Wild

“What?” asked Greg, his hand around the shaft of his ax, but I only shook my head. “You’ve got two edges,” he continued. “The blunt edge is the adze. That’s what you use to chop your steps. And the other edge is the pick. That’s what you use to save your ass when you’re sliding off the side of the mountain.” He spoke in a tone that assumed I knew this already, as if he were just reviewing the basics before we got started.

“Yep. The shaft, the head, the spike, the pick, the ad,” I said.

“The adze,” he corrected. “There’s a z.” We were standing on a steep bank along the river, the closest thing we could find to simulate an icy slope. “Now let’s say you’re falling,” said Greg, throwing himself down the incline to demonstrate. As he fell, he jammed the pick into the mud. “You want to dig that pick in as hard as you can, while holding on to the shaft with one hand and the head with the other. Like this. And once you’re anchored in, you try to get your footing.”

I looked at him. “What if you can’t get your footing?”

“Well, then you hold on here,” he answered, moving his hands on the ax.

“What if I can’t hold on that long? I mean, I’ll have my pack and everything and, actually, I’m not strong enough to do a single pull-up.”

“You hold on,” he said dispassionately. “Unless you’d rather slide off the side of the mountain.”

I got to work. Again and again I threw myself against the increasingly muddy slope, pretending that I was slipping on ice, and again and again I planted the pick of my ice ax into the soil while Greg watched, coaching and critiquing my technique.

Doug and Tom sat nearby pretending they weren’t paying attention. Albert and Matt were lying on a tarp we’d spread out for them beneath the shade of a tree near Ed’s truck, too ill to move anywhere but to the outhouse several times an hour. They’d both woken in the middle of the night sick with what we were all beginning to believe was giardia—a waterborne parasite that causes crippling diarrhea and nausea, requires prescription medication to cure, and almost always means a week or more off the trail. It was the reason PCT hikers spent so much time talking about water purifiers and water sources, for fear they’d make one wrong move and have to pay. I didn’t know where Matt and Albert had picked up whatever they had, but I prayed I hadn’t picked it up too. By late afternoon we all stood over them as they lay pale and limp on their tarp, convincing them it was time they got to the hospital in Ridgecrest. Too sick to resist, they watched as we packed their things and loaded their packs into the back of Ed’s truck.

“Thank you for all your help with lightening my pack,” I said to Albert when we had a moment alone before he departed. He looked wanly up at me from his bed on the tarp. “I couldn’t have done it myself.”

He gave me a weak smile and nodded.

“By the way,” I said, “I wanted to tell you—about why I decided to hike the PCT? I got divorced. I was married and not long ago I got divorced, and also about four years ago my mom died—she was only forty-five and she got cancer suddenly and died. It’s been a hard time in my life and I’ve sort of gotten offtrack. So I …” He opened his eyes wider, looking at me. “I thought it would help me find my center, to come out here.” I made a crumpled gesture with my hands, out of words, a bit surprised that I’d let so many tumble out.

“Well, you’ve got your bearings now, haven’t you?” he said, and sat up, his face lighting up despite his nausea. He rose and walked slowly to Ed’s truck and got in beside his son. I clambered into the back with their backpacks and the box of things I no longer needed and rode with them as far as the general store. When we reached it, Ed stopped for a few moments; I jumped out with my box and waved to Albert and Matt, hollering good luck.

I felt a stinging rush of affection as I watched them drive away. Ed would return in a few hours, but most likely I’d never see Albert and Matt again. I would be hiking into the High Sierra with Doug and Tom the next day, and in the morning I’d have to say goodbye to Ed and Greg too—Greg was laying over in Kennedy Meadows another day, and though he would certainly catch up to me, it would likely be a fleeting visit, and then he too would pass out of my life.

I walked to the porch of the general store and put everything but the foldable saw, the special high-tech flash for my camera, and the miniature binoculars into the PCT hiker free box. Those I packed into my old resupply box and addressed it to Lisa in Portland. As I sealed my box with a roll of tape Ed had loaned me, I kept having the feeling that something was missing.

Later, as I walked the road back to the campground, I realized what it was: the fat roll of condoms.

Every last one was gone.

PART THREE. RANGE OF LIGHT