Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Okay, I’d still cried like a baby but in bathrooms, in the back seat of whatever car I was in… pretty much anytime I had a second and could get away with it.
“Do you go hiking a lot for work?” I asked Mr. Rhodes.
“For searches and during hunting season.”
“When is that?”
“Starting in September. Bow hunting.”
Since everyone was asking questions…. “How long have you officially been a game warden?” I asked.
“Only a year,” Amos offered up from the back seat.
“And you were in the Navy before that?” Like I didn’t already know.
“He retired from it,” the boy answered again.
I acted surprised like I hadn’t put it together. “Wow. That’s impressive.”
“Not really,” the teenager mumbled.
I laughed.
Teenagers. Seriously. My nephews roasted me all the time.
“It’s not. He was always gone,” the kid went on. He was looking out the window with another funny expression on his face that I couldn’t decipher that time.
Had his mom tagged along with them? Is that why she wasn’t around? She got tired of him being gone and left?
“So you moved back here to be with Amos?”
It was Mr. Rhodes that simply said, “Yes.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say without asking a million questions that I would more than likely not have answered. “Do you have more family here, Amos?”
“Just Grandpa, Dad, and Johnny. Everybody else is spread out.”
Everyone else.
Hmm.
* * *
I’d like to think that the ride to the trailhead wasn’t the most awkward trip of my life, what with no one saying a word for the majority of the trip.
Well, with the exception of me pretty much “ahhing” over just about everything.
I had no shame. I didn’t care. I’d done the same thing on the other hikes I’d done, except I hadn’t seen all that many animals on those occasions.
A cow!
A baby calf!
A deer!
Look at that huge tree!
Look at all the trees!
Look at that mountain! (It wasn’t a mountain, it was a hill, Amos had said with a look that was almost amused.)
The only comment I’d gotten other than Amos’s correction was Mr. Rhodes asking, “Do you always talk this much?”
Rude. But I didn’t care. So I told him the truth. “Yeah.” Sorry not sorry.
The drive alone was beautiful. Everything got bigger and greener, and I couldn’t find it in me to mind or even notice too much that my passengers weren’t saying anything. They didn’t even complain when I had to stop to pee twice.
After parking, Amos led us over the deceptive looking trail that started from a decent parking lot, giving you the illusion that it would be easy.
Then I saw the name on the sign and my insides paused.
Fourmile Trail.
Some people said there wasn’t such a thing as a stupid question, but I knew that wasn’t correct because I asked stupid questions all the time. And asking Mr. Rhodes if Fourmile Trail was actually four miles, I knew was a stupid question.
And part of me honestly didn’t want to actually know I was going to hike four times the amount I was used to. I didn’t exactly look out of shape, but looks were deceiving. My cardio endurance had gotten better over the last month of jump roping but not enough.
Four miles, f-u-c-k me.
I glanced at Amos to see if he looked alarmed, but he gave one look at the sign and started.
Four miles and four waterfalls, the sign read.
If he could do it, I could do it.
I’d tried to talk twice and had ended up panting so bad both times that I immediately stopped. It wasn’t like they were excited to talk to me. As I wound my way behind Amos, with his dad taking up the rear, I was just glad to not be alone. There had been a handful of cars parked in the lot, but you couldn’t see or hear anything. It was beautifully quiet.
We were in the middle of nowhere. Away from civilization. Away from… everything.
The air was clean and bright. Pure. And it was… it was spectacular.
I stopped and took a couple of selfies, and when I called out to Amos to stop and turn around so I could take a picture of him, he grudgingly did it. He crossed his arms over his thin chest and angled the brim of his hat up. I snapped it.
“I’ll send it to you if you want,” I whispered to Mr. Rhodes when the boy had kept on walking.
He nodded at me, and I’d bet it cost him a couple years off his life to grind out a “Thanks.”
I smiled and let it go, watching every step as one mile turned into two, and I started to regret doing this long hike so soon. I should’ve waited. I should’ve done longer ones to lead up to this.
But if Mom could do it, so could I.
So what if she was way more fit than me? You didn’t get in shape unless you busted your ass and made it happen. I just had to suck it up and keep going.