Race Across the Sky (25 page)

Ultrathon

• • • • • • • • • • • • 

C
aleb and June wove through an impossible density of forest.

Between the redwoods, oaks, and underbrush, no moonlight availed itself to them. He found June's fingers in the dark and squeezed them. It was necessary to take her hand here, to protect her, and himself. It had been so long since he had touched her. A well of emotion rose through him and nearly burst. But he did not have time to nurture it.

Pine needles scratched their eyes, thorns scraped their thighs. As dangerous as it was to run blindly through the night, Caleb knew they had to hold off on using his flashlight until they were farther away from the aid tent and the hundred runners making their agonized way through the darkness. No one could see any beam of light bounding away from the course.

They were headed toward a parallel trail that Caleb had seen on one of Mack's blown-up maps. It was a popular hiking trail tourists strode with digital cameras and bottles of purified water. This wide, smooth trail would take them along easier ground and merge with a wider path back to Big Oak Flat. Search and Rescue would never think to look for them here, and any tourists who might remember them would be sleeping now. They had until the park opened in the morning to get out. Which, Caleb estimated, gave them around eight hours. This was significantly less time than it had taken him to reach this point, but the trail would be significantly faster than the insane demands of the course.

But now, in the backcountry, they were in acute danger, intruders upon the natural order. There were cliffs. There was water. There were animals.

During the drive from Boulder, when Mack had stayed behind in Elko, Caleb had run beside her.

“June,” he had started. “Can you listen to me?”

When she had turned to him, tears were forming in her eyes.

She had told him what had happened inside of Mack's room. Caleb had suspected this for years.

“He said he wants Lily to start early. If he wants her to start running marathons when she's six, what will he want her to do when she's thirteen? Do what all these other women do? I don't like how he's
seeing
her.”

“We can get to Shane,” he'd whispered, “from Yosemite.”

At the weigh-in, while Mack worked the crowd and the press, he had seen her standing near John. On the way back to the lodge, he had been able to whisper a plan.

As Mack had instructed, June would run the first leg. Feigning injury, she would volunteer to work the isolated Antibes aid station, where Caleb guessed he would be when darkness fell. He planned to arrive there alone, rested. While she waited, she would gather blue course markers and cluster them at the first small clearing off the trail she could find. Walk half a mile into the woods. And then she would listen for his footsteps in the forest.

Somewhere after midnight, the trail dipped drastically, and he knew they could not dare to run blind any longer. He switched on the flashlight clipped to his waist, let go of her hand, and they began moving faster.

By this time, Caleb knew, he would have failed to check into the next aid station. Word would be out that he was lost or hurt at night. With communications so poor, Mack might not hear of it for an hour. Then Mack and Barry Strong would begin frantically plotting to keep this from ABC's reporters.Or, he considered, seeing drama for the cameras, perhaps plot to involve them. Either way, Yosemite Search and Rescue would not begin operations until first light of dawn. And then, they would be searching for one man, hurt, confused. They would have heard the story of him falling off of Engineer Mountain, of training too long and hard, and look for him to be in a similar situation. They would have no idea to look for a couple running confidently the other way, along the easy trail out of the park.

But when Mack learned that June and Lily were also missing, he would understand it all, and his fury would be boundless.

He heard a noise, something heavy and deep. A bear, was his first thought. June froze mid run and looked to him. He unclipped the flashlight and waved it in circles above his head and shouted a roar of his own. They heard another sound, clearly alive, but moving away from them. After some time they started jogging again through the trees.

Finally, they broke through the dense woods and met a dirt road. This was the trail he had found on the map. At least he hoped it was. Otherwise they might go off in the wrong direction, daylight would come, the park staff would be alerted to find them, and it would all end badly.

In the thin light of the stars Caleb could see a hand-painted, arrow-shaped sign pointing toward famous vistas. June fished through her pocket for some energy gels, which they swallowed as the widening trail made a grand turn, revealing a waterfall. He was lost in its churning aural symphony when they heard the engine.

He pulled June off the path into the dark forest. Headlights appeared fifty yards in front of him. The park rangers had the authority to hold them; he supposed they could be forceful.

Squatting in the wood he could feel his body slowing down dangerously, and he knew June's must be too. A green Jeep approached slowly. As with a bear, it seemed wise not to look it in the eye. When it finally passed, he retched. He had finished his water hours ago, his kidneys could fail any time. It was one thing to run an ultra, where every aid station held the promise of pacers and sustenance. It was another to run like this unaided.

They moved wordlessly along the dark trail under the clouds and the moon. Only the sounds of their breaths, deep and steady. Only the sounds of their soles against the dirt. Only the sounds of nearby animals and insects. Only the sounds of the real world, far from man. For hours Caleb moved through this sweet path, in a light sweat, June in perfect rhythm beside him.

Some hours later the trail hardened to pavement. The sky ahead threatened to lighten. June touched his arm and pointed to a sign. In the sliver of moonlight, he saw they were at the lodge.

“Stay here,” she whispered.

Caleb found a grove of laurels on the far side of the road and slid to the ground; his palms grazed fallen acorns. He had a vivid dream about an old client. Then he snapped his eyes open in fear; how long had he been out? He was about to go inside when he saw June emerge from the old lodge with Lily perched atop her shoulders in their purple hiking backpack. When they met on the wide paved road June handed him a bottle of water, and he chugged it dry.

“What did you tell the woman watching her?” he whispered, wiping his chin.

“That I wanted my baby. She was half asleep anyway.”

“We better hurry.” He reached for the purple pack's thick black padded straps. “I'll take her.”

June knelt, and Caleb slid the backpack onto his shoulders. He snapped the plastic harness around his waist, tugged it good and tight. Lily's arms and legs dangled freely above and behind him. He could feel them moving. He shifted his stance, adjusting to its weight. He guessed the pack, with the baby, was around twenty-eight pounds. He had run with heavier packs, but there was no anticipating this living weight, which moved and shifted and pulled playfully at the tops of his ears.

June had also brought a small yellow nylon backpack filled with minimal clothing, things for Lily, and cash that Mack had given her to buy baby food during the drive from Boulder. She slipped it over her shoulders, and they turned onto Big Oak Flat Road.

It was a race now, he thought. Either the sun would come and reveal them like prisoners in a searchlight, or they would get to town, where no one would distinguish them from any other backpacking family. From there they would call Shane to come get them. They passed RVs and campers, heard the first stirrings of morning, and slowed to a fast walk, lest they attract any attention. A mile farther, Caleb spotted the entrance to the park. A booth stood beside the road. A ranger sat inside, ready to begin collecting fees and handing out maps. And the sky turned pink.

Already cars waited in a short line to get inside, engines idling, spewing exhaust into the trees. Caleb swallowed. It had been six or eight hours since they had disappeared from the race. He supposed word could be out among every park employee.

They waited awkwardly while Caleb tried to think. An SUV drove up, its window began to lower, and the ranger stuck his hand out for money.

Caleb took June's wrist and led her around the other side of the booth. Nobody called after them.

They walked onto the blacktop of what a sign told them was Evergreen Road. They picked up their pace, surrounded by the mountains and the sky. Caleb reached up and behind him, and squeezed one of Lily's ankles. She tapped the top of his head. The day broke open.

•   •   •   •   •   •   •

Evergreen Road curved like an undecided thought.

They jogged along its shoulder, staying clear of a sudden and endless drop on their right. Caleb guessed it was sixty degrees out here, perfect weather for a run. Lily was strapped comfortably into her padded Kelty, wearing a warm fleece hoodie, her beautiful blond-red head supported by a built-in neck rest. She seemed as comfortable as could be, even more, he thought, than in the car seat in the van.

Cars, RVs, buses, motorcycles, SUVs, all sped past across the road from them toward Yosemite. They stopped after a while to take Lily from her pack, stretch her legs, change her. Some hands waved from passing cars, and Caleb and June waved back, friendly, smiling, nothing wrong here.

They passed an ancient gas station, and a mile farther, the first shops of a town. Evergreen turned into a main street. It must, he thought, be called Groveland, for Caleb saw its name everywhere: Groveland Sweet Shoppe, Groveland Souvenirs, the same Ansel Adams posters in every window. On their left, small triangular ranch buildings stood like good neighbors, home to car-insurance and realtor offices. One of them held the Groveland Mini-Mart.

June helped him slide off the Kelty pack. She lifted Lily out and hugged her madly. The baby seemed in good spirits.

“I'll get food,” June offered.

Down the street Caleb spotted a pale yellow building with white painted balconies, like something out of New Orleans. An old-world sign hung in front:
THE GROVELAND HOTEL
.

Caleb gestured, panting. “I'll tell Shane we're here.”

He was feeling better, he considered, than he had any right to. Though his neck felt stiff, his shoulders and knees had handled the backpack nicely. He could wait here for hours, no problem. Certainly Mack would not expect to discover them in the lobby of a hotel.

Inside an elderly man stood behind a long front desk.

Caleb tried to smile patiently. “Excuse me? Where are your pay phones?”

The old man looked at him quizzically. Whether it was because of his appearance, or smell, or the oddness of the question, Caleb could see he had done something unwise.

“Ain't had a pay phone in years. Don't you got a phone?”

“I lost my cell,” Caleb tried. “Do you have a phone I can use?”

The man exhaled and handed him a black cordless phone from under the desk. Caleb swallowed and dialed information.

“San Francisco. Shane Oberest,” he responded to the automated question.

After a moment, a human voice clicked on. “I have one Shane Oberest in San Francisco, California. On one hundred twenty-two Bay Street?”

“That's great.”

“I'll connect you now.”

Caleb gripped the phone tight, heard its distant ringing. He pictured Shane walking across a room, his own baby in his arms. He might need time to get to his phone. A woman's voice answered, but it too had been recorded: “You've reached Shane, Janelle, and Nicholas. Please leave us a message.”

Caleb shut his eyes tight. He had not anticipated this.

In an even voice he explained, “Hi. It's Caleb. I'm with June and Lily. We're in Yosemite, in a town called Groveland. At the Groveland Hotel. I'm wondering if you can get us. I'll call you back in a bit. Thanks.” After a beat he added, “Love you.”

Hanging up, he smiled at the man. “Thanks.”

Caleb walked back out into the warming morning, rubbing his temples. He saw June on a bench in the sun, poking through a white plastic bag. Sitting beside her, he kissed Lily, who was chewing a banana, and tore into a burrito and Powerade.

June frowned. “I forgot napkins. I'll be right back.”

She handed him Lily, a plastic spoon, a cup of applesauce, and walked back to the Mini-Mart. She took the two steps, pulled open the wood door, made her way to the register. She was smiling, prepared to shrug and explain her reappearance to the clerk, but someone else was already there. A thin middle-aged park ranger, with short black hair under her tan hat, leaned against the counter.

“. . . having this crazy race. Up the old trails, all around the park. We're so pissed off about it I can't tell you. They said people was gonna get hurt, lost, we're going to be in and out trying to find them.”

“What was a baby doing there?”

June took a step back, into the aisle. Panic spread throughout her body like an anaphylactic reaction.

The ranger was shaking her head sadly, “I guess it was part of this weird group. This guy who's in charge of them came to the main station and notified Emilio. Emilio said he was saying that two of his people have a sick little baby, and that they left the race to go to San Francisco or something. He was really concerned. They just took off with no money or food with this sick baby. Can you believe people?”

“Sick, how kind of sick?”

“Emilio said the guy just said that she isn't being taken care of right, and these two people aren't in their proper minds, and that we should find them right away. So we're all looking for them now. And that's on top of twenty of these idiots being took to the hospital. A bunch got lost in there, got a couple of broken ankles. Puking all over themselves. Now I got to drive around by the bus stop looking for this loony family. I tell you I'll be back here this evening for some of that wine.”