Called Again

by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  “Dutch, what are you thinking about right now?” I demanded.

  In his subtle voice, he responded, “Oh, I was just thinking about what I would do differently if I were the one trying to set the record.”

  I laughed. This conversation was definitely going to take my mind off of my stomach.

  “So, what would you do differently?” I inquired.

  “Well, you like to eat protein in the morning. I would eat more carbohydrates like oatmeal and rice, and I would eat pasta during the day.”

  “What about doughnut holes and Gatorade?”

  “Ha. Yes, maybe if I were sick.”

  “What else? Tell me more!”

  “Well,” he said, “I think I would hike like you, not run. And I would want my girlfriend here to take care of me, like Brew is taking care of you. But she couldn’t do all the planning and logistics that Brew does, so I would need other friends to help with that. Maybe you could help with that?”

  “I’m in,” I replied. “So would you ever do it?”

  “Maybe on a shorter trail,” he said. “I don’t know that I would want to try for a record on something as long as this.”

  Although it seemed unlikely that my friend from the Netherlands would ever come back to the states and try for an A.T. record, in my mind, I couldn’t handpick a better candidate. And I meant what I had said; I would be the first to volunteer for his crew.

  After giving so much to this record attempt, it made me realize that I did have a preference for who I would like to go after record attempts in the future.

  HYOH is a common acronym on the trail. It stands for “Hike Your Own Hike,” and it is one of the most insincere statements that I’ve ever heard. Hikers use it the same way Southerners say “bless her heart.” It is just a gentle tagline at the end of an insult.

  When I heard the phrase “hike your own hike,” it was usually preceded by one of the following statements: “You should never hike with a dog,” “females shouldn’t hike alone,” “no one should carry more than thirty pounds in their pack,” “people with less than twenty pounds in their pack are crazy,” and my current favorite, “I don’t agree with record attempts.”

  I respected hikers who owned their opinions far more than those who finished their critique of my hike with a fake peace offering.

  Forget HYOH. I now had a clear vision of the type of person I wanted to attempt records in the future. Ideally, it would be someone who had completed the A.T. before trying to set a record on it. I would also want someone like Dutch, who was extremely humble. He or she needed to respect the people who set records in the past. But most of all, I just wanted it to be someone who really loved the Appalachian Trail. I would hate it if the record was just something for someone to check off a list.

  I was going after the record in a very different manner than Andrew did in 2005. I wasn’t running nearly as much as Horton had when he set the mark in 1991, and I certainly wasn’t as numbers-focused as Warren had been when he established the record in the seventies. But I knew these three record holders, and I knew that they loved the trail. They were devoted to it before their record attempts, and they kept a relationship with it after they finished.

  Warren had hiked the trail over sixteen times and was actively working on number seventeen. Horton had done trail maintenance on the A.T. for over twenty years, and Andrew moved to a house in New Hampshire that backed up to the White Mountains. Critics who mistakenly believe that a record holder cannot really appreciate their time or experience on the trail have obviously never crossed paths with these men.

  Another personality trait that stood out about these three previous record holders was that they had all been supportive of my endeavor. Warren had agreed to help us for twelve days at the start of our journey, and he wanted me to succeed so badly that when I was injured and sick, I felt like I was letting him down.

  Andrew, on the other hand, had clearly stated that he did not want me to break his record. But at the same time, he had provided us with his daily mileage and blog, offered to come and hike with us in New Hampshire (even though he was out of town when we passed through), and called Brew three or four times to check on our progress. Sure, he wasn’t sitting at home cheering me on, but he wasn’t standing in my way, either.

  Then there was Horton. No one was more vocal about his love of the A.T.—in fact, no one was more vocal, period—than David Horton. That is why it was somewhat surprising to come to the next road crossing and find him so subdued.

  “Hey, Horty, whatcha up to?” I asked.

  “Not much,” he replied. “I got some more doughnut holes here if you want some.”

  “Thanks!” I took the doughnut holes, offered some to Dutch, then began popping them in my mouth one by one.

  “I’m going to take a break for the next few hours,” Horton informed me. “Brew went to get some groceries and do laundry, but he’ll meet you at the next few road crossings. And you have Dutch with you, so you’ll be fine.”

  I looked at Dutch and winked. “Yep, me and long-legs over here. We’ll be fine unless he hikes me into the ground.”

  “Well, you should try to run a little, then maybe you could keep up,” suggested Horton.

  “Uh-uh,” I said with my mouth full of glazed pastries. “Don’t need to run. Don’t want to run.”

  “Well, you are lucky to have so much help,” Horton continued. “I never had anyone like Dutch helping me and carrying my day-pack when I set the record.”

  “I know,” I said. “But we pay him well.” I extended another doughnut hole to my hiking partner as he laughed and accepted the offering. Then we headed back into the woods together.

  A few hours later, Dutch and I came out at a road crossing and met Brew. He had picked up blackberry milkshakes for the two of us, and also stopped at the drugstore to buy some antinausea medicine.

  I sat down in my camp chair and started working on my milkshake.

  “Brew, do you think Horton is acting weird?”

  “What do you mean?” Brew replied. “Horton always acts weird.”

  “Well, in 2008, he kept saying things to me like, ‘You’re doing it, girl!’ and ‘This is really special!’ And this summer he hasn’t said anything like that.”

  “Well, in 2008 you weren’t three days ahead of his old record.”

  “Yeah, but he always said before this summer that he thought I could set the overall record and that he wanted to help.”

  “He does want to help,” Brew confirmed. “But he wants to be on the trail with you, and he can’t keep up because he’s tired and his knee hurts. He also wants you to run, and you’re not running. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t want to help; the problem is he feels like he can’t.”

  “Well, his doughnut holes are helpful.”

  Brew smiled. “Don’t worry about Horton. His heart is in the right place. I know he would do anything in his power to help you.”

  The next day, our second in Shenandoah National Park, Horton proved his devotion.

  I woke up feeling nauseous for the fifth straight morning, but this time it was even more overwhelming, and it was difficult to breathe. At five a.m., I took a few steps to the exact spot where I had stopped hiking the night before, then I turned around to look at Brew.

  Instead of walking forward, I hiked backward toward him. For the first time since Vermont, I decided that I couldn’t start hiking at five a.m. I felt absolutely horrible. All I wanted to do—all I was able to do—was sit down with my head between my legs. I tried to take deep breaths for several minutes, but they sounded labored, as if I had asthma. Brew stroked my back.

  “Honey, do you want to lie down? Or what about putting your hands over your head? Or maybe you should drink something. Would that help?”

  Brew was at a loss. And so was I. It felt like there was a cinder block on my chest. I knew that in that moment I couldn’t hike. I laid down beside Brew and put both hands on my forehead. My breathing gradually became less labo
red, and as it did, my eyelids grew heavy. I dozed for the next hour or so, and then when I felt like I couldn’t afford to rest any longer, I looked at Brew and said, “I need to get up.”

  He helped me to a sitting position and I felt okay. Then he took my hands and pulled me to my feet. At that point I felt really sick, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to rest any longer.

  Brew grabbed my gear, and together we went back to the same trailhead where I’d turned around an hour ago.

  I looked back at my husband one more time.

  “Do you need anything special?” he asked. “Can I get you some more medicine? What about doughnut holes?”

  I hesitated. “I think what you should get me is a pregnancy test.” And with that, I turned around and trudged off into the woods.

  I didn’t really think I was pregnant. I mean, I had taken the typical precautions to ensure that I wouldn’t be. But I had never felt such severe nausea and exhaustion in my life. For the past three days, I had been contemplating whether or not birth control was still effective on a person who was hiking fifty miles and eating 6,000 calories per day. I highly doubted that the pharmaceutical company had run that research study.

  I had always wanted to be a mom, but I was not ready to be pregnant!

  I knew that if I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive, I would have to end my hike. Even though my ob-gyn was extremely progressive, I didn’t think anyone would tell me that I could keep trudging so many miles per day if I was pregnant. Just like the non-existent birth control study, I was equally sure that there was not a test group for pregnant women hiking repeated fifty-mile days.

  I had overcome so much, dealt was such adversity. It was strange and bittersweet to think that my hike could actually come to a halt because of something positive. I wanted to keep hiking, I wanted to do my best and finish the trail in less than forty-seven days. But in the grand scheme of things, if I had to pick between being a record holder and being a mother, then hands down, I wanted babies. I was convinced that being a mom was better and probably harder than any record, but I also hoped that starting a family could wait just a little bit longer.

  I did the math. I had been on the trail for four weeks without having my monthly cycle, and I began to think of times that Brew and I had been intimate since leaving Katahdin. Thankfully, that wasn’t too hard to keep track of.

  In 2008, Brew and I began our hike twelve days after we were married. Thus, we “celebrated” our newlywed status nearly every night. When calculating all the ways I was going to add mileage this summer, I decided that foregoing sex would equal at least one extra mile per day. A half mile’s worth of time plus a half mile’s worth of energy equals one mile. It was all very scientific.

  However, there were times on the trip where I needed the physical connection with Brew because it provided added emotional strength. For his part, Brew always claimed that it was probably one of the best ways I could stretch. “Think of it as multi-tasking,” he would say. So yes, based on a few nights of stretching, it was not probable that I was knocked up, but it was possible.

  The silver lining of needing to take a pregnancy test was that Brew was not the one who bought it. That honor had been bestowed upon Horton.

  He and Dutch had stayed at a hotel in town, and Brew called and asked him to pick up the test on his way to the trail. I could just see our extremely conservative, self-aware, sixty-two-year-old friend walking into a drugstore to buy a pregnancy test. Man, what I wouldn’t pay to get my hands on the surveillance video at that CVS! The mental image itself was priceless, and it helped take my mind off the potential life-altering implications. Brew was right; Horton would do just about anything to help us out.

  The other piece of encouragement that kept my mind off the miles—and the possibility of having to quit—was that during my first two hours of hiking, I had seen seven bears. I often referred to the Shenandoah National Park as the Shenandoah Petting Zoo. Deer graze inside the campgrounds, turkeys parade down the asphalt roads, and you have a better chance of spotting a bear in there than almost anywhere else on the trail. But seven bears before breakfast was unheard of!

  Brew, Horton, and Dutch met me at Big Meadows Campground. They handed me a hot breakfast from the nearby lodge, and Horton handed me a brown bag.

  I ate only a few bites of food, but this time it was due more to nerves than to nausea. Then I stood up and put the brown bag in my daypack.

  “Do you want me to hike with you?” asked Dutch.

  I smiled and replied, “I think I’d better do this section on my own.” Then I leaned over and gave Brew a peck on the cheek.

  “I’ll see you in a few miles,” I said.

  For my husband, I am sure those were the longest miles of the entire trail. We hadn’t had the opportunity to talk about it, and based on the look of uncertainty that crossed his face, I couldn’t tell if he was excited, upset, or simply amused.

  After leaving my crew, I hiked a little farther and then stepped into the woods to unwrap the pee stick. After doing my part to activate the test strip, I stood there hypnotized by the hourglass that kept flashing on the screen. My heart was racing. What was taking so long? Did Horton buy a faulty test? I could have been another quarter mile down the trail by now! But what would that even matter if I had to stop at the next road?

  I decided to keep hiking with the test in my hand so I didn’t waste any more time. Every day of this record attempt, I had wished for a valiant excuse to end the hike and stop the pain. Yet every day, I also prayed that nothing would force me to quit. Now my entire fate rested on a urine-saturated device that was clutched in the same hand as my hiking pole.

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, two words popped up: “Not Pregnant.”

  YES! Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. I had never felt so relieved.

  I pumped my fist and my hiking stick in the air. But as my arm came down, I also began to feel a little bit—just ever so slightly, kind of, sort of—disappointed. I didn’t want to be pregnant right then, but I decided that I would not be upset if that was the last negative pregnancy test I ever took.

  At the next road crossing, I was surprised that Brew and Horton also seemed to respond to the test results with mixed emotions.

  “Did you really think you were pregnant?” asked Horton.

  “Well, I have never felt this nauseous, tired, and weak in my entire life. So yeah, I thought it was a possibility.”

  “Well, I’m glad that we don’t have to quit the record attempt,” said Brew, with a somewhat sullen look on his face. “You had better keep going. You have to make up for lost time this morning.”

  I looked straight at my husband. I heard what he was saying with his lips, but I also saw what he was communicating with his eyes. We both had a bad habit of planning our next adventure before we finished the one we were on. And after this morning, it was becoming very clear what that next adventure would be.

  Dutch seemed to be the only person on our crew who was completely, one hundred percent happy that the test results were negative.

  “Does this mean we can hike now?” he asked enthusiastically.

  That afternoon, he and I waded through another thunderstorm, and that night I followed the back of his shoes with my headlamp until we arrived at our campsite. We had seen another seven bears since that morning. Fourteen bears in one day—now, that’s a record!

  When I made it to the first road south of Shenandoah National Park, Brew congratulated me with some more positive numbers.

  “Guess how many miles you hiked last week?” he insisted.

  “I don’t know. A lot.”

  “Over three hundred fifty!” I liked positive numbers, but Brew loved them. “That’s greater than the driving distance between Asheville and Nashville (a trip we made frequently to visit Brew’s parents). And you did it on foot!”

  “Well, I had a lot of help,” I responded. I put my hand on Brew’s knee as a sign of appreciation.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, about that . . .” Brew’s voice trailed off along with his excitement.

  “What about that?” I demanded as my soft grip now started to squeeze his thigh.

  “It’s just that, you know Dutch is leaving in a day and a half, right?”

  “Yeah, we’ve known that since Pennsylvania.”

  “Well, Horton is going to take him to the bus station and then he’s going home, too.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “Horton’s supposed to be here until the end of the trail! Why is he leaving?”

  “You know why he’s leaving,” countered Brew. “He’s not helping us on his terms, and we are going after this record on our terms. He’s tired and hurt, and he needs to go home to be with his family.”

  “But we’re supposed to be his family right now.”

  “It’ll be okay. I’ll find other people to come help us.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, and I swallowed hard to keep it down. “Well, I don’t want to talk to him about it,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Brew.

  I wanted Horton to be where he wanted to be, and in my core I knew that he needed to be at home with his family. But it was still a broken promise, and it still hurt. I let go of Brew’s leg and wiped a tear from my eye.

  “It is really helping me to have him here. If he tells me he’s leaving, I am going to cry, and I don’t have the strength right now to deal with that.”

  “Okay,” agreed Brew. “I’ll let him know.” Then he gently ran his fingers through my hair. I reached for his other hand and placed it against my cheek. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll be here until the end. I promise.”

  The disappointment I felt when I found out Horton was leaving did not negate the fact that he had been a helpful part of our team for five full days. I was thankful for every moment that he’d spent with us. And then there was Dutch. He had helped for ten days now, and he had hiked roughly two-hundred-fifty miles with me. He’d become a fantastic hiking partner and friend.