The lightning storm passed and the moon shone through occasional clouds. The trail was flat and followed the crest for eight miles more before it dipped down into Prettyman Hollow, directly below the west side of the mining operation.
I leaned forward, took the brunt of weight on my shoulders, and started a pulling rhythm of exactly one hundred steps, then a minute rest. I counted the steps out loud to keep me anchored to an understood reality: one hundred steps, rest for sixty alligators; one hundred steps, sixty alligators. At every tenth stop, by finger reckoning, I laid the travois down, checked on Pops, cut a mark into the left litter pole, and gulped water. Every fifth notch I ate a strip of rabbit meat. By the time the sky started to lighten, I had notched the pole eighteen times. As the sun peeked over the eastern mountains, Pops woke and I put the carrier down.
“Where are we?”
“Up on Irish Ridge. You need to eat, Pops. I’ve got leftover meat.”
“From the turkey?” His voice was barely a whisper.
“That and the rabbits we caught.”
I cut a slice of the meat and put it in his good hand, then gave him the canteen with the willow bark tea. He chewed the meat and sipped the tea. I sat cross-legged in the trail next to him.
“Did the tea help you last night?”
“It helped me want to pee… and other things.”
“Can you hold it? We need to keep moving. I want to get to the mines as soon as we can. There’ll be help there.”
“Better do it now… otherwise gonna soil myself… That’s an indignity… I can’t abide.”
I untied the rope and brought him to his feet. He took a shaky step, then swooned into me. “I got you, Pops.”
“Can’t seem to find my feet.”
“Don’t worry, just lean on my shoulder.” I wrapped my arm around his waist, took an uncertain step forward. His skin was strip-mine gray and seemed to hang off him in surrender. I helped him to a squat against a large tree. He exhaled with the effort and tried to unbutton his shorts, hands shaking so badly he couldn’t finger the snap.
“Here, Pops.” I undid his pants and pulled them and his boxers down to his ankles. He closed his eyes and laid his head back against the tree as if the bark had turned to goose down. The urine came as a yellow highlighter stream bubbling into the ground. At that moment the man who existed for me on a column of strength and courage had never seemed so old, never so shockingly frail. And yet, through this realization I felt a depth of love for him that I never knew existed—a new cut of the stuff born of mutual respect, not hero worship, squared shoulders and leveled eyes replacing adoration and servility.
As he defecated, I turned to the travois.
“Kevin, did you pack… toilet paper?”
“Didn’t think we were going to need it.”
“Hand me a shirt, then.”
I walked over with my extra T-shirt. He tried to wipe himself but his good hand shook violently, other arm dead at his side. He tried again but gave up. “Let me, Pops.” I took the shirt and wiped his bottom clean, then pulled up his boxers and shorts and snapped his pants. I looped my arm around him and nearly carried him to the stretcher. I laid him back on the travois, on top of the bedroll, and tied him in.
He motioned me to come closer. His eyes quavered. I leaned in.
“I wiped your ass… when you were a baby… Now we’re even.”
“Now we’re even,” I said and brushed a fly away from the bandage on his forehead.
Chapter 36
AT THE BOTTOM OF PRETTYMAN
I balanced the crossbar on my knee, looped my arm through the strap, and hoisted the litter end onto my shoulders. The sun had just achieved the eastern mountains, turning the cloud base between to a ferment of purple, red, orange, and blue. Even the scar of the mountaintop mine acquired passable shadings under the color.
It had to be Tuesday or Wednesday morning, and soon the mine would burgeon with workers. We were seven miles away with many hills and hollows to travel, so I lowered my shoulder to the trail.
“One.”
By noon the course began its slow descent into Prettyman Hollow. An explosion from the mine echoed through the trees. It was the most encouraging sound I had heard in days. I hurried my pace down the hill, drawn to the blast like penitent to preacher. Every half hour or so another explosion thundered over the mountains, each a little louder than before.
A sign up ahead marked the end of Old Blue National Forest. The path curved around the ridge end and down to the bottom of Prettyman. It was early afternoon when we reached the hollow bottom. I stopped for the first time in hours, unwrapping the last of the meat for the final push up the long hill to the mine.
“Pops, I’d like you to eat and drink something.”
He didn’t stir. I gently shook his good arm.
“Wake up, Pops. We need to eat before this last hill.”
He was still.
“We’re at the bottom of Prettyman.”
No movement.
“Not much farther to go now,” I announced loudly.
I shook his arm, harder this time; his head went side to side, as if answering.
“Pops?”
Nothing. I knew that I was losing him. I put my cheek to his mouth and felt the faintest of breaths, put my hand on his heart to detect its fragile rhythm. For a moment the trees and the mountains and the sky, everything in the natural world, seemed to close down around me.
I took his good hand in mine and squeezed. “Pops, please! We are so close. I’m going as fast as I can.” Several tears splashed onto his forearm. “Just stay with me.”