North Fork (7 page)

If you remember, I was stuck at the gas station because my phone died and Josh and Alex, who were supposed to show up and take me to a party in Bellingham, had gotten another call. They changed their minds about going north and stayed in the Valley at another little gathering, figuring that since I hadn't called them, I must have changed my mind too. When I found myself at the Shell with a dead phone and no ride, and there was my friend Brad, it was perfectly natural to head off into the night with him.

So Brad and I got our story all straight and coordinated, and what was funny was that it was so easy. It felt like we were old friends. There were none of those uncomfortable silences where you know the other person is seeing the situation way different from the way you are and it's hard to decide what to say for fear of being taken all wrong.

What all this means, of course, is that I'm staying in contact with Brad. He didn't just fade back into the night like a dream. He's come up here a few times and we've hung out and we have a great time together. We even hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain together, which is something I wouldn't have done if Brad hadn't been there because Kristen climbed it with that weasel before she went missing. I'm not the granola type. I like being outside and I'm athletic enough and even go running for exercise, but I run on the track at school or beside the road in town, and hiking up some steep, lonely trail in the woods has never been my thing.

Well, after school the day the cops quizzed him—they actually went to his school, which might have been embarrassing for him, but he said he didn't mind—Brad called me to let me know how it went. He said the session with the cops was pretty easy because none of it felt like a lie and the little bit of clarifying we did was harmless and really no one's business but ours. Besides, and he even said this, it feels like we have known each other for a long time. I agree, so when he asked if he could come up on Sunday, there was no hesitation on my part. I just had to think of something to do.

So we hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain. It's not a real mountain, the kind with snow, but Brad says it feels like you could be in the foothills below Mount Baker when you're on the trail. I'd been to the parking lot before, and to the viewpoint on top of Mount Eerie, which is right next to Sugarloaf but has a road to the top and a lot of towers for cell phones and military communications stuff. The view from Mount Eerie is a little better because it's higher. On a clear day, you can see Mount Baker and the Cascades. Looking south you can see the Sound all the way to Everett, and to the west the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains, but since you can drive up Mount Eerie, it can get pretty congested and touristy.

We weren't going for the view. Kristen, of course, influenced the choice, and it's true, I thought about her a lot. The trail up is really steep and you don't do much talking unless you stop because the climb takes away your breath. I kept imagining her and that little turd together on the trail and tried to visualize how it was and what they said to each other.

Of course I wouldn't have been there without Brad, and I would have gotten lost without him. He is a hiker and has been all over the Cascades. When I suggested we spend our time together on Sugarloaf, I didn't know he would know what he was doing, and would think to get a trail map from the little kiosk thing by
the parking lot, and that we would need it because there are lots of forks in the trail. Even though there were signs with numbers on them nailed to trees, if you weren't paying close attention, even with the map, you would soon find yourself disoriented. Lost.

It's kind of dark in there, like a jungle, all green and brown and damp and cool-feeling. That day, the sunlight hit the bushes, the fallen, rotting trees and the needle-covered ground in yellow dapples. It made me feel good inside even though I felt Kristen's presence. It was a weird feeling because I knew I should be sad for her. And I am, but I wasn't feeling sad at that moment and couldn't make myself feel that way.

Brad kept wanting me to walk ahead because he's a gentleman and it's supposed to be good manners to let the lady walk in front, so he was being nice. But in this book I read for one of my classes written by this Native woman who grew up in eastern Washington during the time the Natives were having to make huge changes to adapt to all the white people who were moving in, she talked about how the early settlers thought it was rude that Native men walked ahead and had the women and children follow. She said there was a good reason, which was that most of their walking was in the woods or in places that belonged to animals like bear and cougars, and the man walked ahead to protect the women and children from attack by an animal.

This was running through my head because last year there were several cougar sightings near town and dogs and cats were disappearing. The paper said that it was probably young cougars and that when they reached a certain age, like teenagers, they had to go out on their own and find their own territory, and since dogs and cats were easy prey, and because there is less and less forest, they sometimes tried places where people lived. There don't seem to be any around this year, but I still couldn't help imagining them lurking in the brush, so I told Brad about the
cougar sightings and that I wanted him in front, and that the paper said we should make noise and try to make ourselves seem as big as possible. Of course when he was walking ahead, I couldn't help thinking about what was behind me, but I pushed it out of my head so as not to spoil the day. A little bit of danger's not a bad thing. It can draw people together.

Before you get to the top, there's this nice viewpoint off to the side of the trail with a natural bench formed by an outcropping of black rock that has lichen and moss growing on it. It looks out over the San Juans and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and is a great place to catch your breath. As usual, Brad was wearing a baseball cap which wasn't backwards this time. He's really a pretty good-looking guy, a little too Abercrombie maybe, but I don't hold that against him. He's pretty normal actually, except for the earring which bothers me only because the diamond is too big and is real.

He has a good build and is in better shape than me. I got him talking about wrestling, which he likes a lot in spite of what happened between the coach and his mom, and he hardly got out of breath at all on the climb. He did most of the talking for the noise to keep the cougars away, and it turns out that he has a real dilemma. He could qualify for the state championship tournament next year with a good chance of winning, so he doesn't want to quit, but he can't imagine working with his coach. It's hard enough being around his mom, even though it sounds like he doesn't see her as much as I would have thought.

His mom hasn't left or anything, but she has an important job and gets home late. They don't eat meals together like you'd expect people to if they could, and since it's not wrestling season, he can avoid the coach most of the time at school. He can't tell how much, if anything, his dad knows. He feels guilty about that. He says his world feels really surreal, like he's living in a different reality from everyone around him, and he wishes his parents would have a big fight and that it would all be out in the
open. He knows he should have it out with his mother, but it's like she's dodging him and the more time that passes, the harder it gets and it's almost easier to pretend he didn't see anything, but he did, and it's like the image of what he saw is seared into his brain. So he said he was really glad to see me today because I'm the only one whom he can talk to about any of it.

I was resting next to him at the viewpoint, watching this ship make the turn from the Strait into the passage that leads toward the refineries, and thinking about Kristen and Corey sitting in the same place and about how different they are, or were, from each other, though they both dressed preppy, and wondering what they talked about that day they came up here and what she saw in him that would make her come here with him. The realization that I would probably never get to ask her hit me, and this powerful sadness came over me. Without thinking about it, I put my hand on Brad's and leaned my head on his shoulder, and it felt comfortable, which surprised me and didn't surprise me at the same time.

Then I heard people coming up the trail, kids' voices, a family, and as they got near, I started thinking about how we would look to them, Brad and I sitting there. It made me think about my hair and piercings. I hardly ever think about them anymore because they've become like part of me now.

I could tell, without looking, when the family came out of the woods to a place where they could see us, because the kids' voices changed. They didn't stop talking, but they got quieter, more subdued. They were probably disappointed that we were there, and it was nice that they sensed our moment enough to let us keep it when they could have just as easily barged right up and joined us. It made me think about people and human nature and how Brad and I were both feeling the big sadness, he for his own reason and me for mine, and each reason was because someone else didn't care enough about how what he or she did
would make someone else feel.

Our sadness was bringing us together, which was nice and maybe could make it bearable, and this family, even the kids, felt something, though they likely couldn't have said what it was, and without saying anything, pulled back and went on, allowing us to hang on to the feeling a little longer and maybe let the part that was connecting us take root. So for a little longer, we watched the ship, tiny in the distance, make its way north between the islands, and then we followed the trail up to the main viewpoint at the top.

Kristen told me she had seen vultures from up there, which surprised me because I didn't think there were birds like that around here, so I told Brad about them. The family that had passed us wasn't at the top, but there was a couple talking and pointing at landmarks. We looked for the vultures. Kristen said they saw them to the right of Mount Eerie in the distance beyond the little lake that's right at the base of the mountain, and I had this memory from Greek mythology. I do that, as you may have noticed, have memories from things I've read. This one was about birds and came from the Trojan War story, which wasn't about who won the war but about how war sucks and how kings can be wise and good and still lose, or be assholes and win.

Anyway, near the end of the story, the Trojan king, alone except for a servant, is heading across enemy lines to get his son's body back so it can have a proper burial. His wife thinks he's crazy and that he will become a hostage, or be tortured, and will definitely make an already bad situation worse. He says the gods have told him to go and he prayed for a bird of omen, which means a sign from the gods, to show his wife that he's right in going. If the bird comes from the right, it's a good sign, kind of a thumbs-up. If it comes from the left, it's not so good. Where Kristen said she saw the vultures is on the right. An eagle came for the Trojan king. It was on the right and he got to bring his son's body back, but later
Troy was defeated and burned to the ground.

So, were Kristen's vultures a good sign or a bad one? Is she out there alive somewhere, or not?

I told Brad the omen story and we looked for birds. There were some robins flitting around in the brush, but there were several and they were on both sides of us. We didn't see the vultures, and decided they were keeping themselves to San Juan Island, which is where Brad said he had heard they lived. He has a friend whose family has a house there. We heard some crows behind us and turned to look but didn't know if that meant anything, and finally we did see two eagles, but they came over the top of Mount Eerie, so I guess the gods weren't ready to tell us anything. But it was a good day anyway, even with feeling the big sadness, because nothing spoiled the way that sharing it with Brad makes grief bearable.

It was still pretty early when I woke up. There were a bunch of goddamn crows in a big maple tree above the tent making a huge racket. Their squawking is annoying, like they're always scolding something or bitching about life. My head was throbbing and I had to pee, so I climbed out and watered a bush away from the tent. The leaves were out, it being spring and all. Brightness filtered through to the ground and made blotches on the tree trunks. When I looked up at the crows, who didn't seem a bit afraid of me, the green of the leaves had this yellowness to it from the sun shining through them, and it was a nice morning, in spite of how I felt.

The MacNaughton's bottle had just one good swallow left in it, so I downed it, hoping that it would clear my head. Then I took down the tent and packed the gear back in the buckets. I left everything, including the empty bottle, hidden under the usual log. I have a thing about littering and always carry out in my pack any garbage that won't rot, but since the decision to come was spur-of-the-moment, I didn't have the pack with me.

I nearly made it to town before they picked me up. The sheriff's car came from behind so I didn't hear it until it was close. I looked back and it was clear right away that the cop's attention was focused on me, not on the road or the intersection coming up at the edge of town. He had the radio mike in his hand. Then he put it down and pulled up next to me with the window down.

“Good morning,” he said.

I just said “Hi” without looking directly at him. I had whiskey
on my breath and didn't want him to smell it. I didn't know what else to say. The last thing I wanted was to get in the car with him, which is what eventually happened. He asked me how I was doing, then started in about what a nice morning it was in that fake polite way public-authority people are supposed to use before they get the Harold look in their eye and grab you or point a gun at you and put the cuffs on. Okay, you should know I've had my run-ins with officers of the law, mostly town cops or Shelter Bay security guys who thought I was suspicious for various reasons at different times. None of it ever came to much. The only thing that stuck was an MIP which means Minor in Possession, and drinking is something everyone does, even cops. In fact, one of the cops that cuffed me got busted later for giving beer to an underage girl who just happened to be sitting in his car up in the park. I wonder what he was after. I had to go to court and pay a fine, but so have half the other people at school. That's a big part of why I can't drive.