Barefoot Sisters: Southbound

by Lucy Letcher;Susan Letcher

  Pilgrim and Gollum had been entertaining us for months; finding a register that belonged to them was the only way that we could return the favor. Also, I noticed as jackrabbit flipped through the pages, both of them had written long introductory entries in the front of the notebook: something to look forward to reading that night. It was the perfect Christmas gift.

  "Maybe we should give that Jehovah's Witness pamphlet another look," jackrabbit joked. "Miracles happen."

  "'Tis the season," I answered. "Return of the light, by whatever name you call it"

  While jackrabbit wrote, I went looking for water. To my delight, I found a deep, open stream not fifty yards from the shelter. A few late golden sunbeams slanted through the snowy hemlocks on its banks. The evening air, above freezing for the first time in a week, felt surprisingly warm. I stripped to the waist and rinsed quickly-not that the icy water would take off much of the accumulated sweat and wood smoke, but the rush of blood to my skin as the water evaporated felt as renewing as a hot shower.

  When I returned to the shelter, jackrabbit was busy making a swag of hemlock boughs, decorated with bows of the blaze-orange survey tape we'd worn on our hiking poles in hunting season. She hung the branches along the back wall of the shelter, while I tied my clean socks to two separate mouse hangers, labeling them "I" and "J" with strips of duct tape. Jackrabbit helped me gather firewood. Together, we cooked the meal we'd saved for the occasion: polenta mixed with instant refried beans, dried tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. As we sat in our sleeping bags drinking cocoa after supper, jackrabbit read aloud from the register, first Gollum and Pilgrim's entries, then Waterfall's, Heald's, Black Forest's, and finally her own.

  jackrabbit

  .e woke in the predawn darkness, as usual. Stars glimmered between the branches, swimming into focus as I put on my glasses. The metal of the earpieces burned with cold. I put on all my upper layers-Capilene shirt, wool shirt, sweater, fleece, Gore-Tex jacket-while keeping my legs warm in Illy sleeping hag. Then I slipped my hands into liner gloves, braided my hair, tied on my fleece hat, and pulled on my outer gloves. The process took perhaps a minute; I had learned to dress quickly in the weeks of cold.

  "Merry Christmas," Isis whispered. She turned on her headlamp and shone the pale blue beam on the mouse hangers dangling from the rafters. The green socks we had hung tip empty the night before now bulged with mysterious lumps. "Looks like Santa came:'

  I had forgotten what day it was. Sitting in my sleeping bag in the dark shelter, I thought of the Christmas mornings of my childhood: breakfast with the whole family, a warm fire in the wood stove, a tree laden with mismatched ornaments, and the presents piled beneath it in their bright paper. I remembered lying awake in the early morning, wide-eyed with excitement, waiting for my sisters to get up so we could open our stockings. Even after our parents divorced, when we spent half the day at our mother's house and half at our dad's, Christmas had been a family celebration. Now it was just the two of us, in a shelter miles from the nearest road. I reached over and hugged my sister, feeling stiff and clumsy inside many layers of clothing.

  "Well, aren't you going to open your stocking?"

  I took the socks down from the mouse hangers. "This one has a J on it; I guess its for me." I extracted the loot: an orange, a few chocolate coins, some dried fruit, and a Snickers bar. "Why is Santa sending us Snickers bars? You don't suppose he wants to get in on the action ..

  "You never know," Isis said as she bit into a chocolate half-dollar. "It gets pretty cold and lonely up there at the North Pole."

  "Sicko!" I tossed an orange peel at her.

  She laughed. "The oranges might be a little frozen" They were, but they tasted wonderful.

  By the light of our headlamps, we ate our Christmas breakfast. It was nothing like the feasts of citron buns, scrambled eggs, tempeh bacon, fruit salad, and orange juice that I remembered from Christmases past, but in its own way it was just as good. In our last mail drop, our dad had sent homemade granola. We ate it with powdered milk and our morn's dehydrated cranberries. I felt close to our whole family, even though they were more than a thousand miles away. Even our half sister Claire was there in spirit; I had hung nay socks to dry over the ends of my hiking sticks the night before, and the way they had frozen reminded me of her long, graceful feet propped up on the end of a couch. I could easily picture Claire's stunning freckled face, her eyebrows delicately arched with humor or genteel disdain. Our younger half sister was a hedonist who didn't sutler fools gladly. Would she thirk toe're foolish to be here? I wondered..1re tine? We ate quickly in the cold. The last of the milk froze to the cup, and I chipped it out with my spoon.

  The leaves of the rhododendrons near the shelter were curled tight as pencils, so I left my long underwear on beneath my Gore-Tex pants and only took off a few of my top layers. Then I pulled my frozen boots over my feet and buckled my high gaiters. It was still dark when we started down the trail, with stars caught in the branches, though a thin spiderwebbing of blue light crept between the trees on the eastern horizon.

  I)awn came slowly to the ridges, a gradual, barely perceptible brightening. For the first time in quite a while, we began to see traces of footprints on the trail ahead of us. There were many pairs, large and snmall, making the passage easier as we struggled along the snow-covered ridgeline of Garden Mountain.

  "I wonder whose tracks these are;' Isis said.

  "Probably another family out hear-hunting," I said. But the tracks continued all day, following the white blazes along the bumpy top of the ridge. Though it had looked almost level on the elevation profile, in reality the ridge top consisted of countless ups and downs of maybe fifty feet, sometimes steep and difficult in the snow. In places where new drifts covered the footprints, I thought longingly of the snowshoes we had ordered in Pearisburg: another Week, and we'll be able to float over trails like this.

  Down through the hare trees, we could see the valleys on either side. To the left, the long, sinuous ridge of Walker Mountain rose up parallel to the ridge we followed, and the low land between them was a patchwork of fields and houses, a small grid of roads. Half-frozen creeks sent back glints of reflected light, startlingly bright. On the right-hand side was the neat circular depression of Burke's Garden, hemmed in on all sides by mountains. A few red barns and silos, small and perfect as toys, stood in the snow-covered fields far below.

  In early afternoon, we came to a steep climb up the end of a narrow ridge to Chestnut Knob. A chill, steady wind blew out of Burke's Garden. The right side of my face felt numb after a few minutes of climbing. The snow dragged at my feet, and I could feel my tired thigh muscles protesting against the long uphill. I've,gotten lazy, I thought to myself. I can't handle a climb without switchbacks any more. 't'his is only a mile. One measly mils, one thousand piddlin' Bret of ele- cation,gain. 1-Iou' hard can it be? We trudged onward, upward, in the knee-deep snow. Only the footprints made the climb bearable. Somebody else has dome this recently. A bunch of small somebodies, it looks like. I wondered again who it might he. We had followed the tracks for ten miles now-a pretty long ways for a family dayhike-and we were still five miles from the nearest road.

  At last we came out onto the bald summit of Chestnut Knob. The horizon opened out around us, a panoply of long ridges gleaming in the sun. The snow between the trees highlighted the forms of the mountains, the endless self similar contours of ridge and spur, gap and hollow and valley. The wide sky arced above us, with tiny Wisps of cloud moving westward overhead.

  A shelter stood in the middle of the bald, a small building of mortared stones. Inside, the chill of shadows hung in the corners. The wind somehow found its way through the cracks, rustling the mouse nests of shredded paper in the corners of the rafters.

  "I think it's warmer outside," Isis said, and I had to agree. We ate our lunch on the downwind side of the building, sitting on our packs above the snowdrifts.

  Isis looked over at me. "Jackrabbit, is your face okay?"

 
; "Last time I checked. What, am I growing a third eyeball or something?"

  "No, but you have this white patch on your cheek ... Your ear doesn't look so good, either."

  I took off a glove and touched my right cheek. It was numb and felt like ice under my fingers. Not good. My ear was cold, too, and along the outer rini I couldn't even feel the touch of my fingers. "You're right. I think I got a bit of frostnip. Man, I didn't realize it was that cold."

  "We've got to be more careful from now on," Isis said, in her older-sistertakes-charge voice. For an instant I was tempted to fire back an angry retort, but there wasn't anything I could say to defend myself. It was my own fault I hadn't noticed the cold and put a hat on, or pulled a handkerchief over my face. Besides, it was Christmas. I didn't want to start an argument.

  The bright sun bouncing off the wall of the shelter and the snow all around felt almost warm. I leaned back against the stone wall, savoring the warmth of the sun. A small consolation; with the relative heat of our lunch spot, perhaps illy hands and feet wouldn't get that pins-and-needles feeling in the afternoon. Though niy ear and cheek began throbbing painfully as they thawed, the rest of me appreciated the respite from the cold.

  "We'd better get going," Isis said, almost apologetically. "We've got to cover another nine miles."

  "Yeah" I yawned and stretched, and rose to my feet, feeling the persistent creak of hiker hobble settling into my joints. I had been sitting still for too long. "Wait a sec, though. There's something I want to do before we go" I went back into the shelter, and Isis followed. "I bet this place has great acoustics" In the echoing stone interior, we sang our favorite Christmas songs.

  Our Christmas day ended as it had begun, under the stars. Darkness overtook us on the trail several miles short of the shelter. By the pale light of our headlamps, we followed the blazes over a few more small, bumpy ridges and up into the rhododendron thickets of Knot Maul Branch. With snow covering the branches and sticking to the tree trunks, it was much harder to find our way after dark-white blazes blended into the white background. The steady line of footsteps that had led us over the ridges continued, though, all the way to the shelter.

  The spring was frozen over, lost under deep drifts. I gathered extra wood for the stove, and Isis melted snow for dinner and the next day's water while I read the register aloud for entertainment. I was gratified to find out that Lash and Black Forest, though now almost a week ahead of us, had done exactly the same mileage on the day they arrived here.

  71e Deatluuarcli to Sprinter continues, Black Forest had written in his slanted, almost illegible hand. Our heroes are almost frozen. They are brokenhearted of missint the company of barefoot ii'oim'n, yet they continue. Isis and jackrabbit-you hare my heart. If you will catch up I ii'ill ,tire you my liner also.

  Isis laughed. "Those boys►"

  "The Deathmarch to Springer seems to be going better than the Maryland Challenge," I said. I remembered the day we'd found them at Tumbling Run Shelter, still in their sleeping bags, on the morning after their Half-gallon Challenge. I wished for an instant that we would find them again, lying in a shelter somewhere, waiting for us. Theyre a ii'eek ahead non', I told myself, and put the thought out of my mind. I decided to focus on Tuba Man instead. It's probably better in the long run to hope for the unattainable than the unlikely If f knou' from the betimiint that it's impossible, I t'ou't be disappointed.

  The next day's hike was exasperating. Instead of following the ridge tops, as the trail had almost all the way through Virginia, it crossed a series of low ridges that reminded me of the Roller Coaster south of Bear's I )en Hostel. I lost count of the ups and downs fairly quickly. The most annoying thing, though, was that we seemed to climb straight up the back of every lump, without a switchback in sight, while the downhills were gradual and winding. The deep snow had drifted overnight, obscuring the line of footsteps we had followed.

  Although today was a short day-only fourteen miles, compared to yesterday's nineteen-it seemed to take longer. Shadows were already collecting in the hollows when we stopped for an afternoon snack at the Davis Path Shelter, two and a half miles from the road into Atkins.

  "Is it just me, or was that trail route gratuitously lumpy?" Isis asked as she threw down her pack.

  "It's better than saying we're getting soft."

  She lobbed a snowball in my direction. Who says we're getting soft? We're still on the Trail, aren't we

  I dropped my pack and thumbed through the register. "Hey, Tuba Man signed in here!" He didn't always leave messages in the registers; when he did, it seemed like a small gift. I immediately recognized his sprawling, untidy handwriting, decorated with smiley faces. "Listen to this, Isis! `Hey, what's with this trail? The last twelve miles of this felt like twenty-five in Pennsylvania .. ' Even Tuba Man had a hard time here. I guess I don't feel so bad."

  Isis laughed. "You and your Tuba fixation. It's going to get you into trouble one of these days."

  Evening shadows filled the valley by the time we reached the road into Atkins. Cars sped past, spattering us with road grime and slush, their headlights blindingly bright. I didn't mind too much; soon we would be in a warns hotel room. We'd take showers, order pizza. Maybe the Crocodile Hunter would be on. In the morning, we'd hitch to the market for our resupply and start the whole crazy cycle again. I decided not to think about the following week. I would just focus on tonight: Warm room. Pizza. Shower.

  We checked in at the motel lobby, where the scent of potpourri was thick and cloying in the air. I'm sure our own scent was just as thick, but in the time we had spent on the Trail-more than six months now-I had ceased to notice the hiker funk we exuded. As the desk clerk handed the key to Isis, I heard a wild shriek of excitement behind us. Several half-size, fleece-clad figures were rushing across the room.

  "Isis! Jackrabbit!"

  "Hope! Joy! John! Joel!" We knelt down to hug them, and soon we were buried in a pile of children. They all looked healthy and strong, and taller than I remembered. "How are you guys? We never thought we'd catch up with you!"

  Joy stuck out her chin and grinned proudly. "We're doing really good. We hiked all the way from Knot Maul yesterday-"

  "And today we're takin' a zero day with our friend Dachs," Hope said, her green eyes bright. "Oh, I'm so glad you guys came!"

  "Dachs is a trail angel," John said with the seriousness I remembered. Then he jumped in the air and twirled around, shouting, "Isis and jackrabbit are back! Isis and jackrabbit are back!"

  "Isis and jackrabbit?" came a soft voice from the doorway. I glanced up. Mary looked like a ghost of her former self. She'd been skinny in Pennsylvania; now she was positively skeletal. The blue veins in her face and hands stood out under the pale skin.

  "Mary! Are you okay?" Isis asked her.

  "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Around Harpers Ferry I felt a little weak 'cause I'd lost some weight, but we've been going slowly ever since then. I'm feeling much better." Her smile was as charming and frank as I remembered.

  If she was feeling better now, I hated to think what she had looked like at her worst. "I'ni so glad we caught up with you guys!" I said, smiling back.

  "Me, too. I missed you"

  We heard tiny footsteps pattering down the hall. "Mommy, Back-a-wabhit? Isis?" Faith toddled up to us. "Isis! Isis! Gack-a-wabbit!" She made a chant out of our names and danced in time to it.

  "Look who else missed you," Mary leaned down and picked up her youngest daughter.

  "She's getting so big!" I said. "And walking around, too. The last time we saw you guys, she was just a baby."

  Mary gave a wan smile. "A lot can happen in two months"

  She invited us back to the Family's room. Barely a square inch of the brown carpet showed between the heaps of scattered clothing, equipment, and food. The beds, too, were stacked high with packs and gear.

  Paul nodded as we came in. "Good to see you two again. I was wondering when you'd catch up." He looked thinner, too, his cheeks hollow and the wiry m
uscles like cords under his tanned skin. His dark eyes had the same forceful gaze that had struck me when we first met. His smile, though, was genuine and fill of warmth.

  "It's great to see you," I said.

  We made plans to stay together for the next week. In the snow, the Family was hiking eight or ten miles a day, about half the mileage that Isis and I had been doing. I was ready to slow down for a while, though. We had little chance of catching Lash and Black Forest. There was no longer any point in hiking fast to stay ahead of winter-the winter had caught up with us long ago. We stayed up late that night, laughing and singing and telling stories with the children. It was wonderful to be part of a group again.

  After a filling breakfast at the hotel restaurant in the morning, Isis and I met the trail angel I )achs. He was a thin man with graying short hair and a contemplative manner. We gladly accepted his offer of a ride to the grocery store.

  "So you've been helping the Family out?" I asked as we sped down the road. White fields and gray forests whizzed past.

  "They've helped me, too," I)achs answered. "I net them for the first time when I was section hiking up in Vermont. I spent the night with them at a shelter, and I just thought, this is what a family is supposed to be. They all get along, they're kind to each other, they work together. I thought, if I could be like that with my kids ... At that point, my eldest son hadn't spoken to me for two years. Seeing the Family from the North, I realized what I was missing. I called hint up that night. I wouldn't say we're exactly best friends now, but he talks to me. Last week he actually called me... It was this family that set it all in motion. I've bought them some gear, and food, but compared to what they've given me, it's nothing." He was quiet for a moment. The snowy Virginia landscape rolled by outside the window, bare trees and empty fields, houses and hedgerows.