“What do you mean?” she asked. “What cancer? When did you find out?”
“It’s okay. I’m not gone yet.”
She hated that word--yet.
“Tell me.”
“A couple weeks ago I went to the doctor’s.”
“Weeks ago?” She wanted to slap him.
“Just for some tests.” He shrugged. “I have prostate cancer.”
The world went blurry. She clutched her father close and fought off the images cascading through her mind of the ensuing chemotherapy and sickness and the vigil at his bedside while he withered to nothing and the last breath and the wake with all the pictures of him on some magnetic board and the burial and her all alone with no one to hug. She wouldn’t bury him. She would have him cremated and then she’d re-climb this mountain and scatter his ashes from the summit.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “But there’s still plenty of reasons to hope.”
Mercy sat back, wiped her eyes. “You need to tell me things,” she said. “You need to be upfront about everything that happens. I need to know. I’m not a little girl.”
“I know, honey. I just didn’t know how to tell you. After Mom, this seemed too cruel to be true. I was holding out, hoping the doctor would call, say it’s all been a mistake. Mixed up blood work or something. I didn’t mean to wait so long. I am sorry.”
They embraced again. This was too much to process. She had watched him go from her strong, healthy dad to a withered, living corpse to a pile of ashes in a flash and that’s all she could see right now. His death. This was too cruel to be true. God couldn’t be this mean.
“When do you start treatment? What happens next? What’s the prognosis.”
He rubbed her back. “No more of that now. This outing is for us to enjoy ourselves, okay? I don’t want you harping on my situation.”
“Harping? I’m concerned. I need to know. You’re my father.”
“Before she died, your mother said she knew I would be okay because you would take care of me. You’re so strong, Mercy. It makes me feel so old.”
“I don’t feel strong.” In fact, she felt like she never wanted to stand up again.
He broke the hug and held her at arm’s length. “You’re much stronger than you think. You need to believe that because I won’t be around forever.”
“Jesus, Dad, don’t throw in the towel yet. You said there’s hope. You said--”
“No more,” he said. “No more discussion of this today. Let’s continue up the mountain, find a good place to set up a tent and spend the afternoon exploring or playing cards or talking. But not about my prostate. That’s not proper for a daughter to discuss.”
He was trying to make her laugh but she wasn’t biting. She wanted to weep and throw herself against the ground and scream that this wasn’t fair. She wanted to hit her father and curse him for being so selfish and not telling her what he knew weeks ago and also for telling her today on this stupid mountain. She didn’t want to know. Why couldn’t she live her life in complete obliviousness? Yet, that thought pissed her off the most because that was the coward in her, the girl who never tried to make friends in elementary school, the girl who studied her childhood away, the girl who stayed in her dorm when others went to frat parties, the girl who didn’t want to end up in a comprising situation with some drunk jock. That coward inside her had given her this closeted life in which her virginity was bound to her like a yoke that binds to oxen.
She gathered herself together. “Okay, Dad. Let’s go.”
He smiled.
Mercy stuffed The Collector back in her bag and mused that the kidnapped woman in the story hadn’t had to worry about her father dying. She’d only had to worry for her own life.
“You got off easy,” she mumbled.
NINETEEN
Victor found the main trail which was a wide path of beaten dirt where vegetation had ceased growing many years ago. Stepping from his private trail onto this one that thousands of hikers had used over the years was like emerging from a narrow hallway onto a vast city block. He checked both directions as if a car might hurdle right at him.
Both directions were quiet.
He started up the mountain again. There was large camping ground near the summit that had grown from a clearing into a tourist spot with permanent charcoal grills and sectioned-off tent areas. Eventually, there would probably be running water.
People were so stupid. Civilization was once a small group of happy hunters and gatherers. Then people “evolved” and created towns and cities and whole countries. They discovered oil and industrialization brought most of the amenities now taken for granted. As if that wasn’t bad enough, people had kicked this evolution into even higher gear in the past years with the Internet and wireless everything. People wanted to be connected to everyone and everything no matter where they went.
Whoever ventured up Blood Mountain, however, walked alone. There had been talk of installing cell towers on the mountain and it might happen one day but for now there was NO SERVICE up here and NO HELP for anyone who couldn’t tap into the primal lives of their ancestors and survive off the land.
After the cleansing, those weak people would be the first to perish. The approaching New Time was for those who knew that mankind’s greatest existence had been at its earliest stages when life meant harmony with nature and survival was a constant battle always bordering on the cusp of death. Up here, away from the stupidity of a world of distractions, Victor could embrace an atavistic life where happiness wasn’t something pursued; it was an ever-present state-of-mind.
Victor did not avoid the burgeoning puddles of mud as he ascended the trail. He loved the sound his boot made when it mushed into the puddle and the sucking plop it gasped when he pulled his foot free. It would be so wonderful to feel the mud surround his foot and fill the gaps between his toes.
He had been working on his feet. He wasn’t ready to go bootless but would be soon. He used sandpaper on the soles of his feet to augment thick callouses. He performed strength-training exercises with his feet and toes. There were so many muscles in the feet. Primal man had possessed incredibly strong and agile feet resistant to most terrains. The advent of shoes, more so than anything else perhaps, was mankind’s first great step away from his proper existence. Now feet were weak, helpless without thick rubber soles that had tread like tires or even spikes.
Victor had walked up here barefoot before and loved every sensation of being so intimate with the earth but he couldn’t do that today. Normal people used boots and he had to keep that facade up as long as possible.
It was sad to think that if someone came across a completely primal human being, that someone would be horrified.
“We have forgotten who we are,” Victor said. “We have lost our purpose.”
Victor, however, had not forgotten nor lost his purpose. He continued up the trail, slashing an occasional tree along the way.
TWENTY
Hiking was supposed to be calming, some great trek through nature that made you reconnect with the natural world in a profound way. That was bullshit. Mercy’s thighs burned. Muscles in her back cramped. Her feet throbbed in the hiking boots Dad had bought for her two days ago. Several times, she stepped on a small rock or protruding branch and almost twisted her ankle. If she had it would be relief. They could go back home. Getting down the mountain with a swollen ankle posed its own challenges that might make her cry if she thought too much about it, but homeward bound was better than this ascent.
Dad stayed a few feet ahead and though his breathing grew rapid and shallow he never wavered and his every step was strong and solid. She wanted to tell him to slow down to not tire himself out.