanted. I thought, This is going to hurt. The worst of it was that the downpour had so completely veiled my view that I had no idea where I was going to land. Or even how far I would fall.

  Then Dad swooped in from nowhere, looped his arms around my midsection, and pulled me close. “Gotcha,” he said, unable to mask the quaver in his voice. As he lowered me to a safer, more stable part of the trail that hadn’t been swept away by the storm, I caught a glimpse of where I’d been headed—straight down a steep, rocky drop-off.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, positioning himself directly in front of me, blocking my view of the tumble I’d almost taken.

  I nodded inside the hood of my raincoat. I couldn’t speak.

  “Good. Disaster avoided, right?” he said, peeking out from his own hood and looking straight into my eyes. I tried to summon the courage I knew he wanted to find there, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  His jaw tightened. He hadn’t shaved that morning and the stubble on his chin was dark with flecks of gray.

  The sky split with lightning again and I jerked in fright.

  Dad rested his hand on my shoulder. “We’re not safe here, not like this.” He paused, thinking. “And we’re not safe rushing down like before. So … new plan. You and I aren’t going to beat the weather off the mountain. Instead, we’ll wait it out. But we need to find a lower spot, somewhere we can crouch down. All right?”

  I followed him, going slightly off trail, away from any trees, and shrank down like he showed me in a depressed section of ground—with all my weight resting on the balls of my feet. The rain slid off my jacket. I hugged my knees to my chest. Every time the thunder clapped, I shook harder. But eventually, the deluge lightened. The booms sounded farther in the distance. At last, the storm cleared.

  On the ride home, my brothers seemed energized by the experience. “That was definitely Type Two Fun!” Neil said. According to him, there were three types of fun. Type One, which was pure fun—enjoyable while it was happening. Type Two, which wasn’t fun in the moment but was fun to relive in the memories. And Type Three, which was no fun at all.

  I had to disagree. It had been a strong Type Three for me.

  “We definitely have to get an earlier start when we hike the fourteener,” Dad said. I caught a glimpse of myself in Dad’s rearview mirror. All the blood had drained from my face. My clothes hadn’t dried yet, my body still ached, and I was far from recovered from the fright of this hike, yet my family was already planning the next. If Dad hadn’t rescued me when I slipped, I might not have survived. How would I ever survive climbing a fourteener?

  “That storm was not in the forecast. It blew in so quickly,” Dad continued.

  “That’s why it’s best to hike in the morning,” Mom said. “Afternoon weather is so unpredictable at this altitude.”

  Dad nodded solemnly. “You’re absolutely right. I just underestimated how long it would take for us to reach the top.”

  Mom and Dad shared a look, and I knew what they were thinking. I was the reason it had taken so long for us to reach the top. So I was the reason we’d been caught in the storm. If not for me, the rest of them would’ve been off the mountain when the first raindrop hit. Not only that, the time Dad and I spent cowering beside the trail cost us hours. There wouldn’t be enough daylight left when we made it back for me to visit the ranch.

  It’d been a lousy day, and what ate at me the most was knowing how else I could’ve spent it. I could’ve been at the ranch, happily helping Rachel and feeling more than comfortable surrounded by alpacas. Instead, I was wet and tired and gnawed by fear. Not only that, my family would never have been caught in the storm if I hadn’t been there. We were all worse off because I hadn’t had the courage to speak up. But even if I had known it would turn out this way, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do things differently. Because that’s who I was—a coward.

  After Mom left for the deli the next day, Dad got called in for an extra shift at the market. One of the cashiers was out with the summer flu. Being the one with the least seniority, Dad was expected to fill in. He was in a sour mood after hanging up with his boss. “I wanted to fit in a second day of conditioning. I don’t know if we’re ready to tackle a fourteener next weekend,” he grumbled. And by “we” I knew he meant me. “Don’t want anyone running out of stamina on the mountain.”

  My brothers would never run out of stamina, but Neil piped in, “The high school’s rock-climbing club is meeting in the canyon today for some bouldering. If we’re not hiking again, at least David and I can fit in some climbing.”

  Dad nodded approvingly. “I’ll drop you off on my way in.”

  I could tell the second it dawned on him that if my brothers were at a club activity, I’d be left alone, because he furrowed his brow. We’d never run into these types of scheduling dilemmas before, and he didn’t seem too pleased. “What about you, Amelia
Jean?”

  I’d been moping around since the day before. But in that moment, inspiration struck, and I bolted upright in my seat. “I can work at the ranch,” I said. I hadn’t spoken with Rachel about it, but maybe I could make up for missing work the day before.

  Dad mulled it over. I knew it wasn’t what he wanted for me, but in his mind any physical activity was better than me lying around the trailer all day. To nudge him in the right direction, I added, “And maybe I can take An— I mean, the dog, and we can walk to the ranch. So I can get some extra exercise.”

  When the creases on his forehead grew deeper, I worried that mentioning the dog had been a mistake. Thankfully, his brow soon loosened, and he said, “I guess.” He must’ve realized I’d be safer with a large dog by my side to ward off any mountain lions or coyotes in the area. “Just don’t wander off into the forest. And try to jog a little on your way there and back. Stretch your lungs.”

  I grinned and said, “Sounds good.” It sounded great, actually.

  Dad hesitated for a split second like he might change his mind. I held my breath, willing him not to. Finally, he shook his head sadly and said, “You’re growing up too fast.” Then he squeezed me in a quick hug before he and my brothers exited the Gnarly Banana. I followed them out the door, down the steps, and then waved them off.

  Annie chased after the truck for a few hundred feet before circling back to where I was standing. I briefly wondered if one of these times, she wouldn’t come back. I knew that’s what Dad was hoping for. But for now, apparently, she had adopted our family.

  I scratched behind her ears. “Want to go see some alpacas, girl? Huh? Do you?” Annie panted and wagged her tail excitedly. “You do, don’t you?”

  Dad’s bad luck (being called in for an extra shift) was my good fortune. I couldn’t believe that in the span of a few minutes, I’d gone from having to spend the day adventuring with Dad and my brothers to being completely free. I wanted to kiss his boss and the employee who’d called in sick.