Where The Blue Thorns Grow

by Maya Riley

  Lifting it up and over my shoulder, I ran toward the guy and swung, clocking him right in the face and knocking him back. “You really don’t learn lessons very well, do you?” I yelled, looking down on him as he clutched his head in his hands and cried out with a mixture of pain and rage.

  Hopping over to stand by him, but just out of his reach, I tossed the pole between my hands, teasing him, ready for another swing if needed. “What do you say now?” I taunted.

  “Fucking bitch,” he seethed.

  “Wrong answer,” I replied, before swinging again and connecting the hiking pole with his thigh. There wasn’t enough momentum this time to do any real damage, but it was just enough to get my point across. That point being that you don’t fucking mess with me.

  A hand landed on my shoulder and I looked up to see Pete’s smiling face, and his eyes beamed with pride. “I think you’re good now,” he noted, his voice light. “Any more and it passes self-defense.”

  I lowered the hiking pole and looked down at the pathetic guy beneath me. “I’m reporting you, but just remember, no means no, you scumbag,” I growl, spitting the words out at him, before turning to walk away with Pete by my side. “Oh damn,” I muttered as I walked back to where I was before, and saw my spilled coffee mug on the ground. I walked over and picked it up. “He made me spill my coffee,” I whined.

  “Come on,” Pete insisted. “Let’s head toward the tents. We can report him and make you some fresh coffee. Wake up the guys and I’ll head over to the ranger station, because I don’t want you to be alone right now.” He held his arm out to me and I walked toward him, and he placed his arm around my back, guiding me toward our tent.

  He told them I’d explain what happened when I was ready, and then ordered them to make me some more coffee while he headed out to report the drunk ass. I looked out of the tent flap, and after a little while, the drunk man crawled to his feet and began trying to hobble away. When I saw small vehicles off in the distance, I smiled. I knew Pete was a fast runner, but still. They responded fast. There was a benefit to being in this area. Everything was close as long as we didn’t wander out too far.

  J.D. walked up carrying two mugs of coffee. He handed one of the cups to me and took a sip of his own, before dipping inside the tent with me following behind.

  “Thank you,” I told him, taking a nice, long sip.

  “You doing alright?” he asked.

  “I’m doing great. I think it’s the drunk asshole that you should worry about though.” I snickered. Pride filled me that this time I was able to defend myself much better—and without receiving any new injuries.

  Moaning sounded from behind me and I turned to see Ryan sitting up from the pile of sleeping bags. His arms were stretched as wide as his yawn was. “I smell coffee. Where’s the coffee?” Pete entered the tent and handed him a cup.

  “I figured someone would want this.” He shrugged. “We probably should’ve brought some more coffee mix,” Pete noted, looking at all the caffeine fiends that were coming to consciousness.

  “Not for me,” Gary said as he entered the tent with a can in hand. “All I need is a Red Bull and I’m good. No waiting time for that.” He brought the can to his lips and took a gulp. “Uh, hey guys, what’s going on outside?” he inquired. “I barely got in here, but needed to make sure my Cam Cam was okay. If there’s trouble, it’s always the pretty ones at the center of it,” he teased, then smiled. “And since I was perfectly fine, the next one to worry about would be Cam.”

  “I’ll accept the awkward compliment,” I declared.

  “There are even more rangers pulling up now. And…is that the drunk guy who hurt Cam?” His voice lowered to an angry growl as realization hit him and he went outside.

  “The fuck?” Ryan snarled, following after him with the others in tow.

  “Oh yeah, don’t worry, I took care of him,” I supplied helpfully, before sipping my coffee and trailing after.

  “What’s going on, Cam?” Carson asked, coming to stand by my side. “Please don’t tell me you were alone with that fucker.”

  “She took care of it,” Pete stated. “By the time I got out here, she had it all under control. She took a hiking pole to his face then to his leg, and scolded him.”

  “She scolded him?” Ryan repeated.

  “Scolded him,” Pete confirmed.

  I laughed. Scolding that guy is what they chose to focus on, not even batting an eye at me having just beaten someone with a pole.

  Fluttering my eyelashes, I looked up at the guys. “What? You think little ole me couldn’t do that?” I questioned with feigned innocence.

  J.D. looked at me with a serious face. “I’m just surprised you didn’t break his dick,” he replied.

  “Oh, believe me, I would have if Pete had let me keep going.” I gave an airy laugh.

  “Why’d you stop her?” Ryan asked.

  Pete shrugged. “Honestly didn’t think I could ever make her do anything she didn’t want to.”

  The other guys looked at me.

  I shrugged. “He had logic.” That was all I said.

  The rangers already had the guy in the back of one of their vehicles, and he was growling the whole time.

  “Don’t worry,” one of the rangers said to us. “We’ll take care of him and make sure he leaves the Carbolitas.”

  We all nodded and mumbled our thanks.

  I was walking through the woods with Jenna, Pete, Ryan, and Carson. Most of the trees around here were pine trees and nearly impossible to climb.

  I spotted some other trees with reachable branches. As an idea crossed my mind, I grinned and broke into a sprint, pumping my arms, and heading for the tree that was in my sight. When I reached the tree, I bent my knees and pushed off the ground with great force. I reached my arms out and wrapped my hands around the lowest branch, careful to put most of my weight on my good wrist. Once they made contact, I turned my body sideways, kicked off the tree for a little bit of added momentum, and swung one leg over the branch.

  I remained crouched on the branch, taking a moment to enjoy my victory. It had been a long time since I’ve climbed a tree for fun. It was a lot different than climbing rock walls, but still doable.

  With some scraping sounds and whooshing wind, Ryan and Carson were on the next lowest nearby branches, with Jenna remaining on the ground.

  “Someone’s going to have to explain to the medics why a handful of skilled climbers all broke every bone in their bodies,” Jenna teased. “I know it’s crazy, but this looks to be more difficult than climbing cliffs. I don’t know about you, but I can’t read these three bark routes at all.”

  “Climbing trees is very different than climbing rocks,” Ryan told her.

  “It’s much harder,” Carson chimed in.

  “So, since I can’t climb rocks quite as well as you guys, I may not have a shot at climbing a tree, then?” Pete inquired, raising an eyebrow.

  “Ha, I doubt it,” Carson laughed. “First off, you’re surprisingly skilled for someone who hasn’t trained quite as hard as the rest of us. I’m impressed. Second, good luck with tree climbing. It’s damn hard.”

  I smirked. I didn’t think the others knew what I knew about him. Before he moved to town, he’d been a yoga instructor living on the Gulf Coast. He started Tree Yoga, which was a real thing there. He knew his way around any tree in the world better than anyone. This could be fun.

  Pete answered, “Challenge accepted,” and ran straight for the branch I was on. I hopped forward just a little bit to give him some room, and he jumped and bounded up the tree and onto the branch next to me. After pecking a quick kiss to my cheek, he stood up, placed a foot against the tree trunk, and hopped over one branch farther, so we’d each be on our own and I could be closer to the trunk. I had an idea of what he was going to do.

  “So, what kind of fun can we have in trees?” Pete asked.

  Ryan looked at him questionably. It looked like he had an inkling that something might be up
, but he wasn’t sure what. If anything. “I don’t know, man, just stand here?” Ryan shrugged. “Don’t normally spend time in trees. On the rock walls, it’s normally just climb climb climb, then fall fall fall. But in a tree,” he pointed around us, “there’s not many places to go.”

  “We could just branch hop like Pete just did, except continuously,” Carson chimed in.

  I placed a quizzical finger to my chin. “Hmmm,” I began, pretending to think. “How about... some... tree yoga?”

  “What the heck is tree yoga?” Jenna asked, overly confused. She scrunched up her eye in confusion as though I were asking them to scale the wall of Taco Bell—which, actually, we did once.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just say weird things.”

  “That’s for sure,” Ryan commented and winked at me. I stuck out my tongue at him in response.

  “How about we do a tree pose?” Pete suggested. “A tree pose in a tree, wouldn’t that be fun?”

  I giggled. “I’m in, let’s do it.” Luckily, he’d taught me some yoga moves during our breaks at work and sometimes outside of work. It really helped with my stress and balance, I just never told the others about doing it with Pete.

  “I’ll give it a go. Show us tree pose,” Jenna agreed, always up for anything at all, no matter how strange it may sound.

  Pete did tree pose and the rest of us mimicked him. It was pretty funny to watch the other two guys struggle for balance. Jenna did pretty well, considering I didn’t think she’d ever tried yoga before. She did have some good balance in general however. They always said in climbing workshops to “climb like a girl” in reference to balance, climbing with your legs rather than your arms, energy conservation, etc. So maybe that had something to do with it.

  Pete moved through the poses, each one slightly harder than the one before it. I was hanging on perfectly fine, but the other two guys looked like they were about to be on the verge of either giving up or falling out of the tree.

  Next, he went into warrior pose, and Ryan fell forward out of the tree. He managed to grab the branch so he was hanging from it by his hands, before dropping the rest of the way to the ground and landing with a thud.

  “Yeah, guys, be careful,” Pete warned, as he eased into the pose. “Don’t want to get hurt, you have a big climb tomorrow.”

  Ryan kicked at some dirt and sat down with his back against the tree, watching me. He didn’t take his eyes off of me the rest of the time.

  Next was triangle pose, so we stayed in warrior pose but twisted our torso to the side, straightening our front leg, and reached down with one hand, the tips of the fingers touching the branch and resting up against our shoe.

  A moment later, I heard the rustle of leaves as Carson fell over, catching himself on the branch the same way Ryan had, and then dropping to the ground. He sat down next to Ryan and joined in staring at me.

  “How long are we going to do this for?” I asked.

  “Why? Think you might be next?” Jenna called from below, the amusement in her voice showing that she was enjoying this quite a bit.

  “I was just wondering how much longer until those two stopped grinning and staring at me from the ground,” I answered.

  Jenna laughed and would have toppled over if she’d been in the tree with us.

  “You guys have got to be careful,” Pete said, standing up straight. “I can’t go back there with three injured climbers. It wouldn’t sit well with the others, and it would put a serious dent in my reputation.”

  I laughed and caught myself before I fell off the branch, deciding to kneel down instead. “You have a reputation now, do you?”

  “Don’t laugh at me like that. No one will want to climb with someone who convinced three climbers to participate in tree yoga, and they all ended up hurt. I wouldn’t be able to show my face anywhere else ever again,” he replied.

  “Alright,” I agreed, slipping my legs off the branch and hanging down by my hands. I dropped to my feet and landed in a crouch. “I’m good. There’s no way I’d have a chance against you. Let’s go back and find some food.”

  “Didn’t you just have breakfast?” Carson asked.

  “Not really. I had coffee and the first mug was spilled in my mission to beat a guy with a pole. And the guy showed up before I could even take my first bite of the muffin of magnificence. I never got any food,” I informed him.

  “There’s twelve people total. Someone should make sure you eat,” Ryan suggested.

  “Really? Twelve people here, and they should all be focused on what I do and don’t eat?” I nearly laughed. “That’s a good one, Ryan. I’m sure they all have some much more exciting priorities. Like feeding their own selves, for one.”

  My stomach rumbled at that precise moment and Pete landed next to me, took my arm, and began to lead me back to the tents.

  “We’re going back right now,” he stated. “I’ve seen her hangry, and that isn’t anything anyone wants to see. Especially in a store filled with innocent people.”

  “Innocent?” I scoffed. “Nobody is innocent in that place,” I corrected him. “The customers are evil. The cafe workers are constantly banging in the backroom, and the backroom workers just sit there and watch. Who the hell is innocent there?”

  He looked at me.

  “What?” I asked. “It’s a legitimate question.”

  Pete

  Once the convoy of climbers’ tents came into view, I motioned for the others to keep going and pulled Cam aside.

  She smiled, like she was expecting this to be some fun surprise rendezvous.

  “Cam,” I started, wanting to get this over with, but she interrupted my words with a kiss. My hands went up and wound their way through her hair. The strands of light brown had never felt so good or so smooth, but I pulled back.

  “Look, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Her face immediately contorted into a startling mixture of panic and curiosity, but it looked like the panic was winning out.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to continue up the Carbolitas with you.”

  She stood there, stunned, before she finally managed to get some words out. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m not going to be able to continue up. This is about as far as my climbing ability can take me. I know it’s not the most difficult climb of the year, but the rest is for more experienced climbers. And I’m just not at that level.”

  The look of shock still marred her beautiful features, and I hated myself for making her feel that way right now.

  “I’m still going to be cheering you on. I’m going to be taking a helicopter up every day to see you climb. I will be there at the top waiting for the moment your beautiful face pops up and over the edge of the mountain. I’m going to be there to see the look on your face when you first set those beautiful hazel eyes of yours on the blue-thorned flowers you’re working so hard to see. I’m not leaving you, I promise. I’m just going to continue helping you in a different way.”

  Her silence worried me, and I began to sweat in the cool shade we were standing in. I reached out and grabbed her, and was relieved when she didn’t pull away. I drew her into my chest, and wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight. I kissed the top of her head and we stayed like that for a while, until she was ready to pull away.

  “Okay,” she rasped, finally finding her voice. “I understand.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “One question though, what about my parents? I’m actually not sure who’s in better climbing condition right now, you or them.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  Her eyes got wide, waiting.

  “They were going to tell you later, but they’re having to do the same thing. While they lived their lives climbing for all those years, they just don’t have the same endurance and ability in them anymore. At least, not for the rest of this mountain. They were absolutely beyond thrilled to have climbed with you here. But they said now it was time to let you continue on, and t
hey’ll be there at the top cheering you on as well. Right alongside me.” I pulled her in for a deep kiss, washing away any doubt about all of this that she may have had, before continuing on to camp.

  Cam

  I looked around the area, taking everything in. The way the sunlight trickled through the tops of the trees as it slowly rose, the birds searching the ground for their breakfast, squirrels scrambling across the ground as they woke up. This was my last morning here. My wrist was healed enough to continue on. It wasn’t in perfect condition, but it was good enough to climb, and that was what mattered.

  My hand subconsciously reached up for the locket that was around my neck, like it’d done so many times before. I rarely ever took it off, and if I did, it was only to shower or something like that. My finger rubbed over the engraving. On the front was a mountain, and on the back was inscribed, “Beyond the Carbolitas.” We’d had it engraved when we were twelve. He did his on his favorite watch, which was buried with his harness. The only reason we had a coffin and actual burial was so that our parents would have a physical place to visit, even if most of him wasn’t even actually buried there.

  “Cam?” My mom’s soft voice reached me and I spun around to see both my parents standing there.

  “I heard you’re not going to continue,” I said.

  They both nodded and stepped forward. Mom pulled her hand out of her pocket and reached it out to me. “This is for you to continue carrying up.”

  She placed a folded piece of paper in my hand. Opening it up, I realized it was a picture of the four of us. Tears began to well at the corners of my eyes. It wasn’t just any picture, it was the last picture of the four of us together. Our grins were wide and faces bright with joy, our hearts filled with endless possibilities.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, and gave them both a hug. “I’ll make sure this gets to the top.”

  They both kissed the top of my head and walked away. Burning the image of the picture into my heart, I folded it up, and placed it in the side pocket of my pack.