We finished our lunch quickly and laced our boots up. Three miles an hour with full packs was doubtful; barefoot with full packs, it would be almost impossible. I had seen the altitude profile for the next section, and I tried to forget the two steep thousand-foot climbs awaiting us on Tray Mountain and Rocky Mountain.
Dripping with sweat, we came to the trailhead parking lot just a few minutes after five. The sun had sunk below the ridges already, leaving the gap in shadow. A large white van was parked at the edge of the lot. Peeling letters on its side spelled out Hian'a+see Inn.
The driver, a stocky man with dark hair and a mustache, got out and threw open the back doors. From inside the van, Tim, Lash, Spike, and Cave- nian called their greetings.
"I was about to leave without youse!" the driver said. He had a flat New Jersey accent, incongruous in this part of the South. "Come on, toss your packs in the back and get on board. One of youse is gonna have to sit in the hack here" He indicated a small space among the packs behind the back seat.
"Hey, no problem;" I said. "I may not be lightweight, but I'm packable." I climbed into the pile of gear, and he carefully shut the door. It was a tight fit; I hoped the latches would hold.
He jumped into the driver's seat and began a monologue that would last all the way to town. His voice carried over the sound of the engine. "I'm glad youse are staying with us. I'm the manager at the Hiawassee Inn, and I'm happy to say, it's a high-class establishment, not like sonic other places I could mention in town ... Some motels, all that goes on there is funny business. You know, you see the same woman come in with five different nien in a week's time, that's funny business. I don't want none of that in illy motel ... One time, there was this red-headed lady. She kept coming in, over the course of a few weeks, with three different fellows. I says to myself, 'there's some funny business going Oil.' So you know what I did? I threw her out of the motel. Permanently. Then you know what I did? I burned those sheets! I don't want no funny business here. If I get so much as a hint of hinny business, I tell you, I burn those sheets! ... But leinme tell youse about some of the hikers we've had here. There was a young lady come in here not two weeks ago, with two fellows. One of 'em was old enough to be her grandpa. I had to burn those sheets!"
He continued his tales of debauchery and sheet-burning until we reached the motel parking lot. Isis and I decided to share a room with Tim and Lash to save money. The manager looked askance at us, but said nothing. While we unloaded our packs from the van, the two Australian women came out of their room.
"Good evening," said the blond.
"Hi, how are you%" Isis said.
"Quite well, thanks.
"A little tired, but otherwise fine," the brunette added.
I waited for Tim and Lash to proffer a dinner invitation. When I glanced over at them, though, it was clear they were in no condition to do so. They were staring at the Australians as though hypnotized, their mouths hanging open, eyes glassy. I decided I would take matters into my own hands.
"We were gonna go to that Mexican place up the road for dinner," I said. "You guys want to conk?"
"Oh, no thank you," the blond woman said demurely. "We've already eaten."
Tim and Lash looked crushed.
"Won't you join us for cocktails, then?" I asked. "I hear they have great margaritas.' I had heard nothing about their drinks, one way or the other, but I was determined to have the Australians' company. Tim and Lash were had enough normally; now, with their libidos raging from this encounter with clean, unhikerly women, I knew they would be insufferable. Hoping Isis and I would not have to deal with their excess of male energy by ourselves, I crossed my fingers behind innv back.
"I suppose;' the blond woman said.
"Great. We've got to take showers and stuff. I guess we'll call you when we're ready to go."
"All right." The Australians gave us their room number and we parted ways.
Our room was cramped and Spartan, decorated with faded shades of pink and orange, but mostly clean. Isis called first dibs on the shower, and while she washed, Tim and Lash berated me for mishandling the situation.
"I )ude! Why did you ask them to dinner?"
"Well, it sure didn't look like you guys were about to" I sat down on the taded chenille bedspread. My legs were stiff and tired from the fast hiking.
"We would have," Tim said indignantly. "We were just-"
"Just standing there with your tongues hanging out, from what I saw. Didn't look like you could have strum two words together."
Lash fixed me with a severe look. "Dude. We were being suave."
"Yeah:" Tim attempted a glare. "That's it. Suave."
By the time we had all showered, it was dark outside. Isis called Spike and Caveman, who appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. Then she dialed the Australians. "Hi, this is Isis. We're ready to go now. Sorry it's taken so long ... what's that? ... really? ... oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, good luck with your hike ... Yeah, you too. Bye." She hung up the phone with a resigned expression. "They're not coming"
"What?" Tine said. His face fell.
"Yeah, they said it was getting late and they'd rather just go to bed."
"What did you say to them?" he demanded.
"You heard what I said to them"
"No, what did you really say? You must have been using some kind of female mind control beam" He imitated a computer voice. "Stay alvay.'These ►nen helou,t' to us."
"Mrowr!" Lash added.
Spike laughed. "Men are so weird. It's a wonder we ever get along with them:"
"You women are the weird ones," Lash said. "It's like a conspiracy. Using your mysterious wiles and powers to keep your competition away."
"Lashy-Lash," Isis said sweetly. "We don't waste our feminine wiles on other women. It's so much easier to control nuen. We just bombard you with our Female Power Rays until you stand there all moony-eyed with your jaws hanging open."
"I )ude," lie protested feebly. "We were heir suave"
The margaritas were excellent, actually, but so huge that I nursed one all evening long and still got slightly drunk. Lash ordered a Dos Equis, which came in a tankard fully the size of his head. He stared at it for a while, gave a shrug and a little smile, and drank the whole thing before the food arrived. He ordered another one as we wolfed down our tacos and plates of rice and soupy refried beans, and a third one shortly afterwards.
"Lash, are you sure that's a good idea?" Spike asked.
"In other stories we're following," Caveman said in his best newscaster voice, "an Appalachian Trail hiker exploded this evening from excessive beer consumption. Friends tried to prevent the man from ordering his third gallon."
Lash gave us an obstinate stare. "You guys're makin' fun of me. If the Australians were here, I bet they wouldn' make fun of me."
"Sure, Lash, drink away your sorrows," Tim said. He was the only one of us who hadn't ordered a drink, I noticed.
"Hey, I tried, man," I said. "They were just tired. Besides, they're nobos. You'd never see them again."
"Feminine mind control beams," Lash said, and stumbled off to the bathroom.
"You're not drinking tonight, Tim?" I asked.
"I don't really feel like it. I feel kind of ... subdued tonight, you know? Just how close the end of the Trail is. We're in freaking Georgia."
"And those lovely Australians turned you down," Isis said.
"One of life's great missed opportunities." Tim sighed theatrically. "But they were just nobos, after all. And I bet neither of them could've hiked five steps barefoot." Isis and I laughed, but Tim continued. "Seriously, I mean this. You guys have raised my standards. You're pretty, but you're also smart. And tough. I've never met a tougher pair of women. Here's to you" He raised his water glass.
"Thanks, Tim," Isis said. "That's really sweet."
"I want to make a toast to all of you guys," I said. "Southbounders" (Lash came back and sat down quietly.) "We've been through a hell of a winter together. There w
ere so many times when I was just ready to give up and pack it in, ride a Greyhound from the next town. Then I'd look around me and see all of you surviving. More than that. Being happy surviving. It takes a rare kind of person to do that. Some of you guys can be a pain in the ass sometimes-" Tim and Lash shrugged and made "who, me?" expressions, "-but one thing I know: I couldn't have done this without you. You guys all rock. I'm so glad to have met you, hiked with you. To the winter sobos of 20OO!" I raised my glass high.
"Hear, hear!" The rest of the table followed suit.
Only Lash still looked glum. "What about Heald, man? He hiked back north to see us, but he's stayin' in the woods tonight. Save money, he said. I feel bad for him. Gotta do something to make it up to him." He brightened. "I know. Gonna get him a fifth of bourbon. Pack it out tomorrow. Yeah" He drained the last of his tankard with an effort.
After the bill was settled, we left the restaurant and ran across the busy four-lane road to a supermarket ill the shopping plaza on the far side. Tile margarita was powerful; I felt the ground swaying underneath us. Isis and I picked up a loaf of French bread and a wedge of Brie to celebrate something-something that was very clear at the time, but would make little sense by morning light. Lash decided against bourbon-"Dude, it all comes in these glass bottles"-and instead, for reasons which made even less sense than our celebration, bought a five-liter box of blush wine.
Isis and I tried to talk him out of it. "Lash, do you know how much that u'eic,'lrs?"
"Got to make it up to Heald," he said doggedly, lugging the box to the cash register.
Back at the hotel, Lash took the silver wine hag out of its box and tried to fit it into his pack. No matter how he squashed it down, or how tightly he stuffed in the rest of his gear, it wouldn't quite fit. Finally, with a sigh, he lifted the bag of wine and took a long swig from the spigot.
Isis and I couldn't help laughing.
Lash slumped back in the threadbare armchair. "Isis. Jackrabbit. I wanna tell you somethin'." He raised his index finger as though lecturing and squinted at a point in midair. "You don' know how hard it is to, to hike with you. You're famous. Everybody knows the Barefoot Sisters. I wanna get some credit. I hiked this whole trail, too. But I meet these nobos. They say, `dude! You know the Barefoot Sisters?' They don' say, `dude? You're Lash?' They don' even ask about my hike. You don' know how hard it is!"
"I'm sorry," Isis said, though I could tell she was trying not to laugh. He did cut a somewhat ridiculous figure, slouching in an old pink armchair, wagging his finger at us, with the stripe shaved out of the middle of his beard. "But its not our fault, really."
"We didn't ever want to be famous," I said. "It's no picnic for us, either"
Lash looked skeptical. "You don' know how hard it is."
"Seriously, Lash," I said. "You ever think about what its like to have people come up and ask if they can poke your feet? Have you ever lost count of the number of people that said to you, in one day's time, `you must be crazy'? 1)o you think we like being treated like freaks of nature, just because we enjoy hiking a little differently than most people?"
He was still sulking. "I jus' wan' some credit!"
"Lash, you get credit from me," I said quietly. "You get credit for putting up with us all those miles. For hiking a freaking twenty-five to catch up with us before Grayson. Bringing us wine at N.O.C. Being a gentleman."
"Mostly," Isis interjected.
"You get credit for hiking the whole Trail so far, which is more than I can say I've done. And anybody who doesn't give you credit-well, just send 'em my way and I'll set 'em straight." I cradled my right fist in my left palm.
Lash grinned. "Yeah. Tha's more like it " In a few minutes, he was snoring softly. Tim helped us lift him out of the chair and onto the bed.
The morning looked all too bright. I squinted against the glare in the parking lot, trying to clear the muzziness from my brain. I could only imagine how Lash was feeling. He was on his feet, though, and he and Tim, ever hopeful, scanned the parking lot and the row of curtained windows for signs of the Australians.
The hotel manager helped us load our packs into the van in the morning, energetically tossing the stinking bundles into the back. "There you go! Hup! One more!" He brushed off his hands on his jeans.
"Did those two northbound girls take off?" Tim asked.
"What, the ones with the funny accent? Yeah, I took 'em up to the gap first thing this morning"
Tim and Lash looked crestfallen. Lacking a better target, they turned their attention to Isis and me.
"That was some night, ladies," Tim smirked.
"Ooh, baby," Lash said. He turned to the hotel manager. "Guess you'll be burning those sheets"
The man laughed and shook his head. "Naw, those sheets are fine. I went by there twice last night to check. Didn't hear a thing"
Isis
e hiked out late under a gloomy sky. The forest, so recently released from ice, seemed drained of color. All of the views were the same: lifeless ridges that resembled creased piles of dryer lint. I could feel jackrabbit's spirits sink as the clouds darkened. Her shoulders hunched, and she walked with a quick, clipped stride that was almost a limp. When three hours had passed and the rain hadn't started, we sat down in the tangled branches of an enormous fallen tree and got out our lunch: the French bread and Brie. Jackrabbit, somewhat cheered by the prospect of good food, smiled and said, "All we need is the wine!" Just then, Lash walked up. We hadn't even realized he was behind us.
"You've gotta help me," he groaned, throwing down his top-heavy pack and pulling out the silver bladder of rose.
"I'd do anything for you, darling," laughed jackrabbit, holding out her tin camping cup.
She drank a few cupfuls and put on her shoes-by then, we knew that walking barefoot under the influence of anything, be it boxed wine or ibuprofen or the emergency aspirin one can get by chewing willow bark, was not worth the risk-and suddenly she was happy, whistling as she struggled up the gray Georgia hills with the sky threatening rain and the thick mud sticking to the soles of her sandals.
jackrabbit
s evening fell, we all assembled at Hogpen Gap-Spike and Caveman, .Lash, Tim, Isis, and 1. Dusk had begun to gather in the oak woods on either side of the path. Lash was visibly dragging; the added weight of the wine was getting to be too much for him. At the bottom of the gap, we crossed a deserted, winding mountain road and found a flat space of cleared ground with room for all of our tents and tarps. Nearby, a leaf-clotted marshy pool of water reflected the last light.
Heald and Annie came down the trail a few minutes later. "Don't like to camp so close to a road," Heald said by way of greeting.
"It's getting dark, man," Lash said. "And I haven't heard any traffic on that road. Hey, it's good to see you. I'm sorry we went to town without you and all."
"No problem. Me and Annie, we had a good time in the woods. Met some crazy northbounders. Jeez" He shook his head. "Some people, you just gotta wonder. Saw a couple of guys that must've been carrying eighty pounds apiece. One of 'em says to the other, `where are we?' and the other guy says, 'gee, lenune check.' Then he takes out one of them GPS things. Must've weighed a full pound. He starts reading off numbers. Finally he looks up, and he says, 'Far as I can tell, we're still in Georgia."'
We all laughed.
"That's a good one, dude," Lash said. "Hey, I got something for you." He reached into his pack and took out the wine hag. It was still mostly full.
Heald's eyes brightened. "Is that what I think it is? You packed that thing all the way out here for nle? Lash, you shouldn't've"
I filtered our drinking water from a slow-flowing spring at the edge of the marsh, where a fresh current welled up and made an oily turmoil on the surface in the failing light. As I moved aside a submerged oak leaf, clearing a space for the filter intake, a salamander moved ponderously out of the way. It was dark blue, patterned with tiny white points like stars. I moved another leaf and startled one of a different color-b
rownish red with a crosshatch pattern on its back. I took a closer look-a multitude of salamanders, large and small, swam between the leaves. The oak woods around me, which had seemed so dead when we arrived, looked suddenly full of secrets, full of hidden life waiting to emerge.
Spike and Caveman turned in early, retiring to their big dome tent. Lash and Tim set up their tarps, but returned to the bank where Isis, Heald, and I sat.
"We should make a fire," Isis said.
Heald shook his head. "Naw, too close to the road"
Instead, we sat around the candle lantern in the gathering dark, passing the bag of wine back and forth. Isis refused categorically-"it came out of a box!"-but the rest of us enjoyed it.
"Come on, Isis," Lash said. "This is the kind of wine my mother drinks. It's innocuous."
"Big word," Heald grunted.
"Yeah, well, that's what my mom says. Means it won't knock you out."
Heald chuckled. "Pass it over here, then" He took a long swig. "You know, Lash, I think you're much smarter than you want people to think you are."
In the thin candlelight, I couldn't see Lash's face. By the way he laughed, though, a little forced, it seemed that Heald had hit close to the mark. "If you keep people's standards low enough," he finally said, "you can always exceed their expectations."
Heald sat up, alert to some sound I hadn't yet detected. "Car coming," he said in a tense voice. "Cover the light."
Isis blew out the candle lantern. Now I heard the sound of the approaching motor, too, and saw the headlights coming over the crest of the hill.
"I never like to camp this close to a road in the South," Heald said in the sudden dark. "Out on the Trail, you can trust people. But you never know who's coming up the road. Joe Redneck and his buddies looking for somebody to blame for all the shit that's happened to 'em. I heard too many stories. Had a couple close calls myself, when I was too dumb to know better. Here, I figure we got strength in numbers. Just as good we didn't light a fire, though.
"Yeah," Tim said. "This country around here is where Deliverance was set. Wasn't it s'posed to he based on a true story?"
"Tina" Isis said in a warning tone. "It you freak me out again . .
Barefoot Sisters: Southbound Page 58
