“I think I’ll close my eyes a while if you don’t mind,” he said sleepily.
A warm shower after a month of scrubbing in icy streams is a strange, welcome sensation. I relished the hot water while staring at the web of foot-long gray hairs cemented to the fiberglass wall. The water swirled away brown and thick.
I don’t mind a beard, but I like the peace and patience of shaving. I gave my razor fifty swipes on my belt and carefully scraped away the month-old beard. The straight razor reminds me of Dad, and during winter it pays to remember him well.
Dad took to the bad winter depression when I was thirteen. He could hardly get out of bed. It’s hard to watch a man give up. I went to work to keep us warm and fed. To get out of the house. The first job I had was for a wrecker company. In the winter we stayed busy hauling cars out of ditches and driveways. We plowed and salted all the roads in Quinn Valley. At thirteen, any time something had to be done outside the truck, it was my job, and by spring my hands were dry and chapped and eternally cold. That’s when I decided I’d go to college. You can’t live a full life if you’re always being told to do shit-work.
Dad lifted out of the darkness gradually. By the end of February, he’d make coffee at six, stay up until lunch, and nap until dinner. That’s when he taught me to shave, how to strop, and how to edge and resurface a blade. It pays to remember him well and to shave the way he taught me.
Tom was on the couch as before, the wine bottle between his legs. The cigar box was gone, and in its place on the coffee table was a long, fat-barreled rifle. He barely blinked as I walked into the room. Several boxes of ammunition were piled at his feet. He pointed at the rifle.
“Also my brother’s. He liked to hunt. I don’t believe in hunting. It’s yours.”
The rifle was a 300 Winchester Magnum, a big game rifle good for steady shots at three hundred yards. My father owned one a long time. He swore by the 300. He kept his on display above the kitchen door. He daydreamed of hunting elk. He sold it one winter when money was tight. His friends said that’s what got him depressed.
The rifle was plain. Olive and black steel. It had two folding legs near the middle of the barrel. The legs were drawn up and tucked against the stock.
“You can have it, but you gotta take care of something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Carla.”
“Carla?”
“Yeah. Thought about it while you were showering. Got to put her down.”
“It’s for the best.”
“Listen up, now.” He held up a single round, the slug and jacket longer than his fingers. “I love that dog. One shot.” He tapped his forehead with the tip of the bullet. “Please don’t make her suffer.”
“Sure.”
“It’s the damnedest thing. I feel like I have to sweat but I can’t. Like my skin is aching to sweat. You know the feeling?”
“I don’t.”
“But it’s all over. All my skin is aching. My right toe’s kind of numb.”
“Hm,” I stepped forward and put the back of my hand on his forehead. It was cold. “Keep your arm up,” I said. “Drink more wine.”
He looked at the bandaged hand resting on his chest, the blood staining his beard beneath. “I forgot all about that.”
I arranged the ammunition in my pack, set the pack by the door, and took the rifle outside. I stared over the chain-link fence looking for Carla. I entered the pen and walked around the back of the house. In the corner of the yard, I saw the light yellow chicken coop with one hen awkwardly pecking around outside. I raised the rifle and peered into the opening of the coop. The mangled bodies of a dozen hens and a couple roosters were strewn over the straw and walls. Feathers and blood everywhere. Carla stood in the back of the coop, teeth bared with a scaly chicken foot wedged between them.
I brought the stock of the rifle to my shoulder, took a deep breath, and fired. The coop shook. The shot echoed. Thunder in my chest. In that moment, I held the hand of God.
Carla twitched. Her head was gone. I’d killed a dog before, but I don’t like to think about it.
I stepped out of the chicken coop and into heavy, sloppy snowfall. The temperature had dropped since morning. It seemed to plummet by the minute. The Appalachians is a part of the world no one really understands. It’s a hard place to live. It is cold, isolated, and requires effort. You really have to love the place to live there. But you can’t go there hoping to find something inside you. It’s a place you go when you know that something is already there.
I wasn’t on a quest when I started hiking. A young couple I met after a week on the Trail told me they were building a stronger relationship. After a few weeks, they found they didn’t know each other at all. They split up the night we met. I heard it while I sat drinking on a log, warming my hands in the fire. They yelled a long time. Finally, the boyfriend unzipped the tent, hoisted his pack, and marched into the darkness.
I walked with the girl the next day, both of us silent. She stared at her feet most of the hike.
“I’m taking the next side-trail we see,” she said after an hour. “I’m going to take it to a trailhead and find a parking lot. People,” the girl twitched her head, hair swishing against the nylon rain cover.
“I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thanks.” She clicked her tongue. “Did you hear everything last night?”
“Tents are very thin. And I was on that log.”
“Of course you did.”
“Hiking can be hard on people.”
“Not you?”
“Just walk, eat, and sleep.”
“I’ve never been camping before. I spent all my money on this pack and don’t even know half of what’s inside.”
“At least you got the tent.”
She laughed. “The woman always gets the house. He got the food, though.”
“Hungry?”
She shook her head. “He yelled at me for setting up the tent wrong. The first night. First time I ever saw a tent. Said it would leak if it rained, the tarp was all wrong or something. How was I supposed to know?” She sniffed. “I’m a little hungry.”
I gave her a bag of nuts and uncooked oatmeal. I could tell she hated it, but she shoved several handfuls into her mouth.
“How can you yell at someone for trying to learn something?” She added.
“I haven’t been hiking in a long time. It’s like I’m relearning everything.”
“It’s weird. We’ve been hiking before. All over the place. But this is dangerous. I don’t know why people would want to do this for two-thousand miles.”
“It’s a long trail.”
“Tanner just lost his dad. He thought a big project like this would help him deal with it. Thought if I did it with him we could change together. Maybe the world would work different for him. He’s just frustrated all the time. Angry. I didn’t really think this was a good idea.”
“I lost my dad. I was younger.”
“How’d you deal with it?”
“I still deal with it.”
“It doesn’t really stop, huh?”
I shook my head. She handed me the empty bag.
We came to a carved sign pointing to a trailhead and departed. I saw Tanner at the next shelter and told him where she’d left the trail. He ran after her, pack bouncing, and I never saw either of them after that.
To enjoy hiking, you have to like dirt and walking and being tired. It’s not something you do to reach a higher level of consciousness. It’s a physical activity.
The snow fell faster, it came up to the tops of my soles. I pulled my jacket around my neck and turned back to the house. Kicking the snow and mud off my boots, I opened the door and called to Tom.