The trail wound back and forth up the base of the mountain. Buzzy grabbed the straps of his pack, leaned forward, and pulled it higher on his back for leverage. I was three steps behind him, and Pops was following close after. We traversed the slope of the hill, then across the face of the next mountain, then back on Old Blue. Buzzy was huffing, I was sweating, even Pops was red-faced. “The good news is we’ve got this downhill on the way back,” he said between breaths. After two more switchbacks he called for Buzzy to rest. Buzzy stopped at the elbow of the trail and bent over with hands on his knees. I did the same, while Pops leaned on his walking stick. The sun had sunk below the mountaintop, and it was cool in the shade. Despite that we were sweating with effort.
“I reckon we’re two hours out with about four hours of light left, so we need to keep the pace. Once we’re on top, it’s all downhill to the lake. Buzz, let’s take a quick rest every third switchback.”
Buzzy nodded, took a deep breath like he was diving into a pool, and started up the trail. Pops and I followed like lemmings, back and forth up the steep slope.
We paused by a spring that Pops said was clear to drink and cupped our hands to catch the water. It was cold and flinty.
Pops dug into his pack and pulled out three oranges, throwing one to each of us. “How did Grandma ever get up here?” I asked, orange juice and pulp running down my chin.
Pops laughed. “What are you talking about? I struggled to keep up with her.”
“Yeah, but weren’t you carrying all the gear?” I spat an orange seed.
Pops spat a seed and shook his head. “She carried her share. More than, if you factor it by body weight. She was a thin girl but strong.”
“My grandma’s thin too,” Buzzy said, spitting three seeds at once. “But I doubt she could get up this mountain.”
“Think we’ll have orange trees here when we come back next year?”
“Now, that would just make it perfect, wouldn’t it?” Pops said. “Pick our own oranges as we slog up this mountain.” We laughed at the notion.
After another half hour of switchbacks and rests, the top of the mountain came into view through the trees. “We’re almost there,” I said, as much to urge myself as to encourage Buzzy, who was slowing noticeably.
“I see it,” he said. “Let’s keep goin til we hit the top.” It was past time for a break, but there was no argument from Pops or me. The switchbacks began to get shorter as the mountain narrowed near the summit; however, with each turn the trail became steeper, until, finally, we were crawling up a forty-five-degree angle, trying for footholds and handholds to give us purchase. Fifty feet from the summit our pace quickened to a mad scramble over rocks and dirt—gnarled roots propelling us to the apogee of Old Blue.
Buzzy was first over the top. He threw his pack off and stood in the sunshine, hands on knees, catching his breath. “Mutha.”
I grabbed a rock on the summit lip and pushed off another into the light. I sloughed my pack next to his and joined him gasp for gasp. We both looked back at Pops, whose head top was just above the lip. In an easy movement he was up and over, standing next to us.
The summit of Old Blue was stocked with ragged juniper, windswept and stunted by the altitude, sneaking up through the rock and the moss. Behind us, through the thin brush, I could see the land we had just traversed, the rain-swollen river snaking the valley and the long signature of Irish Ridge. In the distance, the wound of mountaintop removal looked like a cancer on otherwise exquisite skin. Next to it, the few twinkling lights of Medgar.
We turned, and before us, in a valley bounded by Old Blue, Little Big Top, and Harker Mountain, was the most beautiful lake I had ever seen. It was a mile long, almost perfectly oval, with dark-blue water ringed on one side by a sandy beach and on the other by granite sheer. At either end and in the middle next to the beach were huge outcroppings of rock thirty or forty feet off the surface of the lake—the water was like a layer of just-laid glass. A fish broke the surface and sent out rings of tiny waves. It felt as if we were settlers making first way west and coming upon a place that had never known man.
“Isn’t it something, Buzzy?” was all I could think of to say.
“Ain’t it just,” was all he could think of to reply.
We stayed on the top of Old Blue for ten minutes more, taking in the extraordinary splendor of the valley. The sun had just slipped behind the farthest mountains and turned the summit to dusk.
“Boys, let’s get on down to camp. We’re losing daylight fast. It’ll be slap dark before we get set up.” We took our packs and followed Pops over the edge of the mountain. The trail down to Glaston Lake was even steeper than the ascent, zigzagging sharply through more boulders and jutted rocks. At times we had to turn sideways and half slide down the gravelly trail, bodies nearly parallel to the slope. “Mind your step. You don’t want to be tripping on this hardscape.”
Glaston was tucked into a high mountain valley, so the descent on the back side of Old Blue was much shorter than the ascent, and as the trail moved to switchbacks we made quick work of it. The air was rich gloam when the course leveled and we could see the blackness of the lake water in front of us.
The path circled halfway around the lake, following the sandy beach through a stand of trees. The air was cool and the sound of the peepers and crickets echoed over the still water. Pops stopped at a group of large pine trees and rocks, a fire ring in the middle. He slung his pack down. “You boys get the tent up while I work on a fire,” he said and moved to a huge courtesy pile next to the fire ring.
We set up the tent on a sandy space between two trees a few hundred feet back from the water. Pops had the early flare of a fire, feeding twigs and pinecones for the stoke.
“Man, I’m beat,” Buzzy said as we connected tent poles and nylon.
“I just want to eat and sleep,” I said.
Pops had the fire going and put on a pot of water to boil. We threw up the tent as he added freeze-dried beef stroganoff to the water. We sat around the fire, eating the piping-hot meal and saying nothing. I felt a fatigue in my bones that I’d never before experienced—a noble exhaustion born of accomplishment and extreme effort.
We ate the entire pot of noodles, each going back for thirds. It was only ten o’clock, but my body felt like it had been working itself for days. Despite the threat of bears, we left the dirty dishes and crawled into bed and fell immediately asleep to the sound of a frog calling a mate across the cool black of Glaston Lake.
Chapter 28
THE WHITE STAG
It rained most of the night, and I rose just as first light was coloring up the morning. Pops and Buzzy were asleep on top of their bedrolls in the tent. I quietly unzipped the flap and stealthed out to take in the lake and the mountains. Workings from last night’s dinner were piled in the ashes of the fire ring. I collected them and walked down to the water’s edge.
Verdant hills, topped in granite, hugged the lake on three sides. At each end and next to our camp, huge rock outcroppings formed cliffs that ran straight down into the water. The lake was a blue mirror and a hawk flew from above and dove low over it before rising and winging out to the trees. There were a few stars in the brightening sky, but not a wisp of rain cloud. After the tornado of life in Redhill, it was the first moment of absolute calm I had ever experienced. I quietly laid the dinner accessories down on the soft sand so as not to alter the fabric of the morning.
I heard a slight rustling of leaves behind me and turned to the woods. A huge, blizzard-white deer was standing still in the old-growth pines—an albino buck with a gigantic rack of antlers. We were both statues, assessing each other in the new light. The stag shook its head and neck, as a lion tosses his mane, then walked slowly to the water. As he bent to drink and his muzzle touched the water, it sent out rivulets on the perfect plane.
I was fifty feet away and took a small step toward him; his head immediately jerked up, regarded me. I took another small step forward. He went back to the water with one eye watching. I slid silently his way, taking short, careful steps. We were twenty feet apart when he brought his head up and squared his body to me. I stopped and we gazed at each other for half a minute.
The stag’s chest was high and strong, its shoulders and thighs rippling with sinew. I stepped toward him. The buck didn’t move. The base of his antlers was thick as my wrist, and the rack, splayed into eight branches on either side, was covered in soft brown velvet that rounded the tips and made him seem much younger than his years. I took another step and put my hand out. He sniffed at the air and stepped to me. My heart pounded as I moved ahead slowly.
We were ten feet apart now. I took a tentative step forward, then another. He brought his chin up and appraised me, raised his left hoof for a moment, then stomped it down.
When I was two feet from the stag, I slowly reached my hand out to touch his powerful neck. His fur seemed to stand on end, inviting my fingers closer. I expected his eyes to dart wildly as I came so near, like a stallion’s, but instead he locked his with mine. They were moist and pink, which gave them a strangely intelligent mien—kind, sad eyes that seemed to carry with them the secret wisdom of the earth. Just as my hand brushed his fur, stirring in the tent and the rip of a zipper on the door flap. Buzzy popped his head out and blinked bleary-eyed at our surroundings.
The stag jerked away and bounded off into the undergrowth. He stopped at a safe distance and turned to look at me. We stared at each other again for a few seconds; then he spun and disappeared into the woods.
I ran up to Buzzy. “Did you see him? A huge white deer with antlers like tree branches! And he let me walk right up to him. Did you see him?”
Buzzy blinked in disbelief. “I dint see him. All I saw was you lookin at the woods.”
I took him down to the water to show him the place where the buck drank and pointed to the spot in the pines where the animal had gone.
“He let you get that close?”
“Yeah,” I said smiling. “It was seriously cool.”
“Damn, I wish I’d had my crossbow ready.”
“Why? You wouldn’t shoot something like that.”
“Hell I wouldn’t. How cool would it be hangin that on my wall. Cleo would go nuts.”
“Buzzy, there is no way you are shooting the white deer. No fucking way.” I squared to him the way the deer squared to me.
He went silent and looked at me quizzically and a little hurt, unable to parse my meaning.
I softened. “Look, man, there are some things in this world that just are not meant to be killed. I think that white stag is one of them.”
Buzzy looked out at the space where the deer had been and nodded as a gradual seep of understanding made its way into him.