Range of Light (21 page)

Shifting to the other side of the tent, I faced the creek and tried to get into the book. Jesus, I'd been abrupt with Adele. Well, this separation wasn't a big deal. Part of a morning and an afternoon. I turned the page. Would Adele see me, hidden from the trail like this? Yes, of course, she'd recognize our tent. Everything was going to be fine. I turned the second page. Time passed. Hours. Pleasantly, quickly, the sunny day ripened into afternoon.

“Hi there.” Adele's face was sunburned or flushed.

“Hi.” Too abrupt. Relax, I told myself, temper is only a reflex. “How was the hike?” There, that sounded more friendly.

“Great!” Adele exclaimed.

“Where's Sandy?”

“Oh, he went off to find his homestead.”

“I see.”

“We saw bouquets of Sierra daisies. Brilliant sky. Perfect weather.”

“Yeah, great day.” My voice eased, lightened. “Couldn't finish the job without your help.” I grinned at the pathetic tent.

“Bet you thought I'd forget the stakes.” She looked uncertain.

“Never occurred to me.” I realized how much I had missed Adele and unnerved by this admission, I stupidly called her my “trusty companion.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adele laughed, sloughing off her pack. “End of suspense.” She held out the stakes. Her face grew serious. “Peace offering?”

I felt tears welling up. “Peace.” I accepted the stakes.

Adele wrapped her arms around me. “Oh, I
am
glad. It would be terrible to climb to 10,300 feet and find I had lost you.”

“Terrible,” I agreed.

After dinner,
we took off
for Vogelsang Pass, another 600 feet up and promising splendid views of High Country mountains and lakes. Just past Vogelsang Lodge, a marmot performed for a gray-haired man and woman. Farther along, another marmot peered skeptically from behind a tree. The trail was still fairly wet from recent rains. We crossed the roaring creek balancing on a long log. In a more turfy section, tree roots rose in the trail like veins in a hand.

Adele was panting.

I slowed down.

“It's worth it,” I called over my shoulder. “Wait until you see the sunset over the mountains.”

She nodded. “No problem. I'll make it.”

On the way, I pointed out Fletcher Peak, Mount Conness, Clouds Rest and Half Dome.

“Wonderful,” said Adele.

“But the view from the pass is the most beautiful.”

She frowned wearily.

“No, really, it's only 600 feet above camp. Not much farther at all.”

“I'm with you.”

At the pass, marked by dainty, durable whitebark pines, I greeted Mount Clark, Mount Florence, Mount Maclure, Mount Lyell. The Indian names were probably more musical; I'd look them up in the book tomorrow. Rosy expectation suffused the evening sky.

“This is the best time.” My shoulders relaxed as they hadn't in days. “Moments before sunset.”

“Why? How do you feel?” she asked.

“I don't know, a kind of deliverance from the day, a peace, a melancholy.”

Adele moved closer and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Really? Melancholy?”

“What do
you
feel?”

“Pleasure in sharing this with you. Not so much melancholy.” She was thoughtful. “The opposite, I guess, a kind of excitement.”

As sun dropped down the mountains, our voices seemed to get louder.

“Shhh,” I said, nodding at the deep red smearing across the horizon. The two of us stood there watching as the sky turned bloody. Then pink. Yellowish. Coral.

“Gorgeous,” she whispered. “Red sky at night. That means it's going to be a fine day tomorrow.”

“Hope so.”

“Well, we better start down.” Once more I studied the splattered sky, as if trying to acquire it for my permanent collection. “We want to be back at camp before dark.”

“Right,” Adele said.

“So what's on our agenda tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sandy recommended Hanging Basket Lake.”

“Beautiful place,” I answered. “I was thinking of something more tame, like walking around Ireland Lake. We don't want to wipe ourselves out hiking if we're going down to Tuolumne tomorrow and driving back to the Bay Area.”

“Sad this is our last night.”

“Where's Sandy headed tomorrow?” It slipped out, but I had to know if he was going to Hanging Basket too.

“Vogelsang Peak, I think he said.”

I persisted, “Were you sorry to leave him?”

She shrugged. “He offered to show me around the East Bay trails if I take that Berkeley job.”

“Hmmm.” Was I satisfied now?

Turning back toward camp together, we each passed gingerly over a slab of slippery granite. One after the other, we traversed the log across the creek. Adele searched for marmots, but they had disappeared. I switched on the flashlight. We were wordless, listening to the night noises, until we reached our tent.

At this altitude the air
was noticeably thinner and the ground colder. Together in the tent we lay, attending dreams, motionless and busy as corpses merging with the earth.

Sleep eluded me. I meditated on the green pebbles glistening on the banks of Rafferty Creek, on the gray-blue seams in the boulders outside our tent, the silky mud on the trail to Vogelsang Pass. But I was so distracted by Adele's current silence that I longed for the tranquil security of my usual Sierra solitude. I was guilty and embarrassed by my anger. This might as well be downtown Oakland on Monday morning for all the spiritual transcendence I was experiencing.

Gradually the sleeping bag warmed up. I could tell from Adele's shallow breathing that she was having a hard time too. If we could zip the bags together, we'd be much warmer. Good thing they were unzippably different brands.

“Kath?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm glad you suggested a break.”

“Oh, yes?” Careful, I told myself, we were on the edge of truce, be generous.

“I'm sorry I pouted. It was a good idea, really.”

“You must have got to know Sandy pretty well.” I couldn't help myself.

“Yes, I guess so,” she began. Then, “What do you mean? What's wrong?”

I hated her innocence. Her dimness. It couldn't be dimness. Adele had always been the bright one. Finally, I said, “Nothing's wrong. On the contrary. It sounds as if Earth is on course and you've found your cosmic twin.”

Adele propped herself up, peering through the dark. “What are you talking about?”

“That grace note about Berkeley. So is he going to drive to Stanford after your conference? Or maybe you're skipping the conference altogether.” I couldn't believe this was all coming out. What horror, what release.

“Oh.” Adele expelled a long sigh. “No. You've got it all wrong.”

I should have backed off. I knew this. Instead, “You must know him pretty well to reveal the ‘big secret.' I thought the Berkeley job was confidential. I mean, what're you aiming for—trading Berkeley and Sandy for Wellesley and Lou for a trial year?”

“Kath!” Adele moaned. “You're being ludicrously unfair.”

“Frankly, I don't know what you're waiting for. You liked our recess so much today, you could take a nocturnal break with him as well. It's his tent you should be lying in!”

She lay still in her sleeping bag, her body turned away from me. I shouldn't have said it. Mom told me I'd inherited all Dad's temper. She was right. Adele was right. I was wrong. Soon, too soon, I'd feel the remorse. But right now I'd enjoy the sweet anger. And I'd wait for Adele to contradict me.

Crawling from the tent
the
next morning, I prepared my reconciliation speech. I would jokingly congratulate Adele for being the first one up. I would thank her for the coffee, which I would like to inject straight into my aorta. I wouldn't directly refer to last night's conversation unless Adele brought it up. Then I would apologize for my tone. I had a right to be angry, but not nasty.

Mist still hung low over the lake. I was disappointed by the gray sky because I had hoped for sun to light the path back to Tuolumne Meadows. Inhale the soft, quiet day. The silence. Something drew my attention to the bear rope. A note was pinned to my pack.

Dear Kath,

Sorry not to check this with you. Couldn't sleep much. So I got up early and am heading to Hanging Basket Lake. Will be back by noon, no problem, for our hike down. Needed some time alone.

Love, Adele

“OK,” I said
to the
vacant day. I wouldn't worry. Of course I shouldn't have barked at her last night. Of course I'd apologize when she came back at noon. But this wasn't such a bad thing. We could use a little more separation.

I turned to breakfast making, remembering this was my last full day in the High Sierra until next summer. A tentative sun was breaking through the clouds. In the bush, an anonymous, small animal rummaged. The creek gurgled and popped as it flowed by. This fragile morning, dark clouds hovered in the west. I savored the pleasure of being alone in the abundant, desolate, scarred, perfect, unforgiving, mountain absolution. Nearby, a cluster of tiny mariposa lilies gleamed under a thin stream of sunlight.

Chapter Twenty-One

Adele

Sunday / Vogelsang Area

I KEPT MY HANDS
warm in my pockets as I walked between Upper Fletcher and Townsley Lakes. The morning was soft, moist. In the distance, a bell struck, the metallic noise vibrating abrasively through high, thin air. Not a bell; of course, that wasn't possible. More briskly, I continued along the trail, inhaling the morning, breathing clarity. The increase in altitude between here and Tuolumne Meadows made me lightheaded. Almost a two-thousand-foot ascent, according to the map. From my left came a high-pitched pipping, but I couldn't locate the source. This path was soft—not marshy like last night's walk to Vogelsang Pass—more reminiscent of the spongy land around Gaylor Lakes. Two California jays flitted before me, washing the air a rapid blue.

Then the sky faded and the world was draped in vagueness. On the way to Hanging Basket Lake, I made a couple of wrong turns but maintained confidence. I did not need Kath as a compass. Was I more annoyed with Kath for jumping to conclusions about Sandy and me or with myself for enjoying Sandy's company so much? Why, after my declaration of sisterly solidarity, did I continue to flirt with him?

How blissful to be alone after this intense week. Thrilling. It was also a little scary out here by myself after a sleepless night. Finally I spotted—yes, checking the landscape against my topographical map, there it was—the ascent to Hanging Basket Lake. It looked like a ninety-degree climb. Who knew if there was a lake at the top? Don't be a wimp, I heard Simon's voice. Cautiously, I proceeded toward the bouldery wall.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I imagined Kath asking in that infuriating, solicitous way.

“Sure,” I would say. “But if you don't want to …”

“Oh, no,” Kath would declare.

I climbed farther, cherishing last night's red sky, anticipating a brighter day any moment now. Twenty yards from the “trail,” I checked again. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Kath would say, “that is, if
you
are.”

Thus I continued, Kath beside me, as I crawled up the mottled escarpment toward the unseen lake. Any second I could unleash an avalanche of rocks. Because of my stupidity, I'd be killed or maimed. Would I rather be dead or spend the rest of my life as a vegetable? Mother Cauliflower, née Adele. Slowly, gradually, I pushed upward from one rock to another. Glistening with sweat, I climbed as much with my arms as with my legs.

“Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock.” I remembered Taylor's favorite nursery rhyme from so long ago. What responsible parent would scale Annapurna alone?

“Our Father, who art in heaven …” Enough of that. One rock. After another. There was a clear—if not always horizontal—path upward, onward. Others had gone before me.

“Let me introduce this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism.”

“Ooops.” My left foot slipped. I grabbed a branch. Never a wise idea, wood could snap, especially if it were aging wood, dried of sap. Stupid. Stupid to strike out alone. Even if I had no choice. Yes, I needed to be alone today, I needed to think, needed not to think. I wanted to prove to myself that I could make it—whatever
it
was—on my own.

“Middle-Aged Professor Killed in Minor Ascent.” Once more Father would be publicly mortified by a daughter's death.

As sun emerged from behind scrambled clouds, the warmth restored my confidence. There, the foot held. I righted myself. Now on to the next flab of granite. Flab? What had happened to my romance with the lunar landscape?

I was getting hungry and wished I had packed more than a rubbery cheese sandwich and an apple. One more boulder, I told myself.

Again.

One more boulder.

Again.

One more boulder.

And yes, here I was. Standing by a pretty little lake bordered by three walls of granite. I sat down for a couple of breaths. I'd made it.

Perfect picnic spot, but now I'd lost my appetite. I missed Kath terribly. I was cold, depleted after that wretched night. A mild wind blew in from the northwest. Eat. I should eat. As I looked down to unhook my fanny pack, I noticed some bear scat. No, Tonto, relax. No bear was stupid enough to make this climb.

Bear? Mountain goat? Giraffe? How would I know the difference? I didn't have the most elementary information for this trip, had leaned on Kath the entire week. Just as I leaned on Lou. I didn't know how much of this was dependent, exploitative, and how much was natural. Deep down, I understood you were journeying alone. In the end, it was you and the universe. You couldn't count on anyone, ultimately. Sari and Mother had taught me that. You had to get along, get through, by yourself. I envied Kath's head start, her self-containment, her long practice of solitude.

Miraculously, my sandwich was intact. I bit into the dying bread and savory cheese. Then I saw a drop of water on my knee. Red sky at night. Another drop on my boot. Quickly, I unfurled the poncho. The rain came more steadily. Just a shower. I tucked as much of myself as possible under the poncho. God, it was cold, how would I make it down these already slippery boulders
in the rain
?
A shower, surely just a shower.

Food was reaching my bloodstream, and the altitude seemed less celestial. On the other side of the dainty blue lake, between water and granite, was a stand of deep purple lupine. A fairy sort of place, the kind of Heaven I envisioned as a child. I remembered going to Lake Merritt with Kath when we were in the sixth grade. Such an expedition, taking the bus to downtown Oakland, walking around the water, buying popcorn to feed the ducks. Lake Merritt might as well have been Lake Como, so vast and sophisticated it had seemed then. I supposed it was one of our first adventures, the two of us, in the large world, together.

Sun slithered out once more, and warm benevolence soaked through my jeans. I stretched out on a flat rock. How tired I was. What was going on with Sandy? He was a nice enough guy, but the last thing I needed in my life right now was another man. Pulling myself forward, I shook my shoulders. The old mind was wandering and I wasn't sure I was following it. All the women had left me. But Kath had come back, Kath was at camp, waiting for my return, waiting again, Penelope, still waiting. I had left Kath. The soft sun soothed, lulled. I shouldn't fall asleep. What if a bear ambled by? Silly fear, no one had spotted a grizzly up here for decades, and black bears didn't eat humans unless they were desperate. In mid-August, bears weren't starving; they still had plenty of bugs and fish. I rolled on one side. The sun soothed my stiff left shoulder and lower back.

Sandy continued to return, unbidden, to my mind. Yesterday's hike had been a delight. I had stopped worrying about Kath by the time we completed a mile of the trail along lower Rafferty Creek. The day passed so swiftly as the two of us retrieved the names of people who might have been mutual friends at college. I was startled by our parallels. Both of us had grown up in California, gone East for school, married, had a couple of kids. But Sandy had returned West ten years before, when his marriage broke up.

“How often do you see
the kids?” I asked tentatively.

“Three or four times a year,” he said. “More if I get a trip back to New York for work. We always manage at Christmas, spring break, the summer.”

“That's good,” I said encouragingly.

“Could be worse.” He nodded. “Not enough time, though.”

I found myself liking this man, his accessibility, his willingness to be uncertain, unlike Lou, who had all the answers. I also appreciated the fact that Sandy didn't talk nonstop, the way many men my age did. Young guys probably did, too, but I hadn't noticed this much when I was young—perhaps because I didn't have as much to say in those days. Sandy was a sensitive, bright guy. Good company. It was wise of Kath to suggest this break. Why had I panicked?

“Water?” He stopped and unhooked his canteen.

“After you.” I remembered now that Kath hadn't taken the only canteen, that we had another in the trunk behind the cooler.

He had a long gulp and handed me the water. Running my fingers over the round, leather-covered vessel, I asked, “This has stories behind it?”

He smiled. “Bought it in the old market in Mombasa. Twenty years ago. When Lila and I were on our way to work in Mozambique.”

“You lived in Africa?”

“A couple of years. Fighting neocolonialism as information officers for Frelimo. In Maputo.” He raised his eyebrows. “Soon enough Samora decided we were neocolonialists ourselves.”

I drank thirstily.

“He was right. So we came home with some wisdom about politics and geography and a few souvenirs like this canteen.”

“You've had quite a life.” With reluctance, I handed back the worn, yellowish brown canteen.

“You sound sad!” He laughed. “I trust it's not over yet. I hope I'm only about halfway through.”

I was thinking about the safety of my choices. If Kath thought I had abandoned her, it was only because Kath didn't understand I was following a predictable route home, to a home that wasn't a place so much as a pattern. Self-delusion all the years I thought I had escaped—for I hadn't done anything except return to Father's native land on the other coast and reproduce two boys as my parents had had two girls. Mirror images were, of course, not oppositions at all, but the most precise and engaged reflections.

The trail meandered farther from the creek now, upward into a forest of lodgepole pines.

“This is where the trail gets steep,” he called over his shoulder. “You OK with that?”

“Sure,” I said.

We walked silently for a while.

“So tell me your dreams,” he said, climbing steadily, confidently, uphill.

“What a time to ask!” I stalled. “Let me catch my breath.” How long had it been since Lou had asked me about my dreams—or since I had asked him?

I don't mean to pry,” he added.

“No, I like that you ask questions,” I said. “I wish this one weren't so hard.” Sun had vanished into cloud, and the forest, crowded with shadows, suddenly turned cold.

“Maybe more precise questions would help.” He seemed to have reached yet a new level of good-naturedness. “Where do you want to go? Who do you want to meet? What are you looking for?”

“Well, I feel I'm at the cusp of my career. I mean, there are journals where I'd like to publish, conferences I'd like to attend.” I turned to his expectant face. “But somehow this doesn't seem to be what you're asking.”

“No?” he said.

“What are you, a shrink?” I laughed, remembering his interest in Jungian art.

“Just a curious friend.”

“Well, ‘friend,' there's this job at Berkeley I'm thinking about.” There, I said it again—first to Kath, now to Sandy—and each time it felt more exciting, more possible. But I was still scared.

“Berkeley”—his tone revealed nothing—“who wouldn't prefer Berkeley to the frozen reaches of Massachusetts?”

“Lou for one.”

“Who?”

“My husband, Lou.”

“Well, you could always try it for a year—take a leave, right?—and maybe he'd see the light.”

“Perhaps.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Twenty years.”

“Maybe you need a rest stop.” He pulled the hat down farther on his forehead. “Sometimes I think if Lila and I had taken a break, we wouldn't have split up. A little separation can be good for two people.”

I laughed. “So I've been told.”

“I like to be amusing”—he shrugged—“as a human service.”

“I'm sorry, it's just that …”

“No need to explain.” He laughed. “Beatrix Potter said, ‘Never apologize, never explain.' ”

“You really are something.” I grinned. “I like you, Sandy Archer.” This was out of my mouth before I thought about it.

We stood in a wide meadow, with views of Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs.

“Stunning view, eh?” I said hurriedly, to cover my embarrassment.

He looked at me. “Lovely.”

I woke to a gra
y
sky.
4:00 P.M. This was terrible. Perhaps I had knocked my watch against something. I couldn't have slept all this time after lunch. Horrified, I saw the second hand tick, tick along. There was nothing wrong with the shockproof, waterproof Eddie Bauer watch Lou had given me for Christmas. I could do one of those John Cameron Swayze commercials: from high on a rock in the Sierra Nevada, woman climber testifies to product reliability. I fastened the fanny pack, took a sip from the canteen and told myself not to hurry. I always got confused when I hurried. Kath would be furious. It would take us three and a half hours to hike to the Meadows, and that wasn't counting the time it would take me to get back to camp. Shit, rain again. I slid. Damn, tiny pains snapped at my ankle. Slower, I told myself, take it easy. My arm pulsed sharply where I had used it to break the fall.

Climbing down was tricky, and I had to concentrate. There was so much stress on my thigh muscles, on my nerves. The ankle was just tender, not sprained or broken. In younger days, I rarely thought about falling and now I was always conscious of the possibility, because I knew so many more people who had fallen, because I was that much more brittle, because I had learned to worry more. Concentrate, I instructed myself: one step after the other. I would be all right even on these slippery boulders. Wind rose and rain came down harder. I wouldn't want to wreck an ankle and show up at the conference wearing an Ace bandage, hobbling on a crutch. Concentrate. Rain continued intermittently.

Absolutely terrified, I reassured myself by thinking of the hardest things in my life, like facing Mother and Father after Sari's death. Then smaller terrors like introducing Kath to Lou, doing my Ph.D. comps, having my first baby, having my second baby, learning to drive. This actually was quite a short climb. If I'd made it up, I could make it down, I would be fine. Not worth dying here; they had already named the peaks and lakes. What was left to commemorate me—probably not even a tiny wildflower that bloomed in alternate Julys.