Bad Call

by Stephen Wallenfels

  Bucket list, hell. All he’s got is a fuck-it list.

  We spend a few minutes snapping pictures, the men with their phones and Ellie with her camera trying different lenses. I only take one pic because my phone officially died on the second. Ceo hands me his phone, which I notice has three solid bars and a battery at 75 percent. He asks me to take a picture of him and Ellie with Half Dome behind them. Then Grahame says he wants a picture of the three of us. He tells us to squeeze closer so he can fit that mountain into the shot. Then with the wind pushing us backward, the ground starting to slope gently down, and that two-thousand-foot drop somewhere behind us, he says to back up a little, a little more, a little more. We hit the gravel close to the edge. Ellie tenses beside me. I’m one heartbeat from telling Grahame this isn’t funny when Ceo says, “This is far enough, take the damn picture already.”

  We gather a little ways off the trail to discuss our plans for the next two days. We’re ten yards from a clear stream, which I remember from the map is Snow Creek. It’s hard to believe this gentle water is the source of the thundering waterfall we heard earlier today. I know that if Dad were here, he’d be drifting a fly through that pool in the shade next to the big flat rock. We’d be eating trout for dinner tonight, not the mac ’n’ cheese Ceo bought at Ralphs, four boxes for $2.99.

  Ceo has the map out and talks while he shows us how we can go straight, then hook around and climb North Dome tomorrow, then loop back to the valley by hooking up with the Yosemite Falls Trail. We’d camp somewhere around Yosemite Creek tomorrow night. The other option is to fork right, climb Mount Watkins tomorrow, and camp on the summit at 8,500 feet, which he says would be all kinds of awesome, or just have a snack on top, then head for either Tenaya Lake or Hidden Lake and camp there. We’d get up bright and early the next morning and head home via the same killer trail we did today. Ellie asks him what he thinks we should do.

  Ceo folds and pockets the map. “I talked to a couple of trail-maintenance guys that were just leaving when I got here. They said there is no trail up Watkins, but the north side is a relatively easy scramble through bushes, then up granite slabs, but you don’t want to be doing it in the dark. So I vote we tank up on water, then fork right and camp on top of Watkins tomorrow.”

  Grahame says, “Sounds cool. I’ve never slept on top of a mountain.”

  “What about the weather?” Ellie asks. “I heard there may be a storm heading this way.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Ceo asks.

  “I called someone while I was in the visitor center. He said San Francisco was going to get slammed this weekend.”

  “Well, I checked the weather just before you guys got up here, and Yosemite looks good till Saturday night or Sunday morning. From what I saw, the storm was moving more north than east. We’ll know by tomorrow afternoon. If it looks bad, we turn around. I hope everyone brought gloves because it’s going to get cold.”

  Grahame and Ellie nod. I brought gloves, but they’re my work gloves from cleaning tennis courts. Old, leather, and not very warm.

  “How good is your signal?” Ellie asks.

  “Three bars, solid.”

  “What about the GPS?” Grahame asks.

  “Working fine.”

  Ellie asks me about my phone.

  I say, “Officially dead.”

  We all turn to Grahame. He shakes his head, says, “Unless I’m standing under a tower, I’d be better off with pigeons.”

  This leads to a moment of collective silence. When we hatched this crazy plan at the poker game, Ceo suggested we go old-school and do it off the grid. No phones, no GPS. That was voted down three to one. Looks like we’re mostly there anyway.

  I ask Ceo, “Where are we camping tonight?”

  “I think there’s about an hour of decent light left. We still need to set up camp and make dinner, so I suggest we find a spot around here. I thought it would be crowded, but we’ve got the place pretty much to ourselves. Plus I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t feel like putting on that pack.”

  “No way we’re camping here,” Grahame says.

  “Why not?”

  “If you stopped and talked to those people coming down the trail, instead of using them to cheat, then you’d know about the bear.”

  Ceo’s eyes hardened when Grahame used the C word. I braced for a possible eruption because Ceo doesn’t take to being called a cheater (although he doesn’t mind calling other people cheaters). After a moment he says, “What bear?”

  “The one chasing all the campers away.”

  “Seriously? Big bad Grahame is worried about a bear? Yosemite bears are like overgrown chipmunks.”

  “Chipmunks don’t eat flesh, dude. Bears are like sharks with legs. They smell blood from miles away. It’s like a freaking dinner bell to them.” And he shoots Ellie a quick look. His intensity is surprising. This isn’t a joke to him. He’s vibrating, and Ceo knows it.

  Ceo says, “Are you planning on skinning a deer?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a rib eye in your pack?”

  “No, but—”

  “So I don’t see a problem camping here.”

  “Maybe you don’t see a problem, but I do. And you should, too, because depending on what time of the month”—he gives Ellie another look—“you may want to think about sleeping in a tree.”

  Ceo says to Grahame, “Time of the month? Did you really say that?”

  “She’s been using the bathroom a lot.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I’ve said enough. Ask her.”

  “I’m not asking her because A, that period thing with bears is bullshit and B, it’s none of my business, and it certainly isn’t any of yours.”

  “Then I’ll ask her.”

  “Go ahead. I hope she clubs you with her stick.”

  Grahame says to Ellie, “Is it, you know, that time of month?”

  She looks him straight in the eyes and flexes her fingers around the stick.

  Then with just the hint of a smile she says, “Barely, mon.”

  We spend ten minutes topping off our water bottles with filtered water from Snow Creek, then we’re packs on again, walking single file in and out of the trees with gray-topped mountains all around. Ceo is up front talking cameras with Ellie. He’s still carrying the ax and hasn’t said a word about it or the fact that Grahame is his bag boy for two weeks. He also hasn’t reacted to Grahame saying that he cheated on the climb, but I know Ceo heard it, and I know it stuck in a bad way. And I know Grahame won’t stop picking at that scab.

  Grahame is hanging back just a little behind Ellie. She switched to sweatpants over her shorts, which I’m sure disappointed him but not enough to give up his spot. That’s okay because the closer we get to setting up camp, the more distance I want to put between her and me. My mind keeps conjuring up images of Ceo crawling into his tent and zipping up the door with Ellie’s backlit silhouette showing through the nylon. I’ll have Grahame snoring beside me, so I expect it will be a very long night.

  Shortly after forking right we come to a small footbridge that crosses Snow Creek. They keep walking. I stop in the middle to remember this spot, knowing that if I listen, I’ll hear one of my father’s favorite sounds, clear water moving over and around rock. I have to listen pretty hard because the wind is picking up, even here with the trees to slow it down.

  A finger of cold blows through my shirt, reminding me that what I’m wearing now is wet and that I left a perfectly dry and warm hoodie in the Cherokee. I shiver, wishing I could have that decision over again, then look up at the treeless dome of Mount Watkins and wonder what a night will be like up there.

  Ceo yells, “Q! It’s time to say good-bye to Bear-topia.”

  Under a sky the color of orange flames, I cross the bridge.

  Ceo stops to check his GPS.

  “We’ve gone far enough in this direction,” he says. “Let’s look for a spot to set up the tents.”

  “Wh
ich way now, chief?” Grahame asks.

  Ceo steps off the trail on the Watkins side. “We may as well get a start on tomorrow,” and leads us into the woods.

  After twenty minutes of meandering up a gradual slope, we come to a spot where the ground has been worn away, exposing a slab of relatively flat rock. It’s big enough to accommodate our tents plus have room for a fire. The wind isn’t too bad here, which is a huge plus, but this rock won’t offer much comfort to someone without a sleeping pad. A little farther up the slope there’s a fallen tree leaning against a big boulder. It could come in handy for firewood, seeing as we just happen to have an ax.

  We drop our packs with appreciative groans, then it’s a frenzied search for our headlamps and something warm to wear because darkness is falling like a brick and brings with it a cold so sharp that it feels like teeth. I slip into the warmest thing I have, a nylon jacket with a thin flannel lining, and zip the collar all the way up to my chin. It hardly makes a dent in the cold, but that could be because I’m still wearing my sweaty T-shirt. I look at Ellie. She’s dressed in a fleece jacket, gloves, and a knit ski hat with earflaps. She’s staring at her phone while her breath clouds and swirls in the beam of her headlamp. She slips her phone into her pack and closes the top. I shift my gaze upward, see early stars shining in a purple-black sky with the promise of more stars to come. Good, I think. No clouds. Hopefully, Ceo is right and the storm is moving north.

  Ellie says, “I need to use the restroom,” and aims her headlamp at that boulder about sixty yards up the hill.

  “Don’t forget to flush,” Ceo says. He pulls a small folding shovel from his pack. She takes the shovel and starts walking, scanning the ground with her light as she goes.

  Grahame calls after her, “Need someone to stand guard?”

  “What I really need is someone to build a fire.”

  Grahame grabs the ax, which is leaning against Ceo’s pack. He starts following Ellie.

  “Where are you going?” Ceo says.

  “Woman want fire. Me chop wood.”

  Ellie starts walking up the hill with a shovel in hand, thinking about her phone and the news it shared and didn’t share. There were three voice mails, none of them picked up. No service. And one text that must have arrived while she was at the lake with Colin.

  NADIA

  Your mom is calling everyone asking where you are. I told her I don’t know. You owe me huge. BTW where are u?

  She hears footsteps behind her moving up the easy slope, figures it might be him, hopes it’s anyone but. She looks back and says, “I told you I don’t need a guard.”

  Grahame says, “I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Is that why you have the ax? To convince the nonbelievers?”

  Walking beside her now, he says, “You said you want a fire.” He aims his beam at the tree. “There’s the wood.”

  “Apologies and axes don’t mix.”

  “Why are you making this so hard for me?”

  “Because you make it so hard not to.”

  They reach the tree. The dead branches, in the shadows from their lights, look like a tangle of broken ribs around a mossy spine. She realizes the boulder isn’t as big as it looked from camp, and doesn’t like the prospect of Grahame doing his thing while she’s ten feet away, pants down, squatting over a hole in the dark. If Nadia were here, she’d give Ellie a told-you-so frown then ask, How’s Newton’s law working for you now? Ellie glances back at the camp. One headlamp is busy setting up a tent. The other is standing still, facing them.

  Grahame says, “So, anyway. About that apology. I’m sorry about asking you if it’s that time of month. It really isn’t my business.”

  “Your comment about dinnertime for sharks was especially charming.”

  “Yeah. My bad there, and I’m sorry.”

  His tone is right. He sounds like he means it, but she can’t see his eyes through the glare of his headlamp. She softens her voice a little and says, “How about if we make a deal? I’ll accept your apology if you give me some privacy?”

  Grahame nods. “Okay. But I have something else to say.”

  “Make it quick.” And shows him the shovel. “I have a hole to dig.”

  “I want to thank you for not telling Ceo about my problem with bears. You could have said something, but you didn’t.”

  “I was tempted. But you asked me not to on the bus, so I bit my tongue instead.”

  “I was thinking maybe there was a different reason.”

  “No. That’s pretty much it,” she says.

  “You know what I was thinking about when I was sitting alone on that rock in the sun?”

  How Ceo left you in the dust on the trail.

  “I do not,” she says. “And I really need to—”

  “I was thinking about you and Ceo. How he doesn’t seem to be spending a lot of quality time with you. The more I thought about it, the more it just doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t make sense?”

  “You and him. I’ve seen the girls he dates. They’re basically three types. Models, former models, and future models. You’re not any of those.”

  “What does that mean?” She tightens her grip on the shovel. Her thoughts equally divided between hitting him over the head with it, and wanting to hear his twisted version of an answer to a question that’s been nagging her ever since the second day at the workshop. When Ceo asked her to be his project partner over all the other future starlets that worked so hard to corner his affection.

  Grahame says, “I think one of you has a bad case of dater’s remorse. It could be because you’re smart enough to see through his endless bullshit. But my money is on Ceo, who is basically a dick with legs.” Then he moves in another step. The ax handle bumps against her thigh. “He doesn’t see how…how amazing you really are. But I can, Ellie. From the minute I saw you at the airport.” He smiles. “I thought, there’s someone that finally sees him for who he really is. So here’s my theory. I think he’s date-dumping you on Q. But you and Q? I don’t see that happening because fact is he’s got a man crush on Ceo. I mean, why else would he let the guy walk all over him like he’s a fucking doormat?”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Not quite. I’d like to put an offer out there. If you don’t like the sleeping arrangement, let me know. Ceo can sleep with Q, or even under the stars, seeing as he’s not worried about the bears.”

  After a beat, she says, “Thanks for the offer. Nature calls. Time for you to go.”

  “All right. I just wanted you to know you have choices. But I can’t go back empty-handed. Stand behind me. I’m about to go lumberjack on this tree.” Grahame shoulders past her, plants his feet, raises the ax high over his head. Then arches his back and in one smooth downward strike, chops through a branch the size of Ellie’s wrist. The ground shakes below her from the force of the blow.

  Grahame picks up the branch, easily slings it over his shoulder. He grins wide and says, “Da fire will be a blazin’ soon, don’t cha know.”

  Ceo says, “Q. What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me. Except I can’t feel my big toes.”

  We’re watching Grahame’s light catch up to Ellie’s.

  He says, “You let that happen, dude.”

  “Let what happen?”

  “That.” Nods at the two of them, now side by side, almost to the tree.

  “Excuse me,” I say, “for being a just a little confused. Are you saying I should have lunged for the ax before Grahame? Or that I should have tackled him after he grabbed the ax and wrestled it out of his Vulcan death grip?”

  “Do I have to pick?”

  “Tell me why this is my problem. She’s your date, not mine.”

  They’re at the boulder now. Two floating points of light in a sea of dark.

  Ceo looks at me, shakes his head at the frustration of it
all, then starts pulling his tent out of the stuff sack. He asks me to help him with the poles. I watch the dots of light a few seconds longer, then turn away, more than ready for something else to do.

  A minute later we hear a sound that stops us both. Explosive, like a gunshot, and my first instinct is to run up the hill to check on Ellie. But Grahame is there, so what’s the point of that? One of the lights starts bouncing down the hill. The other disappears behind the boulder. A minute after that Grahame walks into camp lugging a giant dead branch over his shoulder.

  “See,” he says to Ceo, tossing it down, “I told you the ax would come in handy.”

  Dinner is macaroni and cheese with chunks of canned tuna topped with Ceo’s answer to all seasonings: Tabasco sauce. He cooks it over a small camp stove that spits and sputters for ten minutes before it finally settles into a steady flame. Ceo claims it fired right up the last time he used it, then confesses it was four years ago on a sheltered beach in Mexico. Not who-knows-where on the side of a mountain at seven thousand feet with the temperature hovering at thirty degrees, and the wind freezing any part of the body that isn’t covered in fleece or ten inches from a fire we had to keep small because of flying sparks. Ceo brought an extra ski hat which I’m wearing and the leather work gloves aren’t keeping my fingers warm enough. My toes are the problem spot. I’m pretty sure that once the sun comes out and we’re back on the trail, I’ll be fine.

  Another problem, and I’m not sure if I’d list it before or after bears, is the tent Grahame and I will be sleeping in tonight. Ceo bought it from a guy on Craigslist and didn’t set it up before tonight. BIG mistake. The rain fly is too small and the grommets don’t line up, so we can’t stake it out. I’m not sure how much good it would be anyway because the waterproof lining is peeling like a bad sunburn. Since the stars are out in full force, we decide it isn’t worth the trouble and leave it in the stuff sack. If the weather turns bad, we’re out of luck, since Ceo’s North Face tent is an ultra-lightweight that barely fits the two of them. He tried to pick up a weather forecast. No signal here for him either. Voilà! We are officially off the grid.