Black Heart on the Appalachian Trail

by T. J. Forrester

  The thrust—the palm that drives into her back, the flattening of her blouse between her shoulder blades, the buckle of her knees and the flail of her arms—happens so fast that for a fraction of a second she thinks she toppled on her own, a calamity she could have avoided if she had been more careful. But then the wind blows against her face and she rushes down along that long gray wall and knows someone from above pushed her.

  She twists her neck but cannot see from this angle, and she turns back toward the earth below. She’s heard that people relive their lives at the moment before death, that time slows until it hardly moves. She wishes to emerge from this free fall reborn, bursting inside with a vision of all that came before. Mostly she wants to feel the touch of her yellow-haired lover, the smoothness of his skin, the tautness of his back while his body moves over hers.

  She closes her eyes and her life unreels through her mind, a series of scenes that come through so fast they are a shattered collage that won’t congeal into a sensible pattern. She wills them to slow and a scene early in her life crystallizes, one of a young girl in pigtails, a child who picks a handful of daisies and runs through the yard. It is summer, air balmy against her skin, and she wears hiking boots that flop with each stride. They are her father’s boots, much too large, but then she is an oddball child and given to such irregularities.

  The little girl disappears and two scenes merge together. Leona shakes her head, tries to see one scene at a time, but Heather and Parker are delivered almost simultaneously. They have big heads and big ears and no hair. Emanuel peeks through a crack in the door and frowns each time, like he cannot believe he fathered something so ugly. But then he is beside her, assuring her that all the fingers and toes are there, and that Heather looks just like her mother, cute as a button, and that Parker already looks like a little linebacker.

  The scenes switch off and Leona opens her eyes, stretches her arms to the rock wall, hopes to catch hold of a nook, a cranny, something to disrupt her fall. Her arm cracks against the granite and the bone separates in her shoulder. No pain, only a curiousness over the flopping appendage.

  She hears the rattle of Emanuel’s old truck, a scene from when she was in her twenties. He has the headlights off and navigates a forest road only using the moon. Her yellow-haired lover has a wandering hand on nights like these, and her breaths come in bursts, small and quick, a hotness that turns to liquid in her veins. She lives for these drives, for that touch, for the merging of her body and his.

  Halfway down now, or perhaps three-quarters. The wind blurs her eyes and she braces herself for the impact. She hopes whoever is up there is watching; she does not want to die alone. But then, what does it really matter? Alone or with someone, death cannot be shared. She feels the gravity push against her pelvis, she feels her hands clutch the emptiness of air. And then her body hits the trees, breaking through branches, snaps loud as the explosions in Emanuel’s war tape. She thinks of the cookies in the Baggie in her pocket and does not know why. Then there is a graying, a light that darkens until she sees no more.

  11

  RICHARD AND I drop our packs and sit in ferns that grow at the edge of a pond. He points out a jack in the pulpit, says they are one of his favorite flowers. The Maine hardwood forest is changing color, and red and yellow leaves adorn the branches, a pleasant enough scene, but one that also reminds me that fall, and sometimes snow, comes early this far north. We have been discussing the Kennebec River crossing, where an upstream dam opens its gates and sends millions of gallons toward the Atlantic Ocean, a controlled flood that years back killed a fording hiker. Now the Appalachian Trail Committee and the local hiking club pay an employee to ferry hikers during the season.

  “I walked all the way from Georgia,” Richard says, “and I refuse to make forward progress with anything but my feet.”

  “Simone wants us to take the canoe across.”

  “Whipped as you are that must be some damn fine pussy.” Richard plans an early crossing and hopes the water level doesn’t rise. Claims he’s one Indian who can’t swim for shit. He gets out a bottle—he’s gone back to Scotch—doesn’t offer me any. I unwrap a candy bar and eat it in two bites. I swapped my affinity for coke for hiking and chocolate. Definite upgrade.

  In the trees to the south, Simone appears in her familiar crouch, walks up, and drops her pack next to mine. She strips off her sports bra and shorts and wades into the pond. I strip and wade in beside her. The water is cool. The bottom is sandy between my toes. Richard packs his bottle away and walks up the trail without saying a word. He thinks I chose Simone over him.

  She wraps her arms around me and I tread into deeper water. She floats, legs encircling my body. I like the weightlessness. The feel of her skin next to mine. We drift to the center of the pond, watch falling leaves flit like erratic butterflies through the air. Water bugs skate over the ripples. Simone and I are in the middle of nowhere, the only two people on the planet. I splash water onto her face. She closes her eyes and opens them when I stop. I tread toward the shallows, step out of the pond, and carry her into the forest.

  * * *

  Simone and I stand on the bank of the Kennebec River. Upstream, where water splits into three channels and flows between two gravel bars, the river is shallow enough to see bottom. In front of us the water is deeper and darker. On the opposite bank, on a slope that rises to a thin forest, a canoe is chained to a tree. Nine AM. The canoe guy isn’t scheduled to arrive for another hour. Richard stumbles up and I point upstream, tell him that’s the best place to ford. He was up all night, drinking and dancing around the fire. He looks at me like he hopes I’ll change my mind, heads through the brush along the bank.

  Simone takes off her pack and twists her back one way, then the other. I press my palms against the tense muscles, and she lowers her head. Richard enters the river at the shallowest point, falls in the first channel, a splash that makes me laugh. He gets up and plods onward, steps onto the first gravel bar and shakes like a wet dog, water droplets reflecting the rays from the mid-morning sun.

  “He’s so fucking drunk he can’t stand up,” I say.

  “I think the water’s rising.”

  I study the river’s edge, close to my feet, watch the waterline creep up a partially submerged rock. “Hey,” I shout upriver. “You need to get your ass in gear.”

  Richard has this goofy grin, waves like he’s a tourist out for a walk in the park. I drop my pack, a thud at my feet, run through the brush, and jump off the bank into the water. He starts toward me and I holler for him to get up on the second gravel bar, which is no longer above the surface but I can still see the bottom because that section of river is lighter than where I stand. I power toward him, water up to my knees, walk up and over the first bar, into the middle channel. The current pushes at my legs, a force that brings with it a realization that speeds my heart. This river cares nothing about Taz Chavis, will not feel one way or the other if I drown and my body washes all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. This river flows downstream. That’s what it does.

  I feel small, unimportant as I step on a slippery boulder, inch sideways until my right foot finds purchase on the gravel bottom. Richard faces upstream, like he wills this onslaught to stop. I keep going until I reach the second bar and step up beside him. The water is knee-deep and rising.

  “We’ve got to swim for it,” I say.

  “I don’t want to go back to selling tires.”

  “What?”

  “I hate how they smell,” he says. “I hate the smell of new rubber. I hate whitewalls, radials, balancing, two-for-one sales. I hate it all.”

  Sand and pebbles swirl around my legs, and the water turns muddy brown.

  “You’re going to have to take off your pack and your boots and swim for it,” I say.

  He tells me he lined the inside of his pack with a garbage bag.

  “My pack will float,” he says.

  “At least take off your boots.”

  “I’m not taking
off my boots.”

  “They’ll drag you to the bottom.”

  “If I’m going to die, I want my boots on,” he says. “It’s a Montana thing.”

  “Jump and aim for the bank.”

  “You jump and aim for the bank,” he says.

  I tell him there are worse jobs than selling tires and he asks me to name one.

  “You could be in prison,” I say.

  “That’s not a job.”

  “You could pump out port-o-johns for a living.”

  “Okay,” he says. “You got me there.”

  Richard sucks his lips in so tight they disappear. He tells me he’s staying until the water scrapes him off this sandbar and carries him downstream. By then I’ll be too tired to rescue his ass so I tell him to jump, and he shakes his head. I tell him one more time, see a second shake of the head, shove him into the surging channel. He lands on his chest, a furious splash. His mouth opens, and a watery scream explodes from his lungs. I dive in and the current pushes us downstream to where the river widens and one bank is as close as the other. I holler for him to doggie paddle. Stroke in his direction. He unbuckles his pack and holds it above his head, and they both go under. He comes back up, clutches my neck, and we both go under. Bubbles swirl upward. I touch bottom and kick toward the surface and burst through. Richard’s arm presses against my windpipe and spots float in front of my eyes.

  I cock my fist and bring it down hard. Blood spurts out of his nose, but his eyes are still focused and he won’t let go, so I hit him again. I continue to hit him, an accumulation of blows that jar him enough so his eyes roll back until only white shows and he goes limp. Which is a good thing, because I am not about to drown in this river. I curl an arm around his chest and tow him through the water. His pack drags him down, but he’s clutching it so tight I can’t pry the straps from his fingers and keep him afloat. A shout from the bank, and Simone ducks under a tree limb and jumps over a log. She runs through the forest, paralleling my progress, hollers at me to swim her way. One bank looks as close as the other, so I angle toward her. A rock skims across the surface.

  “If you hit me with one of those, I’ll beat your ass,” I holler.

  Another rock skips past. Richard sputters awake and I tell him to kick his feet if he wants to live, and he kicks his feet and that helps and soon we close in on the bank. I have walking muscles, not swimming muscles, and I’m slowing down.

  “Who are you shouting at?” he says. “Why are you screaming in my ear?”

  “Simone’s throwing rocks at us.”

  “Oh.”

  That’s all he says. A splash, a limb in the water, and I grab hold. Simone braces herself and hauls upward, hand over hand, until I touch bottom. I have never been so happy to have my feet under me.

  Richard and I climb out of the river, and the three of us collapse on the bank. From somewhere in the forest comes the howl of a chainsaw. He turns his pack upside down and water pours out. Then he opens a bottle and pours its contents on the ground.

  “I’m done drinking.” Richard’s chest heaves, and he swipes at snot running from his nose. “I’m giving it up for good.”

  Richard and I follow my girlfriend along the riverbank. I’m soaked and my trail runners squish with each step. So do Richard’s boots. His nose swells, and blood falls from his nostrils to his feet. Across the river, the ferryman drags the canoe down the bank. When we reach the AT, I wave at the man and he slides the canoe in the water and paddles our way.

  “I’m sorry about the rocks,” Simone says.

  “That’s all right.”

  “I throw things when I get nervous.”

  Tears slick her cheeks.

  “I thought you were going to die,” she says.

  12

  IN CARATUNK, THE small town just north of the Kennebec River, Richard fingers his nose to the left, then to the right, winces as cartilage crackles. He watches Taz and Simone walk down the sidewalk, packs loaded with new supplies, hollers that he will catch up in a few hours. His near drowning has sobered him, and he’s stayed behind because he wants to call his father or his mother or anyone back home who will pick up the phone. Simone and Taz don’t turn around, and he doesn’t blame them for being angry.

  He sits in front of the store, a small building with local fliers on its door, drinks a Gatorade, eats a Twinkie, licks the stickiness off his fingers. There is alcohol inside the store—beer and wine—and through the window he sees the bottles on the top shelf of the cooler against the far wall. He turns and crosses his legs, his arms, exhibits the stoicism his people have shown for generations. An Indian can turn to stone if he wants. He can sit so still a bird will land on his shoulder.

  A red convertible curves into the parking lot, chrome rims reflecting the sunlight, and a fat blond woman gets out and aims his way. She has on a green blouse and carries a notebook. Richard ignores her and thinks about what he will say when he makes his phone call. He doesn’t think he will tell whoever is on the other end about his vow to stop drinking. Nor will he tell about his near drowning. That would make his mother and father worry, and there is no need for that kind of thing.

  “Hey, are you a thru-hiker?” the blonde says.

  Richard smells the stink of sweat and perfume, a white woman smell, and nods her way.

  “My editor sent me over to get a story,” the woman says. “I need some quotes about the trail, why you’re doing it, who you are, if you’ve seen any bears, crap like that. . . . Hey, how’d your nose get like that?”

  He wipes his nostrils with the back of his hand and stares at the blood smeared on his skin.

  “I rescued someone from the Kennebec,” he says. “White man named Taz Chavis, can’t swim for shit.”

  The woman leans forward and her eyes widen. She opens her notebook, plucks a pencil from a pocket, puts the pencil away, and closes the book. “Hey, are you hungry? There’s a restaurant about twenty miles up the road. Sure beats talking in this heat.”

  * * *

  The woman—her name is Betty Ipplewell—sits across the table and writes in her notebook. It is mid-afternoon, the lunch crowd long gone, and they are the only patrons left in the place. The restaurant specializes in feeding fishermen, and antique fly rods crisscross the ceiling. Lunker rainbows on polished plaques, flies and lures dangling from rigid mouths, hang on the walls. From the kitchen comes the rattle of silverware and the murmur of conversation, kitchen help preparing for the evening rush. Richard takes a bite of spaghetti, drinks from a glass full of sweet tea. Between bites and sips, he gets out the story.

  “The water came up and he was floundering like a turtle,” Richard says. “He started drifting downriver and screaming and stuff. . . . I just did what anyone would do.”

  “Have you had lifeguard training? Anything to prepare you for the situation?”

  “I’m a Blackfoot, we’re the best swimmers in the world.” He orders more bread sticks, chews up another bite of spaghetti. The noodles have a spicy sauce, tiny pieces of chopped up mushrooms, and the meatballs have a crunchy brown crust. This plate is his fourth and his stomach is full, yet he keeps on eating and talking. His lie gets larger, just like his stomach, and he wonders if both will get so large they explode.

  Betty nibbles one of his bread sticks, and her foot brushes his. She has gray eyes, mascara on her lashes, plump cheeks that remind him of ripe peaches, but then he is always thinking about food and can’t be blamed for the comparison. Her blouse is unbuttoned three times below the collar, and the tan of her bra shows against her skin. She has cleavage and Richard fantasizes licking his way to nipples large as purple grapes. He senses intense loneliness in her, the same suffocating feeling he has lived with most of his life, yet cannot bring himself to feel empathy for her plight. If she went on a diet, she could solve her problem. He, however, will be a displaced Indian until the day he dies. Their feet remain together, toe to toe, and a flush forms on her throat, red blotches that creep toward her cheeks. She is fat a
nd smells bad, but his blood is hot and he wants to see where this will lead.

  “I have a broken nose,” he says.

  “I see that.”

  “I caught an elbow when I grabbed his arm.”

  “You really should put ice on that,” she says. “It’s pretty swollen.”

  He likes how she worries about him and wonders if she has ever had a boyfriend.

  * * *

  Betty has a long-finned goldfish that swims in an aquarium in the living room, no kids. She lives in the woods, in a small house she bought off an old woman who moved to the city after her husband died. Evidence of a degree hangs in a picture frame on the wall. His host graduated from the University of Maine in 1990, a journalism major, she says. The house has striped wallpaper in the bathroom, a look Betty would like to change but claims not to have the time. He prefers not to ask questions about her personal life, thinks leaving her will be easier the less he knows, so he remains silent during the tour. In the kitchen she hands him a bag of frozen peas, suggests he hold it to his nose. The bag is cold and his nose hurts, and he does as she says until the pain goes away. He hands her the bag and she puts it back in the freezer.

  “I was born on the reservation,” he says. “My mother’s name is Wind in Her Hair and my father’s is Light Foot because he can run without making a sound.”

  Through the window, a channel in the flowered curtains, elongated shadows crawl across the lawn. The grass is cut close to the fence; a white woman’s yard. He talks about his past, the one he made up for himself when he was a kid and realized he was different from his family, tells her about riding ponies bareback alongside cottonwood creeks and killing a cougar with a spear to enter manhood. She scribbles furiously, the pencil a blur.

  He studies the fat on her sides, the way her arms bulge below the triceps, wonders how it will feel to have his red-skinned body next to hers. Soft, he thinks, like falling into a bottomless feather bed.