The Call of the Mountain
Sam Neumann
Contents
Copyright
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Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
About the Author
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Copyright © 2015 by Sam Neumann
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
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“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
- John Muir, 1873
1
It was a Friday morning in the summer when I left her. I was tired, she was hysterical, and that was the way things went.
“I’m sorry,” I told her through my open car window. Her black hair was frizzy in the New York humidity, makeup running down her face, just wanting to know why. Give her one good reason. I didn’t, because I couldn’t, but even if I could’ve, it wouldn’t have helped. She clutched the car door and screamed in my face.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I love you.”
She tried to punch me through the window. I put the car in gear. It was the way things went.
I didn’t like it. It wasn’t something I’d planned on doing. I was a failed husband, maybe a failed man. These were serious charges, I knew, but at the time they were only uncomfortable. I meant it when I said I loved her, and on some level I knew I was an idiot. This surely wasn’t fair to her; it was downright improper, and borderline cruel, and this was the fact that made it hardest for me to leave. This was the thing that almost made me stay, in spite of everything else.
But in the end it didn’t matter. There was still love, but the love had changed. The love was different. The love didn’t matter as much anymore. At one point the love would have kept me, but not now. The love wasn’t love; it had turned to something else. Where love had been was something different, something we and the rest of the world still called love, but wasn’t.
So I left. Because I was trapped. And because being trapped with something vaguely resembling love wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for me, and someday she would learn it wasn’t enough for her, either.
Megan kicked the side of the door as I drove away, then threw her latte into the rear windshield. The cup exploded and splashed caramel-colored liquid over the glass. I made a mental note to clean it when I got out of town.
The sun beat down on the streets of Upper Manhattan, and soon I was sweating through my oxford. But I didn’t turn on the air conditioning; I opened the windows, and took in the sounds and smells of that godforsaken city one last time. The jackhammers and car horns and the smells of hot garbage and car exhaust. I rolled the windows down farther, all the way to the bottom, and let it all in. Let all of that shit in, to permeate the dashboard and the leather seats and my sweaty blue shirt. To sink into my skin, and stay there for a while, to remind me of what I left.
Soon I was driving that Mercedes-Benz across the Hudson, then through Jersey and across I-78. Before long I would be riding the freeway across Pennsylvania, with the windows down and my sleeves rolled up. I was headed west, and if I had any say in the matter, I would not be coming back.
2
I was an analyst for Wilson Keen Financial Group, and I did the things Wall Street financial analysts do. Worked in the city in one of those big buildings, wore the suit and tie, regularly put in fourteen hour days plus commute, drank enough coffee to kill a horse. I was twenty-two when I got the call with the first job offer; I remember it clearly. Sitting at the kitchen table in my little apartment in Hanover, putting the finishing touches on my senior year of college, I kept myself together as they told me I’d been accepted, that I’d gotten the job, then thanked them politely and hung up. I kicked my chair back and screamed like an idiot. I yelled loud enough for all of New Hampshire to hear. I won, again. All the academic bullshit was worth it. I was a Wall Street financial analyst. It sounded good, like it was meant to be. I was ready to make money.
And make money I did. All the big Wall Street firms paid well, even for entry-level employees with no experience. I had a degree from Dartmouth and good test scores, which was enough. My starting salary was ninety-five thousand plus benefits and potential for advancement. In exchange, I gave them my soul.