Wild

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said numbly, though I could hardly hear my own words for what felt like a great clanging in my head, which was the realization that my whole hike on the PCT could come to this. That no matter how tough or strong or brave I’d been, how comfortable I’d come to be with being alone, I’d also been lucky, and that if my luck ran out now, it would be as if nothing before it had ever existed, that this one evening would annihilate all those brave days.

“I’m talking about liking your pants,” the man said with a touch of irritation. “They look good on you. They show off your hips and legs.”

“Please don’t say that,” I said as unfalteringly as I could.

“What? I’m complimenting you! Can’t a guy give a girl a compliment anymore? You should be flattered.”

“Thank you,” I said in an attempt to pacify him, hating myself for it. My mind went to the Three Young Bucks, who perhaps weren’t even back on the trail yet. It went to the world’s loudest whistle that no one but the red-haired man would hear. It went to the Swiss army knife too far away in the upper-left-side pocket of my pack. It went to the not-yet-boiling water in the handleless pot on my little stove. And then it landed on the arrows that rose from the top of the sandy-haired man’s pack. I could feel the invisible line between those arrows and me like a hot thread. If he tried to do anything to me, I’d get to one of those arrows and stab him in the throat.

“I think you’d better get going,” I said evenly. “It’ll be getting dark soon.” I crossed my arms hard against my chest, acutely aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra.

“It’s a free country,” he said. “I’ll go when I’m ready. I got a right, you know.” He picked up his Pepsi can and gently swirled around the water inside.

“What the hell are you doing?” a man’s voice called, and a moment later the red-haired man appeared. “I had to hike all the way back up here to find you. I thought you got lost.” He looked at me accusingly, as if I were to blame, as if I’d conspired with the sandy-haired man to get him to stay. “We got to go now if we’re going to make it back to the truck before dark.”

“You be careful out here,” the sandy-haired man said to me, pulling on his pack.

“Bye,” I said very quietly, wanting neither to answer him nor to rile him by not answering.

“Hey. It’s seven ten,” he said. “It’s safe to drink the water now.” He lifted his Pepsi can in my direction and made a toast. “Here’s to a young girl all alone in the woods,” he said, and took a sip and then turned to follow his friend down the trail.

I stood for a while the way I had the first time they left, letting all the knots of fear unclench. Nothing had happened, I told myself. I am perfectly okay. He was just a creepy, horny, not-nice man, and now he’s gone.

But then I shoved my tent back into my pack, turned off my stove, dumped the almost-boiling water out into the grass, and swished the pot in the pond so it cooled. I took a swig of my iodine water and crammed my water bottle and my damp T-shirt, bra, and shorts back into my pack. I lifted Monster, buckled it on, stepped onto the trail, and started walking northward in the fading light. I walked and I walked, my mind shifting into a primal gear that was void of anything but forward motion, and I walked until walking became unbearable, until I believed I couldn’t walk even one more step.

And then I ran.

18 QUEEN OF THE PCT

It was raining when I woke as the light seeped into the sky the next morning. I was lying in my tent in the shallow trough of the trail, its two-foot width the only flat spot I could find in the dark the night before. It had begun to rain at midnight, it had rained all night long, and as I walked through the morning, the rain came and went. I thought about what had happened with the men, or almost happened or was never really going to happen, playing it over in my mind, feeling sick and shaky, but by noon it was behind me and I was back on the PCT—the detour I’d inadvertently taken having wended its way up to the trail.

Water fell from the sky and dripped from the branches, streaming down the gully of the trail. I walked beneath the enormous trees, the forest canopy high above me, the bushes and low-growing plants that edged the trail soaking me as I brushed past. Wet and miserable as it was, the forest was magical—Gothic in its green grandiosity, both luminous and dark, so lavish in its fecundity that it looked surreal, as if I were walking through a fairy tale rather than the actual world.