Then we stood together around the dwindling fire, all eight of us. We clutched mugs of instant coffee and cocoa and slurped bowls of cold cereal and plates of powdered eggs. The river was in the background, that wide, slow wash of green, and Dunc and Archie decided to smoke a bowl right there out in the open, which was pretty par for the course. But they were feeling charitable, I guess, because they passed the pipe around.
Everyone partook, except Tomás, who didn’t do that sort of thing, and soon the acrid scent of cheap weed filled the air, filled our lungs—not just with that familiar sweet-skunky pungency, but with the strangest sense of destiny. It’s hard to describe without sounding na?ve or painfully adolescent, but it was something I felt deep in my bones that day. As if that place was where I was meant to be. At that moment. With those people. Like there was an inevitability to being seventeen and preparing to climb a mountain, and if nothing else in my life ever happened, then I might just be okay with that.
I turned to Rose, stupid shit-eating grin on my face, ready to share my weed-induced profundities and ask whether she thought that if our lives were inevitable did that mean free will was a lie? Only Rose wasn’t looking at me. She was gazing deep into the woods, in the direction of the trees we’d fucked beneath. I stared at her while she did this. There was an expression on her face I couldn’t read, but she had to be thinking of me or else why would she be looking there? So I kept staring, but I also kept grinning, because in knowing where her mind was, I felt needed, complete. Besides, I liked the way the Trinity sun lit her hair, every strand luminous and bold.
The sun rose higher.
The day grew warmer.
Mr. Howe returned, and we did one last check of our supplies. A sudden burst of nerves spurred me to trim down my backpack load even more, and I encouraged others to do the same. Weight mattered on the mountain, I told them, every ounce. I’d read that in all the trekking and survival books I’d been dragging back and forth from the library over the past few months. As far as basic directives went, packing light was right up there with “cotton kills,” “check twice to make sure the fire’s out,” and “for the love of God, tell someone where you’re going and when you’ll be back before you leave.”
In truth, we weren’t setting off on that rugged a trip—this was no Patagonian adventure race leading us to the end of the world—but that knowledge did nothing to soothe my need to ensure everything was just right. To not screw up. So I continued to bark panicky orders, insisting that any item not absolutely necessary get left behind. This included extra shoes, clothing, cooking gear. Whatever.
And then we were ready. We had what we needed and not much more: our maps, our compasses, our food, our gear, and although we planned on staying overnight on the mountain, it was October in California; and by the time we’d piled into the cars again, like crayons in a box, and drove to the China Spring staging area, where we parked and put on our packs and our sunscreen and filled our water bottles and locked the car doors, the sun was already hot, so very hot—that in spite of the glacial lake and the snow-white peak we’d be climbing toward—no one, not one of us, ever thought to bring a jacket.
13.
THE CONFLICT STARTED almost immediately, as we stood huddled around a carved trailhead marker that read: GRIZZLY TRAIL JUNCTION/HUNTERS CAMP, 2.1 MILES. No one was stoned anymore, just sulky, and I held the laminated map close to my eyes, squinting at its topographical swells and landmarks.
The map-holding thing was a stalling tactic. I was meant to solo lead this section of the hike—Mr. Howe had already gone ahead to scope out trail conditions on the way to Grizzly Falls—which would take us up and out of the Salmon River Valley and straight onto the mountain. Only there was nothing easy about this first leg; the path we’d chosen was a shortcut created to give quick access to Thompson Peak, avoiding a long climb in from the south. The trade-off for brevity, however, meant the trail was insanely steep and more than a little treacherous. Despite our weeks of preparation, I knew the hike’s difficulty wasn’t going to go over well with my peers and found myself torn between the urge to set reasonable expectations and flat-out lying.
Finally—as always—I took the path of least resistance. “So, uh, we’re just going to hike a little ways up this hill until we get to the junction. Shouldn’t take too long. It’ll get our blood flowing.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Archie called out.
I ignored him, clapped my hands together, and tried to sound spirited. “Let’s get going, okay?”
“Why does Ben get to do the navigating?” It was Tomás who said this. And it wasn’t his words that pricked me so much as the way he spat my name. Ben. Like I was something gross that had gotten stuck between his teeth.
I shot him what I hoped was a stern look. “I’m doing the navigating because I’m the one who knows the route. We explained this last night.”
“But you’ve never been here before.”
“Well, I’ve studied the map. A lot.”
Tomás remained unconvinced. “What if I want to practice reading the map? Or someone else?”
I glanced at Rose for support—the last thing I needed was her brother’s mutiny—but she stared at her shoes and played with her hair, clearly dead set on saying nothing.
I turned back to Tomás. “You’re free to practice whatever the hell you want. You’ve got your own map. But right now, I’m in charge. Got it?”
He sighed and muttered something under his breath that sounded like bullshit but finally nodded. “Fine.”
“Good. Let’s go, then.”
—
I stood with my backpack on and a dorky sun hat and my weird sunglasses, and I waved everybody onto the path while doling out more of my overprotective dad advice: what to do if a bear crossed our path; how much water we should be drinking and when; reminders about sunscreen and heat exhaustion and staying away from leaves of three.
Nobody cared, of course. They started down the dirt road, talking loudly among themselves, and no one acknowledged my words. Or effort. Not even Rose, who abandoned me to walk alongside her stupid brother and hold his hand. I couldn’t help noticing Clay trailing awkwardly behind them with this lost puppy look on his face.
Shoving the map back into my pocket, I consulted the compass once again. It said we were heading southwest, which was absolutely in line with the map coordinates and all my pre-trip GPS plotting, so it wasn’t a surprise. But I don’t know. Expected or not, it was still a thrill to see science in action like that. I’d never used a compass before in any real-life setting—just practicing with the group at the high school and a few times on my own as I dragged my heels around the empty Teyber streets on those bleak nights when it was too hard to sleep and too hard not to.