one for you to do since you have never been camping before. You wouldn’t want to take on a tough mountain and destroy any chances of ever going hiking again.”
She thought about the young face of the clerk, a face that looked as though he had hiked every inch of the Rocky Mountains, a trusting, tanned, outdoor face. For a moment she wondered if the vivid blue eyes had duped her, but she drove the momentary fear from her mind. “I can do it,” she said. “I have to do it.”
She studied the map with its elevation lines and trail markings, at the small blue meandering lines of an unnamed stream. She could picture the tall pine trees and the stars. She could see herself sitting by the fire all alone with the world. Taking off her glasses she lay down on the sofa and a deep sadness rolled over her like a cold ocean wave. “I miss you so at times,” she said as if she was talking to a dream. “It’s like I’m alive but not alive. I’ve lived but I haven’t lived. I never wanted to prove I was strong. You were the one who was supposed to be strong.”
Shutting her eyes she drove the thoughts from her mind, feeling empty with their going, but glad they were gone. “I wonder if I’m truly alive?” she wondered. “If I’m alive and this is the real world. Life seems so unreal most of the time.”
The doorbell interrupted her questions. She peered out the peephole before she opened the door. Sylvia swept past her like a vivacious tornado, long red hair bouncing, bright red lipstick, and a tight dress—the odor of the latest perfume in her wake. Sheila had a momentary vision of men barking and snarling at each other as they followed Sylvia’s scent trail. Eyeing the camping gear Sylvia shook her head in bewilderment. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “You’re going to go up to the mountains. Lord, all you are going to do is break your nails and make your hair dry out. Whatever possessed you? Why don’t you take flying lessons or something sane? You’ve never been camping in your life.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” Sheila asked.
“The only way I’ll go camping is in a suite in Vegas,” Sylvia smiled. “I don’t want to let the hair grow on my legs and smell like a dog. All the nature I need I can watch on educational TV. Pocahontas you’re not,” Sylvia said, feigning a mocking tone.
“Have you ever been alone?” Sheila asked. “Really alone. I don’t mean lonely. I mean alone.”
“I don’t think about it,” Sylvia said in a not so convincing tone.
“I’ve been alone, but it’s not like being alone,” Sheila continued. I’ve been alone in a noisy bubble. I want to go to the mountains and truly be alone for once in my life. I want to sit and look at the stars and the trees and the rocks and be alone and think—think about what my mind wants to think about and not what the world wants.”
“You might break,” Sylvia said seriously. “You might not like what you find.”
Sheila could not stop the tear that rolled down her left cheek as if it had its own mind and mission. “I’ve really needed you,” she said quietly. “You’ve been such help.”
Sylvia handed a hanky to Sheila not commenting on the tear. “I don’t think I could be alone even if I wanted to,” she said. “I’ve been around people so long I really don’t know who or what I am. I think I become what people want me to be. Some men want a slut, some a mother, some a toy. I’ve acted out all of them. I’m a secretary, a waitress, a cook, a mother, but what am I? I haven’t known who I am for so long it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
Shrugging her shoulders, Sylvia added. “Maybe you are Pocahontas,” feeling a deep sadness for her friend, but not showing it.
Sheila laughed. “You want to try out some of my camping food?”
“You mean that dried stuff that costs so much and should be fed to Marines?”
“You’ve got it.”
“No thanks, I just came by to see how the explorer was and see if I could talk her out of her madness.”
“You can’t.”
By the door the two women hugged. “Don’t let me harp on it, but you’ll break all your nails,” Sylvia said with an understanding smile.
“Thanks for coming by,” Sheila said.
“You’re a case,” Sylvia told her. “You’re a case but I love you.”
Sheila listened to the click of Sylvia’s heels as she walked down the sidewalk. After she heard the car drive away she went to the bathroom and cut off her nails.
Back in the living room she shut the curtains and crawled into the tent. She rolled out her sleeping bag on the sleeping pad and took off all her clothes before she got into the bag. The nylon was cool on her skin but in a few moments she was warm. The warmth felt good, a deep warmth. “I’m so alone,” she whispered as she zipped the sleeping bag up to her chin. “Why did you die and leave me?”
The Mountain Where The Demons Rest
On one side of the small clearing is a thick stand of aspen trees. The green and vibrant leaves chattering like chipmunks in the June breeze. Coming out of the aspens is a seldom used trail, carpeted with last year’s rotting yellow and orange leaves. On the north side of the clearing, a thick stand of pines grow, so thick the sun never reaches the pine needle covered earth. Around the pine trees, patches of snow cling to their last gasps of life. During some winters the meadow is under twenty feet of snow. After these winters, the summer sun will not completely melt the snow in the pine trees.
On the eastern side of the clearing, a spring bubbles out of the ground at the base of a car sized red rock that was left behind eons ago by a glacier that grew tired of its burden. The spring forms a clear pool no more than four feet across and six inches deep. The top of the rock is covered by droppings from gray camp robbers that sit on the rock waiting patiently for bugs to hatch from the swampy earth. In the rich wet ground by the spring, delicate pink elephant’s ears sway in the breeze. In the drier soil, red and orange fire brush bloom.
A trail cuts directly through the center of the meadow and exits through a stand of virgin growth spruce, their silver edged needles glistening like frost during all seasons of the year. Here, deer hide, listening and smelling the air, before cautiously tip toeing to the spring to drink. Here, also, elk rest on their yearly migrations up and down the mountain. Occasionally a black bear skirts the meadow, never brave enough to show itself in the open. There have been too many close calls—safety is only in the dark heart of the trees.
In the middle of the meadow, not far from the trail, the bones are scattered—white, sun bleached bones, bones now devoid of any flesh or hide, showing the teeth marks of skunks and badgers and porcupines and mountain lions.
The skull rests in a clump of blue mountain iris, several yards away from the spine and leg bones. Tiny blue flowers, no larger than a baby’s fingernail, bloom through the eyeholes of the skull.
The spine, leg bones, and other bones are covered by tall swaying grass. A person walking or riding through the meadow would not easily see the bones.
At times the camp robbers sit on the bones, even roll over the smaller rib bones and disjointed back vertebra to look for grubs or worms, or maggots. At one time, when the flesh still clung to them, the bones had been feasts to hawks and buzzards. Now they are merely bones; dry,
