Cheryl Strayed - Wild

“Standard-issue hobo care package,” he said, turning to give me a can of cold Budweiser beer and a plastic grocery bag weighed down with a handful of items at its bottom.

“But I’m not a hobo,” I echoed for the last time, with less fervor than I had before, afraid he’d finally believe me and take the standard-issue hobo care package away.

“Thanks for the interview,” he said, and shut the trunk. “Stay safe out here.”

“Yeah. You too,” I said.

“You have a gun, I assume. At least I hope you do.”

I shrugged, unwilling to commit either way.

“ ’Cause, I know you’ve been south of here, but now you’re going north, which means you’re soon entering Bigfoot country.”

“Bigfoot?”

“Yeah. You know, Sasquatch? No lie. From here all the way up to the border and into Oregon you’re in the territory where most of the Bigfoot sightings in the world are reported.” He turned to the trees as if one might come barreling out at us. “A lot of folks believe in them. A lot of hobo folks — folks who are out here . Folks who know . I hear Bigfoot stories all the time.”

“Well, I’m okay, I think. At least so far,” I said, and laughed, though my stomach did a little somersault. In the weeks preceding my hike on the PCT, when I’d decided not to be afraid of anything, I’d been thinking about bears and snakes and mountain lions and strange people I met along the way. I hadn’t pondered hairy humanoid bipedal beasts.

“But you’re probably fine. I wouldn’t worry. Chances are, they’ll leave you alone. Especially if you have a gun.”

“Right.” I nodded.

“Good luck on your hike,” he said, getting into his car.

“Good luck … finding hobos,” I said, and waved as he drove away.

I stood there for a while, letting cars pass without even trying to get them to give me a ride. I felt more alone than anyone in the whole wide world. The sun beat down on me hot, even through my hat. I wondered where Stacy and Trina were. The man who’d picked them up was only going to take them about twelve miles east, to the junction of the next highway we needed to catch a ride on, which would take us north and then back west to Old Station, where we’d rejoin the PCT. We’d agreed to meet at that junction. I remotely regretted having encouraged them to leave me behind when that ride had come along. I jabbed my thumb at another car and realized only after it passed that it didn’t look so good that I was holding a can of beer. I pressed its cool aluminum against my hot forehead and suddenly had the urge to drink it. Why shouldn’t I? It would only get warm in my pack.

I hoisted Monster onto my back and ambled through the weeds down into the ditch and then up again, into the woods, which somehow felt like home to me, like the world that was mine in a way that the world of roads and towns and cars was no longer. I walked until I found a good spot in the shade. Then I sat down in the dirt and cracked the beer open. I didn’t like beer — in fact, that Budweiser was the first whole beer I’d ever drunk in my life — but it tasted good to me, like beer tastes, I imagine, to those who love it: cold and sharp and crisp and right.

While I drank it I explored the contents of the plastic grocery bag. I took everything out and laid each item before me on the ground: a pack of peppermint gum, three individually wrapped wet wipes, a paper packet containing two aspirin, six butterscotch candies in translucent gold wrappers, a book of matches that said Thank You Steinbeck Drug , a Slim Jim sausage sealed in its plastic vacuum world, a single cigarette in a cylindrical faux-glass case, a disposable razor, and a short, fat can of baked beans.

I ate the Slim Jim first, washing it down with the last of my Budweiser, and then the butterscotch candies, all six of them, one after the other, and then — still hungry, always hungry — turned my attention to the can of baked beans. I pried it open in tiny increments with the impossible can-opening device on my Swiss army knife, and then, too lazy to rummage through my pack for my spoon, I scooped them out with the knife itself and ate them — hobo-style — from the blade.

I returned to the road feeling slightly hazy from the beer, chewing two pieces of the peppermint gum to sober up, while cheerfully stabbing my thumb at every vehicle that passed. After a few minutes, an old white Maverick pulled over. A woman sat in the driver’s seat with a man beside her and another man and a dog in the back seat.

“Where you headed?” she asked.

“Old Station,” I said. “Or at least the junction of 36 and 44.”

“That’s on our way,” she said, and got out of the car, came around the back, and opened the trunk for me. She looked to be about forty. Her hair was frizzy and bleached blonde, her face puffy and pocked with old acne scars. She wore cutoffs and gold earrings in the shape of butterflies and a grayish halter top that seemed to have been made with the strings of a mop. “That’s quite a pack you got there, kiddo,” she said, and laughed raucously.

“Thanks, thanks,” I kept saying, wiping the sweat from my face as we worked together to cram Monster into the trunk. We got it in eventually, and I climbed into the back seat with the dog and the man. The dog was a husky, blue-eyed and gorgeous, standing on the tiny floor in front of the seat. The man was lean and about the same age as the woman, his dark hair woven into a thin braid. He wore a black leather vest without a shirt underneath and a red bandanna tied biker-style over the top of his head.

“Hi,” I murmured in his direction as I searched uselessly for the seat belt that was crammed irretrievably into the fold of the seat, my eyes skimming his tattoos: a spiked metal ball on the end of a chain on one arm and the top half of a bare-breasted woman with her head thrown back in either pain or ecstasy on the other; a Latin word I didn’t know the meaning of scrawled across his tan chest. When I gave up on finding the seat belt, the husky leaned over and licked my knee avidly with his soft and strangely cool tongue.

“That dog’s got some motherfucking good taste in women,” said the man. “His name’s Stevie Ray,” he added. Instantly the dog stopped licking me, closed his mouth up tight, and looked at me with his icy black-rimmed eyes, as if he knew he’d been introduced and wanted to be polite. “I’m Spider. You already met Louise — she goes by Lou.”

“Hi!” Lou said, meeting my eyes for a second in the rearview mirror.

“And this here’s my brother Dave,” he said, gesturing to the man in the passenger seat.

“Hi,” I said.

“How about you? You got a name?” Dave turned to ask.

“Oh yeah — sorry. I’m Cheryl.” I smiled, though I felt a blurry uncertainty about having accepted this particular ride. There was nothing to do about it now. We were already on our way, the hot wind blowing my hair. I petted Stevie Ray while assessing Spider in my peripheral vision. “Thanks for picking me up,” I said to conceal my unease.

“Hey, no problem, sister,” Spider said. On his middle finger, he wore a square turquoise ring. “We’ve all been on the road before. We all know what it’s like. I hitched last week and motherfuck if I couldn’t get a ride to save my life, so that’s why when I saw you I told Lou to stop. Mother-fucking karma, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching up to tuck my hair behind my ears. It felt as coarse and dry as straw.

“What you doing out on the road anyway?” Lou asked from the front.

I went into the whole PCT shebang, explaining about the trail and the record snowpack and the complicated way I had to hitchhike to get to Old Station. They listened with respectful, distant curiosity, all three of them lighting up cigarettes as I spoke.