The Walk Page 9

  “Sure.”

  He jotted this down with a stub of a pencil.

  “And, I’d like one of your world-famous shakes.” I stressed the words world-famous, as if adding quotation marks with my voice, but he didn’t react.

  “What kind?”

  At least two-thirds of the menu was a listing of shakes and malts, with flavors ranging from banana caramel to grasshopper. In addition there were two seasonal specials, gingerbread and rhubarb. I asked which was better.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you prefer gingerbread or rhubarb.”

  Ask a dumb question. “I’ll try the rhubarb.”

  “Good choice,” he said. He rang up my order. I handed him a ten-dollar bill, and he gave me back some change and a receipt. “You’re number thirty-four,” he said, which I found mildly amusing since there was no one else waiting.

  “Are these woods behind your restaurant yours?”

  “No. I’m not sure who owns them. It’s private property. One day the NO TRESPASSING signs just popped up.”

  “Would anyone hassle me if I camped back there?”

  “Doubt it. Every now and then, I’ll see someone crawl out of there in the morning. In fact, we had a fellow lived back there for more than a year. No one made a fuss about that. He wasn’t shy about it, either. He built himself a little shack. I don’t remember his name.” He turned back to the girl at the grill. “What was that guy’s name who lived in the woods back there?”

  She said something, and he nodded, “Oh, yeah.” He turned back. “His name was Itch. His father was a big-wig politician in Seattle. Lived back there for more than a year. Don’t know why he chose that place. Just liked it, I guess. He’d walk up and down the highway and pick up people’s lost change and aluminum cans, and when he had enough money, he’d come by and get something to eat. One day he just up and left. Haven’t seen him since. So why do you ask?”

  I’d forgotten what I’d asked. “Ask what?”

  “About camping back there.”

  “I’m looking for a place to spend the night.”

  “Well, it’s gonna rain on you.” There was another

  flare-up behind him. “Where you from?”

  “Seattle.”

  He looked me over a moment, then said, “You can sleep in the caboose.”

  I looked at the big red caboose. “That one right here?” Another stupid question.

  “Only one I got. The mattresses aren’t there anymore. But if you don’t mind sleeping on wood.”

  “Thank you. The shelter would be appreciated.”

  Someone behind him shouted, “Number thirty-four!”

  He turned around and carefully put my food in a sack, then handed it to me with the shake. “When you’re done eating, just come back up, and I’ll unlock the caboose for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was an enclosed dining area in a separate building behind the restaurant. The room was clean and held six picnic tables. The walls were covered with maps of area hiking trails, and there was an article about bear attacks. (The article was published by the local Chamber of Commerce, so it had a lot of good things to say about bears.)

  I sat down at a table and unwrapped the wax paper from my ostrich burger. Ostrich meat may look like beef, but it isn’t as good. I just put more ketchup on it.

  It felt good to be off my feet. I hadn’t changed my socks since the day before, and I felt as if my flesh was absorbing them. I looked forward to taking them off, though not yet. I was eating.

  When I finished my meal, I cleaned up the table, then walked back out to the drive-in. Three cars were now parked out front, and a line had formed at the window. The man saw me and said, “Just hang tight for a minute. I’ll have to unlock it for you.” About twenty minutes later he emerged from a side door. “This way.”

  I followed him around back, then up a short set of stairs to the caboose. He pulled out a key ring and unlocked the door. Both of us stepped inside, standing in the narrow aisle that ran the length of the car. The interior of the caboose had been painted submarine gray and smelled like wet paint. “Don’t use the head,” he said. “It doesn’t work, and you’d have a real mess on your hands. You can use the facilities behind the restaurant. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

  I was surprised at how trusting he was of a complete stranger.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He walked out, shutting the door behind himself. I had never actually been inside a train (unless you count the Park train at Disneyland), let alone slept in one. The berth was a long wooden tray where I suppose a mattress once lay. I laid out my pad, then unzipped my sleeping bag and lay it across the space. I lay back to test it out. Not bad. Hard, but I was getting used to that. For the most part, the soft things of my life were gone.

  As night fell, the rain started coming down harder, and the sound was amplified by the wooden box I was sheltered in. I was glad to be inside.

  I pulled the flashlight from my pack and my road journal and jotted down a few notes for the day. I wrote a little about the homeless man at the Jack in the Box and the teacher’s book. I wondered if, in time, I would become like him—rambling about things others couldn’t understand. The teacher book.

  I hated the night and the demons that waited until dark to come out. Even though I thought about McKale all day and sometimes about Kyle or his treachery, there was some power in walking that kept my demons at bay. But in the silence and still of the night, they came out in legion. At such times, I felt like a stranger in my own mind, wandering through a mysterious and precarious landscape.

  I think it was Twain who wrote, “I suppose I’m like the rest of humanity: not quite sane at night.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-five

  I spent the night sleeping in a train caboose. I can’t imagine what the new day will bring except, of course, more walking. And more rain.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The world was quiet when I woke. The dawn sun had not yet climbed over the mountain, and the world was still blue and gray. The air was cold enough that I could see my breath.

  I packed up my things. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the world outside was still wet, as if the rain had stopped just an hour or two earlier. I walked around to the back of the darkened drive-in and pushed on the bathroom door. I was glad when it opened.

  I shaved with warm water, then filled my canteen with cold. I shrugged on my pack, then walked back out to the road.

  The highway passed over a river, and below me there was a group of people unloading kayaks from a truck. No one was in a hurry. It occurred to me that neither was I. For the first time, I thought about the simplicity of my new life. No deadlines. No appointments or meetings. No e-mails or phone conferences. All I had to think about were the necessities—water, food, sleep, and occasional shelter.

  The road was veiled in a haze, a cool mist that either rose from the asphalt or fell from the sky, I wasn’t sure which. After a steep climb of a few miles, I saw waterfalls cascading off the north side of the mountains. To the south of me was the Skykomish River. Even in my state of mind, I couldn’t deny the beauty of this country.

  Around ten, I entered the city of Baring, where I ate a simple but delicious breakfast of eggs and link sausage at a roadside diner. It was a quiet day, gray and morose. If the sky wasn’t overcast I still would have been in shadow from the lush canopy of trees. The deep forest was green in moss and lichen, and even the concrete rails of the bridges were flocked with moss.

  At Moneycreek campground, I stopped to rest and eat an apple, jerky, and a couple handfuls of trail mix.

  The road had become more narrow and dangerous. Compounding the problem was that this city did not tolerate slow drivers. It’s the only place I had ever seen with signs threatening drivers with tickets if they had more than five cars trailing behind them. The offered solution was “shoul
der driving,” an obvious hazard for bikers and hikers. Baring wasn’t a place to be walking after dusk. At least if you wanted to live.

  In Skykomish, I stopped at the only place I could find to eat lunch, the Sky Deli. The next town was farther than I could reasonably walk, so I resigned myself to my last hot meal for the day. I ordered spaghetti with raguot and garlic bread. I let the food settle a bit, then headed back out to the road.

  By mile marker 56, I had walked nearly 25 miles, almost all of it uphill, which became obvious even without the elevation signs that were now posted at regular intervals. I could feel it in my calves. The first of the elevation signs was at 1,500 feet where, for the first time, I encountered snow on the road.

  By dusk, my legs were cramping, and I started looking in earnest for a place to camp. There were few possibilities, as the road was surrounded by steep terrain on both sides. An hour later, I seriously wondered how much farther I could walk and scolded myself for not stopping earlier. I even considered walking back 7 miles to where I saw the last campsite, but the thought of losing those hard-earned miles was too painful, so I just trudged ahead, hoping for something.

  In the next mile, the elevation rose to 1,800 feet, a 300-foot climb evidenced by the increasing amount of snow on the mountain and shoulders. My thighs and calves were burning, while my breath froze in front of me. I was near my limit when, through the dark, I saw a sign for Deception Falls campground. I was filled with relief.

  I crossed the street to the camp, stepping over the chain pulled across the entrance. The site was closed for the season. There were NO CAMPING signs posted in the parking lot, but this did nothing to deter me. My legs were gone. I had no choice but to stop.

  The public outhouses were locked. I followed a cut trail down into a dark, wet valley. The river and falls roared loud enough to drown out the sound of the highway. The foliage was thick and green, accented with occasional patches of snow. It seemed as if moss coated everything, and I was certain that if I stayed there long enough, the ecosystem would claim me as well.

  The falls were not high but strong, a collusion of violent, mountain-borne waters falling 100 feet or more in a series of sharp rocky inclines. According to the engraved wooden park sign, the waters pounded down with seven tons of force. At the bottom of the sign was a quote:

  “There is nothing as weak as water, but when it attacks and is persistent, nothing can withstand it.”

  —Lao Tse

  Beneath that quote were the handwritten words:

  All waterfalls are temporary. One day all this will be worn away, and the flow of water will just transition smoothly

  from one place to another. All things pass with time.

  Everyone’s a philosopher, I thought. The words may have been true, but it wasn’t going to change in my lifetime.

  There were more NO CAMPING signs on the trail below. That time of the year, the public was not even supposed to be hiking there. I doubted that the Park Service patrolled these places so late in the season, but in case they did, I found a flat piece of ground, hidden from the trail, to construct my tent. It was dark by the time I finished.

  The air was considerably warmer inside my tent, but the sound of the water was only slightly dulled. I laid out my pad and sleeping bag, then pulled off my shoes and socks to let my feet breathe. The crash of the falls drowned out not only the occasional car on the highway above but my thoughts as well. For the first time in days, I slept soundly.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-six

  I ran into an old friend today. At least someone I mistook for a friend. Judas-Ralph. Traitors are the lowliest of God’s creatures, despised by those they betray and secretly loathed by those whom they serve.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  I woke to strange voices. They were not speaking English. German or Lithuanian perhaps. (I don’t know why I thought that. I have no idea what Lithuanian sounds like.) Whatever the dialect, the voices were soon gone.

  My legs were deservedly sore, and I stretched them as far as my sleeping bag would permit.

  The air was cold enough that I could see my breath, which had condensed on the pitched vinyl roof of my tent in a plane of pregnant drops. As I sat up, I brushed the side of the tent, which brought down a shower of freezing droplets.

  I opened my pack and lifted out my water and Pop-Tarts. I was famished and ate two full packages, four pastries in all. I reminded myself of Tolkien’s Hobbits, eating their elven lembas bread. Only my staple was Pop-Tarts. For the first time I wished I had brought something else.

  I put on my parka, hat, and gloves, then climbed out of the tent. I walked to the edge of the water to shave, but it was freezing, so I prudently decided that one day’s growth wasn’t going to harm anyone.

  I collapsed my tent and was packed up in just a matter of minutes. Even with sore legs, I was eager to get going. According to my map, Stevens Pass was about 8 miles up the road. There would be facilities there—a lodge, restrooms, and restaurant. I was looking forward to stopping for some warm food and comfort, then crossing over to the other side of the mountain. The downhill side.

  I climbed up out of the campground, threw away some trash in the camp’s garbage cans—empty water bottles and wrappers—then walked back out to the road, crossing over the falls that passed beneath.

  In the morning light, I could clearly see the mountain rising ahead of me, white and silent. I was in its lap. My pack felt heavier than the day before, though I knew it wasn’t. I was just worn out.

  In the next 3 miles, the road climbed to 2,600 feet, and the shoulders of the road were completely covered in snow, though fortunately the snowplows had pushed it back from the bike lane. My taupe hiking boots were stained dark umber, but they were dry inside (except for my sweat), and I was glad that I had taken the time to properly waterproof them.

  After another hour of walking, I saw there was more than a foot of snow on the shoulders. I could tell I was getting closer to the summit as most of the cars that passed me were loaded down with skis and tubes. A man on foot looked ridiculously out of place.

  There was a rise of another 1,000 feet between the falls and Stevens Pass—which is both the name of the mountain pass and the ski resort perched at its peak. I arrived by mid-morning. The sign outside the resort placed the elevation at 4,061 feet. In the past two days, I had climbed more than 2,500 feet.

  The resort was crowded, and the snow-packed parking lot north of the highway was filled nearly to capacity with traffic waiting on both sides of the street to enter.

  I fell in with the bustling skiers and walked up to the lodge. The building was crowded with people milling about in brightly colored parkas and ski caps. I was no longer bothered by the crowds, though I felt no sense of belonging either.

  I slid my pack off my shoulders and carried it inside the lodge. The first thing I did was use the resort’s restroom, which under the circumstance was an unspeakable luxury. Especially the hot water. I didn’t shave. The men’s room was too busy for that. But I took my time washing my hands and face in the warm water. Afterwards, I went to the restaurant to get something to eat.

  The dining room was already crowded for lunch. I found a small, unoccupied table near the front window and laid claim to it with my pack. Then I went up to the counter where I grabbed a plastic tray, then ordered a large hot chocolate, a glazed donut, a double chili cheeseburger, and an extra-large order of cheese fries. The food was expensive compared to what I had been paying, and for the first time I used my debit card. I was happy that they accepted it as I had no idea how much money was in my account.

  I carried my food back to the table and devoured it. When I finished eating, I got myself another tall hot chocolate and an apple fritter. For the first time in my life such gluttony brought no guilt. I was steadily losing weight and would probably burn the calories off before dinner.

  I took off my parka and hung it over the back of my chair, then just sat, dunking the fritter in my cocoa a
nd taking in the ambience. I wondered why McKale and I had never come here before.

  At the table behind me, a pair of stylishly outfitted yuppie parents was trying to talk their little girl into going back out to ski. She didn’t want to and wasn’t shy about telling them or anyone else in the dining room. The room’s occupancy and noise level was such that hardly anyone paid attention to her screaming. The couple was helpless. They first bribed her with a Hello Kitty parka but quickly upped the ante with a karaoke machine, then, pulling out the big guns, went right for the puppy, but she was already out of control (though clearly in control of her parents) and past appeasement.

  While I was musing over their dilemma, a short, bowling pin–shaped man with his ski bib pulled down to his waist waddled into the dining room. Something was familiar about his walk and shape. When he removed his ski goggles, my chest constricted. I immediately recognized the bright red hair and thin lips. (And ferretlike face.) It was Ralph, my former head of design and Kyle’s new partner.

  He sat down only three tables away from mine where his wife and children were already eating. They were situated near the front door, and I had probably walked right by them on my way in. I was surprised that I hadn’t recognized his wife, Cheryl, but even more so that she was with him. Over the last year, I’d rarely seen them together, in part because she had no apparent interest in his occupation, or him, but more likely because he was having an affair with a woman he met a year earlier at a graphics convention. I don’t know why his betrayal of me surprised me. Cheaters cheat. If he’d cheat on his wife, why should I assume he’d be loyal to me?

  Anger warmed through me. I considered either punching him out or telling him off, and preferably both. But as I watched him interact with his wife and children, I decided against either. I was already treading water in an ocean of emotion, and an embarrassing showdown in front of his wife and kids—no matter how much he