Baedecker lay in the small tent and thought about his divorce. It was a topic he rarely tried to bring to mind; the memories were as blurred and painful as those of the two months he had spent in the hospital after crashing an F-104 in 1962. He rolled over, but the rough ground poked at him through the sleeping bag and thin foam pad. Tommy Jr. snored next to him. The boy smelled of wine and pot. Outside, a few raindrops pattered on the tent, and the Cimarron River, no wider than a stream, made gurgling sounds thirty feet away.
Baedecker's divorce had been finalized in August of 1986, only two weeks before their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Baedecker had flown to Boston for the formalities, coming a day early to stay at Carl Bumbry's house. He had forgotten that Carl's wife had been a closer friend to Joan than Carl had been to him. The next night was spent at the Holiday Inn in Cambridge.
Two hours before going to court, Baedecker dressed in his best three-piece summer suit. Joan liked the suit, had helped him pick it out two years earlier. A few minutes before it was time to leave, Baedecker realized that he knew precisely what dress Joan would wear to the divorce proceedings. She would not have bought a new one, because she would never wear it again. She would not wear her favorite white dress or the more formal green suit. Only the purple cotton dress would be light enough and formal enough for her on this day. And Baedecker had always disliked the color purple.
Baedecker immediately changed into tennis shorts, a blue T-shirt, and tennis shoes. He put his sweat-stained wristband on and threw the racquet and a canister of balls in the backseat of his rented car. Before going into court, he called Carl Bumbry and arranged for a four-thirty game at Carl's club immediately following the divorce action.
Joan wore the purple dress. Baedecker spoke to her before and after the brief ceremony but later could remember nothing of what they said to each other. He did remember the score of the tennis match — Carl had won 6-0, 6-3, 6-4 — and Baedecker could recall vividly details of play from each set. After the match Baedecker showered, changed clothes, tossed his clothes into his old military flight bag, and drove north to Maine.
He went alone to Monhegan Island, he realized later, because Joan had always wanted to go there. Long before they had moved to Boston, even back during the hot, Houston days, Joan had been intrigued by the thought of spending time on the little island off the coast of Maine. They had never found the time.
For Baedecker, the image that stuck in his mind was of his arrival after an hour's boat-ride on the Laura B. The little boat had entered a thick fog bank a mile or two from the coast and water was beaded along the ship's wires and lines. People had quit conversing; even the youngsters playing near the bow had stopped their shouts and horseplay. The last ten minutes of the ride had been made in silence. Then they passed the two breakwaters of broken concrete slabs and moved into the harbor. Gray-shingled houses and dripping piers shifted in and out of existence as the fog curled, lifted, and settled again. Gulls wheeled and dived above the wake of the boat, their cries ripping the silence into sharp-edged fragments. Baedecker had been standing near the port rail, alone, when he noticed the people standing on the dock. At first he could not be sure they were people; they stood so straight and still. Then the fog lifted and he could make out the colorful sports shirts, the vacation hats, even the make of cameras hanging around some of their necks.
It had given Baedecker a strange feeling. He learned later that the crowd gathered twice a day to meet the boat: tourists heading back to the mainland, islanders greeting guests, and vacationers, bored by the lack of electricity on the island, merely waiting to see the boat. But although Baedecker spent three days on the island, reading, sleeping, exploring the trails and druidish woods, he would later remember only the image of the dock and the fog and the figures standing silently. It was a scene from Hades with shades of the long-dead waiting passively to greet the newly departed. Sometimes, especially when Baedecker was tired and tempted to recall details of the divorce and the painful year that preceded it, he would dream that he was on that dock, in the fog, a gray form in a gray mist, waiting.
The rain stopped. Baedecker closed his eyes and listened to the river moving over rocks in the streambed below. Somewhere in the forest an owl called, but Baedecker heard it as the screech and cry of gulls calling above the sea.
Tommy Jr. was throwing up when Baedecker awoke. The boy had managed to get his head and shoulders out of the tent. Now his legs kicked and his back arched with each series of spasms.
Baedecker pulled on his shirt and jeans and squeezed out the other flap. It was almost seven A.M. but the sunlight had not touched the canyon yet, and there was a deep chill in the air. Tommy had finished vomiting and was resting his face on his arm. Baedecker knelt next to him and asked if there was anything he could do, but already Deedee was bustling over from her own tent, swabbing the boy's face with a damp handkerchief, and murmuring reassurances.
Several minutes later Maggie joined Gavin and Baedecker at the breakfast campfire. Her face was pink from washing at the icy stream and her short hair looked recently brushed. She wore khaki shorts and a bright red shirt. 'What's wrong with Tommy?' she asked as she accepted hot water from the pot and stirred instant coffee into her Sierra cup.
'Altitude maybe,' suggested Baedecker.
'Not altitude,' said Gavin. 'Probably something those hippies gave him last night.' He gestured to the other side of the meadow where a cold fire ring and trampled grass were the only sign the others had been there.
'When did they leave?' asked Maggie.
'Before dawn,' said Gavin. 'When we should've been moving. We'll never make the summit of Uncompahgre today.'
'What's the plan?' asked Baedecker. 'Shall we pack back down to the car?' Gavin looked startled. 'No, no, the schedule might work out better this way. Look.' He pulled out the topographic map and spread it on a rock. 'I'd planned for us to reach here last night.' He stabbed a finger down on a white area far up the canyon. 'But because of the late start from Boulder and our slow pace yesterday, we camped here.' He pointed to a green area several miles north. 'So we'll take it easy today, pack up to the plateau today, and camp here tonight.' He pointed to an area southwest of Uncompahgre Peak.
'That way we'll get an early start on Sunday morning. Deedee and I hate to miss church, but we'll be there for the evening services.'
'Where was it that you left the other car?' asked Baedecker.
'Right here,' said Gavin, pointing to a green area on the map. 'It's just a few miles south of the pass and plateau. After we do the mountain, we hike out, pick up the other car on the way north, and we're on our way home.' Maggie studied the map. 'That campsite would be high,' she said. 'Over eleven thousand feet. It looks like it would be pretty exposed if the weather gets bad.' Gavin shook his head. 'I checked with the weather service yesterday and there is only a fifteen percent chance of showers in this region through Monday. Besides, there will be plenty of sheltered places as we get close to the south ridge there.' Maggie nodded but did not look satisfied.
'I wonder how the hang glider group is doing,' said Baedecker. He looked up the canyon but could see no one on the few stretches of trail visible between the trees. The sunlight was moving down the west wall of rock to their right, exposing strata of pink rock like muscle and tissue opening to a scalpel's blade.
'If they had any sense, they turned around and headed back north toward Cimarron,' said Gavin. 'Come on, let's get things packed up.'