Sick rides
«I used to do drugs. I still do, but I also used to do drugs.»
-Mitch Hedberg
tThe night had been cold and the frost from the lake clung to our quilts as the sun rose. We got rid of them as best we could and circled around the lake. The reflections of the yellow trees rippled in the water. Flocks of waterfowl flew to and fro and trout nibbled at the surface.
«That’s a big problem,» Dij said. «Take it, cook it with a little salt over a campfire. Super good.»
He carried his tenkara stick with him. «Do you have a license?» I asked.
He shook his head. «A pain in the butt. Why would I pay for a fish? I might as well fish in the countryside, where there are no game wardens.»
I shrugged and continued walking. I had to take a shit and kept looking at the Durkin cabins that dotted the coast. I tried the handle on one and it was locked, so I assumed the same for the rest. In front were a group of pickup trucks and all-wheel drive cars and a group of people milling around. There were also three porta-o-poopers. I walked up and said, «How much can I pay you to shit in one of these?»
The closest group looked at us from the pile of equipment they were organizing and said, «Just don’t shit in the urinal.»
“Low bar,” I said.
«Someone set it up.»
I laughed and shook my head. «Scout’s honor, shit goes where it belongs.»
I jumped at the sound of the spring-loaded plastic door and turned the lock. I heard Dij enter the next one.
«Do you come here often?» I said through the wall.
«I’ve never been, but I’ve heard good things.»
«Just don’t shit in the urinal.»
When we came out, Ice Cream and Frito were pacing around with their own sphincters contracted. They came in right behind Dij and me.
“Four by four,” I said. “Thank you very much everyone,” I told the group. We talked for a bit while Ice Cream and Frito took turns. The group was a trail maintenance crew for the Colorado Trail. Big team, lots of funding. It made sense. The CT was one of the best maintained and cared for trails I had been on.
***
With the biology sorted out, the four of us gained some distance at the Durkin cabins and reached the end of the lake trail. When we enter the mountains we take out the mushies. Nothing crazy, just a gram or so each, and they walked towards the cottonwoods. There couldn’t be a better place or a better day for it.
Golden trees raining golden leaves. Blue sky with white clouds, warm sun and just enough cold air to keep us cool. The poplars moved to the rhythm of music that only they could hear, the leaves fell like rain on a low gravity planet, the pure white of the trunks of the poplars held up the sky and shaded the earth with a loving shadow. The forest passed like a dream. Finally, still under the influence of alcohol, we sat down to have lunch next to a small stream. The path was wide, so Ice Cream and I sat on one side, Dij and Frito on the other. We briefly noticed large holes dug near the shore. “Some kind of animal or what?” I didn’t ask anyone in particular.
“Who knows,” Ice Cream said. «But it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.»
Out of nowhere, a man with no equipment except a five-gallon plastic bucket, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, appeared in the tall grass next to the creek. “Hello, everyman,” I greeted him. “What brings you here?”
“Gold,” he said.
“That explains the holes,” Dij said.
«Is there gold here?» Frito said. He had developed a hunger for shiny rocks and crystals somewhere along this path.
“Looks like it,” Ice Cream said as two more gold diggers with buckets emerged from the reeds. They crossed the stream and went looking for gold near the first holes we had seen.
Surprise the gold people out of the way, we start cooking. We made sure to hug the sides of the trail instead of sprawling over it in case more hikers came. Basic label. But we didn’t expect what came next. Ten or eleven people on horses turned the corner in single file. The leader stopped. Our stoves hissed with fire and the water began to boil, so we tried to slide further to the edge of the path, but the thick grass and reeds formed a kind of wall. The leader of the Horse People spoke from atop his steed. «YOU MUST GET UP. THE HORSES WILL BE AFRAID OF YOU SITTING.»
We stared in disbelief.
The Horse Master ordered again. “YOU MUST GET UP.”
So we did it. We got up, Helado and I on one side and Dij and Frito on the other. The horse master pushed his mount forward and the horses began to parade past us. Each one’s face seemed too unique: some looked calm, others angry with flattened ears, one with eyes so bulging they looked bulging. The four of us stood still like statues, afraid to scare the animals until the last one passed by. Once we left, we stood looking at each other, two by two.
“That was so fucking weird,” I said, thinking about how the horses’ faces looked too human.
“A lot,” Dij said. «Like, what the fuck?»
“YOU MUST GET UP!” Frito imitated the Lord of the Horses.
“OR YOU WILL HANDcuff THE HORSES!” Finished ice cream.
We settled back into our lunch, letting the mushrooms slip from our minds as we ate and laughed.
***
“You know that feeling when you push too hard and get dizzy?” Dij said behind me. The slowest guy should always be in front if you want to stay together.
«Yeah.»
«Don’t you just love that feeling?»
“I despise him.”
«Oh…» he sounded like he had just stomped on his favorite kitten and then recovered. «I guess that follows.»
“Talking about hating that feeling, see that town down there?” I pointed to our left. At the bottom of the valley there was a group of buildings. “That’s Buena Vista.”
«Yes I know».
I pointed ahead of us along the ridge towards the highest of the mountains. «The trail requires us to go through that, but I’ll split up at the trailhead and take the roads into town.»
«Because?»
«Because I don’t like climbing mountains. At least, I don’t like climbing mountains if I’ve climbed one in the last few days.»
“So why take a hike?”
«Because I like to walk. I like to walk as far as I can and wake up and walk some more, but I also like to walk through towns or roads. I don’t need to feel dizzy to enjoy it.»
«Also clues,» Dij said. “I’m going to do the mountain.”
«You should. I’ll wait at the trailhead for Ice Cream and Frito to catch up, see if they want to follow the trail. If so, we’ll find a hotel and meet there. Does that sound good?»
«Sounds good.»
He had spent his entire hiking career being the strong guy, occasionally verbally attacking weak people. Those who leave go to Creed, he had told me before we started the CDT. AND, I don’t usually talk to old hikers much because I know I’ll never see them again. Now the normals were his best friends, and they would probably go to Creed and talk to all the old hikers.
The parking lot came and he continued on, his short, muscular legs picking up speed until the trail threw up puffs of dust like smoke from a friction fire. I lazed around in a tangle of roots with my backpack still on until Ice Cream and Frito showed up.
«Take the road?» Ice Cream asked.
«Yeah.»
«I knew it!» she laughed.
Frito held his hands apart as he does, as if he were holding an invisible beach ball. «I was looking at the town from the side of the mountain and I thought, there it is, right there. Why would we cross another mountain when we could go to town?»
I pointed to my brain and smiled. «My thoughts exactly.»
But Dij had told me everything, so while the three of us took the leisure route to Buena Vista, I put on my headphones and listened to music while Frito explained the intricacies of his group of friends’ drama back home. I missed most of it, but I heard a tidbit about Cancer Girl. She didn’t have cancer; she was cancer. Frito had learned the hard way that some people respond to kindness with deception and had to travel to the city to talk about his frustration. However, Ice Cream is a good listener and took it all in, asking clarifying or probing questions here and there.
We passed some fenced buffalo, including a towering bull with a head the size of a wheelbarrow, as the dirt road turned to pavement. A mile or two out of town an old truck stopped. It was dark green and of a style that my grandfather probably would have been able to identify by make, model and year. One woman was behind the wheel and another in the passenger seat. «Do you want me to take you to town?»
I could hear my grandfather’s spirit coming from the rumbling engine. It’s a 1940 Ford ½ ton 239 V8 flathead. Ride it, for I am beyond the grave and can no longer enjoy sick rides. I guess Papaw had learned some slang in heaven. I looked at Ice Cream; she shrugged. «We would love to be taken.»
“Get on!”
We did it. The truck rumbled into the city and the lady dropped us off at a second-rate hotel on a corner in the city center. «I guess we’ll stay here,» I said as we unloaded. The truck started and we entered the lobby. I paid, Ice Cream sent a Garmin message to Toolman, and we settled in for a night of hiker trash at the hotel.
