Wild

“Hey, you never know,” I said. “I was in Vegas once—just passing through a couple of years ago—and I put a nickel in a slot machine and won sixty bucks.”

He looked unimpressed.

I went into the women’s restroom. As I brushed my teeth before a fluorescently lit mirror above a bank of sinks, a woman said, “I like your feather,” and pointed to it on my pack.

“Thanks,” I said, our eyes meeting in the mirror. She was pale and brown-eyed with a bumpy nose and a long braid down her back; dressed in a tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of patched-up cutoff jeans and Birkenstock sandals. “My friend gave it to me,” I mumbled as toothpaste dribbled out of my mouth. It seemed like forever since I’d talked to a woman.

“It’s got to be a corvid,” she said, reaching over to touch it delicately with one finger. “It’s either a raven or a crow, a symbol of the void,” she added, in a mystical tone.

“The void?” I’d asked, crestfallen.

“It’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s the place where things are born, where they begin. Think about how a black hole absorbs energy and then releases it as something new and alive.” She paused, looking meaningfully into my eyes. “My ex-partner is an ornithologist,” she explained in a less ethereal tone. “His area of research is corvidology. His thesis was on ravens and because I have a master’s in English I had to read the fucking thing like ten times, so I know more than I need to about them.” She turned to the mirror and smoothed back her hair. “You on your way to the Rainbow Gathering, by chance?”

“No. I’m—”

“You should come. It’s really cool. The gathering’s up in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest this year, at Toad Lake.”

“I went to the Rainbow Gathering last year, when it was in Wyoming,” I said.

“Right on,” she said in that particular slow-motion way that people say right on. “Happy trails,” she said, and reached over and squeezed my arm. “Corvidology!” she cheered as she headed for the door, giving me and my feather a thumbs-up as she went.

By eight Greg and I were in Truckee. By eleven we were still standing on the hot side of the road trying to hitch a ride to Sierra City.

“HEY!” I yelled maniacally at a VW bus as it whizzed past. We’d been snubbed by at least six of them over the past couple of hours. Not being picked up by those who drove VW buses made me particularly indignant. “Fucking hippies,” I said to Greg.

“I thought you were a hippy,” he said.

“I am. Kind of. But only a little bit.” I sat down on the gravel on the road’s shoulder and retied the lace of my boot, but when I was done I didn’t stand back up. I was dizzy with exhaustion. I hadn’t slept for a day and a half.

“You should walk ahead of me and stand by yourself,” said Greg. “I’d understand. If you were alone you’d have gotten a ride a long time ago.”

“No,” I said, though I knew he was right—a single woman is less threatening than a man-woman pair. People want to help a woman alone. Or try to get in her pants. But we were together for now, so together we stayed until, an hour later, a car stopped and we clambered in and rode to Sierra City. It was a scenic village of less than a dozen wooden buildings perched at an elevation of 4,200 feet. The town was wedged in between the North Yuba River and the towering Sierra Buttes that rose brown against the clear blue sky to the north.

Our ride dropped us at the general store in the town’s center, a quaint old-timey place where tourists sat eating ice-cream cones on the painted front porch, which was abuzz with a pre–Fourth of July weekend crowd.

“You getting a cone?” asked Greg, pulling out a couple of dollars.

“Nah. Maybe later,” I said, keeping my voice light to hide my desperation. I wanted a cone, of course. It was that I didn’t dare purchase one, for fear of not being able to afford a room. When we stepped into the small crowded store, I tried not to look at the food. I stood near the cash register instead, scanning tourist brochures while Greg shopped.

“This entire town was wiped out by an avalanche in 1852,” I told him when he returned, fanning myself with the glossy brochure. “The snow from the Buttes gave way.” He nodded as if he knew this already, licking his chocolate cone. I turned away, the sight of it a small torture to me. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need to find someplace cheap. For tonight, I mean.” The truth was, I needed to find someplace free, but I was too tired to contemplate camping. The last time I’d slept, I’d been on the PCT in the High Sierra.

“How about this,” said Greg, pointing to an old wooden building across the street.

The downstairs was a bar and restaurant; the upstairs had rooms for rent with shared bathrooms. It was only 1:30, but the woman in the bar allowed us to check in early. After I paid for my room I had thirteen dollars left.

“You want to have dinner together downstairs tonight?” Greg asked when we reached our rooms, standing before our side-by-side doors.