Expiration Date

by Eric Wilson

  He marched out to the garage. Across the rafters, sheets of plywood held boxes filled with photos, yearbooks, his numbered jersey, and a signed basketball from his glory ride to the 3A championships.

  Farther back, he found the camping gear. Time to pack for his getaway.

  A poke at the automatic door opener allowed the morning’s gloom to spread into the garage. Clay half expected to see one of his parents standing outside, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. He didn’t know where the car keys were, but a harried search found that they had been stuck under the Duster’s floor mat. In JC’s rural areas, this was not an uncommon practice.

  He popped the trunk, started shuffling supplies from the garage.

  A sturdy-framed red backpack and a two-man pup tent from REI …

  A Coleman burner with a pair of green propane cartridges, waterproof matches, a multifunctional Gerber tool, collapsible cooking utensils …

  A green Kelly sleeping bag rated for zero degrees, plus a flashlight …

  Freeze-dried meals, iodine tablets, and two Spyroxene water containers …

  Extra clothing, sunscreen, a baseball cap, Gore-Tex hooded jacket and pants …

  A waterproof Garmin GPS unit with satellite positioning and compass, a Sony Discman and CDs, a topographical map, a digital camera, and a Shaffer trail guide …

  Finally, a folding shovel, Deet insect repellent, and biodegradable toilet paper.

  He rolled most of the items in clothing and bedding, then stuffed them into the backpack. In the remaining spaces and pockets, he tucked sealed bags of food, toiletries, a few books, and granola bars. He carried a cell phone and a backup battery in case of an emergency. En route, he’d stop at a bank to empty his newly activated account.

  Inside the house, he straightened his old room and left a note for his parents. No need to get them uptight; a brief explanation would allay their concerns for a while.

  This was it. He’d dreamed of such an excursion since boyhood, and at one point Bill Scott had planned to join him. They’d done their research. Stocked supplies. After twelve years certain conditions might vary, but the Pacific Crest Trail remained remarkably constant.

  Clay climbed into the Duster and fired her up.

  This is for you, Bill. Should’ve done this long ago.

  Following Highway 58, he reached the PCT trailhead at Willamette Pass near Diamond Peak. He parked off the road in a gravel lot, unloaded, and locked the car.

  From here, he anticipated a five-day trek of over a hundred miles to the rim of Mount Mazama, named by local Indians. Thousands of years ago a violent eruption had decapitated the mighty mountain, scattering white pumice and volcanic ash across the continent. In the collapsed magma chamber, Crater Lake had formed, plunging nearly two thousand feet, making it the deepest lake in the United States.

  He would not turn back. This would be his pilgrimage. Once he reached the lake, he would dip beneath the pristine waters in an act of physical and emotional cleansing.

  A baptism by immersion.

  “He didn’t have it?”

  “Apparently he passed it off.”

  “That’s hard to believe, Monde. I saw him enter the drainpipe to get it.”

  “But did you watch the child every step of the way? Even a few seconds could’ve proved critical.”

  Asgoth reflected on the previous evening. “Okay, I may have missed a step or two. By then I was rushing to our point of convergence on the tracks, intent on my role. You were there too. You can’t expect me to take all the blame.”

  “It’s not a matter of blame, A.G.”

  “Well, when Dmitri Derevenko couldn’t locate Kenny, he seemed convinced the object was gone. At least that portion worked in our favor.”

  “Yes, but possession is everything. It’s key that we ourselves find it.”

  “You think the kid may have handed it off to Clay Ryker?”

  “That I don’t know.” Monde’s thin lips curled beneath his long nose. “But I don’t mind saying, with a touch of pride, that Ryker is responding as I predicted.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Packed and on the trail toward Crater Lake.”

  Asgoth nodded in reluctant approval. “You guessed well.”

  “Guessed? The human psyche is much like the complicated lock of a safe, and I enjoy the process of cracking it. Probe deep enough, apply pressure to the correct tumblers, and it’s only a matter of time until you gain access.”

  “Too bad you can’t use your skills robbing banks.”

  “Is the irony intentional, A.G.? When we’re done with this project, that’s precisely what we’ll be doing—plundering the wealth of the Romanovs and that devil Rasputin. He could not expect it to stay hidden forever, could he?”

  “He hoarded his relics. He believed they held supernatural powers.”

  “And we’re unfit to handle such things?” Monde’s voice dripped with derision. “I know you’ve told me before, but what is the Consortium’s stipulation to ensure your commitment in this town?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And in return they guarantee protection and assistance?”

  “Plus,” Asgoth said, “permanent status as a member.”

  “If we succeed, that amount of money will be loose change.”

  Asgoth envisioned living somewhere other than his dilapidated apartment. He deserved marble pillars. Gold-plated faucets. Room to roam. Yes, hand in hand with greed, the entrepreneurial spirit could prove formidable indeed.

  24

  The Least of These

  Clay got off to an undignified start.

  Considering the Pacific Crest Trail’s legendary romance, he was disheartened by the limited signage along Highway 58. He’d displayed his US Forest Service parking permit in the Duster, and the backpack was now bouncing against his tailbone as he sought the trailhead.

  The weight’ll settle, he told himself. His muscles would accept their new task.

  A pair of freight trucks roared past. Tiny rocks and rain residue spit at his calves, and his Oregon Ducks ball cap whipped from his head. He reached down for the loose item.

  Conspiring against him, wind created by a speeding Jeep Cherokee plucked the cap from his grasp, tossed, twisted, flung it into a clump of bunchberries.

  He clambered down, shook out the hat, and snugged it back over his hair.

  At that moment a pickup hauling a horse trailer rumbled by. The winter months of snow and ice had wreaked havoc on this mountain pass, pitting the road’s surface, and the Ford found itself in line with an untended pothole. A small yet significant wave of rainwater fanned across the roadside, lending nourishment to the local fauna and dousing Clay.

  He swore. Shook moisture from arms and legs. When at last he picked up the trail, he kissed the signpost in relief.

  Shortly, the trail’s wooded curves and rising bluffs cut off the last of the noise pollution. The world of convenience was at his back, the world of toil and hard-earned survival before him. His leg wound throbbed, and his arm stitches itched.

  Good. Suffering was part of the plan.

  At the Eagle Rock Overlook, he found the hike’s first reward. He planted his boots on the stone shelf like a man on the edge of the world and soaked in Odell Lake’s shimmering expanse, endless Douglas fir forests, and snowcapped peaks that stood as guardians of the Cascade Range.

  He removed Kenny Preston’s coveted object from his pack. Uncorked, the carved oak tube surrendered its prize into his palm. Sturdy, yet detailed, the stone king wore a black crown with a cross.

  Clay rolled the piece, held it up. Around the king’s base, thin shadows outlined the etched text. Russian words, if he were to venture a guess.

  Who had hidden this on Engine 418? Why hunt down a child for it?

  He cinched the pack’s strap around his waist and faced his journey of penance.

  Dmitri angled the Taurus into a Chevron station and headed for the pay phone with a piece of paper in hand. A
skinny girl wearing a Bob’s Burger uniform cut in front of him. While dialing, she showed him her back.

  Dmitri occupied himself with other concerns.

  He could not believe he had lost the boy last night. He’d been convinced he would catch him before the train sliced past with an ear-shattering shriek. Despite his exploration on both sides of the tracks, he had found no sign of the child or the object. As though the train had swallowed them whole.

  Could the secret still be on the Finnish locomotive?

  No. The old woman said Kenny had taken something. He must have hidden it. But where?

  Such conjecture was useless. Although today Dmitri had attempted another search of the engine in Founder’s Park, he’d come away empty handed. His mind raced with possibilities so that he even questioned the accuracy of the historian’s research. Had Lenin truly left something on board?

  While standing in this town, he thought it seemed preposterous. Junction City was far too mundane for such matters.

  But this makes it a perfect hiding place, nyet? Who would guess?

  He read over the paper in his hand, where he had copied down a license plate. Somehow that Duster’s driver was connected with Kenny Preston.

  “Will you be much longer on the phone?” he checked with the burger girl.

  “Why don’t you use your own?” Her eyes never lifted, but she indicated the cell phone on his belt.

  He set his hand on the converted weapon. “It is … The battery is dead.”

  “Not like that’s my problem. Anyway, this is a public phone. I can talk as long as I—” She turned, clipping her words as her gaze moved from his chest to his face. She cupped a hand near her mouth. “I’ll call back later. Okay, sweetheart? No, nothing’s wrong. I … I got someone who needs to use the phone. Of course I’m not mad at you. Bye-bye. Okay, bye-bye. Bye.”

  She tapped at the hook twice, then stepped away and held the receiver for Dmitri. “All yours. My boyfriend’s a real control freak. Have to call him like every fifteen minutes, or he thinks I don’t love him.”

  “A control freak? You think this is love?”

  “Probably not.” Her gaze locked on to his. “Dude, you have seriously blue eyes. Where you from? Germany?”

  “Nyet. Russia is my homeland.”

  “Oooh. Bet it’s pretty over there.”

  “In many places. The Black Sea is nice for holidays.”

  “I’m Victoria. Just Vicki’s fine.”

  “I am Dmitri.” His passport said otherwise, so he had no fear in sharing this.

  “Hi.” She shook his hand, let her fingers tarry. “How do you say hi in Russian?”

  “For friends, we say privyet.”

  “Privyet.”

  “Very good. Soon you’ll speak Russian.”

  She laughed at that. “You hungry, Dmitri? You like American hamburgers?”

  He sensed opportunity, an end to justify the means. With a citizen’s help, he might be able to tap this town’s hidden currents. He imagined the angel wing on his hip would flap in affirmation of this plan. As a Russian, he was pragmatic but also attuned to life’s mystical ties. Such as this.

  “I like American women,” he replied, willing an extra sparkle into his eyes.

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Almost as much as American hamburgers and fries.”

  Clay sucked on his water bottle and looked up. Great.

  Mount Yoran was jabbing a stony finger at rain-pregnant clouds. Winds from the Pacific Ocean tended to shove the Willamette Valley’s cruddy weather eastward, which meant he would have little recourse in the event of a downpour.

  Of course, Oregon weather was as hit-and-miss as those horoscopes he’d seen featured on last week’s TV show. You could try to guess, try to make the pieces fit, but in the end they did what they were going to do. It seemed that God had set this globe spinning on its axis, then pulled his hands away. Distant. Uninvolved.

  Clay draped his Gore-Tex jacket over his backpack, hitched the weight over his shoulders, and wallowed in the horrific memory of yesterday.

  Where were you then, God? Answer that one.

  Nope, this was Clay’s burden, and he’d have to carry it alone. Each step he took, each drop of sweat, each blister and swollen mosquito bite would be a payment applied toward his debt of failure.

  Headed south on the PCT, he wasn’t running from the past; he was hiking along with it. Feeling each jab of pain.

  Winding through mountain hemlocks, Clay kept his eyes open for the PCT trail markers. The rain had held off. He had traveled more than thirteen miles, based on the guidebook’s markings. Behind him, voices played along the trail’s switchbacks.

  He skirted Diamond Peak, caught glimpses of its rubble slopes leading to broken tips at over eighty-seven hundred feet. Even here, at seven thousand feet, the thinner air required increasing effort. Clouds raced and peeled apart over the summit, like paper through a shredder. Strong winds carried away the tattered strips, but in the lee of the peak it was quiet and warm.

  His neck muscles had become twanging steel bands. He squatted, let his pack rest against a boulder. Water and a granola bar began to grant new energy.

  A pair of fellow hikers caught up with him.

  “Hey there. How goes it? Think it’ll rain?” asked a man with a walking stick.

  “Never can tell.”

  “You from the Northwest?”

  “Got web feet to prove it.” Clay tipped his Oregon Ducks cap.

  The man smiled. “Around here, hiking’s a water sport. I’ve lived here half my life, but I’m from Long Beach originally, born and raised. Surfing used to be my brand of water activity.”

  “Never tried it.”

  “I’m too old for it. Haven’t ridden a wave in over twenty years. And don’t even ask my age.”

  “He’ll lie through his teeth,” the other man said. “Like all Californians.”

  “Hey now. Let’s play nice, Sam.”

  Sam frowned and swiped at his leg. “I told you the shorts were a rotten idea. These mosquitoes are eating me alive.”

  “Oh, you’re so bad.” The man slapped his partner’s arm. “Here, let me reapply.”

  Clay shielded his granola bar from the repellent’s spray, feeling like he’d been dropped into a Saturday Night Live skit.

  “Thanks, Lyndon. Let’s go on and leave this fine gentleman in peace.”

  “Maybe he likes the company.”

  “His body language says, ‘It’s been nice, boys, but I’ll let you go now.’ ”

  Lyndon considered Clay.

  Clay snapped the lid on his water container. “Actually, I think I will join you. For a while anyway.”

  The trail carried them several miles, descending toward Summit Lake. Clay enjoyed Sam and Lyndon’s combative repartee and their intimate knowledge of this wilderness area. They’d been traversing the PCT and old Oregon Skyline Trail for years, financing their summers by selling nature photography to postcard distributors.

  “Pick up any one of a hundred cards,” Lyndon said, “and you’ll find us on the back.”

  “SNL Photography,” Sam said. “Nineteen years of business together.”

  Saturday Night Live … Sam and Lyndon … SNL.

  Clay could barely control a chortle.

  “You’re not the first one who’s caught the pun,” Sam said.

  “Is it intentional?”

  “Intentional. Well, that’s a good question.”

  Lyndon looked back over his pack. “Clay, don’t you think everything has a purpose, a connection, a reason? Even unintentionally we tap into larger truths. Our spirits are all woven together, which is why it’s so important to embrace our differences. Don’t you agree?”

  Clay placed one boot before the other. Branches creaked overhead.

  “Lyndon,” Sam said, “that’s enough with the philosopher shtick.”

  “Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong. What I’m saying is that hateful words and unaccepting
attitudes only harm us all. When we lash out at a fellow human being, we’re lashing out at an extension of ourselves. What’re your thoughts, Clay?”

  “I think your Northwest colors are showing.”

  Lyndon was in earnest. “You see the truth in it, don’t you?”

  “I was raised a good church boy, so I’m not sure how it all fits. I know Jesus said that if we do something even to ‘the least of these’—the poor, the lonely, the outcasts—we’re doing it to him. If he’s the one holding it all together, I guess everything we do helps or hurts him on some level.”

  “Hey. Now that’s deep stuff. A command to show love.”

  “I’m not even sure why I said that. Believe me, I’ve got my own set of questions and problems. Right now, God and I aren’t on the best of terms.”

  “So then, you’re hurting him.”

  “And yourself,” Sam noted.

  Clay cleared his throat. Picked his steps through a stretch of loose stone.

  “Here’s one for you, Clay. You think Jesus would be walking along with two openly gay men?”

  In light of the discussion, only one answer fit. “Here I am, aren’t I?”

  Lyndon turned to face Clay. His camera bag swung from his shoulder, bounced against his hip. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard from a churchgoer’s mouth. In my book, you being here is no accident.”

  “Funny. Besides you two, no one even knows where I am.”

  “He means here”—Sam extended his arms—“on this planet.”

  Asgoth spent a restless night roaming the streets of Junction City. He stopped at the concrete rail over a duck pond, ignored by a Hispanic couple strolling past. He took a deep breath as he gazed down on the water.

  Flashbacks from a previous time and place …

  Going under. The biting cold of the river. Hair twining around his face, feet kicking, weakening, hands clawing for the surface that moved up and away from him. Floating. Only moments until the mind would pull the plug. And then, a slow return to the surface. Dead in the minds of many, yet wandering and alive.