Living with, perhaps understanding how to function in such a family, had made careers for Cal and Sedona. They were the opposite of freewheeling, new-age, whack-a-doodle hippies. Maybe Dakota, too. It was almost counterintuitive—if the parents are hippies and revolutionaries, the kids end up moderate and conventional.
Cal kept hiking. Every third or fourth night he found a campground or little bit of a town where he could wash, eat a protein-heavy meal, drink a couple of beers, talk to people, resupply.
It was when his trail also became counterintuitive, when he had to hike south to hike north, that he realized how much he missed Maggie. They were a little bit alike. They were both struggling to move on from their dynamic but abandoned careers, both getting over difficult childhoods, both floundering a little as they reached for a lifestyle that brought peace and comfort. And they could both go back to where they’d been tomorrow, pick up the threads of their previous lives, and succeed in many ways. She could go back to Denver and step into the operating room and resume her role as a talented young neurosurgeon. He could go back to Grosse Pointe and his old firm would welcome him with open arms. But he didn’t think either of them would do that.
He’d been on the trail for fourteen days. He’d done what he came to do. He’d left Lynne in the wind on a beautiful mountain pass. He turned right then, in the middle of the trail, and began walking south.
*
Maggie’s muscles ached, and for good reason. She’d thrown herself into physical labor. She’d far rather enjoy the calisthenics of sex, but her lover had taken to the trail. He’d been gone two weeks and she was trying to accept the idea that her fling was over and she wouldn’t see him again.
Maggie ran the store, organizing, learning, stocking, ordering, even balancing the books, which was mostly accomplished by computer program, thankfully.
“Know how to make a small fortune?” Sully asked Frank. “Take a large fortune and put it into educating a neurosurgeon who decides to quit and sell picnic supplies.” Then, turning toward Maggie he said, “You’re going to ruin your hands in the garden and shelving. For the love of God, go home!”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. And I didn’t quit—I’m taking a break.”
She drove to Denver one day to meet with her lawyer and the plaintiff’s counsel, spent three exhausting hours in deposition and then stopped in Golden to visit her mother. That was a mini nightmare—it was one endless argument. Phoebe was outraged that her daughter would throw away all the prestige of her career to stock shelves in a little country store.
“I also garden, hike, do a little rock climbing and I’m thinking of going out on the trail for a couple of overnights.”
“Dear God, what if you run into trouble?” Phoebe asked.
“I have bear repellant and won’t hesitate to use it on any animal that threatens me.” And by that she meant human or animal. Phoebe didn’t seem to know about the predator Maggie had shot, thank God. There had only been a small story that included the names of the felons, the general location and had not named the minor child. Maggie had been described as the “local proprietor of a family-style campground.”
She drove back to Sully’s the same day. When she got to Leadville, she drove all around the town looking for Cal’s truck with its camping trailer. She didn’t see it anywhere. Clearly he’d gone. Lied to her and left her with a promise he wasn’t about to keep.
Going out on the trail overnight was just an experiment, a way to simulate what Cal was doing, how he was feeling wrapped in his solitude. He had to think, he said. About what? she wondered. When Maggie let herself think too much she saw all the carnage of the emergency room on one of the worst days of her life. A bunch of teenage boys in a terrible accident, three head injuries. One neurosurgeon. It just wasn’t worth the exercise.
Instead of camping in the wild she hauled stock, weeded, cleaned the public bathrooms and showers, raked, scrubbed Sully’s house from top to bottom and rearranged furniture.
“Damn near broke a leg in the night just trying to go to the john. You about got it out of your system yet?” Sully asked while they had their morning coffee on the porch at the store.
“What?”
“Cal, that’s what. I guess you think I’m just stupid.”
“Look, I admit I wish he hadn’t gone but it’s probably for the best. He’s just some jobless loser, living in a tent, who couldn’t tell the truth about anything even if it bit him in the ass.”
Sully leveled a stare at her. “You catch him in a lie, Maggie?”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t lying!”
Sully scowled at her. “I think they need you in Denver,” he finally said. “I think I need you in Denver.”
“I have too much invested in you to leave now,” she said.
“God help me.”
One day a letter came for Cal from the Colorado State Supreme Court. “Dad?” she said. She held it out to him. “What the hell could this mean?”
Sully took the envelope and held it for a second. “Hmm. Reckon it means he’s coming back. Unless he sends me a request to forward it.”
“I don’t see how it could mean that,” she said. “Clearly he’s on the run.”