He found the brown sign indicating the trailhead easy enough. The Park Service did an overhaul on signage while he was out of country and ever since he returned it was easier than ever to find natural spaces.
He pulled onto the narrow blacktop road that weaved among the trees. There was barely enough room for him on the road and he wondered what he would do if he encountered another vehicle.
So far, he hadn't seen a turn out, or even a spot wide enough to pull over.
Brill discovered why as the path opened up into a long boulder dotted clearing.
A second road exited halfway across the space, creating a half moon shaped camping space.
Several trails led off from various spots along the clearing and brightly colored tents dotted the area.
“Hey man, welcome to paradise.”
Brill stared at a long skinny man dressed in orange pants, a yellow shirt and purple trucker’s cap tucked backwards on his head.
He looked like a circus cast off, some sideshow attraction, the world’s thinnest man, or the World’s living skeleton, left behind when they dropped the tents and left town.
A belt full of carabiners dangled on his waist like bells as he danced after Brill, half leading, half following him to an empty side of the
makeshift campground away from all the others.
Brill dropped the van in park and stepped out as the gregarious camper greeted him.
“Name’s Jester man,” he held out a long hand, long fingers wrapping around Brill’s thick knuckles.
The calloused palm was rough and dry, exfoliated against a thousand rock fixtures. Brill could feel the texture of his finger tips on the back of his hand, blunted edges strong and sure.
“John,” Brill introduced himself.
It was a common name he used often, as common in America as Mohammed in any other part of the world.
“Hey John,” said Jester, giving his hand three pumps then letting go. “It’s nice to meet you man. You here for some climbs?”
The carabiners jangled. Brill could see the belt was a utility web, pockets sewn into the seams to hold a multi-tool, a folding blade and a few more things hidden behind closed flaps.
“Running,” said Brill.
“Far out dude. I run a little. Maybe after a day on the crags we can hit a trail together.”
“Sounds good,” said Brill.
Even though he preferred to run alone, preferred to camp alone and be alone, he had met people like Jester before. They were social butterflies, and lived for company.
The best way to get rid of them was to let the newness wear off. If it cost him a trail run or two, so be it.
“We’re about to head up now,” said Jester as he pointed to a couple of garish tents tarped up by a beat up station wagon.
The camp was equal parts car campers, people sleeping on platforms
built in the back of battered and worn pickup trucks or vans like Brill, or across long back seats. He could see a couple of popped trucks, with what looked like sleeping bags inside them.
Climbers were notorious for the dirtbag life. Hell, they had practically created it, though Brill bet some Army guys would argue they were the original sleep anywhere under the stars originators. But climbers took it and made it mainstream.
Hippies around Yosemite in the late sixties and early seventies, as he recalled.
Living out of their cars, working a week to make enough money to eat beans and rice for a month, just so they could spend their time climbing.
He knew a couple of ultrarunners who did it now. They packed a cooler full of frozen burritos and ice cold beer, which turned into cold burritos and warm beer after a few days. It didn’t matter to the runners. It gave them a chance to live and run for practically nothing.
It was the way he planned to live for the next few months. Heal his shoulder, heal his ribs. Get his bearings, and figure out a plan of attack to take DC and the company he wanted to end in it.
“Do you want to climb with us?” Jester watched him with an open expression of joy on his face.
Brill looked like he might. Built like the endurance runner he was, corded muscles popped with every flex. Plain, forgettable face, the size of man anyone would overlook in a crowd. Nothing to attract too much attention.
Maybe more scars than the average Joe, but the kind of person you would smile at in passing and forget a second later.
Unless you remembered his eyes. Cold, black depthless eyes that stared with a predator’s gleam. Shark eyes, he’d been told more than once, and he assumed that was close enough.
The gesture from Jester was polite. Nice even.
“It won’t take long,” said Brill. “But I want to set up camp.”
Jester seemed relieved, as if training a rock virgin was not on his agenda for the day. Brill knew how he felt.
He was an accomplished trail runner, and until he knew what the skinny man could do with his legs, he’d rather run alone.
They shook on parting.
“I’m over in the 4Runner,” Jester pointed. “Stop over for one beer tonight by the fire.”
Brill noted how precise he was with the beverage count. It didn’t mean the man had much to spare, probably no money to restock for a little while either, by the look of him.
Still some manner dictated he make the offer, and Brill appreciated it.
He had a case of beer in the back of the van, so he would make sure his new colorful friend had a few extra once the evening was done.
“I’ll introduce you to everyone,” Jester called over his shoulder as he loped away.
Brill slid open the side door to his van and stepped inside. He shucked his pants, dressed in running shorts and a tee shirt, then slipped into running shoes.
Everything was second hand, picked up from a thrift store in a small shopping strip between here and Los Angeles.
But it didn’t cost him much and he had a few extra outfits to rotate. Almost all running gear, with some cold weather essentials just in case.
The secret is layering, he said as he tied the laces.
Setting up camp was simple.
He pulled a camp chair from under the box in the back of the van and set it in front of the door. He rolled a dozen stones in a circle to build a fire ring, and did a long wide circle to gather dead wood for later.
Everything else could wait or was already set up in the self contained van. No toilet, but a five gallon bucket would be better than most places he had used. No shower, but he would find a spring or creek and make due.
Brill strolled to the middle of the half moon clearing and took a look at the random assortment of vehicles around him. Trucks, SUV’s and even a station wagon from two decades ago. All set up to car camp.
No one around though.
Which meant they were climbing or hiking or even a few running. He might find them on the trail. He picked the one with the least amount of disturbance at the trailhead and took off at a slow fifteen minute mile to loosen up.
His shoulder hurt, his rib hurt, his knees ached.
Such was the warm up phase.
But he settled into a faster pace once the trail leveled off near the edge of the incline.
It offered spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. Rock crags dotted the landscape, and he could see ridges that hid small valleys and dales meandering away like a giant had reached from the heavens and scratched trenches in the dirt.
He saw fluttering fabric on one rock, and as his eyes adjusted, he could make out the miniature form of bodies free climbing to the top.
Here though, he was alone.
The wind whispered across the rocks, cooling the sweat as it dripped off his skin. The sun warmed his body, as his blood started pumping. He could feel a throbbing in the sealed bullet wound in his shoulder,
feel the pull of the muscle around his ribs and slowed down.
Pain was inevitable. Suffering optional.
Still, he planned to be here for weeks, maybe months until the snowstorms sent him for warmer warrens in the South.
No need to push too hard on the first run. That day would come.
He was thinking about New Mexico and the mountains around Taos when he saw the flash of flesh a few meters off the trail.
“Sorry,” he averted his eyes and called out to the runner popping a squat just behind a bush.
But she didn’t move.
And she wasn’t squatting.
He took four more steps and pulled up, sneakers sliding in the dirt as he turned around.
A young woman lay at an awkward angle off the main trail, her body half hidden in the brush. Her shorts were bunched around her ankles, scratches, scrapes and bloody gashes along her cream white thighs.
Her eyes were open, staring at the sky, mouth hollowed out as if she was screaming in agony.
But she couldn’t make a sound. She didn’t have a throat.
It would have horrified a normal person. Brill had seen worse. In Africa, some rebels tortured people in such horrific manners, they couldn’t be called human.
Brill called them easy to kill.
The same with the bad men he hunted for money.
Easy to kill because of the things they did. Like the man who killed this woman. Brill could kill them without a second thought.
“Person,” he breathed out and turned back up the trail.
Someone needed to report the body. It wasn’t going to be him. He came to escape the world, came to hide. A dead body would draw attention.
Local authorities, to be sure, and maybe media attention. He did not want to be around if a news van showed up.
He pounded through a seven minute mile, feet skittering on the trail as he planned. He would get back to his van, climb in and leave.
The guy he met, Jester, would just say a man named John was there, but not anymore.
Unless Jester was the kind of guy who noticed details.
Like the license plate on the van.
If he gave that to the police, they would issue an APB.
Brill could get new plates, he wasn’t worried about that. But a BOLO with the cops just added an extra complication.
He reached the trailhead.
So far, so good. The camp was still empty. He jogged over to the van, fished the key out of the bumper and hopped in the driver’s seat.
Then he remembered the camp chair.
He could leave it, but it would have prints. If cops ran the prints, he would set off alarm bells and whistles, and the media would be the last thing he was worried about.
Brill jumped out of the door, folded the chair and pushed it back into the designated spot under the box platform.
She had red hair, he remembered. Her eyes were blue, staring at the sun, and some animal ripped her open after hurting her.
“Damn it!” he huffed.
He slammed the side of the van door, and punched the metal.
Just get in the van and drive, he told himself.
Her shirt was yellow, a tech fabric favored by runners. Her sneakers were green, trail running shoes. She had a buff holding her red hair back.
Brill looked at the row of cars and wondered which one was hers.
She had a life, and someone took it, and he was just going to leave her body out there for the coyotes to find.
Someone’s daughter.
He sighed.
He didn’t have a phone. He doubted anyone there did, or at least one that worked. That meant waiting.
He pulled the chair out again and sat in the shade on the side of his van. At least he would be comfortable until someone showed up.