Phases of Gravity (15 page)

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."

"What about Tommy?" asked Maggie.

"He'll come along with Deedee in a few minutes," said Gavin.

"Do you think he'll feel up to it?" asked Baedecker. "According to the map, the next ten miles are all uphill."

"He'll feel up to it," said Gavin and there was no hint of doubt in his voice.

It was not so bad after the sheer hell of the first hour.

Despite the food consumed, the pack seemed heavier at first than it had the previous day. The canyon continued to narrow and so did the trail, winding along the canyon wall above the stream. Here and there a mudslide or fallen tree had the three of them moving carefully on a steep slope of rock or grass sixty feet above the water. At first Baedecker was convinced that the hang glider group could not have come this way, but then he began noticing bootprints in the soft dirt and furrows in the mud where the poles had been dragged. Baedecker shook his head and continued on.

By nine A.M. the direct sunlight was burning on the rock and filling the air with the scent of heated pine and fir trees. Baedecker poured sweat. He wanted to stop and change from his jeans into a pair of shorts, but he was afraid that if he fell behind the other two he might never catch up. There was no sign of Deedee or Tom Jr. on the trail behind them, but Deedee had been cheery enough when they said good-bye after striking camp. Tom Gavin never really rested, he just stopped moving for a few seconds, fidgeted from foot to foot while squinting ahead up the trail, then only to say "Ready?" and be off and moving before either Maggie or Baedecker could reply.

After the first hour it was not so bad. By the second hour Baedecker had fallen into a rhythm of pain and panting, which seemed tolerable enough. Sometime before noon they came around a bend of rock, and two tall peaks were visible ahead, the summits still holding pockets of snow despite the hot summer just past. Gavin identified the tiered, flat-topped peak as Uncompahgre and the sharper one as the Wetterhorn. A third summit was just visible above the ridgeline. "Uncompahgre looks like a wedding cake, the Wetterhorn looks a little like the real Matterhorn, and the Matterhorn doesn't look at all like the real Matterhorn," said Gavin.

"Gotcha," said Baedecker.

They continued up the deteriorating trail past spires of red rock and occasional waterfalls. The Douglas firs were eighty feet tall in places, rising high above any area flat enough for them. They passed through a thick cluster of ponderosa pine and Maggie had them all sniffing the trees, explaining that the sap of the ponderosa smelled like butterscotch. Baedecker found a recent scar, sniffed the sap, and announced that it was definitely chocolate. Maggie called him a pervert. Gavin suggested that they all move a little faster.

They had lunch where Silver Creek ran into the Cimarron River. The trail had been completely eroded away, and it had taken the three of them half an hour to pick their way down the last few hundred yards of scree to the floor of the canyon. Baedecker looked back down the canyon, but there was still no sign of Deedee or Tommy. To the south the trail resumed on the opposite side of the river, but Baedecker could see no easy way across the twenty-five feet of water. He wondered how Lude and Maria and the others had managed to cross.

Maggie wandered away up Silver Creek and came back a minute later to lead Baedecker to where a dozen violet columbines grew near a fallen log. A ring of Engleman and Blue Spruce enclosed a small clearing carpeted with grass and ferns. A tiny stream bubbled through it, and scores of white-and-purple flowers spotted the grass despite the lateness of the season. Somewhere nearby a woodpecker was tapping out a frenzied code.

"Great place to camp," said Baedecker.

"Yes," said Maggie. "And a great place not to camp, too." She took out a Hershey bar and broke it in half, offering Baedecker the half with more almonds.

Gavin strode into the clearing. He had reshouldered his heavy pack and had binoculars dangling around his neck. "Look," he said, "I'm going to ford the river down there above where the creek comes in. I'll leave a line across it. Then I'm going to reconnoiter the trail up the west side there. It should be about a half mile to that final set of switchbacks. I'll wait for you above tree line, okay?"

"Okay," said Baedecker.

"The map says that the old Silver Jack Mine is up this creek," said Maggie. "Why don't we take a few minutes to hike up to it? Deedee and Tommy should be along pretty soon.

Gavin smiled and shrugged. "Suit yourself. I want to get up on that plateau to find a campsite so we can scout the south ridge before nightfall."

Maggie nodded and Gavin strode away. Baedecker accompanied him down to the river to make sure there were no problems when he forded the quick current. When Gavin reached the other side, he waved and secured his rope to a tree near the bank. Baedecker returned the wave and walked back to the clearing.

Maggie was lying on her red shirt. Her midriff and shoulders were darkly tanned, but her breasts were white, the nipples a delicate shade of pink.

"Oh," said Baedecker and sat down on a log.

Maggie lifted her hand to shield her eyes and looked at him. "Does this make you uncomfortable, Richard?" When Baedecker hesitated, Maggie sat up and pulled on her shirt. "There, decent again," she said with a smile. "Or at least covered up."

Baedecker plucked two long strands of grass, peeled the ends, and offered one to Maggie.

"Thanks." She looked up toward the west wall of the canyon. "Your friends are interesting," she said.

"Tom and Deedee?" said Baedecker. "What do you think?"

Maggie returned his level gaze. "I think they're your friends," she said. "I'm their guest."

Baedecker chewed on his stem of grass and nodded. "I'd like your opinion," he said after a while.

Maggie smiled and looked up at the sun. "Well, after last night's numerology sermon, I was tempted to say that these folks have their porch light on but nobody's home." She chewed off a bit of grass. "But that's not fair. It's unkind. I guess Tom and Deedee just represent a certain type that I have strong reservations about," she said.

"Born-again Christians?" said Baedecker.

Maggie shook her head. "No, people who trade their brains in for sacred truths that can be boiled down to poster slogans."

"It sounds like we're still talking about Scott," said Baedecker.

Maggie did not deny it. "What do you think of Tom?" she asked.

Baedecker thought a minute. "Well," he said at last, "there's a story from our early training days that I've been reminded of recently."

"Great," said Maggie. "I'm a sucker for stories."

"It's a long one."

"I'm a sucker for long stories," said Maggie.

"Well, we were out on two weeks of survival training," said Baedecker. "For the grand finale they broke us into teams of three—crews actually—flew us out into the New Mexico desert somewhere northwest of White Sands, and gave us three days to find our way back to civilization. We had our Swiss army knives, some booklets on edible plants, and one compass between us."

"Sounds like fun," said Maggie.

"Yeah," said Baedecker, "NASA thought so too. If we didn't show up in five days, they would've started a search pattern. They weren't too keen on losing any of their second-generation astronauts. So anyway, our team was the same as the crew we had later—me, Dave Muldorff, and Tom. Even then, Tom always worked harder than anyone else. Even after he made the cut . . . getting into the astronaut corps, crew selection, whatever . . . he still would work twice as hard as he had to, as if he was always on the verge of washing out. Well, all of us felt like that some of the time, but it never seemed to let up with Tom.

"Our other teammate was Dave Muldorff—we sometimes called him Rockford back then—and Dave was just the opposite. Dave once told me that the only philosophy he adhered to was Ohm's Law—find the path of least resistance and follow it. Actually, Dave was a lot like Neil Armstrong . . . they'd give a thousand percent and come out on top when they had to, but you'd never see either one of them up at dawn running laps. The main difference between Muldorff and Armstrong was that Dave had a weird sense of humor.

"So anyway, our first day in the boonies went all right. We found a water source and figured out a way to carry some with us. Tom caught a lizard before nightfall and wanted to eat it raw, but Dave and I decided to wait a bit on that. We had our course set to cross a road we knew ran into the mountains, and we were sure we'd find it sooner or later. On the second day, Tom was ready to have the lizard for lunch, but Dave convinced us to get by on plants for a while longer and save the main course for dinner. Then, about two o'clock that afternoon, Dave began acting strange. He kept sniffing the ground and saying that he could smell the way to civilization. Tom suggested sunstroke and we both got pretty alarmed. We tried to tie a T-shirt around Dave's head, but he just howled at the sky and took off running.

"We caught up to him within a quarter of a mile; when we came over a rock ridge, there was Muldorff in the middle of this desolate arroyo sitting in a lawn chair under a beach umbrella, drinking a cold beer. He had a transistor radio going, a cooler full of ice and beer under his feet, and a swimming pool—one of those little inflatable ones that kids use—a pool a few feet away with an inflatable raft and a couple of rubber ducks in it. And you have to remember that we were in the middle of nowhere—still about sixty miles from the nearest road.

"After he got through laughing, Dave told us how he did it. He had a WAF clerk at the base commander's office get into the files and find the proposed drop points for the various NASA teams. Then Dave vectored our probable route back and got a friend of his who was flying choppers out of White Sands to ferry the junk out to this arroyo. Dave thought it was funny as hell. Tom didn't. He was so mad at first that he turned his back and walked away from Dave and his beach umbrella and his rock music. At first I sort of agreed with Tom. Dave's stunt was the kind of thing that used to drive NASA absolutely apeshit. The agency had no sense of humor at all as far as we could tell. Our whole team could've been in big trouble.