by Tom Ryan
I wouldn’t say I was afraid of the dark. Not by any means. I slept without a night-light and could walk down any Newburyport street or stand on the beach at Plum Island late at night without a second thought, but you don’t know darkness until you stand in the middle of a forest in the middle of the night, miles away from the closest soul. It gives an entirely new definition to the word “black.” And while I’d hiked at night before, I usually did so when I had company, and the monsters that lurked in the dark recesses of my childhood stayed hidden. There was strength in numbers.
I pulled my headlamp out of my pack and was grateful to have two backups with me. But there’s a problem with using a headlamp, especially when you’re afraid of things that go bump in the night and are alone on a place like the Wildcat Ridge Trail, where the mountaintops are densely covered with evergreens tangled and mangled by the harsh winds. The headlamp casts its beam out into the night, but as soon as it catches a branch, it brings it to life. It reminded me of our first winter hike up Tecumseh, and it was just as frightening. The branches became clutching hands and swiping claws. And with thousands of those trees on the Wildcats, it felt like we were walking through a sea of the dead and they were reaching out to make us one of them.
It had been a long day, and in my weariness my imagination took over. I should have been happy having already checked four mountains off our list, but that dense, undulating stretch of trail toward that last peak of the day brought back my childhood fears. My throat grew tight; the slightest snag of a branch on my backpack had me spinning around expecting to come face-to-face with a witch or some unimaginably horrid creature. These were incredibly irrational imaginings for the editor and publisher of the Undertoad, who fearlessly took on the bullies every two weeks. But in that kind of fight I could see what faced us. In the mountains, in a forest, in the dark, there was nothing to see except shadows.
Oh, for some good companionship, warm conversation, silly jokes. It was the first time I wished we had someone with us. I tried to occupy myself with thoughts of days gone by, of women loved and women lost, of the simple yet joyous memories. I took inventory of the day and the winter, but I kept returning to wrestle with my loneliness.
I tried turning off my headlamp, but high clouds covered the hope of the stars and moon, and that only made things worse. When I turned it back on, Atticus was standing in front of me looking up as if wanting to know what was wrong. This was nothing to him, and the way his tiny pink tongue barely stuck out of his open mouth made it look like he was smiling.
“I’m okay, Little Bug,” I told him. “Nothing to worry about.” I said it hoping I would believe it.
He took off again, disappearing beyond the beam of my headlamp, swallowed up by the night. A minute later I saw him off in the distance, walking as calmly as if we were out for our nightly stroll along the Newburyport boardwalk.
No matter how much I tried to think of something to take my mind off the night and those clutching, hungry hands, I failed. They were everywhere, constantly swiping at me or grabbing at my hat or backpack.
I picked up the pace, but the faster I walked, the quicker those hands came at me: shadows darting, flailing, grasping, and closing in.
In the middle of a series of frightful gasps for breath, I closed my eyes against the night and spoke out loud. “Please, please . . . help me get through this.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to.
That’s when I saw Vicki. She was in her hospital bed, but she didn’t look sick. Her hand gently stroked Atticus, who was lying next to her.
“I need some help,” she said. “I’m planning my funeral.” She said it with a little laugh, as if she were planning her own fiftieth birthday party, which is what she’d done the previous year.
Those days with Vicki in the hospital came back to me.
I thought of what she’d gone through, how life had ended just when it seemed as if it were beginning, and how she never complained about it. Death, like birth, was part of the package of life. She had come to peace with that. It was those of us who were left behind who struggled with it.
In contemplating my late friend, I remembered something Mark Twain had said that I’d used in a letter to my father about Vicki’s last days: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” That was Vicki. I wanted it to be me as well.
I was suddenly ashamed of my childhood fears. With her in my heart, I walked on. My fear wasn’t gone, but at least I was keeping it in its place.
I realized then that Atticus and I weren’t really alone on that mountain. We had Vicki with us, and she’d brought reinforcements.
The main component of our fund-raising effort was accepting donations for the Jimmy Fund from people who dedicated specific mountains to loved ones who’d died of cancer, were fighting it, or had survived it. Whenever Atticus and I reached a summit, I’d say the name out loud, take a moment, and say a little prayer for that person, and then we’d move on.
In the midst of my despair on that blackest of nights, I thought of Vicki and all the peaks we’d climbed since the first night of winter. That got me through, and soon we were standing on top of our last peak of the day, our twenty-fourth of the winter.
Twenty-four mountains, twenty-four names.
There is strength in numbers, I thought again, and I said it out loud. “There is strength in numbers.”
I picked up Atticus and held him as I do on every summit, and I spoke the name of the person the peak was dedicated to. I said a little prayer. We paused, and then I started from the beginning. I remembered each mountain and the particular person it was dedicated to. I said them aloud; I said them with the courage they all needed to fight cancer. I said them with love, the love they had for life and the love of those who supported them during their bleakest hours.
A few minutes later, Atticus and I stood high atop the ski trails on Wildcat Mountain. The skiers had been gone for hours and left the mountain for us. As we started our walk down I continued giving voice to those names. That became my mantra.
For the second time that winter, we were walking down a ski slope at night. Across Pinkham Notch, Mount Washington loomed in the darkness. The Abenaki called her Agiocochook, home of the Great Spirit. I could see her massive summit barely outlined and imagined her to be alive and breathing. A few minutes earlier I would have looked upon that incredible mass and felt frightened and vulnerable, being right out in the open as we were under her watchful gaze.
How strange we must have looked, these two unlikeliest of winter hikers, if Agiocochook were indeed watching us. We would have seemed as tiny as a couple of rabbits in comparison to the mountain we were on, and just as insignificant, but after an exhausting day we also would have looked stronger and bolder than she would have expected. She would have seen the Little Bug bouncing down the trail in the jaunty, carefree fashion that comes at the end of a hike, and for the first time in hours she would have seen that I was not walking in fear. Agiocochook would have heard those twenty-four names spoken again and again, almost like a song, and she would have been impressed to see me look right up at her and tip my frozen cap to her.
The journey across the Carters and the ’Cats was more than fifteen miles long, with six thousand feet of elevation gain—a truly rugged test. In the end, however, it didn’t seem like that big a deal considering all those people we were walking for, the people who loved them, the battles fought, lost, and won, and what they’d been through. The night no longer seemed as dark, and it didn’t scare me anymore. We had wonderful company with us as we marched toward our waiting car.
When I decided to undertake the cause of raising money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that winter, I never realized the ramifications. I never realized we wouldn’t be hiking alone anymore—that we would have company every step of the way, and there would be stars above us even on the darkest of nights.
10
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The M. Is Important
It was never just Paige or my friends who looked at Atticus and realized there was something different about him. Strangers had always been drawn in by his looks but held captive by his personality even when he was only a small pup.
“What’s his name?” they’d ask.
“Atticus. Atticus M. Finch,” I’d reply.
There was often a gleam of recognition on their faces, and they’d say, “From To Kill a Mockingbird?”
People loved his name because they loved Harper Lee’s main character, whether they’d read the book or watched Gregory Peck play the character in the movie. But there were also some who couldn’t quite place the name, and their responses were interesting, even comical. I’d hear, “Hello, Attica,” as if I’d named him after the prison, or “Hi, Abacus,” as if I would name him after an adding machine. Some would remember it as a character from a book or a movie but get confused and say, “That was Russell Crowe in Gladiator, right?”
No matter what they heard or thought they heard, it fit. It was a name of distinction for a distinctive little dog. And yet as often as people responded to his name, they never asked about his middle initial. To me that was the most important part.
The M. was all-important. It was a life carried over, part gratitude, part tribute. The M., of course, was Max.
It was a reminder for me to do right by this little puppy, to raise him the right way. I’d see to it that he didn’t have to go through what Max had: being passed from one person to the next like a hand-me-down piece of clothing. I always cringe when I see dogs being treated like they are a bracelet or a purse or some other object made to fit into someone’s life. From the beginning it was important to me that Atticus was . . . well . . . Atticus. I wanted something more than just an accessory.
The M. helped. It wasn’t that I wanted Atticus to be like Max; it was more as if I were looking for a little guidance from Max. Luckily, Atticus was different from the start, and I determined that my only job was to protect him, give him food, water, a place to stay, and a lot of love, then just get out of his way and let him be.
I sought guidance from Max in other ways, too. On our first day together, right after he arrived in Boston, I took eight-week-old Atticus down to Plum Island. We stood where the ocean met the land, and I kept him warm against the chill wind that spit snow at us.
Snow in late May? A fine introduction to New England for the tiny pup from Louisiana, but as it turned out, a fitting one for a dog who would learn to love the mountains in winter.
He was so tiny, so vulnerable. He weighed barely five pounds as we looked out at the vast ocean. And yet I think I was more nervous than he was. I wanted to do right by him, and that would be doing right by Max. After all, how do you thank someone for touching your life, even after that someone is gone? The best way I know is to take what he or she gave you and do your best with it.
That moment on the beach was a time for good-bye and hello. I took some of Max’s ashes and threw them into the ocean. Then I took a bit more and gently rubbed them on Atticus: a small amount over his paws, forehead, spine, and heart, just enough to hope that Max would watch over him.
I was thinking of that day as Atticus led me up Mount Jackson through new snow and temperatures around ten below zero. Who would have thought way back then that that shivering little puppy would be climbing the winter Whites? Or that I would, for that matter?
I chose Jackson for a reason, as I chose every mountain. It was so brutally cold and windy that I wondered if Atticus would even get out of the car when we pulled in to Crawford Notch. But he did.
I wanted to get a peak in, but I didn’t want to chance too much exposure. Jackson was perfect. It was only 2.6 miles from the car to the summit, and all but the last hundred yards or so was covered by trees and protected from the wind. We would be above tree line for only five minutes at most.
We made good time and passed several hikers on the way up. It was a Saturday, and it seemed as though everyone else had the same idea about Jackson as we did. Whenever we passed people, they’d be standing on the side of the trail trying to keep warm, but once they saw a little dog in Muttluks and bodysuit pass by, they turned their attention to him in amazement. A handful of hikers recognized him and wished us well, but for the most part, people were too cold to be all that sociable.
The fact that we were passing so many people showed how far we’d come in a month. And it wasn’t until just below the summit that someone would pass us.
We stopped to put on my wind coat, thicker gloves, and face protection. I drank a smoothie and gave Atticus some treats. When he finished eating, he sat up in the crook of my elbow while I rubbed cream on his nose to keep it protected.
Two men approached from behind. They were fit and rugged and looked as if they’d climbed right out of a hiking catalog. They had quality gear and a seriousness of purpose in their eyes, and they moved with confidence.
Just before they pushed by, I nodded and yelled “Hello!” over the wind. The more rugged of the two, the one with the cleft chin, chiseled jaw, and thick mustache, stopped when he got a good look at Atticus and started to laugh. He spoke with a French-Canadian accent. “Your dog . . . he looks like he’s in pajamas and slippers. He’s ready for bed, I think.”
His friend also laughed, and they said something in French to each other and then laughed even louder.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
The more rugged-looking one spoke again, “We both agree . . . your dog looks like he should be home on the couch eating bonbons.” With that, they left us behind, and their laughter faded as they passed around the corner.
We saw them again only a few minutes later. They were standing where the stunted pine trees stop and the exposed rock begins, holding on to the trees with all their might as the wind lashed at their clothing and made it ripple and billow. They were yelling back and forth to each other, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. When I approached, they looked at me. Their eyes were wide. One of them shouted something to me. I couldn’t tell which. By this time they both had on face protection. I put my hand against my ear to let them know I couldn’t hear them.
“Too much wind! We’re turning back!” As he said it, his eyes darted from mine to something below, and I saw his head move. He was watching Atticus push by them and advance toward the summit. Head down, legs bowed to lower his center of gravity, his size keeping him out of the worst of the wind. I hurried after him. Immediately the wind broke against my back like a great wave, and I was shoved forward. I fought to keep my balance and dropped my center of gravity just as he was doing.
Atticus ducked and weaved between rocks like he was avoiding sniper fire. He was determined to make it to the summit marker, a large stone cairn. Instinctively he sat behind it where the wind couldn’t get to him. When I caught up, I held him in my lap. We huddled together just long enough to call out the name of the person to whom Jackson was dedicated, take inventory of ourselves, and for me to do something else I’d done quietly on every other mountain. I removed my gloves, reached into my pocket, opened up a small plastic bag, and broke the wilderness rules of “leave no trace” by leaving something behind. It took only a second for me to empty the contents, but by the time I shoved the empty bag back into my pocket and put my gloves back on, my fingers burned red, stung by the cold.
I told Atticus, “Let’s go home, Little Bug,” and when we left the protection of the cairn, the wind slammed into me and stood me up. I wasn’t able to take a step forward against the stronger gusts; I fought just to hold my ground. The wind tore at my clothes. Tears formed in my eyes, and the exposed flesh around them burned. I was struggling, but Atticus was fine. He ducked headfirst into the wind and moved like a little tank, wasting no time as he headed for the safety of the trees.
Thoreau wrote, “The savage in man is never quite eradicated.” That’s
what I felt like in winds that registered somewhere between fifty and eighty miles per hour in subzero temperatures. The savage in me was unleashed, and for the second time that winter I let out a wild howl and thrust my arms up into the air. The wind shook me as if to shut me up, but I howled again.
Never in my life had I felt as invigorated or as wildly alive as I did at that moment.
We had been exposed for only a few minutes, but by the time we returned to the trees, tiny icicles had formed on my eyebrows and lashes. Another hiker who went up right behind us returned to the trees after his brief trip to the cairn, and his cheeks were frostbitten.
We regrouped. I warmed Atticus by holding him close, and he took care of me by licking the ice off my face. The wind roared above the treetops and circled again and again, but it couldn’t get us anymore. We were safe.
We hurried down the mountain, thoughts of a hot lunch dancing in my head. For a change, Atticus fell in behind me at first. I stopped to make sure he was okay and saw him using his Muttluks to ski down the steeper parts of the trail. When he reached me, he passed by and then resorted to his regular casual trot, as if we were walking down State Street back in Newburyport.
We made it to the car just in time to see the two French Canadians speeding off. Something told me they wanted to get away before we returned. After all, what would they say about the little dog in the pajamas and slippers now? He’d reached the summit while they turned back.
There were so many reasons we hiked that winter. We hiked for “the kids” at the Jimmy Fund. We hiked for Vicki. We hiked for those who had mountains dedicated to them. And we hiked for the dog who’d paved the way for Atticus.
Dear Maxwell Garrison Gillis never knew the freedom Atticus had, saw as many beautiful sights, got to duck his head and charge into the wind on Jackson or behold the stark but beautiful loneliness of a mountaintop shrouded in snow and ice. Yet Max was with us on every hike, and it wasn’t just in spirit. We had been on top of thirty-one peaks in thirty-one days, and a little bit of Max was sprinkled on each summit.
