Cheryl Strayed - Wild

Paul and I watched as Leif took out his knife and cut bundles of reddish-blonde hair from Lady’s mane and tail. He handed one to me.

“Mom can go to the other side now,” he said, looking into my eyes as if it were only the two of us in the entire world. “That’s what the Indians believe — that when a great warrior dies you’ve got to kill their horse so he can cross over to the other side of the river. It’s a way of showing respect. Maybe Mom can ride away now.”

I imagined our mother crossing a great river on Lady’s strong back, finally leaving us nearly three years after she died. I wanted it to be true. It was the thing I wished for when I had a wish to make. Not that my mother would ride back to me — though, of course, I wanted that — but that she and Lady would ride away together. That the worst thing I’d ever done had been a healing instead of a massacre.

I slept finally that night in the woods somewhere outside the Whitehorse Campground. And when I did, I dreamed of snow. Not the snow in which my brother and I had killed Lady, but the snow I’d just passed through up in the mountains, the memory of it more frightening than the experience of it had been. All night long, I dreamed of the things that could have happened but didn’t. Skidding and sliding down a treacherous slope and off the side of a cliff or crashing into rocks below. Walking and never coming to that road, but wandering lost and starving instead.

I studied my guidebook as I ate my breakfast the next morning. If I walked up to the PCT as planned, I’d be walking into more snow. The idea of that spooked me, and as I gazed at my map I saw that I didn’t have to do it. I could walk back to the Whitehorse Campground and west farther still to Bucks Lake. From there I could follow a jeep road that wended its way north, ascending to the PCT at a place called Three Lakes. The alternate route was about the same distance as the PCT, approximately fifteen miles, but it was at a low enough elevation that it had a chance of being snow-free. I packed up my camp, walked back down the trail I’d come on the night before, and strode defiantly through the Whitehorse Campground.

All morning, as I walked west to Bucks Lake, then north and west again along its shore before coming to the rugged jeep road that would take me back up to the PCT, I thought of the resupply box that waited for me in Belden Town. Not so much the box, but the twenty-dollar bill that would be inside. And not so much the twenty-dollar bill, but the food and beverages I could buy with it. I spent hours in a half-ecstatic, half-tortured reverie, fantasizing about cake and cheeseburgers, chocolate and bananas, apples and mixed-green salads, and, more than anything, about Snapple lemonade. This did not make sense. I’d had only a few Snapple lemonades in my pre-PCT life and liked them well enough, but they hadn’t stood out in any particular way. It had not been my drink . But now it haunted me. Pink or yellow, it didn’t matter. Not a day passed that I didn’t imagine in vivid detail what it would be like to hold one in my hand and bring it to my mouth. Some days I forbade myself to think about it, lest I go entirely insane.

I could see that the road to Three Lakes had only recently become free of snow. Great gashes had split open in places across it and streams of melting snow flowed in wide gaping gullies along its sides. I followed it up beneath a dense canopy of trees without seeing anyone. Midafternoon, I felt a familiar tug inside me. I was getting my period, I realized. My first on the trail. I’d almost forgotten it could come. The new way I’d been aware of my body since beginning my hike had blunted the old ways. No longer was I concerned about the delicate intricacies of whether I felt infinitesimally fatter or thinner than I had the day before. There was no such thing as a bad hair day. The smallest inner reverberations were obliterated by the frank pain I always felt in the form of my aching feet or the muscles of my shoulders and upper back that knotted and burned so hard and hot that I had to pause several times an hour to do a series of moves that would offer a moment of relief. I took off my pack, dug through my first aid kit, and found the jagged hunk of natural sponge I’d put in a small ziplock bag before my trip began. I’d used it only a few times experimentally before I took it on the PCT. Back in Minneapolis, the sponge had seemed like a sensible way to deal with my period given my circumstances on the trail, but now that I held it, I was less than sure. I attempted to wash my hands with water from my bottle, dousing the sponge as I did so, and then squeezed it out, pulled down my shorts, squatted on the road, and pushed the sponge into my vagina as far as I could, wedging it against my cervix.

As I pulled up my shorts, I heard the sound of an engine approaching, and a moment later a red pickup truck with an extended cab and oversized tires rounded a bend. The driver hit the brakes when he saw me, startled at the sight. I was startled too, and deeply grateful that I wasn’t still squatting and half naked with my hand jammed into my crotch. I waved nervously as the truck pulled up beside me.

“Howdy,” a man said, and reached through his open window. I took his hand and shook it, conscious of where mine had just been. There were two other men in the truck with him — one in the front and another in the back seat with two boys. The men looked to be in their thirties, the boys about eight.

“You headed up to Three Lakes?” the man asked.

“Yeah.”

He was handsome and clean-cut and white, like the man beside him and the boys in the back. The other man was Latino and long-haired, a hard round belly rising before him.

“We’re headed up there to do some fishing. We’d give you a ride, but we’re packed,” he said, pointing to the back of the truck, which was covered by a camper.

“That’s okay. I like to walk.”

“Well, we’re having Hawaiian screwdrivers tonight, so stop on by.”

“Thanks,” I said, and watched them drive off.

I hiked the rest of the afternoon thinking about Hawaiian screwdrivers. I didn’t know exactly what they were but they didn’t sound all that different from Snapple lemonade to me. When I reached the top of the road, the red pickup and the men’s camp came into view, perched above the westernmost of the Three Lakes. The PCT was just beyond it. I followed a scant trail east along the lake’s shore, finding a secluded spot among the boulders that were scattered around the lake. I set up my tent and ducked into the woods to squeeze out my sponge and put it in again. I walked down to the lake to filter water and wash my hands and face. I thought about diving in to bathe, but the water was ice-cold and I was already chilled in the mountain air. Before coming on the PCT, I’d imagined countless baths in lakes and rivers and streams, but in reality, only rarely did I plunge in. By the end of the day, I often ached with fatigue and shook with what felt like a fever but was only exhaustion and the chill of my drying sweat. The best I could do most days was splash my face and strip off my sweat-drenched T-shirt and shorts before swaddling myself in my fleece anorak and leggings for the night.

I removed my boots and pulled the duct tape and 2nd Skin off my feet and soaked them in the icy water. When I rubbed them, another blackened toenail came off in my hand, the second I’d lost so far. The lake was calm and clear, rimmed by towering trees and leafy bushes among the boulders. I saw a bright green lizard in the mud; it froze in place for a moment before scampering away at lightning speed. The men’s camp was not far beyond me along the lakeshore, but they hadn’t yet detected my presence. Before going to see them, I brushed my teeth, put on lip balm, and pulled a comb through my hair.