by Nina Revoyr
“Are you an Aaron Rodgers fan or a Brett Favre fan?” the woman asked. “We have a lot of debates around here.” She glanced at the men on the stools, one of whom nodded at Todd and raised his glass.
“I’m both,” Todd answered. “I loved Brett, but it’s kind of hard to argue with Rodgers winning a Super Bowl. Plus he’s a California boy.”
The woman nodded, as if he’d passed some kind of test. “That’s Henry and Carl,” she said. “We call Henry the mayor of Franklin. Of course, Franklin only has ten people, and two of them are dead, so it’s not saying much.”
Both men chuckled and sipped from their beers.
“And Carl’s the grandpa of the town, but don’t call him old. And I’m Annie.”
“Sweet Annie,” one of the men corrected.
“And that there,” she continued, pointing at the dog, “is Vince Lombardi.”
Todd grinned. “It’s nice to meet you all.”
Oscar slipped down another aisle to escape forced social interaction; he suspected that the men at the counter would take one look at him and try to drag him out to the fields. But even from thirty feet away, he could hear the conversation. He learned that the store had opened in 1918 as a train depot, and had been converted into a dry goods store in the 1930s. Sweet Annie’s family had always run it, and she lived in the small house in back. They operated on a cash-only basis, with the occasional barter arrangement for locals. Sweet Annie had never visited San Francisco or Los Angeles; the biggest city she’d ever been to was Fresno. “What do they have in those places that they don’t have here?” she asked. “Smog, crime, and traffic.”
And Todd said, “You’re absolutely right.”
“And we even have crime here, or at least we did once. See those?”
She pointed to the high windows above the counter, where there were three jagged holes in the glass, spaced several inches apart.
“Are those . . . ?” Todd started.
“Yep. Bullet holes. We had some excitement around here about a year ago. Did you happen to see those trailers across the street?”
“Yes.”
“Well, turned out some no-good youngster was cooking up some of that meta amphetamine. When the sheriff and his men came to arrest him—we don’t have police here in Franklin, on account of it’s so small—they got into a shoot-out. A deputy was shot and killed right out on the street there. And we got those three bullets in the window as a souvenir. I was hiding in the back—the cops told me to clear out—but the guys working in the fields next door had bullets whiz right past their heads.”
“Wow,” Todd said.
“It’s a real shame, if you ask me.”
“A real shame,” Henry echoed.
“All those drugs and things coming up this way where it’s always been so quiet. We haven’t had something happen like that my whole life,” Annie said. “But it just goes to show you, there’s good and evil everywhere. And you can’t get away from trouble if it wants to find you.”
“That’s for sure,” Todd said.
Now Gwen appeared at the end of the counter, looking hesitant. “Sorry to interrupt, but can I ask a question?”
Sweet Annie turned to her. “Sure, honey. Hey, where are you all going anyway?”
“We’re going backpacking,” Gwen said. “Up in the mountains.”
“Backpacking! Adventurers, huh? Which trail are you taking? Booth Valley?”
“No, actually, we’re going up to Cloud Lakes.”
“Cloud Lakes? That’s supposed to be beautiful, although I’ve never done it myself. Like I said, everything I need’s right here in Franklin.”
“We’re really excited,” Todd said.
“Well, it’s the bears that scare me,” Sweet Annie continued. “One of them made it all the way to Franklin one time. Walked in and helped himself to the worms right there in the refrigerator. You’re braver than I am, that’s for sure.”
Gwen asked, “Do you have any washcloths?”
Sweet Annie shrugged. “I think so, honey. We have just about everything. You just have to look a little while to find it.”
And seemingly, they did have everything else. Oscar found a display of mugs from national parks—the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Everglades. He saw a box of daguerreotypes of unidentified people. Then a rack of back issues of Field & Stream and American Marksman, mixed in with Ladies’ Home Journal and Highlights. There were cleaning supplies in dusty packages that had never been opened. There was a toy rocking horse, a wood stove, a phonograph. He could not remember when he had ever seen such clutter. And yet Todd and Gwen looked totally content—Todd still talking with the proprietor and the men at the counter, Gwen picking up various handcrafted things, smiling, placing them back on the shelves. He didn’t understand this—what exactly did she find so charming? Why wasn’t she freaked out by these goofy rednecks?
Then Tracy swept past him, holding a flashlight and two bundles of firewood. “Let’s go.” She stood impatiently at the cash register until Sweet Annie noticed her and ambled over to ring her up.
Gwen paid for a washcloth and a little embroidered pillow that read, Every day is a beautiful day. Todd bought a postcard—the same picture as the one on the door—and fished in his wallet until he came up with a small folded rectangle of colored paper. It was the Packers schedule from last season. He handed it to Sweet Annie. “To add to your collection,” he said.
When they were back on the highway, Oscar shook his head. “Well, that’s not a place I need to go back to.”
“I thought it was sweet,” said Gwen. “It reminded me of the country stores my great-aunt used to tell me about in the South.”
“Really? That woman seemed a little off to me. And those two guys weren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat.”
“Oh, they were fine,” Todd said. “They’re just locals. They’re probably not used to seeing city people.”
Oscar was about to ask what exactly Todd meant by “city people” when Tracy looked over her shoulder and into the back.
“And did you catch that story about the police shoot-out?” she asked. “Geez, it makes you wonder.”
“It does,” Gwen agreed. “And those folks were friendly. But I sure wouldn’t want to break down out here in the middle of the night. There are a lot of white supremacist and militia groups in the Central Valley, you know.”
“Really?” Todd said. But judging from his tone, Oscar thought, what he meant was, Oh, come on!
“Seriously. The Visalia area is a Klan stronghold, and other groups are active out here too. Two of them were convicted a couple of years ago for murdering a black kid.”
“The Klan,” Todd repeated, not disguising his skepticism.
“Really,” Gwen said. “You can Google it.”
Oscar’s earlier irritation at Gwen was gone, and now he felt aligned with her, protective. He didn’t appreciate Todd’s questioning of her. And he resolved that however unprepared she might be for this trip, he would take it upon himself to watch out for her.
“Well one good thing,” Todd said. “Those methed-out creeps that lady was talking about don’t have the chops to backpack in the mountains.”
“That’s for sure,” Tracy remarked. “Hey, how do you know all this, Gwen?”
“One of my coworkers brought a bunch of kids up to Sequoia last summer. He found all this stuff on the Internet and was a little freaked out.”
“Well, whatever creepy folks there are down there, we’re away from them now,” said Tracy. “Check it out. We’re going uphill.”
And they were. The flat straight strip of country highway was now curving and winding upward, a lush valley opening to the right of them. They went up and up, beyond the chaparral and oak-lined hills and into the pines, and as the trees changed, the air did too, and they rolled their windows down to breathe it in. It smelled like forest and rich wet earth; it smelled fresh; it smelled like mountain. Oscar’s unease and irritation both faded, and he was e
xcited again. He stared out the window and took in the view—the deep green valley with the river winding through it, the snowcapped peaks behind. This is what I came for, he thought. This is why I’m here.
Chapter Six
Todd
When they finally pulled up to Redwood Station, Todd couldn’t contain himself; the car had barely come to a stop before he was out of it. The ranger station was a miniscule one-story cabin, painted a red-chocolate brown. He loved how well these buildings blended in with their surroundings. The structure looked especially small at the foot of all the grand cedars and pines; no sun broke through the canopy of branches. Tacked up on the walls were trail maps, pictures of bear canisters, warnings about proper food storage, and examples of items—food wrappers, sunscreen, deodorant, toilet paper—that had to be packed out of the woods. About half a dozen people were lined up at the counter, waiting to get their permits. Another three or four backpackers were splayed out across benches that had been cut from logs, with heavy packs, water bottles, and bags of trail mix scattered around them. Judging from their sunburns and dirt-streaked clothes, they had just come in from the backcountry.
Tracy took the reservation letter they’d exchange for their permit and got in line. Gwen and Oscar ran off to use the restrooms. Todd walked out of the parking lot and toward a grove of sequoias he’d spotted from the road. He was glad to have a few minutes alone. All morning he’d been wondering if he should have stayed behind. Why hadn’t the Pattersons told him they were cancelling? If he’d known ahead of time, he might have made his own excuses. But he didn’t find out until he’d arrived at Tracy’s, and by then it was too late. Now, several hours into the trip, he wasn’t sure how this was going to work. He felt weird being the only white person in the group, but that was just the start of his discomfort. Tracy’s usual intensity, which was great for the gym, had kicked into overdrive—and spending a structured hour with someone a couple times a week was very different than being with her all the time. He liked Gwen, and she was easy to look at too—she had dark lovely skin, strong cheekbones, warm brown eyes, and wavy hair that was tied back in a ponytail. She watched everything cautiously, as if looking out from behind a curtain, but when she smiled, it lit up her entire face.
Oscar, on the other hand, had an edge—as if he suspected Todd of something just because he was white. He’d been so cagey at that wonderful store in Franklin, slinking around the aisles like he was getting ready to steal something. With his slicked-back hair and big tattoos, he would have caught Todd’s attention too. And that ridiculousness about the men in Franklin, and come to think of it, even Gwen’s remarks in the car. The Ku Klux Klan? Really? In 2012? He had a hard time understanding this kind of oversensitivity, but it wasn’t worth getting into it. So he’d kept his mouth shut—well, mostly.
As they took the winding road up the gradual slope of the Western Sierra, he’d finally begun to relax. Then they drove down into a canyon, as if through a gateway into an entirely different world. Near the bottom, he’d spotted a great blue heron flying over the river, neck extending and retracting, chest jutting out as far as its head. Its long graceful legs were trailing behind, tapered and liquid dark, like the ink-dipped tip of a fountain pen. His heart had swelled as he watched it swoop down toward the water.
And now, here he was with these magnificent trees. Several dozen giant sequoias with beautiful red-brown bark, each as big around as a building, as a whale. Their skin looked soft and contoured and he wanted to touch them, but to do so would have felt like sacrilege. They gave off a deep silence, as if they absorbed all sound, and their very presence made the noise and clutter of Todd’s life—of all human dealings—seem trivial, superficial, and temporary. Walking among them, Todd felt like he had entered a cathedral—the grandiose beauty, the quiet, the suggestion of time beyond knowing. He loved the Sierra in all of its seasons—the snow in winter that made the trees seem even redder in contrast; the dogwood blossoms in spring, their broad white petals suggestive of movement, like his daughter’s pinwheel toy. The stillness of the forest made something still in him too. He remembered his first trip to the Sierras when he was twelve, with his mother and stepfather. It was seeing the sequoias for the first time—more even than seeing the ocean—that made him feel he’d arrived in California.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket—no reception. What a joy it was to be beyond the reach of that tyrannical thing, of incessant e-mails, of connectivity. He understood that his recent thoughts about changing careers were part of some midlife crisis, and he felt like a bit of a cliché. But at least he’d avoided making a fool of himself by buying a fast car or messing with younger women. He knew that women still noticed him—like Rachel, his junior associate, who often stayed late, and whom he’d turned down when she suggested a drink after work because he didn’t quite trust himself. He’d burned off his restlessness and frustration by throwing himself into exercise. And by dreaming of coming up to the mountains.
In most ways Todd still felt the same as he had in his twenties, but he realized that wasn’t how others saw him. At the firm’s picnic last summer, he’d played in the interoffice softball game, Downtown versus Century City. He’d been an All-Pac Ten second baseman in college, and he made sure that everyone knew it. But when he dove for a sharp grounder and landed on his belly, the third baseman and pitcher came running over to make sure he was all right. And when, in the final inning, he ran full tilt from second base, rounded third, and barreled into the catcher at home, players from both teams sprinted over and lay him down on his back to make sure that he was still in one piece.
“I’m fine,” he’d insisted. “Just bruised up a little.”
Then Todd looked up at the circle of faces hovering over him and realized that all of the other players were under thirty. They did not consider him to be one of them. They thought of him as old. It was a moment, all right, and it didn’t help that he’d reinjured his shoulder in the collision at the plate, which is what started him on physical therapy. After that, he worked to get himself back in shape.
He walked halfway through the grove and then looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since they parked. Reluctantly, he returned to the car, but the others weren’t there. Glancing toward the ranger station, he saw Oscar and Gwen reading the bear and food storage regulations—and then Tracy, who was now second in line.
There were two rangers working—a blond woman with the air of an old-school basketball coach, and a tall, rangy man in his sixties, mustached and sun-weathered, who was exactly what Todd envisioned when he thought of a forest ranger. Todd joined Tracy in line just as the male ranger yelled, “Next!” And the two of them approached the counter together.
“Hello there,” the ranger said, in a deep, mellow voice. His name tag read, Greg Baxter. “How can I help you today?”
“We have a reservation for the Cloud Lakes trail,” Tracy said. She placed her confirmation letter on the counter. “We’d like to rent some bear canisters.”
“Cloud Lakes,” the ranger repeated. “I’m sorry, but a forest fire was spotted up at Merritt Dome this morning, and they’ve had to close the trail.”
Tracy stared at him. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were,” Ranger Baxter said. “We saw smoke up there last night, and then our helicopter did a flyover early this morning. The fire’s right in the area where you’re supposed to hike. See, they’re talking about it now.”
An urgent voice crackled over the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt: “. . . the fire has crossed the Cloud Lakes trail. Repeat, the fire has crossed the trail. It is approximately 300 acres now and growing. Do you copy?”
The woman ranger, whose name tag said, Laurie McKay, detached her walkie-talkie from her belt and spoke into it. “This is Redwood Station. Yes, we copy.”
“The fire is currently being held by the Ainley River, but it’ll probably jump the river in these winds.”
“We’re holding all backpackers here,” s
aid Ranger McKay.
“All hikers in the backcountry will have to evacuate,” came the voice over the radio. “Melissa Lakes Station and Dylan Station, do you copy?”
A few seconds, and then a different voice: “This is Dylan Station. We copy.”
Then: “Melissa Lakes. We copy. We’ll evacuate out of the Merritt Dome area and send hikers back toward the trailhead.”
“This is Redwood Station. We copy,” said the ranger. She and Baxter looked at each other. “Bummer,” he remarked.
By now, the other people in line had all crowded around the counter. There was a family—a father and mother with their tall, fresh-faced teenage son. There were two rugged-looking guys in their twenties and a single man in his thirties. The family seemed especially upset—they’d flown out from Massachusetts for the hike—and now Ranger McKay turned her full attention to them, trying to calm them down.
Todd couldn’t believe it. A fire, on the very trail they were supposed to hike? What rotten luck. “Well, what are we supposed to do?”
“We’ve been planning this trip for months,” Tracy added.
Ranger Baxter shrugged, and sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. The Cloud Lakes are spectacular. But there are some other great trips you could take—a couple of other loops and a few in-and-outs.”
Neither Todd nor Tracy answered for a minute. Todd was still envisioning the pictures he’d seen, the beautiful valley, the flower-filled meadow, the photo of the Cloud Lakes at dawn. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t be going there. Behind him, the two young guys turned and left; the family was still talking heatedly with Ranger McKay.
“Well, what would you suggest?” Tracy asked. “We’ve come all the way out here, you know? It would be a shame to just turn around and go home.”
Baxter spread a topographical map out on the counter and pointed to an area that was colored with green and wavy brown lines. “Well, there’s the Boulder Creek route.Most people can do it in six days and five nights.”
“Too long.”
“Then there’s the Brenda Lakes trail.” He pointed to an area where the lines were much closer together. “But that one’s pretty strenuous. Four thousand feet elevation gain the first day, probably twelve thousand feet elevation gain and loss total.”
