With a frown, he pulled his arm out of the mummy bag and glanced at his wrist before remembering he never wore his watch on backpacking trips. Karen's group must have gotten an earlier start than they had the day before. They had probably camped a short distance up Rock Creek from his own spot.
Great. Now you're stuck behind them, Brian. He lay in his bag and berated himself. He'd planned on making a lot of miles that day. Now he would have to pass them if he wanted to get to Tyndall Creek by dinnertime. After the abruptness of his departure the day before, he was sure Karen had him pegged as an idiot. He could picture the look of indifference on her face when she saw him on the trail.
Why should she be anything but indifferent? She doesn't even know you, bonehead. That was the problem: he badly wanted to know her.
Brian wormed out of his bag and pulled on his trail shoes. Frigid air washed his face when he unzipped the entry of his tent. He crawled out into the blinding sunshine of a Sierra morning and stood up. The air bit at his bare legs and face. Jeez, it's cold! His breath hung in the air as he squinted against the light. A sudden sneeze tingled through his sinuses and exploded in a spray of vapor into the sunlight. Brian debated putting on his jeans as he shivered next to his tent with his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his dirty khaki shorts. He'd forgotten how cold these damper canyons could be in the morning. Deciding a quick pee would stop his shivering as much as anything else, Brian found a spot well away from the creek and relieved his bladder.
Returning to his campsite, he fixed a double portion of instant Cream Of Wheat sprinkled with granola and gulped the steaming cereal down, then quickly broke camp. The combination of the brisk morning air and hot cereal rejuvenated him. He swung his pack to his shoulders and headed for the fallen lodgepole that spanned Rock Creek. It was a wide log, nearly two feet in diameter, and Brian easily walked across it to the other side of the creek. Almost immediately the trail began switchbacking upward on its way to Guyot Pass.
After a half hour of stiff climbing the trail crossed a ridge and dipped down to Guyot Creek before continuing its upward path. The switchbacks had ended at the top of the ridge and the grade lessened. The lodgepoles had given way to foxtail pines again by the time the trail crested the pass. Brian paused in the saddle of the pass and shed his pack to take a breather. As he sipped from his water bottle, he gazed to the north at a series of broad ridges that the trail would have to negotiate before dropping down to Whitney Creek. The last time he'd seen this view, his father was with him. Brian dug into his pack and pulled out his tape player and another John Denver tape. Listening to the tape would almost be like having his dad with him. Shrugging into his pack, Brian moved on. Long before he reached Whitney Creek he turned off the tape. For some reason John Denver wasn't doing it for him today. He felt isolated and alone, almost angry, and he didn't know why. At the trail junction to Mt. Whitney he'd planned to stop and eat, but when he arrived at the fork, he didn't feel like it. He decided to keep moving when a familiar voice stopped him.
"Hey!" Turning to look, Brian saw Karen and another girl with two male companions under a tree off to one side of the trail. Karen waved. "Come on over," she called. "We're just getting started with lunch. Why don't you get out of the sun and eat with us?"
Brian glanced at the other people. He recognized Karen's boyfriend from the glimpse he'd gotten of him at Chicken Spring Lake. Up close, he looked even bigger. His arms and chest bulged under his T-shirt, and his neck reminded Brian of an oak stump. He could have stepped off the glossy cover of a muscle magazine. Short, golden blond hair, a jaw that was almost geometrically square, and a deep tan completed the picture. His expression gave Brian the impression that he'd suddenly bitten into something sour. The other couple's faces were open and friendly.
"C'mon, eat with us," Karen said again.
"Yeah, pull up a rock," the other whoever-he-was added. The Fianc?shot his friend a narrow-eyed glare, and it was that quick glance that helped Brian make up his mind to stop.
"Since you offered . . . why not?" he said with a smile. He ambled over and eased his pack to the ground. The others continued whatever conversation they had been engaged in while he scrounged for crackers and trail mix in his pack, but once he had seated himself on a chunk of granite with his food he became the focus of their attention.
Karen handled the introductions. "Buck, this is Russ, and this is Carla and Jeff."
"Your name is 'Buck'?" Russ asked.
"No, I think she forgot." Behind Russ's back, Karen was grinning wickedly. Brian tried hard not to smile back. "It's Brian. Nice to meet you," Brian nodded to all of them. Carla's hair and eyes were dark and she was dressed in shorts and a denim shirt tied in a knot at the waist. She had a quick smile that made Brian think of an animated Disney heroine; Jasmine, Belle, Ariel?--he couldn't remember which. Jeff was a tall, thin young man with tangled brown hair and a struggling mustache. His jeans were incredibly ragged and he wore a faded flannel shirt.
"Brian is on his way up to Devil's Postpile," Karen told the other three.
"That's a long way still," Jeff said. "Do you have food to last you 'til then?"
"No way," Brian said. "I'd have to be built like Russ here to carry that much stuff. I'll hike out at Onion Valley. I've got a box of supplies waiting at the pack station."
"Why are you hiking by yourself?" Russ echoed Karen's question of the morning before, but with a tinge of suspicion creeping into his tone.
Rather than being led down the path of talking about his late father, Brian provided a different answer than he had given Karen. "I couldn't find anybody else who could get a month off to go with me. I like hiking by myself too. That way I don't slow anybody down."
"What do you do when you're not hiking?" Jeff asked.
"I'm working my way through Cal State Fullerton as a waiter."
"What's your major?" Karen asked.
"I'm trying to get an MFA in writing. I've got one more year to go."
"Writing?" Russ said. "Can you make money doing that?" Karen leaned out from her rock and punched him in the shoulder.
Brian laughed and tossed a handful of trail mix into his mouth. "I'll probably be a writing waiter," he mumbled past the granola and M&Ms. "Or is it a waiting writer? What about you guys? What do you do?"
"We all go to UNLV," Karen answered. "This is our last fling before school starts again. Carla and Jeff are business majors and Russ is a sports med student. I'm majoring in Journalism."
Brian swallowed and gave her one thumb up. "Live to write, write to live," he said solemnly.
"Now you know why I punched Russ," Karen said, "for his remark about making money at writing. He keeps teasing me about being Lois Lane." An image of Russ in a Superman costume with Karen hugging one of his biceps flashed through Brian's mind. In the midday sun her scar appeared as a faint pink streak that contrasted nicely with her tan face. She was wearing the denim shorts again, along with a well-worn, sky-blue T-shirt.
"So you're heading north?" Russ asked. "How far are you going today?"
There was a tone in his voice that Brian didn't care for. It was an if-you've-got-somewhere-to-go-you-should-be-going tone. Without thinking, Brian said, "Actually I was heading up to Guitar Lake tonight." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he mentally kicked himself. Guitar Lake was at the western base of Mt. Whitney, three miles off the trail he'd planned to take. There was no reason for him to detour that way, unless . . .
"That's where we're staying tonight too," Jeff said.
"So you're going up Mt. Whitney?" Karen asked. "You didn't tell me that." Brian's eyes were on Karen as she spoke, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Russ scowl.
"It's just a side trip. I'm going to leave most of my stuff at Guitar Lake and take a day pack up to the peak and back tomorrow," Brian said.
"We're planning on spending tomorrow night at the top if the weather holds out," said Jeff.
"The sunrise from the top is spectacular," Brian told them. "You'll be the first people in the whole state to see it. There aren't a lot of campsites at Guitar Lake though. They go fast."
"We should get going then," Russ said, rising to his feet. "Thanks for the tip. Maybe we'll see you up there."
In other words, you're not invited to hike with us, is that what you're saying, Russ? "Maybe you will," Brian replied out loud as he stood up with the rest of the group. He shouldered his pack and fastened the waist belt before giving a short nod to the other four hikers. He started up the trail that ran along Whitney Creek.
What the heck are you doing, Brian? his inner voice asked. You're only making things harder. But the question was rhetorical; he knew what he was doing, and he knew why he was doing it.
