by LK Hunsaker
Mount Good Take
a short story
LK Hunsaker
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events are of the author’s original creation or are used fictitiously. Resemblances to real people or events are coincidental.
Mount Good Take
LK Hunsaker
Less than halfway through his thirteenth ascent, Derek lost interest.
He moved to the side, propped his hiking boot on a low rock, and studied the newest group of amateur adventurers, pausing to see which would take the lead. Mount Good Take, in his mind named by some illiterate wanderer who had found treasure of one kind or another among the trees, afforded Derek with more than a few extra dollars on an occasional weekend. It had become his own. The few people who signed up for his guided climbing expedition became his for three days.
They depended on him; first, to fuel their self-esteem by assisting their trek up the untamed mountain wilderness, then, to return them to their still humdrum, but slightly enhanced, lives and jobs.
It wasn’t much to brag about. There was no real climbing involved. His elaborate description had created a mountain-climbing expedition from a simple hike up and down a large tree-covered rocky hill. Any real climber would chuckle. But to the area grocers, bankers, homemakers, and sales clerks, Derek Myers represented a touch of freedom.
In the beginning, he had reveled in their attention, in studying the inner psyches of the everyday people he wouldn’t normally remember meeting. This newest group had potential for being semi-interesting. He had already decided which would need his help and which had only hired a guide so as not to climb alone.
As Derek guessed, the burly butcher stepped up to the lead, throwing him a look of superiority, assuming their leader was tiring, Derek assumed. He wasn’t, but he had no interest in proving anything to the guy who cut up animals for a living. Not that he was a vegetarian, and Derek realized his own hypocrisy in eating meat and holding it against the butcher for preparing it, but something inside churned whenever he looked at those hands. The butcher, in return, snarled within his smiles when they turned toward him.
The teenaged twins, celebrating their eighteenth birthday with this journey “into manhood,” asked if they were to keep going. One of them asked. Derek knew their names but not which was which. They said they weren’t identical. Everyone in the climbing party raised eyebrows at that story. It could be true, Derek supposed. There could be something not apparent that differentiated them, other than a slight difference in the pitch of their voices and curvature of their eyebrows. But to him, they were close enough to identical that he only referred to them in his mind as the twins. He couldn’t even pick out a personality difference. That bothered him.
They threw similar sideways grins as he answered that they should, by all means, keep going.
The girl went by next, not looking over at him, but not snubbing him, either. She was young, and had come alone; a strange thing, Derek thought. He’d had other female participants, but never alone. And none so young. Her application stated she was nineteen. If she was truthful, then she was small for her age. Tiny. He worried about this one, though she seemed fit enough. He was also most interested in her reasons for joining the climb. She had merely stated, “because it’s there” and nothing more. He knew, though, that there was most definitely more.
“You should have become a shrink, if you know so much,” his wife had told him on more than one occasion. Maybe she was right. His current job, designing and building furniture, was fulfilling. He loved the aloneness of it, and the creativeness of it, but he often yearned for more. More conversation. More interaction with others. More … something of which he wasn’t even sure. He supposed his wife would be happier to tell others that he was a doctor, even a doctor of psychiatry, than to have to say he was merely a laborer.
His laboring was successful, though. It had afforded him the ability to build his own house in the woods, off away from the snooping townspeople, and still retain the townhouse his wife refused to leave where she was in amongst the circle of society, as she called it. He couldn’t stand the city, where windows overlooked the windows of neighbors. He couldn’t stand the noise of daily life, with its revving engines and screeching garbage trucks and shrieking women yelling for their wayward children. He tired of hearing the one name he knew would be called every evening for dinner. If it was called only once an evening, Derek could have lived with it. But the child never stayed where he belonged and never came at the first call. He mused that a good, strong swat on the rear could end that pretty damn fast, if it were his kid. One time would do it before the kid got the picture of just who was in charge.
He supposed he shouldn’t judge, though, since he had no children, and his wife had no interest. Derek wasn’t sure he did, either, although there were times he thought he might have … eventually. At twenty-eight, he guessed he would be too old for it by the time he grew up enough to want that. He and his wife had never really talked about it before their marriage and hadn’t since. Just as well. They didn’t talk about anything else, either.
But then, he came from a family of talkers who never actually said anything to each other. There were no issues resolved, no sage advice for the younger members, only daily chit chat that held no function other than the pretense of being acknowledged. Personal issues remained private. No one interfered, even to try to help.
So he had married the woman who fit in with the insanity of pretense. Four years of marriage had done nothing to change that.
“She is doing better than we all expected, yes?”
The voice drew him back to the present, and Derek waited for an explanation of the sudden conversation. The wife of the married couple, in their late forties. She nodded at the young girl ahead of her. For some reason Derek hadn’t yet ascertained, they were becoming temporary foster parents to the girl, regardless of the fact that she didn’t seem to wish for their guidance. She did, however, seem to enjoy the company of the little dog the couple had brought along, without permission. Derek had given in and allowed the extra body since it was small and friendly. He was glad he had, since it was the one thing that made the girl smile.
Why he cared, he didn’t know. He never got involved with his climbers, other than silently, within his own head. He didn’t join in their conversations that didn’t specifically involve the reason they were all together. With the right group, he would agree to relate a story or two of earlier journeys. But most often, he listened. He was in charge; the leader, and he had to remain separate.
Two-thirds of the way to the peak of the mountain, Derek called for an end to the day’s trek. He assisted in setting up the little tents and taught them the basics of a good campfire, asking for volunteers to help him pull fish from the pond created by a meandering mountain stream. He stopped for the night in the same clearing on every trip. Eventually, he told himself, he would gather three or four of the better climbers and explore an unknown path. Not with this group, he wouldn’t.
The twins jumped up to claim fishing poles. No surprise. The couple decided to rest their feet and keep their little dog company instead. The butcher saw no reason to catch fish, but would gladly help clean them.
“I’ll go.”
Turning to head toward the stream, Derek barely heard the voice.
He looked back at the girl. She was tired and trying to brush off arguments from the elder woman to stay and rest with them. But she was determined.
Derek nodded, pushing his hand toward her, offering the last pole. He always only brought three, using the third himself only when he didn’t have enough volunteers. She took it from his hands then waited for him to lead them forward.
She didn’t need help baiting or casting, as he’d
expected. It was a good thing, since the twins had never in their lives gone fishing. Derek found himself watching the girl casting gracefully and pulling out fish, unhooking them and tying them to the line he’d placed beside the water to keep their dinner alive and fresh. He wanted to ask where she’d been taught; from her father, maybe? Did she have a close family? A family that actually said things to each other, instead of talking at each other? He wouldn’t ask.
The twins led the way back to the campfire, chatting about their catches, ready to boast to the others. Derek fell back, a couple of steps behind the girl. He had to speak to her, alone this time, not as part of the group.
“Nice job today. Hope you’re enjoying the journey.”
She turned. “Thank you, yes.” Her eyes fell, pausing at his chest, then pulling away, her cheeks reddening.
He watched her jog to catch up to the twins,
