Wild Within (Wild at Heart #1)

by Christine Hartmann

  She presented Grace with a stack of pancakes. Grace sniffed the steam, reminded of home.

  “I don’t know if that applies in this situation.” Grace positioned knife and fork to slice into the heap. “I mean, the trail’s not like a bike. More like a living thing. Like if you get bitten by a dog. You don’t run back and try to pet it again, do you? Maybe the trail bit me. So maybe I shouldn’t keep going. Maybe I should hitch a ride to the next resupply stop and get my bearings before I continue.”

  The older woman put her hands on her hips. “Or get to the next resupply stop and catch Lone Star?”

  “I don’t usually act like a stalker. But I don’t even know his real name. What if something happens and I can’t find him again?”

  “Look, dear, if that’s what you want to do, you should do it.” She shrugged and turned back to the stove. “Go find Lone Star. But I thought he promised to keep in touch.”

  “He did.”

  “Well, you and he can’t hike together anyway. So what’s the point of rushing up the trail to see him again for an hour, when he’s going to leave you behind again? If you ask me…” She stopped and occupied herself with peeling an orange. “I’m sorry. I’m handing out unasked for advice. You didn’t ask me, did you? Ralph always says I put my nose in where it doesn’t belong.” She handed Grace fruit sections on a paper plate.

  “Go right ahead.” Grace put down her utensils and waited.

  “Well, you were talking about a dog. I think if a dog bites you, maybe you had bad luck. Maybe you aren’t experienced with dogs. So get out there and meet a few more. Play with them. Before you know it, you’ll have a dog as your best friend.” She refilled Grace’s coffee cup. “If you let someone else do all the interacting, you’ll never get the hang of it yourself.”

  So the trail’s a dog? Grace thought later as she sat in the park ranger station, poring over the contents of the hiker box. And I should go out and make nice with it?

  The black plastic bin in front of her contained an assortment of hikers’ discarded clothing, food, and equipment. The sign above it indicated anyone was free to sift through what others had left. She held up a partnerless dirty sock.

  Yech.

  She rummaged more.

  Strange thing is, as bad as yesterday was, it was also amazing.

  She sorted through thick winter gloves, insect repellant, and heavy items of every description. A bottle of hand lotion. A Bowie knife. A small battery-operated radio. A couple of mystery novels. She even found two dozen chocolate chip power bars melted into outlandish shapes.

  Grace’s own contributions included batteries, deodorant, rice cakes, and the two-pound bear-proof canister the park ranger insisted she wouldn’t need until the Sierra Mountains. She also abandoned over half her food.

  My first resupply box is waiting at the Mount Laguna store, only a day long day of hiking up the trail.

  When she lifted her pack to leave the station, a chuckle escaped her lips. She turned to the ranger standing behind the counter. “This weighs a lot less.”

  The uniformed man nodded encouragingly. “You’re gonna be happy you did that. Take care of the ounces, and the pounds will take care of themselves.”

  Grace gave him a wry smile. “I learned my lesson yesterday. From now on, I’m making as much room as possible for water.”

  “Wait.” The ranger raised a hand. “You’re the woman who came in with heat exhaustion?”

  “Word travels fast. I’m afraid I am.”

  “Then I’ve got something for you. Hold on.” The man disappeared into a back room and emerged a minute later holding a green plastic water bottle stamped ‘San Diego County Parks and Recreation.’ “It’s not new, but I washed it out.” He wiped the outside with a paper towel. “It’s to remind you how lucky you were.” He handed it to Grace. Grace hesitated. “Go ahead. I can get another back at the main office any day.”

  “Thanks. It’ll be my good luck charm.”

  “Everybody needs a little extra help now and then. In less than two weeks, the park’s hosting the annual kick off party for the PCT hiking season. After that, there’ll be more people on the trail. You won’t be so isolated.” He scratched his chin. “I worry about you novices, coming from all over the world to hike in one of the most inhospitable places this country has to offer. I had a guy from Finland early last summer. He’d never been in temperatures above eighty before. He didn’t take enough water either. Had to be medivaced out. Almost didn’t make it.” His eyebrows drew together. “You take care, okay?”

  “I promise I won’t make any headlines.”

  Grace stood outside the ranger station, looking at the water bottle.

  Here in the park, it’s easy to forget I’m in a desert. Cabins, bathrooms, and showers. A playground and a boat launch. Motor homes with water and electricity hookups. But I know what it’s really like out there.

  She added an extra gallon of water to her pack before she set out the following morning. The elderly couple and their Chihuahua walked her to the end of the road. The woman wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper that she slipped to Grace.

  “We live in Palm Springs, dear. Got a small house with a guest room and a pool. You’re always welcome. And if you get into any kind of trouble, call us, day or night. We’re usually up past midnight playing cards anyway.”

  Grace’s stride leaving the park was almost as light as it had been at the Mexican border.

  I thought this hike was going to be boring. Instead, I spend years looking for that special someone in bars and online, and we find each other under a tree in the middle of nowhere.Now all I have to do is not fall too far behind.

  At nine in the morning, she stopped at the Boulder Oaks Campground for a snack in the shade. She removed her shoes and socks and tiptoed to the bathroom to rinse her burning feet, lifting one at a time into the sink.

  Okay, Lone Star. Now I see what you were doing. Distracting me from the pounding my feet are taking. Rolling hills and never-ending chaparral seemed a lot more interesting when I was talking with you.

  She replaced her footwear and returned to the trail.

  Did Kenji know what hiking in the desert’s like? She trudged through the dust. Pitiless sun, scorching heat, and interminable monotony? And, to be fair, vistas in twenty shades of brown. Green, six-inch lizards basking on rocks. Cacti shadows that flicker at dusk. Okay, it’s not so bad.

  She tripped in a mouse hole and stumbled into bushes, scraping her arms and legs.

  Or maybe it is. What did he think he was going to get out of this? And what the heck goes through Lone Star’s mind as he’s walking out here?

  She saw a large footprint in the path. Her heart fluttered.

  Is he slowing down so I can catch up to him?

  She sped up. After hours of hard, persistent, and solitary climbing, Grace spent the night at a campground a few miles short of her first resupply stop.

  My soles feel like I’ve been walking on hot coals. I’m sure Lone Star’s long gone already. And that Mount Laguna store is probably closed. Don’t want to make a wasted trip.

  After pitching her tent and cooking her first trail dinner, she shone her headlamp on her feet. Several enormous, festering blisters stared accusingly at her.

  Wow. I’ve gotten blisters with a new pair of pumps, but these are larger than a Texas hippo’s backside, or whatever Lone Star would say. I’ll wear my camp shoes tonight. Maybe they’ll disappear.

  They didn’t.

  Grace hobbled onto the porch of the Mount Laguna store before eight the next morning. Four bearded, smelly hikers greeted her with high fives. The contents of their backpacks plastered the ragged wooden floorboards. The twenty-somethings pawed through the contents of the hiker box.

  “We’re looking for anything we can yogi.”

  Yogi?

  “How did I miss you guys on the trail yesterday?” Grace pushed aside a pack to sit on the edge of the porch.

  “We hiked straight thr
ough from Lake Morena. Must have leapfrogged your tent.” A freckled teenager winked at her. “We got here right at closing and stayed in that cabin over there. Too bad you weren’t here to join us for the vodka shots.” He patted an empty bottle next to him.

  I remember their type from college. Fun-loving, but not reliable. Still, I could use some advice.

  Keen faces crowded around her dangling feet. Fingers examined and prodded the blisters. Different people offered solutions.

  The consensus was that while blisters were serious business out on the trail, Grace was in luck. Hers hadn’t broken open and bled. But judgments divided about the best treatment. To pop or not to pop. To build a small wall of foam around each one, or to cover the entire surface with foam. To hold bandages in place using duct tape or surgical tape. Grace held her head in her hands.

  “Who knew blister care was as controversial as fracking?”

  A gravelly voice interrupted the heated debate. “Hope you don’t mind my butting in. But I think you need to give your feet a rest. I suggest you get a cabin for tonight, one with a bathtub. Soak your feet. Then take another look in the morning. Don’t use duct tape if you can avoid it. Thrus love it, but the adhesive is nasty stuff.”

  The voice had a distinctly Midwestern ring to it. Grace looked behind her, expecting to see a grizzled farmer in overalls with a corncob pipe jutting from his mouth. An athletic, handsome man of about sixty in tan hiking pants and a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt returned her glance. Blue gaiters with white stars protected his shoes. He smiled benevolently and swung a day pack across his back.

  “Good luck.” He jerked his chin, saluting Grace. “Next time, stop as soon as you feel any kind of pain. Treat anything that could become a blister like it is a blister, and you’ll be in better shape.” To the guys congregated on the porch he waved a hand. “See you soon. I’m sure you’ll leapfrog me in no time.”

  “Who was that?” Grace stared after him.

  The young men answered in unison. “Eagle.”

  “Used to be a banker. Now he’s a trail angel.” The freckled youth smiled at her.

  “Do you have to talk in code? I can’t understand half of what you’re saying.”

  “A trail angel is someone who helps thrus.” The young man edged closer as his companions returned to examining the hiker box. “You know, thru-hikers. Like you. Someone hiking through from Mexico to Canada. Trail angels pick them up at the airport and take them out to the trailhead and stuff. Some let you sleep at their house.”

  “I met a couple like that at Lake Morena. This guy does it too? He volunteers? Or is it some kind of National Park Service job?”

  “He does it for free, of course. If he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, he wouldn’t be an angel.” The youth tapped his heart, then let his hand fall lightly on Grace’s shoulder, as if by accident.

  “Right.” Grace ignored his touch and looked around the porch. “So are all of you…thrus?”

  “Naw, we’re section hikers. Doing a piece of the trail on a long weekend. We’re in school. We do this during breaks.” He’s grin widened as he hesitatingly stroked Grace’s back. “It’s too bad you weren’t here with us last night.”

  This guy has no idea I’m almost old enough to be his mother.

  Grace hopped off the porch. “Be careful what you wish for.” She entered the store.

  Later, in her one-room cabin, she soaked her feet in the bathtub.

  How am I going to get to Canada at the rate I’m going? One day on and one day off? I can’t make this a habit.

  She thought back to Lone Star’s message in the hiker register at the store.

  Thinking of you a lot, Just Grace, and wishing our legs were walking this path side by side. You stay careful, bonita chica! I’ll write you a longer note next time. Tonight I’m too tuckered out. Sweet dreams.

  Grace wiped sudden beads of perspiration from her upper lip. She dunked her head under the water and came up laughing.

  The next morning, her blisters felt better. But her pack felt heavier. She scrolled through the maps on her phone.

  Next resupply stop’s almost seventy miles north. No more water running freely from a tap. Only a few water caches and streams. Also a few horse trough options. Hope I won’t have to use those.

  The PCT looped around and across bare, dome-shaped hills. Occasionally, hikers passed her. When she tried to keep up with them, she fell quickly behind.

  My legs aren’t only too short for Lone Star. They’re simply too short.

  Choir Master, a fiftyish section hiker, caught up to Grace early one morning on a long, barren stretch. The man’s round face, bulging stomach, and thick legs made an incongruous contrast to the skinny thrus Grace had gotten used to seeing. He paused a moment to catch his breath.

  “I’m on my way to completing the entire PCT in five years’ worth of long weekends.” His chest expanded and contracted at a concerning pace. “Saw your signature in the Laguna Store’s register. Wondered if I could catch up with you. I hate hiking alone. It’s so much more fun to have somebody to talk to.” Soft circles of flesh nearly obscured his eyes when he smiled. He reached out a spongy hand.

  Scents of summer grass and Choir Master’s sunblock mixed in the dry air. Grace took in the baggy shorts and sweat-stained shirt.

  He looks like someone who could use a friend. I wouldn’t mind some company for a change. It’s weird not having anyone to text or talk to.

  “Do you like singing? I always find it’s fun to sing.” He strode alongside her. Grace didn’t have time to respond before he launched into a high-pitched rendition of “The Happy Wanderer.” The warbling sounded familiar, but she didn’t recognize the lyrics.

  He’s singing in German.

  “Do you know it?” He stroked his triple chins as someone else might stroke a beard. “It’s such a wonderful hiking song. It works well as a round. I’ll teach it to you so we can sing together. Sometimes I sing it all afternoon. Right through supper time.”

  Oh, no.

  She shook her head. “I usually like listening to sounds of the trail. Birds and animals. It’s always so peaceful and quiet.”

  “I understand. Nothing like the sounds of nature to make you feel like singing. So how about ‘The Other Day I Met a Bear?’ That’s a real classic. Everyone knows that one. The other day…” He paused. “Come on now. You must know it.” He swung his fleshy arms from side to side in rhythm with the tune. “I sing, ‘The other day,’ and you repeat, ‘The other day.’ Then I sing, ‘I met a bear,’ and then you sing, ‘I met a bear.’ It’s easy.”

  Grace shrugged her shoulders and joined in, mumbling the words in a hushed soprano.

  So glad no one’s here to post this on Facebook.

  She trudged behind Choir Master in a wake of dust. The next song was “Doe a Deer” from The Sound of Music. Then loud performances of “This Land is Your Land” and “Cottage in a Wood,” the latter complete with intricate hand gestures. By the time Choir Master reached the fifth verse of “Rise and Shine” she was rehearsing tactful ways to tell him she would rather hike alone.

  She stopped for a bathroom break, urging him to go ahead without her. But he waited. She retied her shoes. He waited. She filtered water from a hopelessly shallow stream. He serenaded her with “Singing in the Rain” while her filter float bobbed in half an inch of water. She feigned a limp, and he offered his chubby shoulder as a support. No matter how slowly she hiked, saying she was holding him back, he stuck to her like a burr.

  “I’m beat.” She dropped her pack on a flat area near the trail at three in the afternoon. “I know you have to go on. You told me you have to finish this section by Monday.”

  Choir Master’s face reddened with the sting of rejection. Grace avoided looking at him. She pulled her tent out of her pack and expertly flipped the poles. The inner elastic cord sprung them together with a snap.

  He took a few steps, then turned around. “I’ll hike slowly and keep sin
ging, so you know where to find me if you change your mind.”

  I made the right decision.

  She lay for a long time on her mat, looking up through mosquito netting at the endless blue of the sky. The hushed sounds of the desert exhilarated her. Beetles skittered across pebbles. Unidentified birds settled on rocky outcroppings. Bees hummed, investigating her gear. She imagined Lone Star lying next to her. Then drifted off. When she awoke, she thought she saw an extra large pair of boots outside her tent flap.

  Shoot. They’re only rocks.

  Over the following week, the regular routine of walking, eating, and sleeping condensed her days to the essentials. The vast and severe landscape offered up intimate surprises, like a yellow flower thrusting its head between two rocks like a miniature sun, dew sparkling on her tent tie downs, and luminescent spider webs at dawn. A constant monologue heavily peppered with “Lone Star” kept her company.

  Grace left the trail fifteen miles from Idyllwild, her next resupply stop, and stuck out her thumb when she reached the road.

  I’ve never hitchhiked. But Lone Star’s note is waiting for me in the hiker register. Nothing short of Norman Bates is going to keep me from getting there.

  A white Chevy Camaro pulled to the side of the road almost immediately. Grace coughed and fanned at the dirt as she ran to the passenger side. A handsome square face beneath close-cropped hair leaned toward her through the window.

  “Where are you heading?”

  “Idyllwild.”

  “Then hop in the back, honey.” His face disappeared behind quickly rising grey tinted glass.

  Grace opened the rear passenger door a crack. “In the spirit of full disclosure, I haven’t showered for a week. I don’t want to get your car smelly. I’ll understand if you don’t want to give me a ride.”

  “Sweetie, you obviously haven’t thumbed before.” The driver, a lanky, greying man so tall that his head bowed slightly under the low roof, waved her toward the back seat. “You get in first and let the driver get going. Then you tell him anything that might make him change his mind. So don’t let all our AC mix with your hot desert air. Get in.”