Range of Light (14 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Adele

Thursday Morning / Glen Aulin

“FITS FINE,” I SAID
to Kath
, modeling my new blue poly­something backpack in the parking lot near Tuolumne Meadows.

She grinned. “Very chic. But don't overdo the weight. You really don't need to carry the tent poles.”

I looked her straight in the eye. “I can take my share. Who do you think you are—Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

“Who?” Kath was laughing.

“The Terminator.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said vaguely.

“Another element of popular culture my boys introduced me to. I thought you worked with kids.”

She looked blank. “Different kids, I guess.”

“He's married to Maria Shriver.” I stood in a pool of early sun, enjoying the warmth reaching gently, deeply, down to the bones.

Kath adjusted her straps. “Maria who?”

“Shriver. As in Sargent Shriver. The ‘young' Kennedy generation.”

“Oh.” Kath frowned. “The Terminator. The Cuban Missile Crisis. It all fits together.”

We made our way, slowly at first, across Tuolumne Meadows, which had sprung back to life from yesterday's storm. We climbed past bubbling Soda Springs and ancient Parsons Lodge into a cool pine forest. It was going to be a long day. Kath looked weary. Yesterday had been a good workout for today's backpacking expedition, but it had also been harrowing. Not that Kath had been worried; so contained all the way through. Everything had been fine yesterday, and it would be fine today.

Butterflies winked in yellow-green grass; the dirt smelled of sun. From a nearby stable, we could hear whinnying, snorting horses. The air here was rich with manure. I liked seeing mule shit and horseshit on the trail; it gave me confidence. If a four-footed animal carrying a nervous tourist or bulky supplies for the High Sierra Camps could negotiate these trails, I probably could too.

Wordlessly we proceeded through the elegant lodgepole forest. I forced myself to keep quiet because in the last few days, I had come to see my gregariousness as a crutch to cope with stress and distract from anxiety. Chat, chat, chat. Think, think, think. Don't let the silence in. During the years that separated me from Kath's quiet friendship, I had learned the sedative power of words, cushioning myself with internal-external monologues positioned safely in past or future. Now each time conversation moved to the front of my brain, I respected Kath's solitude, saving topics for lunch, conserving breath for the six-mile journey under unwieldy backpacks.

I should have admitted to Kath that I had never backpacked—even if I had read up on it before I came. She would soon find out. However, I felt oddly confident. The altitude was more comfortable, more natural now, and I was bursting with energy, as if this were our first, rather than fourth, day in the mountains. Perhaps I had finally adjusted to the time difference, the dry air. Perhaps I was far enough from my work and my family. I felt like I could go on forever in these mountains.

Up ahead, the trail was crossed by high, rushing rapids. Discreetly, Kath moved ahead of me; she stepped on one rock, then the next, and soon landed at the far side of the creek. She made it look easy.

You can do it, I told myself, it's all attitude. I understood this. After the first false step, my toe darkened by water, I jerked back to the bank, regaining balance before trying again. It would be hard enough to do this without a big pack. Confidence, woman, confidence: don't think about falling. Concentrate on naming the countries of Africa: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia. I knew I was nervous if I had named that many and was only halfway across. Nigeria, Senegal. I walked faster and thought more slowly. Algeria. Tunisia. Morocco. By the time I reached safety, my mind was hovering between Libya and Egypt.

Blowing the residual panic lightly through my lips, I exclaimed, “Nothing to it.”

Kath smiled, but not wide enough to betray either concern or congratulation. Stepping aside, she let me continue in the lead.

Soon we emerged from shade. Together, our shoulders nearly touching, we admired a glistening, almost chartreuse, meadow and beyond that, the snowy mountain range starkly carved against a cloudless sky. The river sound, near and far, was becoming a second companion on this trip. Our path through the meadow was short, direct, leading to a wide table shelf of white granite.

“We're back on the moon.” I held out my hands.

Kath watched curiously. Then, “Yes, yes, the sheer granite's dazzling. We'll come out on another great slab after this next woods.”

“Do you go to Glen Aulin every summer?” I asked, taken aback by an envious twinge. Envy of Kath's access to this terrain. But it
had
been my decision to leave California, as she continually reminded me.

“No.” Kath uncapped the canteen, offering water. “Usually just to Tuolumne Falls down here. I have lunch and walk back to the Meadows. It's a nice hike.”

I returned the canteen, surprised by my thirst, but knowing we should save water for the rest of the journey.

As we entered a woods, two old women, erect under their bulging canvas backpacks, stepped aside for us to pass. Their bodies were tanned, fit, their faces friendly, almost indulgent as we moved onto the trail.

Yes, I loved it here. California offered some unique spark, some challenge, perhaps it had to do with living on the edge, perhaps with one's gratitude for this natural glory. I had always felt enlarged by California wilderness. In Massachusetts, I had tried to bury these memories by engaging in stereotypes of California as a failed paradise where actors, surfers, computer programmers and pensioners fermented together in orange groves. In Massachusetts, I was always conscious that “this was where it had all started,” more or less, and the stratified social system kept me aware of who got there before me. In California, it was just the opposite. I felt welcome, whole, decompartmentalized. In the last few days, I'd even recovered some small political optimism. I hoped the boys inherited my tie to the West.

A while later, Kath warned, “It's a little tricky up here. But the walk from the other side to Tuolumne Falls is only fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Then you're promising lunch, right?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm promising. Gnocchi in pesto sauce. Insalata mista.”

“Profiteroles for dessert?”

“If that's what Madam wants.”

“Yes. Profiteroles every day.”

We picked our way up and around the large, rocky outcropping. Sweat poured down my temples, between my breasts; I felt as if I were releasing part of myself to this land, wriggling from a ripe cocoon.

“You OK?” she called.

“Fine,” I said, glad I didn't have to elaborate, for it was hard to talk and balance at the same time.

I heard hooves. Around the bend came a team of pack mules being led by a sunburned young man in a sombrero. Automatically, Kath and I stood aside. The lean rider waved to us. I waved back, then said to Kath, “Do you get the same idea I do—that they're lowering the age for adulthood? We were never that young, right?”

“Wrong. That and younger.” Kath laughed. “Remember Nancy's green mascara?”

“The ideal backcountry makeup!”

Only a little farther to the top, so I pushed myself. Higher. Higher. A bit higher. Then, as Kath promised—a stunning panorama.

“Glorious,” I declared, pulling out my camera.

“No, hold on.” Kath touched my hand. For a second longer than necessary.

I waited expectantly, then found myself blushing.

Kath smiled, tapping the black leather camera case three times. “Wait till you walk further this way.”

As we diverged from the trail—out to a ledge overlooking the valley—the view became even more grand: Mount Conness, Ragged Peak. From below we could hear the roar of falls. Sloughing off our packs, we stretched our muscles, then stood for several minutes, absorbing the landscape. I winked at Kath, clicking my camera once to the north, once to the east and once to catch Kath against the mountains to the south. I kept the lens on my old friend with the familiar, playful eyes.

“Another hiker hiding
behind the
lens.”

We swiveled toward the disembodied voice.

“Why not relax and enjoy the moment?”

He stood up from behind the large boulder. “No need to preserve the vista, at least until you experience it.”

Angrily, Kath whispered, “Who is this asshole?” loud enough for him to hear.

I shot back, “I don't take advice from strangers.”

He leaned forward—tall, thin, blond—with confident angularity under a gloppy, beige straw hat. Then strangely formal: “I'm Sandy Archer.” He walked toward us, extending his hand.

“Adele Ward-Jones,” I said, annoyed for being caught in the reflex of appalling courtesy. To gain some distance, I added, “This is Kath Peterson.”

We stood facing each other in a reluctant triangle.

“Actually I was just kidding about the picture.” He laughed nervously. “I'm a photographer myself.” He patted the telephoto lens on the Nikormat hanging from his neck.

“Let's go, Adele.” Kath turned.

“No, wait,” he exclaimed, wholly embarrassed now. “I was going to offer to take your picture together. I mean, I always find that I have pictures of my friend and my friend has pictures of me, but there are none of us together.”

“Adele,” Kath strained.

“I mean, I'm sorry,” he continued. “Hope my joke didn't offend. I don't know what came over me. Guess I needed some human contact after so many days alone on the trail.”

“It's fine,” I said, pained by my instinct to smooth things over. “Don't worry.”

“How about that picture?” he asked hopefully.

“Sure.” I tugged Kath closer, my arm tucked around a disgruntled scarecrow. “How about right here?”

As soon as the shutter snapped, Kath slipped on her backpack and stepped toward the trail. I knew she wondered how I could be so accommodating to this oaf who had appropriated the view she had been waiting all morning to show me.

Sandy was still talking. “What kind of camera?”

“Pentax,” I said, caught between Ms. Indignation and Miss Congeniality. This automatic amiability was deeply pathological.

Now he was inspecting my daylight filter.

“At home I use a Nikon with a wide-angle lens,” I explained absently. “But it was too heavy to carry on this trip.” Perhaps I was going on about the camera so Kath would know I wasn't completely a technical moron.

Hands across her chest, Kath let out a long, impatient sigh. She was poised with one foot on the trail.

“Sorry to interrupt your hike,” Sandy was saying to Kath. “Hope the rest of it goes without weirdos lurking behind boulders.”

I laughed.

Kath nodded. “Bye then.”

He waved, silently watching us walk away.

Fifty yards along, I threw up my hands. “Men! They just open the door and step over your life.”

“Yeah.”

“But he was a sweet sort of guy.”

“Concentrate on the trail,” Kath called over her shoulder. “It gets steep going down.”

At this, I did, momentarily, lose my footing, but caught myself on a tree trunk before spilling to the ground.

Kath watched me right myself. “You OK?”

I got up, embarrassed. “Fine.”

We continued toward the falls in silence. I found myself thinking about what made people return home. Was it biological instinct? Was there some sense of self you could only locate through the colors and aromas of childhood? Was there a particular discovery to be made within the passage of familiar seasons? But home could also mean entrapment, suffocation.

At Tuolumne Falls, the sign said, GLEN AULIN 1.7 MILES. The day's journey was more than half finished.

Although Kath had reminded me this morning about the beauty of these falls, I was startled by the gleaming rapids. We stood on the bridge for a long time listening to water roar and crash beneath us as the Tuolumne spread south down to the fertile valleys, out to the ocean.

“Down this way.” Kath tugged my sleeve.

“Oh, over there, I remember.” I started off the trail to the right, where the river was backed by long, wide, smooth slabs.

We arranged ourselves on the white shoulders, our backpacks against a large tree, our naked feet tingling in the cold, foaming water.

“Heaven,” I declared and lay all the way back, hands over my head.

Kath moaned contentedly, then chugged the contents of the canteen. We were only an hour or so from camp and could afford to be easy with water.

“So how are you doing
with the pack?” she asked, deliberately casual.

“Fine.” I kneaded a muscle in my right shoulder. “In another two or three weeks, I'll be auditioning for one of those pumping iron movies.”

“Seriously”—Kath touched my knee lightly—“are you OK?”

“Fine. Fine.” I stared at the falls, suddenly, disproportionately irritated. “I wish you wouldn't keep behaving as if I'm an invalid.” I heard the sharpness in my voice. Agitation surged unaccountably, unstoppably.

“Sorry,” Kath began.

“From the beginning you've been saying things like ‘Are we going too fast? Is this too heavy? Maybe we shouldn't walk all the way to the lake?' Do I look that fragile? Am I slowing you down?” I was almost shouting.

“No.” She leaned forward. “I didn't—”

“What is it,” I interrupted, removing my scarf and mopping the cold, dusty sweat from my cheeks, “that makes you macha woman? Because you live in California? Because you come up here every summer?”

Kath waited attentively.

I watched her watching me and felt stupid, self-indulgent, in my wounded ego.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” I shook my head. “Perhaps it's too much togetherness. I get this way with Lou sometimes, too, when he's doing nothing but being perfectly considerate.”