How Far the Mountain. Robert K. Swisher Jr.
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had that could travel miles at night hobbled. He wondered if the horse was still alive or had been made into dog food.
Digging out a dented and black metal coffeepot Bill filled it with water from a canteen. He put the last of his wood on the embers from the night’s fire and set the pot on them and tossed a handful of coffee in the pot. By the time the coffee boiled he would have all his gear packed and ready to load on the packhorse. Gypsy scampered after a ground squirrel, which made it, chattering all the way to his hole. Gypsy dug furiously for a few seconds, stuck her nose in the hole, lifted her head back up and ran back to the truck not stupid enough to waste her time on a task she could not win. Bill unwrapped two pieces of deer jerky. One he gave to the dog and one he ate himself.
When the sun cleared the ridge of the valley Bill was drinking a cup of coffee. Steam poured off the stream and the cries of two ravens filled the cool morning. He could not see the ravens. For a moment he felt like loading all the gear back into the truck and going back home. Gypsy looked at him, jumped up and down several times like she was dancing and yipped and ran toward a walking bridge that crossed the stream. When she got to the bridge, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Come on back here you worthless dog,” Bill called.
Gypsy ran back to him and Bill rubbed her around the neck and head. Gypsy barked, the bark echoing up the valley. “At least they’re no people around,” Bill told Gypsy.
Gypsy barked once again and wagged her tail.
Bill took a deep breath, looked at the horses and then back at the dog.
Within thirty minutes Bill had the packhorse loaded with all the gear and tied down with a diamond hitch. The hitch had taken three times for him to throw—it had been a long time.
He poured the rest of the coffee on the fire and put the pot in his saddlebag. As he put his foot in the stirrup, he once again felt like leaving. Taking his foot out of the stirrup he rested his forehead on the saddle and shut his eyes. After a few minutes, with little physical effort, but great mental effort, he swung up in the saddle. He unwrapped the lead rope to the pack saddle horse from his saddle horn, nudged his horse gently and started toward the stream. Gypsy ran across the bridge but Bill led his horse through the stream. The horse did not slow up or show any alarm as she picked her way through the belly deep water, nor did the pack horse pull back on her lead rope. On the other side of the stream, both horses shook. The packhorse’s load did not shift and Bill felt proud. Settling into the saddle he pointed the horse toward the trail that cut through the middle of a wide green valley, dotted with stands of pine and mountain willow. Gypsy ran to the front of the horses, not looking back.
Bill fought a deep sense of loneliness as he nudged the horse on. The horse did not walk as fast as he liked a mountain horse to walk but it really did not matter. He was in no hurry and he was not going to go far the first day, only five or six miles.
After an hour Bill found himself thinking about all his years in the mountains and it was a shock to realize what he had become over the past two years. Before her, he always had the feeling he belonged in the mountains. There was no place else he had ever belonged. It was as if he walked through life two steps out of synk with everybody else, or even two steps behind. In the mountains, he moved to his own time. “I’d just as soon been an outlaw and had to hide out in the mountains my whole life,” he said to the back of the horse’s head although the mountains had been crueler to him than the war.
The horse’s ears moved as he talked. Gypsy darted off the trail after something Bill could not see.
Bill did not stop for lunch. When he crossed small streams he let the horses drink but he did not let them grab at tufts of grass as they walked. He hated horses that did not watch where they were going. Stupid horses he called them. Mountain horses could not be stupid horses. But then, Bill mused, whoever heard of a smart horse?
At 3 p.m., Bill stopped at the mouth of a meadow. He had climbed about 2,000 feet in elevation from the trailhead. The meadow was over a mile long and not over a hundred yards wide. It was hemmed in by towering outcroppings of rock with a stream tumbling down one side. On the other side of the meadow stands of birch dotted the steep hills, while a few scattered pine trees jutted toward the sky along the edge of the stream. There was plenty of grass for the horses. Bill’s legs were growing tight after not riding for two years and a small ache was creeping into the small of his back.
After unsaddling the horses Bill hobbled them and turned them out. They immediately started to eat the green grass. He did not bother to pitch the tent but made a make shift lean-to out of a tarp.
Gypsy lay in the shade of a tree and snapped at flies while Bill went through the gear looking for a frying pan and other odds and ends. When he was done, although it would not be dark for several hours, he gathered a pile of wood.
When he sat down, Gypsy sat by his side. Resting his arm around her back he patted her head. “I can see her everywhere,” he told the dog. “I can hear her laugh.”
Gypsy lay and rested her chin on his leg. “You’re a good old dog,” Bill said. “You’re a good old worthless dog.”
The Woman The Beginning Of The Search
Sheila was outside of town before the morning rush hour. It was a beautiful sunshiny day with only a few meandering clouds. She felt like a model for a women’s outdoor clothing company. She was wearing khaki hiking shorts, hiking boots with cotton red socks folded barely below her knees, a white light-weight cotton shirt and a plaid over shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Her camping gear was in the back of the car. All she had to do was put the backpack on and start walking. Since it was such a nice day, she rolled down her window and let the air whip her hair around. “If the weather will only stay like this,” she thought as she turned on the radio and searched for a rock and roll station.
Finding a station, she did not like the song that was playing and turned it off. There were times she could not listen to music—it brought back a flood of memories, memories that were too difficult to push away. It would be easier if she had hated her husband. Then she could ignore the memories and feel elated with her freedom.
Driving toward the mountains she did not think about the office or anything to do with work. She glanced at a book on the dash and read the title, Wild Mountain Flowers—Trees And Edible Mushrooms. She pictured the golden chanterelle mushroom that grew in the Rockies. It had amazed her when she found out that the chanterelle mushrooms went for over twenty five dollars a pound in town. She hoped to find some. Some people went to the mountains to kill elk and deer, not feeling satisfied if they did not, she was on a mushroom quest. She grinned, “Sheila, woman mushroom slayer of North America.”
The road climbed into the mountains and Sheila relaxed, as if she had traveled a great distance and everything was new: new sights, new sounds, new people—nothing to remind her of the past, only the future.
As she turned off the blacktop and onto the rutted gravel road that would lead her to where she would start her hike, she had a momentary pang of apprehension. “Lord,” she said. “Some women run dog sleds across Alaska alone. I can spend a week by myself.”
The road ran beside a small stream littered with old tires, pop and beer cans and various other marks of civilization. The scattered forest signs were riddled with bullet holes. She visualized in her mind, men dressed in camouflage clothing with shaggy beards, standing by a battered pickup truck. The back of the truck was full of empty beer cans and they were shooting signs with rifles big enough to kill elephants. With each new hole the men would laugh. “Takes a real intelligent person to get his jollies shooting holes in signs,” Sheila said as she drove by a sign she could not read because of all the bullet holes.
Luckily, the sign that had the number of the trail she wanted had only a few bullet holes in it and she turned and drove to the back of a well maintained camping area with picnic tables and barbecue pits. She was glad nobody was camping. None of the trees around the area had lower limbs, or any that could be reached unless with a ladder. They had all been chopped off and burnt by hordes of weekend campers. She read