The Wild Truth

by Carine McCandless

  Shortly after reading the first letter, the others spread out on the table awaiting their turn to speak for Chris, Jon’s mood became anxious. His eyes darted across Chris’s impassioned handwriting, then back to his notepad. I knew he would need time to digest what he was reading and that there would be hours of discussion ahead. I invited him to have dinner with Fish and me and stay in the guest room for the night. His acceptance was understood as he quickly rescheduled his flight and informed his wife, Linda, of the change in plans.

  Before handing over the letters, I made Jon promise that he could not include anything from them in his book without my approval, and even as I said the words, I felt that they had been unnecessary. I sensed a deep respect from him and that he was very aware that having my trust was his key to truly understanding what had made Chris tick. I had given the author of the story Chris did not live to tell the enormous responsibility of knowing the truth yet not writing it.

  CHAPTER 10

  OVER THE NEXT YEAR, Jon began his journey on Chris’s trail from Atlanta to Alaska, and he sent me updates from the road. One letter included some snapshots of Chris’s Datsun. I wondered what had happened to that car. Chris had loved it so much that he’d referred to it as a traveling companion he would never part with. Jon had tracked it down in a National Park Service maintenance yard in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where he found it parked next to an ambulance. The Datsun had 133,788.9 miles on the odometer. Chris had abandoned the car within weeks of leaving Emory, after it had broken down in the Detrital Wash of the Mojave Desert. A note left on it reportedly said,

  THIS PIECE OF SHIT HAS BEEN ABANDONED. WHOEVER

  CAN GET IT OUT OF HERE CAN HAVE IT.

  It reminded me of Chris’s brash reactions at the bowling alley, in the racquetball court, or on the golf course. He could get very mad at things. Even the Datsun.

  Jon wrote:

  Here are some photos from my last trip to the desert.

  It’s probably a little strange for you to see Chris’s car like this—washed, parked nonchalantly, looking like it must have looked when Chris was still driving it.

  It certainly felt strange to me when I sat in it. I could almost feel Chris’s presence.

  Jon said the Datsun’s engine had fired right up when it had been discovered. I studied the photos he’d sent, seeing the appeal Chris had found in the tranquil desert landscape. Imagining Chris there, giving up on his car so easily, I was slightly amused—I knew he had probably just flooded the carburetor in his frustration. And Jon was right—it was strange to see the Datsun again, and without its companion.

  While Jon was busy researching Chris’s travels, my family welcomed the distraction of planning my wedding. Discussing the plans at all seemed wrong, and my emotions were in constant flux. Did I deserve to enjoy this happiness in the midst of so much sadness? Was it justifiable to be planning a party so soon after Chris’s death? And how could I possibly get married to a guy he’d never met? I’d envisioned getting Chris’s nod of approval after he’d spent some time with Fish. But I knew Chris would have liked him and surely would have been happy for us.

  Mom and Dad wanted us to have the wedding amongst the rolling hills and waterfront communities that bordered Windward Key. They were footing the bill for the wedding and wanted their business associates and friends to be able to easily attend. But since they weren’t members of a nearby congregation, we couldn’t use a local church. I was relieved, because Fish and I hoped to have our wedding in Virginia Beach, where his family and our friends were. So, I pointed out how hard we were working to build our own business and that a nearby venue would allow our employees and many of our best customers to attend. My parents commended my ingenuity and agreed.

  Jon Krakauer called me often from the road as he discovered new information that led to new questions, all while Mom and I shopped for my dress and chose flowers, cake, and caterer. I wrestled with my loyalties: my mom and dad were providing me with a beautiful wedding while I was telling Jon what terrible parents they were.

  On the surface, the possibility of reconciliation with my parents seemed promising. Mom and I laughed together for the first time in years when I tried on dresses that were ridiculously poofy. When I went with my parents to check out possible reception sites, Dad pulled me onto the dance floor and started practicing our father-daughter dance. He already knew what song he should choose, and he began to belt out “Unforgettable” in his strong baritone voice as he twirled me around the empty room.

  At the same time, the relationships had an expansive hollowness—like a balloon on the brink of exceeding its limits—yet I couldn’t help but blow in a few last breaths. Once again I felt that I was their last chance to maintain some semblance of a family, and I was not prepared to have them lose another child.

  I HAD TROUBLE SLEEPING THE NIGHT before my wedding. My excitement to marry Fish was distanced by the immeasurable chasm that accompanied Chris’s absence at such an important occasion. Still stirring in the early morning hours, I climbed out of bed and knelt to pray. I asked for peace, guidance, and strength, and for the presence of my brother.

  On July 3, 1993, with nothing left to wait for, I prepared to be escorted down the aisle by my dad. My long gown of raw silk had a ruched bodice and covered buttons down the back. Wisps of soft rosettes wrapped closely around my shoulders, and behind one I tucked a silver locket, a gift from my mom. Engraved on the front was a C encircled by forget-me-nots—Alaska’s state flower. Inside the locket I’d placed a lock of Chris’s hair that we’d found inside a storage box of old photos. The envelope holding it had read “Bucko’s first haircut”—a nickname my parents had used when he was a baby and his vivacity had reminded them of a bucking bronco.

  When the music began, I walked to the main entrance of the church to meet Dad. He smiled and offered me his arm. Before the doors opened, he turned to me and asked, “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Woo Bear? Because if not, we can just walk right out of here. Right now.”

  I waited for his deep laugh and for him to add, “But you’ll owe me fifteen grand!”—but he didn’t. He just looked at me solidly, until I realized he was serious. I was touched, and also confused. Up to that point he had voiced no concern over whether I was ready for this moment. I felt the nerves that had collected in my shoulders and neck release as I tilted my head and smiled at his selfless offer. “Thanks, Dad, but I really do love him, very much.”

  Although I would have preferred to walk alone, my parents expected my father to have the honor. How would they explain any other choice to their guests? It really wasn’t optional. As the doors opened wide, the crowd of smiling faces rose. When we began our pace with Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” I was glad I hadn’t gone solo. I wasn’t sure I would have made it down the aisle without someone to walk beside me in Chris’s place.

  I tried to focus solely on Fish. He looked incredibly handsome, standing at the altar flanked by the groomsmen and bridesmaids. Ten months earlier I had knelt there, crying in anguish over the loss of my brother. I knew this association was not lost on my soon-to-be husband. As I walked up the steps and his eyes met mine, he flashed that great smile that always made me feel amazing, and I was lost in the happiness of the day and how lucky I was to be marrying the man of my dreams. Reverend Keever walked us through the nuptials, and we declared our vows. With that, there was officially a new man in my life, who had promised to love and protect me forever.

  Most of my siblings attended, and it gave me great comfort to see my sisters in the pews, though I felt a little uncomfortable about the grandeur of my wedding as compared with theirs. But if they felt anything other than pure happiness for me, I didn’t see it on their faces that day.

  The reception was gorgeous—perfect in almost every way. I was disappointed, though, that the roses on the cake were pink—not peach, as I’d requested. Almost as soon as I had the thought, I laughed. That was just the sort of thing Chris would have teased me abou
t, and he’d have been right to. What did it matter? The cake was still beautiful, it would still taste great, and the wrong flowers wouldn’t change the meaning of the day. Though my mom had tried to represent Chris with the locket, and my dad had too by using the “Woo Bear” nickname for me, it was the moment of prioritizing substance over ornamentation that reminded me of him the most.

  When the party was over, Fish and I made for the mountains. Fish had suggested we avoid expensive airlines and opt for a road-trip honeymoon westward through the Appalachians. It was far from the romantic tropical retreat we had originally discussed, but I was delighted to hike on some of the same trails I’d walked on with my brother, and it seemed to be an incredibly sweet gesture on Fish’s part. We took in beautiful summer views of the Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains. We continued on into Kentucky and stayed a couple of days with his maternal grandparents in Louisville. We toured Churchill Downs, where Sea Hero had recently pulled off his valiant win of the Kentucky Derby. Our final destination was the massive Opryland Hotel in Tennessee, where we enjoyed relaxing spas, acres of meticulously manicured golf courses, fabulous dining, and nonstop country music shows. The hotel boasted a vast assortment of gardens and atriums, and Fish regularly departed our hotel room for long walks. I thought it was strange but also quite considerate of him to give me space as I primped for our next outing—he knew it irritated me to be hovered over while getting ready.

  When we returned from our honeymoon, we quickly adapted to a comforting routine of working hard and enjoying our time together—a lifestyle we maintained over the next three years. At play, we were adventurous and took every opportunity to get outdoors. At work, we were earning an excellent reputation within the industry and we continued to expand the business. I had significantly boosted my business management and accounting knowledge at Old Dominion University, but I’d left the program when I was still two years shy of earning a degree. I worried I’d made a mistake by leaving school. I found myself still wondering if Chris would be proud of me. But I wanted to concentrate on the business opportunities at hand, so I focused on my big brother’s advice to stay true to myself.

  JON HAD DECIDED ON A BOOK TITLE for Chris’s story. It would be called Into the Wild. Once the research was completed and he began the writing phase of the book’s development, he sent me chapter drafts and excerpts to check for accuracy and content where the family was concerned, and to ensure that he was remaining within the boundaries I’d requested.

  Through Jon, I constantly learned new information about Chris’s experiences, where he’d been, and the people he’d met. During his two-year trek, he’d traveled across the United States and as far south as Mexico before heading toward the destination he’d idealized since his first read of Jack London’s Call of the Wild in grade school: Alaska. He had visited the Land of the Midnight Sun once before, during a semester break from college, and was hooked. On his second venture, after a long journey through the Yukon Territory, he arrived in Alaska and made it to Fairbanks, then hitched a ride toward Denali. He hiked into the wilderness through tough spring terrain on the Stampede Trail. On the fourth day of hiking, he was amazed to find a deserted bus, oddly parked amongst overgrown dormant buckbrush some twenty-five miles from the nearest highway—“Magic Bus Day,” he’d written in his journal.

  In the summer of 1961, the bus had been part of a camp of gutted vehicles towed out into the wilderness to support workers who were building a road intended to ease access to proposed mining efforts in the area. But conditions proved too unstable to support the project and it was abandoned within a few months. The crew broke camp and left as they had come, but Fairbanks City Transit bus 142 remained behind with a broken axle to be used as a shelter for local trekkers and moose hunters, and to be stumbled upon more than thirty years later by my brother.

  From Jon, I learned that the strong magnetism Chris had had in high school and college had endured during his travels. He’d always been good-looking and charming without an ounce of egotism. His self-confidence was apparent. He spoke out against human rights atrocities and global political injustices, and shared strong opinions about social imbalances he witnessed—whether within our local government or at our high school. He did it all without sounding self-righteous. He had conservative values and was cofounder of a young Republicans club in college, but not being one to adhere to labels or blind allegiance, he fervently authored derisive articles about both sides of the political aisle as an assistant editor of the school paper.

  Individuals who had picked Chris up while he was hitchhiking had been profoundly moved by their conversations. Regardless of whether their time with Chris lasted only a few hours or developed into brief relationships between fellow vagabonds, wanderers, employers, or friends, they all reported feeling an unexpected connection to this young man, who had struck them as intelligent, polite, and hardworking—even while he had often remained evasive and mysterious.

  One individual he seemed to have made an enduring impression on was an elderly man named Ron Franz, who Chris spent time with over a two-month period in the winter before he left for Alaska. Ron was a former military man who told Chris he had lost his wife and only son in a car accident over thirty years prior. He lived alone and didn’t have many friends when he offered Chris a ride to a desert campsite in Anza-Borrego. Afterward, he couldn’t get Chris out of his mind. He thought he was a smart kid and later went back to find him and talk him into a better direction for his future. Unsurprisingly, my brother rebuffed the offer, but the two became good friends. Chris—whom Ron knew as Alex—frequently went to Ron’s house for meals, to do laundry, and to learn from Ron the art of leatherworking. As they grew closer, Ron put together the small pieces of information that Chris let slip in conversation and came to understand that Chris no longer had a family. They weren’t deceased, Ron realized, but Chris had actually chosen to denounce his parents and leave his family behind. Given the respect Ron had gained for the boy, he accepted it must be for good reason. Ron offered to adopt my brother, suggesting he fill a grandfatherly role in Chris’s life. Chris declined the offer; keeping people at arm’s length was a necessity for him to continue his solitary journey to Alaska.

  Chris had a tendency to lecture Ron about the importance of getting out and experiencing the world instead of treading a predictable path from church to grocery store to home. Ron listened. After Chris left his life, Ron moved out of his apartment and began living as a “rubber tramp” out of the back of a GMC van he’d outfitted with a bunk, a kitchenette, camping gear, and a portable toilet.

  One day when he was driving back to his campsite from gathering supplies, he picked up two hitchhikers and started talking to them about his friend Alex. One asked if the friend’s name was Alex McCandless, and when Ron said yes, he told Ron that his friend had died. The hitchhiker had just read Jon’s article in Outside.

  Ron was devastated. He immediately wrote to the magazine, asking for a copy and explaining that he knew “Alex” and wanted to talk to the article’s author. Jon was soon in touch with him.

  Through Jon, my parents contacted Ron, and he sent the family a letter in return, describing his time with Chris and the impact Chris had had on his life. I could sense Ron’s strong disappointment in Chris, his words deliberate despite the shaky handwriting, as he asserted that he had had no idea that Chris had come from such an admirable family with such loving, Christian parents. He seemed to be apologizing for Chris. I saw the satisfaction my parents gained from reading the letter and showing it to others, and it offended me.

  I immediately drafted my own letter to Mr. Franz.

  Please keep this letter just between us, but I feel it is important to correct any inaccurate impression you might have of the family life Chris left behind. Our childhood was violent—physically and emotionally—and very difficult.

  I offered just a few more vague sentences but succeeded in getting the message across. He replied:

  Dear Carine,<
br />
  I can sense the honesty and sincerity in your words, and find you sound a lot like your brother. So much of what you wrote makes the bits and pieces of what Chris claimed to be so angry about ring true.

  He complimented my brother on the fine young man Ron believed he was, thanked me for helping him to understand Chris better, and promised to safeguard anything that I shared with him.

  When Mom and I traveled together to California to visit with Ron in the Anza-Borrego Desert, my pen pal and I communicated many knowing glances during our group discussions about the friend, brother, and son we remembered. Ron was still grieving deeply over the loss of his companion. Several times he stopped in mid sentence, tears welling in his eyes, and stared out across the desert.

  Ron brought us to the landlocked Salton Sea and other areas that he and Chris had explored together around the outskirts of Borrego Springs. The desolation seemed endless. We passed a small group of fellow migrants, but other than that, we saw only the crimson blooms on the cholla and ocotillo cacti and some passing tumbleweeds. It was difficult for me to grasp what had attracted Chris to the place.

  It wasn’t until darkness fell that I understood. Around our diminutive campfire, the desert flats were perfectly level as far as the eye could see. As the sun vanished beneath the horizon, the blackness exceeded the parallel of the parched sands and seemed to completely wrap around me. The night sky offered the most breathtaking view I had ever witnessed. It was as if I had been raised up to touch the ceiling of a planetarium, and the display of stars swallowed me up. I sat alone on the surface of the earth in a cheap lawn chair, like just another infinitesimal speck of sand.