Mountain Man

by Jules Barnard

  I drop my head back and gaze at the blue sky. I will not compare the painted protection symbol Lewis gave me to Jaeger’s purchase of a car for Cali. They’re not the same. They can’t be. I’m reading things into it because I want to be with Lewis, even if it’ll hurt me in the end.

  We attach anklets that track our times and Cali squeezes the bejesus out of me. “Good luck!” she shouts, trilling her tongue in catcalls to my teammates and me from the sidelines.

  I line up at the start. We’re one of the last heats, our times clocked by the anklets and broken down by men and women. Since we’re one of the final groups, we should know right away how well we did.

  Lewis approaches my side. “The guys and I decided to pair off. You’re with me.”

  My gaze shoots to him. “What?” He’s staring straight ahead. “Lewis, what are you talking about?”

  “Get ready. They’re about to start.”

  I glance around and note our teammates dividing into twos. “You could have asked me. We’re not a good fit,” I tell him, frustrated.

  Lewis heightens every frenzied atom inside me, putting my entire existence into a state of overstimulation. He’s not the calming presence I need right now. Definitely the worst partner I could have asked for.

  His jaw tightens, his gaze flickering to me. “You were wrong, Genevieve. Wrong about how much you mean to me.”

  “If I’m wrong, then why did you leave when I explained I needed more?”

  “What you said about Mira was right. I haven’t put enough effort into getting her some help. I had things to work out and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  What’s he saying…? God, I can’t think about this right now. It will consume me, and I need all my faculties for the race.

  I focus on the barren hill. “That’s not why I think you should pair with someone else. You should have chosen a teammate who can keep up with you.”

  “I did,” he says, and takes off.

  A heartbeat later, I realize the gun has gone off, and people are bursting past me.

  Crap! I sprint to catch up, forcing my panicked breaths into a steady rhythm, relaxing my hands that had tightened at Lewis’s words.

  The first two miles are uphill, and once I get my breathing in check, I’m able to catch up to Lewis with energy to spare. This isn’t the time to overanalyze what he said and what it means for us. If I don’t concentrate on the race, I won’t get through it.

  The crowd is one large mass, and I can’t tell where our heat begins and another ends, but we’re passing people left and right. I focus on staying relaxed and conserving energy for speed and tracking the ground, which is riddled with rocks and divots capable of spraining ankles and knocking a person out of the competition.

  The first obstacle we approach is the one that looks like a playground monkey bar set, except it goes uphill. Swinging bars immediately follow. Both obstacles are slicked with mud and oil.

  I leap for the first rung and almost slip and fall in a muddy gully. That little shake-up has my head entirely in the game and not on the man a few feet in front of me, skipping bars two at a time like Tarzan. I can’t skip bars, but I trained for the greased apparatuses. A technique that involves speed and grip adjustment gets me across the initial set. Lewis is nearly to the next obstacle, a wall a quarter of a mile away, by the time I exit the second.

  My first test of upper body strength is made of flat, vertical boards smeared in mud from competitors who didn’t make it through the monkey bars without a bath. My heart sputters in a panic. The wall is twice Lewis’s height.

  A sudden image of him above me at the cascades runs through my mind, along with the split second when I nearly fell to my death.

  Lewis waves with frantic, full-bodied arm movements for me to hurry, and I shove aside my fears, pump my legs at full speed, and leap onto the wall. He boosts my foot, propelling me up until I loop a leg over the top.

  This is why I didn’t want to partner with him. I’m slowing him down.

  A random stranger boosts Lewis and he reciprocates by giving the guy an arm lift to the ledge. Okay, maybe we all need help in this competition.

  “Go!” Lewis shouts in my ear, and shoves me over the other side.

  Son of a bitch! He had climbed to the top of the wall and helped the guy in the time it took me to wiggle around without falling, and that’s what I do anyway.

  Bales of hay cushion my fall, but I land hard, jolting my spine. Lewis rolls off beside me and beelines it for the next obstacle.

  I stumble after him, passing people along the way. Even at this stage, competitors look haggard.

  A bottleneck up ahead blocks my view of the next hurdle, and it’s not until I’m nearly upon it that I get a good look. The ice bath.

  A girl in front of me enters the water and screams.

  No sweat. Lewis prepared me for this with the Cave Rock torture. Of course, what I remember about that day isn’t the cold water, but the way he warmed me afterward.

  Focus!

  I clamber over the side, and—Holy mother of God! My limbs lock, hands curling into claws. I’m in the Arctic, ice cubes burning my flesh. I clench my teeth and book it to the other side, my arms and legs moving like sticks. I hurl myself over the edge and land on my ass with a sting.

  Hop-sprinting, I attempt to circulate warmth into the Popsicles that are my legs, and head for the mud ditch just ahead.

  People exit the brown moat, groaning and covered head to toe in splatter. A few unfortunate souls look like swamp monsters. My first step inside explains why contestants appeared to be moving in place. The mud acts like quicksand. With each step, I stumble and sink, the bottom sucking my shoes like a sponge. My quads burn, my back aches—this is by far the most strenuous obstacle up until now.

  Our team planned for walking through mud by lacing our shoes snugly and triple-knotting so we wouldn’t lose them. I emerge on the other side exhausted, but with all my clothes. I’m covered in brown goop and shaking because the mud was freaking cold, and after the ice bath, I really didn’t need it. I ignore the chunk of dirt I swallowed and jog, picking up speed as my limbs warm.

  I’m not sure if others have dropped out, or simply lag behind, or if I’m in between heats, but the competitors along this swath have thinned. Lewis appears strong just ahead and is rapidly approaching the obstacle that psyched me out during training, because there was literally no way to prepare for it.

  Dangling live wires hang from a wooden edifice, constructed for the sole purpose of shocking the crap out of people.

  Some runners slow, possibly to determine how others cross successfully.

  I kick it up a notch.

  Lewis looks back. “Chin tucked, arms in front. Run hard!” he yells before bursting into the wires a few seconds ahead of me.

  We couldn’t train for the electrodes, but we talked about them. Lewis and Zach agreed the best strategy is to not slow. You slow, you’re more likely to get hit by a pulse.

  I’m doing as Lewis says, running full force when a guy on my left, using some sort of dodging strategy, jerks with a yelp and drops like a stone.

  Shit! My pace falters, fear messing with my head. A zap spears my bad arm, radiating pain down my side. I scream and nearly fall.

  Hands braced on my knees, I look up, blinking. My side got hit by a pulse, that’s all. My arm is not in fact falling off.

  Lewis is yelling from the other end for me to run. I raise my arms in front of my face and battle-cry my way out and into his arms. He squeezes me to his chest—then shoves me with a hard push onto the next stretch of the race.

  Miles of rocky incline lie ahead. Lewis passes me, but we’re both moving fast compared to the others. Like the shale outcropping at the cascades, the rock forms steep, sharp stairs.

  Center of gravity, legs instead of back. I repeat Lewis’s instructions in my head and push until my legs burn. It works because I’m catching up to him.

  A big, beefy guy blocks my path up ahead. He has
more muscle on one forearm than I do on my entire body, but he’s slow. I swivel a fraction at the top of a boulder and round him.

  Something happens. The guy loses his balance and uses me to regulate, or he makes a blocking move. The only thing I know is that my ponytail gets yanked back, sending my center of gravity to hell.

  This time, no sound erupts from my mouth. I’m just falling—arms windmilling. I land with a crunch on my hand and elbow, my knee taking the next brunt.

  Competitors race past, the sound of panting and hard footfalls in my ear. One guy raises his eyebrow as he passes. “You okay?” he calls.

  I gulp in air and clamber to my feet. Blood gushes down my knee and there’s a good chance I broke something in my hand, but everything else seems in working order, including my temper.

  Motherfucker. Where the hell is the added security the coordinators hired?

  I scale the few feet I dropped back and cut ahead of the people who passed me a moment ago. My face burns, sweat pouring down my temples. I shouldn’t be using this much energy until the finish, but I’m behind because of that fall.

  The next mile is downhill, which I take at a dangerous speed the big guys don’t risk, including the one who made me tumble. He glares as I sweep past him, the road wider here; he can’t grab me for support or a boost. Logically, I probably shouldn’t run this fast either, but the fear is gone, which will either help me or get me killed.

  I slip by Lewis several minutes later before we reach another set of obstacles. We’ve completed a dozen or more. I’m praying this is the last cluster. Although my adrenaline surges, and my stamina is solid, I can’t help but worry about my hand. It throbs, and I’m not sure how I’ll manage the last obstacles without the use of it.

  A field of logs looms ahead. I leap from one to the other, maintaining my balance. My hand is no help during the next exercise, a barbed wire crawl, so I use my elbow to scurry beneath.

  Lewis glides by me on the right. He’s got a hundred pounds of height and muscle on me, but he moves like a damn lizard, his stomach flat to the ground. His gaze goes straight to my arm and the hand I’m not using, his mouth twisting as he speeds past. He didn’t see me fall, but he’s perceptive. Too perceptive.

  I emerge on the other side behind him, but I make up time in a short sprint segment, until I arrive at the log carry. The wood is as thick as my torso, two feet in width, and I have to lug it a hundred feet.

  Using my good hand and the wrist of my bad I lift the log, and nearly crush my toes as it slips and crashes to the ground. Lewis taught us to prop the logs on our shoulders, but that’s out of the question with one hand. I manage to wrestle the weight on my chest in a squat—good arm combination. I’m panting by the time I drop it and follow the shouts toward what I assume is the home stretch.

  We’ve been racing for a couple hours and I am so close to finishing. I mean, I had hoped I could, but I never knew for sure.

  Hauling ass up the incline I pray is my last, I nearly tumble back down at the view of the bottom.

  I am so screwed.

  A climbing wall taller than all the rest, and concave to boot, blocks the finish arch. The few people tumbling over are doing so with the help of at least one other person, two or three in most cases. I search the dozen or so men surrounding me. Lewis isn’t anywhere in sight, nor are my other teammates, whom I haven’t seen since we started.

  The wall is too tall. I’m not going to make it.

  I’ve come so far—pretty damn sure I broke my hand—and this is how it’s going to end?

  Anger fills me, raising my heart rate and making my head pound. No way.

  I fly down the hill, willing speed to be enough momentum to get me high on the wall. It looks impossibly tall. I shove that thought aside and leap over the concave bit, clinging with my good hand, my fingers digging into the tiny grooves. With the elbow and forearm of my bad arm, I crawl up, but my feet can’t find purchase and I begin to slip.

  A frustrated scream erupts from my throat as I skin my good knee and slide off the curved bit at the bottom. I tuck my bloody knees to my chest and cradle my throbbing hand. Two guys leap over me and thump up the wall.

  I look pathetic, sitting here like a weak, broken thing—like a burden—not the strong person I’ve worked so hard to be. This is not how I want to go down.

  Rising, I shake out my aching legs and tuck my bad hand to my chest. The wall is impossible for me to climb without aid, but no one pays me a backward glance. The only remaining competitors are a bunch of dudes who appear as tired and haggard as I feel.

  I jog back several feet and hurtle with everything I have toward the wall. My toes scrape the side, grabbing purchase this time. My good arm and the elbow of my bad one lift me steadily.

  Halfway up, the thought that I might actually scale this thing distracts me for a split second. My fingers slip, the center of my injured hand burning with the strain of using it when I shouldn’t. I’m going down, and this time I don’t have the strength to land gracefully, to whimper or groan at my failure. Splinters lodge in my fingertips as they skid over the surface, my head falling back—

  A wide hand grasps my wrist and pulls me up like a sack of groceries.

  I know this sensation. Know who has me before I look.

  Lewis drags me onto his lap, clinging for a beat before he shoves me over the ledge into a vat of freezing water that steals my breath.

  The cold shocks my overworked muscles into functioning. I don’t know how Lewis found me or why he came back. I can’t think about that right now. I paddle to the surface and crawl out.

  A surge of adrenaline has me bursting toward the finish arch, the roar of spectators pummeling my ears. I tune them out. I have only a short distance to pass a dozen bodies before the finish. These competitors could be from my heat, an early one—I don’t care. Running is my wheelhouse and I want to defeat every last one before the end.

  I’m racing without a concern for rocks that could break something if I land wrong—pushing with everything I have, past one person, then another. My form isn’t tight, my body overheated, chest heaving. I’m at my max in terms of exertion.

  I don’t know where Lewis is. He could be behind me. He could be in front of me. All I know is that I need this. I need to finish this race—bloody legs, broken bones, burning chest—with everything I have left in me, I need to finish this race. To prove I can push past the pain, the humiliation, and fight for myself.

  I pass two—three—four fit guys, their panting breaths fading as the shouts from the crowd grow louder, blotting out other sound. The guy I’m about to pass, his hair buzzed, biceps bulging with a barbed wire cuff tattoo, casts me a glance and steps it up a notch. He can’t keep my pace, and I blow past him too.

  Before I know it, I’m through the finish, half the spectators behind me. My legs slow, cramps knotting my thighs. I jog to cool down and catch my breath. Finally, I stop and bend over gasping, straining for air and cradling my hand.

  Strong arms lift me in an embrace. Lewis nuzzles my neck, mild beard scruff grazing my collarbone. “You did it.” He squeezes me, knocking out what little air I’ve regained.

  “Can’t breathe,” I gasp.

  “Sorry.” He loosens his grip and sets me on the ground, his arms wrapped around my waist protectively.

  He’s sweaty and dirty, but he smells so good—the same Lewis but with salt and soil mixed in. I should let go of him now. I said I couldn’t be his girlfriend, but I almost killed myself completing that damn mudder and I need this embrace. I need him.

  I rub my face on his chest and he cups my head. Nothing has ever felt better than Lewis holding me. When Lewis holds me, the brittle edges of the world smooth out.

  “Look.” Lewis loosens his arms and turns me to the side.

  Beyond the rope my mom is jumping up and down and calling my name, Fred looking equally happy beside her. Jeb and his wife are there too, holding hands with bright smiles on their faces. Jeb’s hair looks a little mu
ssed, like he’s been pulling at the ends. He wipes the corner of his eye and pumps his fist in the air.

  They were watching. All of them together: my mother, her soon-to-be husband, and her high school sweetheart—my father. God, this day is like an alternate reality.

  I bury my face back in Lewis’s chest. Maybe it’s his arms tightening, or this little family tableau I never thought possible, but tears well behind my eyes.

  Lewis ducks his head to my ear and holds me tight. “Don’t leave me, Gen. Give me a chance to show you what you mean to me. This last week has killed me. I’ve missed you so much.” He squeezes me tighter and kisses the top of my head. “Please, just—I want to tell you everything.”

  I nod, my face muffled by his broad, warm chest. Lewis has been there for me when I’ve least expected it. I thought I wasn’t important enough to him, but I don’t know anymore.

  The safe thing to do would be to tell him no and walk away, to hold my heart close like I always do.

  Apparently, I’m no longer playing it safe.

  Chapter Thirty

  Well, damn.

  I won the mudder.

  Not the entire race. That went to some male triathlete who’s, like, the best in the country and did the mudder for shits and giggles—and for the five-thousand-dollar grand prize. I won best time among the women. Granted, there were a tenth as many women participating as men, so my odds were better but still, I received a thousand dollars for the women’s first place.

  My mom and Jeb and their significant others followed the race via some app for spectators. They knew all along that I had a chance at winning. Lewis was in line for fifth place, my mom said, but he helped me at the last minute. If he’d stayed in fifth, he would have earned prize money comparable to mine. A thousand dollars isn’t chump change, and he gave it up. For me.

  The medics on site told me to see a doctor for my hand, explaining it was likely broken. They put my arm in a sling, bandaged my cut knees, and removed the splinters. Once Mom received Lewis’s sworn promise to take me to the hospital for my hand after the festivities, she and Fred left to get food with Jeb and Simone, the four of them like long-lost pals. Totally bizarre, and I’m not sure what to think of it, so I’m trying not to.