One Step Too Far

by Lisa Gardner

  The three buddies drift along behind them in a tidy row. They keep their heads down, their faces shuttered. They do what they’re told, question nothing. Have all three of them returned every summer on this same hopeless mission? I wonder if it’s the yearly searching that drove the fourth member of their group, Josh, to drink. Or the guilt over that one night.

  Or something else entirely?

  Luciana and Daisy follow the young men, a separate unit of two. Luciana is letting Daisy relax off leash, though I notice she’s quick to call the dog back anytime Daisy darts into the woods after squirrels. Luciana is the dog-manager version of Nemeth, forcing her charge to pace herself.

  I follow shortly behind Luciana and Daisy. So far, so good. My calves ache slightly and I’ve been out of breath since we started, but not in an awful sort of way. Of course, it’s still early in the day. I have no idea how many miles we’ve covered and I don’t want to. Like any addict, I’ve spent the past ten years perfecting the one-step-at-a-time approach. I refuse to surrender my only competitive advantage now.

  Bob brings up the rear. When we pause for snacks, he confers with Nemeth and Martin, which leads me to believe he’s third man on the leadership totem pole. As a Bigfoot hunter, he should be nearly as wilderness savvy as the other two. Hence his strategic position as sweeper—ensuring no member of the team falls behind.

  He doesn’t speak much as he idles along behind me, but there’s an energy about him that’s reassuring. Of all of us, only he and Daisy appear to be enjoying themselves. Nemeth is an eagle-eyed scout, never resting for a moment. Martin appears to be strung tighter than a drum. The three college friends are shut down, and Luciana is in work mode even if she’s given her dog the day off, while I’m in my own little world of What the Fuck, which, to be honest, is my norm.

  Which makes us an interesting group as we trudge along. The trail winds through the woods, a ribbon of hard-packed earth lined with sagebrush and grasses, dusted here and there with pine needles. The air smells like sun-soaked sap and icy streams, with an undertone of bug spray, sunscreen, and human sweat. It feels green and blue and brown, a caress against my face.

  The occasional whine of insects. The whisper of wind among towering pines. The chatter of squirrels fussing over our intrusion. Timothy O’Day loved these woods. Tim chose here, these mountains, these trails, to celebrate his final days as a bachelor with his closest friends.

  Which makes me aware of the deeper, darker shadows lurking around the edges. The relentless pounding of boots striking the ground, the sight of the rifle, slung over Nemeth’s shoulder, the silence of friends who won’t even speak as they set out once more to search for their buddy’s remains.

  What can I add to this somber funeral party and recovery mission rolled into one?

  Maybe in this case it’s not about asking the right questions or having an ear for the wrong answers. Maybe it’s simply that I know and accept in ways most people never do that for everything going on in this nearly impenetrable wilderness, the biggest danger comes from the eight humans who just hiked into it.

  CHAPTER 8

  We break next at a small clearing at the top of a knoll. We are encircled by woods still thick enough to block any scenic views. Sadly, that means we’re nowhere close to emerging into the so-called Devil’s Canyon. Given we haven’t passed the midday mark, we probably haven’t even started the challenging second half Nemeth warned us about. Meaning that refreshing feeling of working leg muscles, which is quickly turning into a burning fire, is a pain I’d better get used to.

  Nemeth has a point: Hiking is not the same as walking. But speaking as one of those people who would let hell freeze over before admitting the other guy is right, I remain confident in my ability to carry on. If only to piss off the boss.

  In contrast to their behavior at our earlier stops, which involved short pauses for warm drinking water and gummy energy bars, Nemeth and Martin head over to a downed tree, remove their packs, and take a seat. Does this mean we’re on lunch break? Do backcountry expeditions get a lunch break?

  The others quickly follow suit, college buds collapsing to one side, Bob, Luciana, and Daisy decamping on the other. My first instinct is to head over to them. I like them, not to mention we’re a logical grouping of our own. The odd men out.

  But it’s not my job to belong. Meaning I gird my loins and cross over to where Marty and Nemeth sit, their heads nearly touching as they regard Martin’s ubiquitous map.

  Nemeth glances up first, his narrow blue gaze performing an immediate scan of my figure, then the surrounding woods. It’s possible the veteran guide is part cyborg. Wouldn’t surprise me at all, given I’m currently drenched in sweat, while his weathered features are covered in a light sheen of moisture.

  His attention returns to me.

  “How’s the pack?” he demands.

  “Good.” Feels like a ten-ton house strapped to my shoulders, but I figure that’s as it should be. Now that it’s off, I’m acutely aware that my borrowed high-performance shirt is plastered to my back. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

  “Boots?”

  I glance down. “Great. My feet are very happy with the socks.”

  “Knees, lower back?”

  I hadn’t even thought about those body parts, but now that he’s calling attention to them I realize my entire body aches. “I feel fantastic!” I bite off and dare him to argue as I hobble closer.

  He continues to study me up and down as if in search of an obvious problem. Apparently, the children are allowed to approach the adults only if they need something.

  Martin hasn’t even bothered looking up from the map. In his world, I might as well not exist. Is he that obsessed? Focused? Grief-stricken?

  Or is it just me?

  “I was wondering how you were doing,” I say.

  Nemeth blinks, clearly flummoxed by my question. Martin finally glances up, as if just now noticing my approach.

  “What do you mean?” Nemeth asks warily.

  “Are you pleased with our progress so far?”

  “We’re on pace.”

  “Trail conditions seem good,” I comment, as if I know anything about such things. “Weather pleasant, skies clear, temperature not too hot, not too cold.”

  “Yes.” He remains suspicious.

  “No complaints or group arguments,” I continue.

  “No.”

  Martin cocks his head to the side and stares at me as if I’m some alien life form. Why is this underling still talking?

  I don’t actually have a point. I’m simply trying to engage the two men in conversation. I spend so much time operating outside of my comfort zone, I don’t expect to know what I’m doing. But I’ve learned to listen to my instincts. Nemeth, who holds our survival in his hands. Marty, who organized this party but won’t speak to any of us. I want to know these men. It matters, even if I don’t know why yet.

  I take a seat before them, as if they’d sent me a personal invitation. Then I say nothing at all. Have you ever attended an AA meeting? We are experts at silence. So much of our drinking is about filling those gaps, smoothing over awkward moments, trying to feel like we belong when most of us have gone through our entire lives feeling alone in a crowded room. Meaning, it’s one of the first things we must overcome. It’s not enough to stop drinking. We must change who we are, because who we are, are drunks.

  Now I retrieve from my pant-leg pocket some coconut almond high-energy power bar I’ve been chewing on since this morning. Being an actual human being, I don’t care for it; mostly, I crave Josh’s stash of peanut butter cups. But given I’m only four hours into a seven-day death march, I figure I should have something to look forward to.

  Chew. Swallow. Chew.

  Chug water, because to be honest, no matter how much you grind away, the bar still goes down as a solid lump.

  “How are the
others?” Martin says abruptly. Now he’s the one who has caught me off guard.

  “The others? Luciana and Daisy seem fine and dandy. Bob is clearly enjoying the hike. As for the guys . . . Do they actually speak?”

  Martin glances across the small clearing, his expression troubled.

  “They blame themselves,” he states abruptly. “For what happened.”

  “Do you?”

  “My son was doing what he loved to do. He . . . disappeared . . . doing what he enjoyed most.”

  I notice he doesn’t use the word die.

  “Do you know how I ended up meeting Bob and the North American Bigfoot Society?” Martin asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “I read about another case they were working. A young man who went missing in the mountains of Washington. The Bigfoot hunters are particularly focused on that area. Knowing the trails well, they volunteered to assist. Years later, they’re still combing the woods. One of the guys gave an interview saying they didn’t know what had happened to the young man, but they could see him taken in by a family of Sasquatch and living happily ever after.

  “I am a carpenter by trade. A man who works with his hands, believes in things that I can feel and touch. But that quote . . .”

  Martin looks at me. “When you lose your child, and I mean lose your son, as in you have no idea where he is, no idea what happened to him, what his last moments might have been like, you need some kind of hope to get you through the day, before the terror finds you again at night. I never even thought about Bigfoot five years ago. Now, I want nothing more than to believe.”

  “What was Tim like as a child?”

  Martin smiles reluctantly, as if even the happy memories are now forced out of him. “Tim was one of those kids—why walk when you can run, why sit on a sofa when you can jump on the cushions, why talk when you can roar? He drove his mother crazy. That amount of energy . . . he was a force to be reckoned with from the moment he opened his eyes.

  “It’s why I took him camping for the first time. Tim had started kindergarten and was already getting into trouble—sitting still just wasn’t his thing. School wanted to hold him back. But Patrice and I could tell that he was plenty smart. He just needed to move.”

  Martin shrugs. “I did some asking around and several of my friends suggested camping. Get the boy out, away, into the wild. The activity alone would be good for him. Plus, for many of us . . .” Martin pauses, looks at the towering trees, the endless expanse of underlying green, green, green. “Here is where we belong.”

  I’m envious. Forty years later, I still haven’t found that.

  “We didn’t have a lot of money. Patrice had just gone back to work as a receptionist in a beauty salon; I’m a self-employed contractor. But twenty-five years ago, there weren’t microfibers this, crazy-expensive-tents that. You borrowed gear, you headed into the woods with a can of baked beans, a package of franks, and that was it. You had fun. You got out, you got away, and you laughed like hell with your kid.

  “That’s what we did, Tim and I. We hiked into one of the canyons not far from our home, wore ourselves out exploring during the day, practically froze to death at night—and goddamn, there isn’t a second I would change about any of it. Timmy loved it. No one yelled at him to slow down or lectured him about being too loud or begged him to be anything less than who he was. He shone that weekend. That’s what I remember. My boy, with his wild hair and crazy dark eyes, grinning. Ear to ear. The entire two days. I’d never seen him that happy. After that, we were hooked. We escaped as much as possible. Good for Patrice to have some time to herself. Good for her madmen, she’d say, to have time romping in the wild.

  “Later, when she was diagnosed with cancer the first time . . . I took Tim camping to break the news. Meant his mother couldn’t be there, but both she and I agreed it would be better that way. Tim could howl at the moon. And I could howl with him. Because it wasn’t fair. Nothing about cancer is fair.

  “We didn’t know it then, of course. We didn’t understand. Those were the good old days. When we had only one battle to fight. Soon enough . . .”

  Martin stops speaking. He doesn’t have to continue for me to understand. Soon enough, he’d go from a terminally ill wife to a missing son. And now, in a matter of months, he’ll be the only member of his family left. My eyes are moist. I notice, even if Marty doesn’t, that the rest of the group is listening intently.

  A noise. Scott, the bachelor buddy who disappeared first that night, stands up abruptly. “Gotta piss,” he mutters, then turns and stumbles into the woods.

  The two others, Miggy and Neil, exchange looks. Both stand, head after their friend, because surely it takes three guys to pee in the woods.

  Nemeth resumes glaring at me. How dare I disturb the fragile equilibrium of his hiking party. He is both right and wrong. Searches such as this one are about way more than finding tangible remains. They are about gaining closure.

  Sometimes that comes from finally having a body. Sometimes that comes from the journey along the way.

  I stand up, stepping close enough to touch the back of Martin’s hand as he clutches his map. He flinches, clearly not expecting the contact.

  I’m a mess in so many ways. Can’t sleep through the night. Can barely make it a single hour without craving a drink. Don’t know how to live the way other people seem to know how to live.

  But grief. Bone-deep pain, soul-searing rage. This I understand.

  “Thank you for telling me about Tim,” I murmur. “I will do everything I can to bring him home this week. But I will carry the stories of him with me always.”

  Marty glances up sharply. Quick enough I can see the feral nature of his pain. Quick enough he can see the feral nature of my own.

  I pull back my hand. Martin folds up his map.

  And like survivors everywhere, we continue on with our day.

  CHAPTER 9

  Bite me, bite me, bite me,” I repeat. Then, just to switch it up: “Good goddamn!”

  Screw these woods. Screw my pack. Screw Nemeth, who’s definitely a cyborg. The last half is gonna be more difficult? Seriously??

  I’m panting. Staggering forward, one careening step at a time. Leg up, leg down. Pant pant pant. Leg up, leg down. Pant pant pant. Sweat pours down my face, stinging my eyes with a toxic mix of sunscreen, bug spray, and human salt.

  No pretty trail winds like a ribbon through the verdant woods. No leveling off of the topography. No end in sight. Dirt, boulders, pine trees. Sometimes, we get a switchback, which is to say a slight turn to the right or to the left before a new route through hell. Then there are steep patches of ledge where there’s no path at all. Instead, we clamber up like spider monkeys, clutching at spindly trees and praying not to slide back down.

  I don’t know much about flora and fauna, but so far the forest seems to consist entirely of evergreens. Pine, spruce, fir. I’m basically hiking my way through Christmas. I fucking hate Christmas.

  Nemeth and Martin have vanished from sight, leaving Scott, Neil, and Miggy gasping painfully as they trudge along. Even Daisy is reduced to being on point. No more mad dashes into the woods. Just one paw at a time with Luciana following slow and steady behind.

  “Stand up,” Bob murmurs from behind me.

  “I am standing up!”

  “You’re bending at the waist. It’s squeezing your diaphragm, reducing your oxygen supply. I could take your pack—”

  “Touch me and I will fucking kill you.”

  “Then I recommend placing your hands on your hips, which will expand your chest capacity. Or leave your arms loose and focus on swinging them forward. Where your arms go, your legs must follow.”

  I growl. Snarl. Whimper. Then grudgingly swing my arms.

  It works. And enables me to focus on something other than my burning calves and exploding heart rate. I can do this
.

  I fall farther behind.

  “You can go ahead,” I mutter to Bob, completely humiliated.

  “I’m good.”

  “I hate pity.”

  “Then stop being so pathetic.”

  “I hope Bigfoot kicks your sorry ass.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something? Please take video.”

  I try to snarl again, but it comes out more as a moan. There’s no fun in insulting someone who refuses to be insulted.

  A disturbance up ahead. A figure has stepped to the side of the trail as Daisy and Luciana plod silently past.

  Miguel from the college trio. He’s broken from the group to stand off to one side, bent over at the waist as he struggles to catch his breath. His short dark hair is plastered against his skull, his khaki shirt totally soaked through. He looks as good as I feel, which, given his considerably younger age and compact, muscular build, makes me feel slightly better about myself.

  He glances up as we near, his hands planted on his thighs.

  “Go . . . ahead,” he manages.

  “Fuck . . . that,” I gasp back and halt beside him. Bob stops as well. Compared to us, the bushy-bearded Bigfoot hunter appears perfectly refreshed. I have a fantasy of him tossing Miggy over one massive shoulder, me over the other, and carrying us the rest of the way. I really wish he would.

  “Water,” Bob suggests now. “Small steady sips till you get your heart rate under control. Otherwise, you’ll further dehydrate yourself vomiting.”

  “You think?” I snarl.

  Miggy nods wearily. He fumbles with his stainless steel water bottle. I reach over and do the honors. As a show of gratitude, he does the same for me.

  Luciana and Daisy have now disappeared from view, leaving the three of us behind. The weak links. Well, two of us, anyway.

  Miggy’s ragged breathing is starting to slow. The young man looks terrible, his tan face flushed, his shirt drenched. I wonder if he drinks as much as his buddy Josh. Or if he’s simply a mere mortal, not accustomed to hiking a gazillion miles straight up.