The clouds pressed against my face like the touch of a ghost.
The rain started gently, the drops ice cold against my sunburned skin. I stopped long enough to root around in the bottom of my pack for my raincoat—because why would it be on top?—before pressing on. The rain increased with every step I took toward the pass. The wind turned sour, slinging drops against my face in a stinging spray, like the mountain didn’t want me there. A shiver little to do with the weather slipped through my bones. The thought carried more weight than I cared to admit.
No; it was just a mountain. Perception, that’s it. Just my way of looking at things.
I passed the last tree on my right, a scrubby and stunted pine. The grass dwindled and fell away, turning to fine-grain silt. The Cascades faded behind me as I pushed into the clouds, the rolling valleys and peaks disappearing. The landscape changed to a wind-blasted wasteland, cut through with a single dirt track for me to follow. I pulled my hood up and pressed on.
By the time I reached the flat saddle of the pass, rain was dripping from the rim of my hood and had soaked into my shoes. Left and right, the summits stretched into the clouds. Patchwork trails marked by stacked cairns wound cloud-ward like spiderwebs in the dirt. I contemplated wandering one of those summit-bound trails until the air flashed white with lightning, and a snarl of thunder cracked close enough to shake my bones. Even I wasn’t fool enough to tempt a thunderstorm eight feet over my head. The wind ruffled the edge of my hood, pushing it against the side of my face.
I scanned the trails, trying to guess which one led down the other side of the pass, and I saw him.
He materialized from the clouds, walking from the storm like a wraith, calm as you please. An older guy, well into his late sixties, with long white hair tucked into a loose bun and a beard to match. He wore a ragged button-up tucked into khaki shorts, knee-high tube socks and a pair of dusty Keens held together with spit and a prayer. The pack strapped to his shoulders couldn’t have been more than thirty-six liters, a day bag at best. He seemed more like an apparition than a real human being.
He raised a hand, a smile cracking his leathered face.
“Great day for it, isn’t it?” he shouted over the wind and rain. There wasn’t the remotest hint of irony in his voice, and I liked him for it. “Watch your step, the footing is goofy up ’round here!”
“Did you just come down from the summit?” My hood struggled in my fingers, trying to pull free.
He nodded. Rain streaked his face and his shirt stuck to his knobby shoulders, but he looked unconcerned. I liked him for that too. “Be a little nicer if it was clearer, ya dig me, but it’s still a nice, tight scramble.”
“How far up is it?” The thought of jumping up one of those summits still rattled around my head, weather be damned. I might have an hour or so to spare for a quick up and down.
The old man shrugged. “’bout an hour and a half, less on the down slope if you’re quick about it.”
Well shit, never mind. “That far?”
He nodded and grinned again. “Don’t look it, right? Yeah, it’s about six hunnert feet pretty much straight up, scrambling some fair-sized boulders. Unless you’re dead set on it, I wouldn’t recommend. Could be nasty in this weather, ’specially if you ain’t got the gear.”
I couldn’t help a pointed glance at his busted shoes and khaki shorts.
He guffawed. “Busted for bogus, you got me. Although to be fair, I hit the trail at noon, which gave me the advantage of daylight. Which way you headed?”
“Northbound. You?”
“Same.” He chinned toward a broad webbing of crisscrossed trails snaking down through the clouds. I hadn’t noticed them. “Want to head down? It’s getting a little less than welcoming up here.”
Like magic, the air flashed, and thunder slammed all around us. By now my water-resistant shoes were pretty much soaked through, and it would take a miracle to keep the contents of my pack dry.
“Lead on,” I said.
The trail dropped down the side of the mountain, steep enough to make my knees groan. The rain fell away and the wind died down. The curtain of summer fell over us once again; a valley stretched beneath us, golden sunlight slipping up the peaks around its edge. An emerald lake glimmered in the basin, nestled underneath a crown of pine trees. Cloudy Pass lay behind us, and the afternoon looked up. The older man set an easy pace, eating through the miles.
“You thru-hiking, my dude?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I am. Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
“I mean I’m thru-hiking Washington. It only sort of counts.”
“It totally counts.” He turned around to shoot me a smile. “Thru-hiking is thru-hiking, man. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I felt better equipped with this microscopic validation, even from someone I just met. “What about you? Goin’ the distance?”
“Oh.” He shrugged without turning around. “I suppose I am.”
“Are you not sure?”
He laughed. “I started down around the northern Cali area, so I guess you could call it a thru-hike. Got bored at my desk job, so I figured why not.” He looked the part of a longtime hiker; walking behind him I got a good eyeful of his legs. With every step his calves flexed, bulging, almost grotesque in their starkness. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
We turned a switchback, dropping down into the valley proper, which flattened around the lake. There’d be spots aplenty for campsites around those waters for sure, and from the look of the pines, dry too. A fire could be in order after all, even with my questionable skill set. I inhaled deeply, counted to five, then exhaled. Everything was fine. A good campsite and a fire, that was all I needed. Something to look forward to.
“Where you camping tonight?” I asked, peering at the sky. With the sky clearing up again I could tell time easier. Two, three hours of daylight left.
“Oh mebbe down by the lake yonder.” He flapped a hand toward the basin. “I’m supposed to be further along according to my map, but my little detour this afternoon held me back. Although,” he added almost as an afterthought, “that’s kinda the point, I suppose.”
Something about the way he spoke amused me. His vernacular carried a hint of seventies flower power, foreign to me beyond the occasional rerun of the OG Magnum P.I. or Charlie’s Angels. I didn’t hate it though; he was old enough to have those words bumping around his lexicon. It gave them a sort of vintage authenticity.
“Where are you planning on throwing down for the night?” he asked, giving me a glance over his shoulder. Beneath the snowy bristles of his beard, his skin was tanned to a deep mahogany, worn and weathered. His eyes beetled bright in their sockets.
“Oh, I was planning on the lake as well. Seems like a good place for it.” Six or seven snowcapped peaks sawtoothed into the sky, ringing the little lake on three sides. Even from a few hundred feet away I could see the rocks at the bottom of the lake. I didn’t see a single tent or hammock. Any backpacker will tell you the best campsite is one you don’t have to share.
I didn’t mind the thought of sharing it with my newfound colleague, though. He looked unlike any of the few thru-hikers I’d met so far. They all looked, to some extent, like they were taking a break from their lives elsewhere. Escaping into the wilderness for a few months to clean the smog out of their lungs. Running away from their problems. Looking for their soul. But this guy . . . he looked like he’d been born in the mountains. With the same pair of Keens on his feet, from the looks of them.
I didn’t want to be a creeper and ask him if he wanted to throw down camp together—that strayed into serial-killer territory. After all, we only just met. Solid odds he came out here for the isolation, and didn’t want to spend the night with some guy following him around—
“How’s about sharing a fire tonight, friend-o?” he asked. I jolted hard enough to almost overbalance backward. Like he’d picked the thought right out of my head.
“Yeah, let’s do it.” I struck for casual nonchalance. I almost made it.
We were past the boulder field now. Packs of thistle and red paintbrush crept along the side of the trail, riots of red and purple. It grew warmer the closer we got to the floor of the wide valley. At the top of the pass, the occasional rumble of muffled thunder snarled in the hazy clouds. Walking and talking kept the events of earlier this afternoon at bay—Green-Eyes and Boots, the soft and gentle murmur in the back of my head that something wasn’t quite right here. Walking with my new-found companion, it was easier to just . . . be. To relax. He had that kind of way about him.
By the time we reached the lake, the sunlight had faded from the peaks around us, and a distinct lavender tint of dusk tinged the horizon. We picked sites close enough to the lake for easy water-filling, but far away enough the mosquitoes around the lakeshore didn’t cause issue. A fine balance to strike.
I dropped my pack against a tree, sighing with relief as I lifted the sixty pounds off my shoulders. In the morning the pack felt light as a song and breeze, but it picked up pounds with every mile. My sweat-soaked shirt clung to my back.
“Long day?” the older man asked with an easy smile, swinging his backpack to the top of a log like it weighed nothing.
I nodded, trying not to pant. “Been on it since around five, six this morning.”
He whistled in appreciation, taking a drink of water from a metal flask older than I was. “That is a long day. Kudos, brother.”
It took more effort than I cared to admit to hide the blush of pride at his approval.
“Oh, I’m Appletree, by the way.”
“Switchback.” No more first-grade embarrassment with using my trail name. I thanked Boots for it. I wondered if he’d ever made it to the top of whatever mountain he shot for. What was the name? I couldn’t remember. A strange detail to forget. The electric-green of moss, growing in a dead man’s eyes. It had been a strange morning, in fairness.
“Switchback, eh? I like it. Pleasure’s all mine, Switchback, good to meet ya.”
We each set about making camp.
My tent was a simple affair to set up; ground tarp to keep water away, tent base, two poles fixed at four corners, clip-it-vertical, done. It didn’t look like rain tonight, so I left the rain fly bundled in the bag. I unfurled my sleeping pad and opened the dial to let it auto-inflate, a process I still considered almost magic.
I turned to Appletree, opening my mouth to ask what he planned on eating for dinner, but when I caught his setup I lost my entire train of thought from engine to caboose.
He stretched a plastic poncho—it looked like the eighty-eight-cent kind they used to hand out at Cub Scout summer camp—over a single hiking pole. He pulled fishing-line from one pocket, kneeling down to secure the flapping edge. His knees popped like dry air pistols as he worked his way around the base. I must have made a sound, because he looked up in time to catch me gawping.
“Like it?” He flashed me a crooked smile. “I used to do the whole tent-and-tarp biz, brother. I discovered this setup a few years back thanks to a cool cat I met in the Sierras.”
“Why are you—why?” I asked, realized how rude I sounded and checked myself. “I’m sorry, I meant—what’s the advantage?”
Appletree waved my apology away with a casual flip of his hand. “Weight, more than anything else. I shaved ’bout three, four pounds when I switched. And she does everything a regular tent does, keeps me dry and all.”
“Does it stay warm enough?” I eyed the three-inch gaps between his “tent” and the forest floor.
“This old girl? Sheeit, no. Just keeps the rain off my hair.” He laughed and patted the plastic sheet. “But I’ve got my bag to keep me warm.”
He pulled out a salmon-scale silver sleeping bag and threw it right down onto the pine needles and dirt.
“You’re not afraid of getting it dirty?” I put a great deal of effort into keeping my gear clean, a lesson long-since ingrained from a decade in the Decatur Boy Scouts. I should match my long-haired companion’s level of chill, although to be honest, I suspected it took a lifetime of effort to reach.
Much to my relief, Appletree overlooked my eighth-grade whining, shaking his head.
“Nah. I’ll give it a good brush-down in the morning, but a few pine needles hitching a ride downriver don’t bother me none.” He sat down on a log, taking another sip of water. “Besides, that’s what we’re out here for, right?”
“Getting dirty?” I knelt and unfurled my sleeping bag, careful to keep my shoes outside the tent. Appletree leaned back against a tree, squinting at the gloam overtaking the sky.
“Getting in touch with nature, brother. That’s what it’s all about, right? Getting out, away from everything and back into the wilds. Where mankind belongs, dude. Not cooped up in complexes of iron and steel. I mean, yeah, everyone has their own personal reasons for being this deep in the middle of nowhere—”
My hands twitched, unzipping my sleeping bag. I said nothing.
“—but I think deep down, people like you and me all dig the outdoors for the same reason. It’s back to basics—you, a few scant supplies, and the big, wide world. So what if you get a little dirt and such in your sleeping bag?”
“Kind of like paying a bunch of money to be homeless, right?” I said. Deb cracked the same joke every time I left the house for an overnighter. She laughed every time she said it. I rarely did.
“People joke about it, my dude, but some of the most content people I’ve ever met were homeless.” Appletree folded his hands over his chest. “A lot of people see their material possessions as perks to living that nine-to-five life. It would surprise you how many people sleeping under the stars see those same things as shackles. All they need is a blanket and a doggo for company, and they’re happier than a bivalve mollusk at high tide.” He chortled. “Oh, and the screens! Brother, the screens these days. Cell phones, televisions, video games . . . what’s it all add? What’s the cumulative benefit of living a life through a little rectangle?”
“I suppose I’ve never thought of it that way.” I slid my e-reader from my pack into the depths of my sleeping bag before he could see it.
“Ah, sorry ’bout it, brother. I ramble sometimes. Side effects of spending hours on hours on my own. Ever find yourself talking to thin air, to make sure you still can?”
“All the time,” I said. “Got to make sure your voice box still works, dude.” His dusted-off seventies speech turned infectious, it seemed.
“Too right, brother. Want to grab some firewood while we still have a few hours of daylight left? We’re not supposed to have one this close to a lake so late in the dry season, but I won’t tell the Smokeys if you don’t.”
“The Smokeys? Oh, the rangers, right. Yeah, sounds great.”
Appletree gave the woods a cursory glance, pressing a hand against the small of his back. “You’re what my pops called a whippersnapper, so I’ll be gracious and allow you to round up some big hearty stuff. I myself will focus on kindling and twigs.”
“How kind of you.” I gave him a sideways glance, and he dad-guffawed again. We split up; he went along the lake shore and I moved north, deeper into the pine forest where the deadfall was.
The forests in the PNW were unlike any woods from my childhood. In the outskirts of Decatur, Alabama, the woods were silent and empty, longleaf pines tangled with underbrush and sumac. Full of trash and rifle-toting rednecks pounding Bud Light, hunting whatever happened to be nearby and alive.
But in the Cascade wilds, the trees came alive. The branches whispered as the wind brushed through them, chattering beneath their breath. No choking underbrush to force through, here. Beneath the canopy each trunk stood isolated, separated by a sort of dim, filmy sunlight. A single layer of dead leaf coated the soft loam. Here were forests, not woods, and they still remember what the world looked like without people. Sometimes I wondered if they missed it that way.
Yesterday I’d found the silence and space between the trees warm, welcoming. Today twigs snapped when I turned my back, sending my heart spiking into my throat. Things lurked in the fogged-over sunbeams between the trees. Electric green eyes waited beneath every step, behind every moss-covered trunk. Watching me.
It’s all perspective. Dr. K’s voice, floating across the years. Seven, specifically, since I last sat in that office just off Cleveland Ave.
I ferried two or three armloads of deadfall in varying thicknesses to our campsite. Dusk settled into our piece of the wilderness. Appletree hadn’t gathered so much as a single twig yet, as he got caught up admiring the bark of a stunted oak. I grabbed a few armfuls of the delicate stuff too, trying not to huff in irritation.
“You got it?” He snapped back to reality as I brought in the last armful. Apparently, I’d earned the right to build the fire too.
“Yeah, I got it.” I shouldn’t get annoyed. Everyone came out here for their own reasons. Sometimes it was to commune with the trees like a flower-power hippie. Still didn’t think it was super fair I had to carry all the wood and take responsibility for building a fire, but I wasn’t going to jeopardize a budding kinship by saying so out loud. I scraped the edge of my pocket knife over a few sticks, producing delicate curls of kindling.
I dug around in my pocket for the little metal fire starter I’d impulse bought waiting in line at REI. I used to keep it in my pack, but it took twenty minutes of fishing around to find the damn thing. I just kept it in my pocket now. Easier.
Much to my relief and surprise, the sparks caught. Some babysitting later, the fire crackled on a stout piece of pine, and we both relaxed. I pulled out my expensive collapsible pot and filled it with a few cups of water, setting it on a rock near the blaze. It boiled faster on the pocket-rocket stove in my pack, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Plus this saved my precious reserve of propane.
We sat in amiable silence for a while, watching the night come over the valley.
After a few minutes I reached for my bag, waving a pack of turkey casserole in Appletree’s direction in a silent question.
“I’m all good, brother, appreciate it though.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of burnt-scarlet apples. He took a bite out of one and leaned back with a long sigh.
“How long you been on the trail?” I asked, eyeing the pearl-white flesh of the apple in his hand. Good God, it looked perfect. My mouth watered even looking at it.
“Oh about four months or so. I came at it kind of cockeyed—I started in the Wahsatch range, then headed north through Yellowstone. From there, bounced westward for a bit.” His untraceable accent pronounced the word “Yella-stone.”
“Oh really? I’ve never been down that way.” My water finished boiling. I slit the top of the turkey casserole bag open and poured it inside. I grabbed my spoon, gave it a stir, and sealed it back up to steam.
“It’s radical, man. Real trailblazer stuff, you know? I followed a settlers’ trail from back in the 1750s. I felt like I walked right there with them, discovering a new America. It was wild. What about you?”
“Oh I’ve only been on for a few weeks. I just started down by the Locks.”
“Been on this stretch of trail before?”
“Not the whole PCT. I’ve hit the Cascades quite a few times, but this is the first time I’ve stitched together the whole spine on one go.”
“How are you finding it?” Appletree leaned his head back against a tree trunk, looking at the rising night. The filtered sunlight turned to navy shadow and stole through the spaces between the trees. Stole the light from the world.
I opened my mouth to talk about the beauty and majesty of the Cascades, but my subconscious had other plans.
“I found a body today.” I blurted it, like the words had been lying in wait and grabbed the opportunity to escape.
The apple froze halfway to my companion’s mouth. One side of his mouth quirked into a frown. Not exactly casual conversation between strangers.
“Is that right? Where?”
I nodded, staring at my shoelaces. I could still see the too-vibrant shade of green, staring at me from the loam and dirt.
“Sorry, I know it’s . . . I’m trying to process. Uh, other side of the pass, few miles.”
“No, it’s . . .” He cleared his throat, took another bite of his apple. The shadow over his face stuck around, coloring the hard lines there. “It’s fine. Process away, friend-o. Did he . . . was he, you know . . . fresh?”
“Uh-uh. Couple days, I guess? I dunno how long it takes a body to start to . . . go. Looked like he fell, busted his leg pretty bad. Went for cover to regain some strength and the mountain lions found him.”
“Not an easy way to go.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t have anything else to say. I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.
The turkey casserole finished, I scooped out a spoonful. We ate in silence. The casserole tasted like hot dirt. I ate it because I paid for it and needed the calories.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I made things weird. I just . . . it’s not every day you find a . . . you know. It’s got me more rattled than I’d like to admit.”
“It’s all good, brother, no sweat. If I found a cold one, I’d likely need to talk about it too. Don’t worry yourself.” He smiled, but I didn’t feel any better.
It’s all perspective. The way you look at things. Deb wasn’t cheating on Switchback. Switchback didn’t have problems sleeping, didn’t hear someone screaming through a cloud of black smoke in his nightmares. Switchback liked hiking, liked the trail, and most important, didn’t have time for Josh’s crippling emotional baggage.
But Switchback found the body, and the body forced him to remember. A crack in the illusion, letting in the darkness. Because I wasn’t Switchback, I was Josh. Switchback was just a different way to look at things. A way to not be hurt, for a little while. And all those walls were about to come crashing down around my ears. All those years of therapy, exercises, hard work undone. The bricks stacked one by one over that fresh grave. My heart fluttered in my chest, stuttering a skip-time rhythm.
“You good, Switch? You look like you’re gonna be ill.” Appletree gave me a speculative eye, rolling the other apple in one hand.
I wiped my face with the back of one hand. Cold sweat, beading on my brow, defiant in the face of the crackling fire. The grinding sound of bricks shifting overhead echoed in the silence between the trees.
Talk it out. Dr. K’s voice, soft and warm in that strip-mall back office. The smell of the Dunkin’ Donuts next door. Don’t hold it in.
“Talk it out, brother. Let it all out.”
I flinched, looking at him. He smiled, and for a second Dr. K’s face hovered over his, an after-image. No, no that wasn’t right. I was seeing things.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” The words tasted sour. I shouldn’t be talking about this. Not with a stranger. I hadn’t yet sorted fact from fiction. I still hadn’t gained perspective.
I didn’t know what I was looking at.
He hesitated. “Sure. What’s not to believe?”
“I think . . .” I laughed. It sounded thin, weak. Fake. “I think I’m seeing one. Or will. Tonight. In my dreams.”
The closest I could come to the truth. The closest I could come to admitting what I buried, under those bricks. Deb knew the truth. But Deb wasn’t here—in almost every sense of the word. The panic attack gnawed at the edge of my brain; cold tingling started in my fingertips. It would start again, and soon. That voice, winding through the smoke. A child’s panic.
The old man sat still, running a hand through the wild tangle of his beard. He stared at the fire, and I watched the flames burn in his eyes. He seemed to sink into himself, go somewhere else.
“Once upon a time, a boy lived in a small town, in the outlands of California. He was a good kid, quiet and polite, kept to himself. He liked the outdoors, choir . . . and a boy in his math class, ya dig me? So anyways, he grows up and goes to college in the big city. He meets another boy, who sings in the choir and who likes the outdoors. The two of them go hiking together, ranging all over the Sierras, Yosemite, and even the Redwoods. They like each other, like spending time with each other. They grow close, and after a spell they move in together.”
I nodded. And I listened, because listening meant I wasn’t thinking. The screaming muted if I listened. I was so caught up in my own thoughts, I didn’t notice the subtle change in Appletree’s voice. Lower now, growing husky.
“The two of them—they have a happy life. But something happens—something bad. There’s a war. A war across the ocean, in a place we have no business being. People die. So many people, in fact, they start dragging regular people into the war. Snatching them out of their lives with a scrap of paper, like that.” He snapped his fingers, and almost like magic the fire snarled on a piece of sap and popped loud enough to make me jump. Appletree wasn’t looking at me anymore. He stared at the fire, arms wrapped around his knobby knees. I wanted to tell him to stop, wanted to tell him he didn’t have to keep going, but I didn’t. I stayed silent and listened. I listened to his pain, to forget mine.
“That little kid who liked choir and the mountains found himself across the world with a rifle in his hands. They gave him a choice; use the gun, or they’d bury him with it.” He cleared his throat, turning to spit in the dirt beside him.
“Well by some magic, the boy survived. The war ended as it began—pointless, and stupid—and they sent that boy home. Except the boy was different now. They took something from him, in the war. A piece of his soul. Now the boy couldn’t sleep at night. He had nightmares of people wrapping their hands around his neck, and he woke up screaming. Fireworks made him tremble and cry. He’s scared—all the time he’s scared.” The fire bloomed and dropped from Appletree’s eyes, spilling onto his leathered cheeks. “People nudged each other and pretended not to stare. Saying things like, ‘There’s the loony tune who never came back from Vietnam.’ Not real loud . . . just loud enough.”
“I’m so sorry, man. You—you don’t have to—” I reached out, but if Appletree heard me, he didn’t show it. He stared deep into the fire; I doubt he even realized I still sat across from him. I wanted it to stop. I felt like I’d stepped into a house I didn’t live in, spying through a keyhole at a love beyond my understanding. Nightmares. The boy had nightmares.
That part I understood just fine.
“Things get bad. The boy has a hard time finding a job. No one wants to hire someone who can’t get in an elevator without having a nervous breakdown, ya dig me? The two boys can’t pay rent. They fight all the time. So, the boy comes up with a solution, you see. He waits for his partner to leave for groceries—he can’t go to the store anymore, too many loud noises—and he cleans the whole apartment. He cleans the bathroom, folds the laundry. Scrubs the baseboards. Then, he hangs himself from the living room fan with a pair of suspenders.”
I jumped, almost kicking my empty casserole bag into the coal bed. For the first time in what felt like a long time, Appletree looked at me. Ghosts floated in his eyes, real as the tree I leaned against. I knew the look.
“He left a note, folded on my pillow. It said, ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Jesus,” I croaked. I didn’t have anything else to say. Appletree didn’t respond. He stayed wrapped up around himself, staring past the fire now into the gloom rising around us. The last daylight fled from the sky, and the hazy dots of the first stars were barely visible through the smoke and treetops.
Talk it out. Dr. K, floating over the smoke, over the years since it happened. Since that night. The panic, building in my hands. Tingling like they were falling asleep, like I was falling asleep. I didn’t want to sleep. Sleeping only made it worse.
The words bulged against my lips, stinging like acid, cold as the dirt covering that grave. Words I’d told exactly two people—Dr. K and Deb. Neither was here, neither could help. Alone.
Well, not quite.
Appletree watched me. I saw him in the corner of my eye, a pale smudge against the creeping blackness. He didn’t say anything. He waited. Like he knew the words were coming.