Forrest Gander: The Trace

Long runs through the neighborhood helped him deal in his own way with his load of helplessness and guilt — whatever he had done or failed to do, whatever had brought on his son’s anger, his silence, his disappearance. Dale would wake up long before the alarm, obsessing on moments like the time when he had been digging a hole in the backyard for a little pond and Declan had come out and asked if he could help. He had told him it was really a one-man job. Why had he said that? Why the hell? And then Dale would get out of bed and drink a protein shake and dress for a run. An hour later, enveloped in the regular sound of his own heavy breathing, half-hypnotized by the mantra of his shoes whap whapping the road as he paced between tents of gauzy streetlamp light past houses in which he knew everyone was still dreaming, his head would begin to clear. That was his time of communion with the world. In the concentrated quiet, all his senses became a listening, and he, a moving prayer.

Even more than water, Dale needed shade. He just needed to lie down for a while out of the sun. His insides cramped and his knees quivered now and again under him as he walked in a hop-along fashion, putting as little weight as possible on his bad ankle. Hoa marched ahead. For a while, Dale limped after her, putting one foot in front of the other along the dirt trail, each footstep expressing a thin puff of dust. His face down, he studied those puffs of dust over and over. When the sun briefly ducked behind the edge of a cloud, he felt more than saw the world change color around him and a thin hope was resurrected inside his fatigue. On his left side, scraggly cacti, acacia, and brush clamored to the edge of a deep drop. There was a flat stretch of desert below, and in the distance, rows of blue-green mountains.

He hadn’t limped very far when a high, clear whistle drew his attention to his right. He steadied himself, shading his eyes with the flat of his hand, scanning the arrays of candalaria between him and the rise a few hundred feet away. One tall, yellow wand of yucca stood up from various collaborations of brown and green. Where the hill steepened, the brush and cacti thinned out, and a sill of naked rock erupted against flat blue sky. Like a ruined castle. Dale could make out a band of quartz gleaming in the sill. The whistle repeated.

Dale didn’t see the bird, but he thought he saw a bear hunched at the base of the massed rock. Weird, like from Hoa’s dream. But it wasn’t a bear, it was a dark opening, a cave. He would have never seen it if the bird hadn’t called. It didn’t look too far away. If he could climb up there, he could wait out the sun’s assault and gather his strength. He stood on the trail like a scarecrow, dizzy, his puke-hollowed stomach vibrating, gurgling, while Hoa kept walking on. He was about ready to sit down in the trail. His tongue was like a shoe in his mouth. He tried to swallow, but could not. He wiped the sweat from his face, and his cheeks and nose stung with the grit on his fingers. He stood there, lifting the waist edge of his black T-shirt to his face, and it occurred to him that although he was dehydrated, he was still sweating profusely. His wrinkled organs were squeezing the last of their tinctures through his skin. He drew the wet back of his hand against his lips, felt the wetness but could not taste it.

Hoa was far ahead of him now. He took a moment to look around. Barren rock, desiccation, and emptiness everywhere. Just beside the trail, the brush was chest-high and thick, without a hint of an animal path or an opening. The sun buried its thorn into his skull. Dale looked back down the trail toward the car, barely visible now, less than a half mile away. Then he looked up the trail. Hoa had turned around and was coming back to him. Hoa to the rescue.

He waited for her, telling himself that he might recover himself more quickly in the cool of the cave. Remembering that miners had found a cave of giant crystals somewhere in Chihuahua. Rhomboid crystals bigger than school buses.

When she stood in front of him, he was startled by her eyes: all the different emotions there, like trees with birds shifting through them. Every muscle in her face was tense, and her plump lips had narrowed. He explained calmly that he was going to wait a few hours, rest his ankle, and then come after her. He saw her see the tears running along his nose and he wiped his temples and his stinging eyes. He said something about sweat. As he was wiping his cheek with his shirt, she put her arms around him, taking him by surprise.

While she held him, the bottom of his damp shirt caught up around his chest, she could feel his heart beating so wildly against her own that she felt joined by it and feared it might pry loose if either of them pulled away.

Dale was relieved that she agreed to go ahead without him. She’d stay on this trail and leave a sign for him if she turned at a fork. He would rest and catch up. He apologized as she kissed him quickly on his wet cheek. Hoa turned unsentimentally, but Dale put his hands on her shoulders, massaging her shoulders and neck while she stood waiting to be released into pure uncertainty. He worked his thumb down along her inner shoulder blade and heard that wonky ligament pop. Stepping in place like a toy soldier, Hoa said, “I’ll see you soon,” and she walked forward without turning her head, saying nothing more. Dale could see those hamstring muscles rounded against the back of her pants.

He watched her go, thinking she would look back but she didn’t. Then he stared up at the cave. It was pure chance that he’d seen it. If they’d been driving, the cave mouth would have been imperceptible. Dale took a breath and projected a trajectory, glancing from the cave to Hoa to the cave. Then he plunged between two bushes, feeling the sharp branches scrape his arms and hearing them scratch loudly at his cargo pants. He was out of breath right away, slipping, almost fainting, losing any view as he stepped over dead palo verde branches, sidestepped cacti, and slowly worked his way around boulders. Because he had to concentrate on each step, he stopped every fifteen feet or so to look up toward the cave, to breathe deeply, and to take stock of his position. Instead of climbing directly, he had angled around to the right, where the candalaria and dwarf juniper — with its bark like alligator skin — was lower and less dense. The resinous scent of creosote rose as he forced his way through a phalanx of face-high shrubs, and the exertion actually seemed to reawaken his senses. That was a good sign. He could still smell. Under his boots, the loose talus clattered, and he lost his balance repeatedly, dropping down to one knee but not falling.

In his mind, he was calling out to the snakes, imploring them to let him pass — Snake, snake, coming through snake — but his lips weren’t making the sounds. His open-mouthed panting, the brush clawing his clothes, and the sliding scree under his boots provided ample enough warning to snakes that he was coming. He pushed ahead and in his wake, vapor rose from the bushes he swiped. The distance was further than he had figured. The sun kept at him, and he felt his skin — the back of his neck, his arms, his scalp — cooking. Intense heat was radiating into his brain, reflecting onto him from all the scorched world. Dale thrashed along as if inside a cloud of fire, red pain pulsing behind his eyes, pouring out under his skull, throbbing and fading out in time to be replaced by a fresh set.

It took him half an hour to get close enough to realize there was an easier route — a sluiceway below the cave, only partially clotted with gnarled and twisted trees. When he came back down, that way would be the quicker going. Finally, he stepped clear of the line of brush, toward the jutting volcanic rock face, and he was able to peer up at the cave apprehensively. He was more afraid of the sun at this point than he was of a mountain lion. Still, it unnerved him to be so close to the cave without being able to see inside. The blackness he had spotted from the trail wasn’t just the shadowy interior. The rock itself had been blackened by fires. Dale limped closer and saw that the cave was shallow, only about fifteen feet deep, high ceilinged at the opening, but quickly closing off. Then he saw there were dark crevices extending further back than he wanted to explore. The floor was covered with ash, through which a narrow footpath had been tramped. He stepped into the cave’s mouth, into its blue shadow, and heaved himself down against the side wall, resting the back of his head against the stone. He stared out into the day, letting his exhaustion overtake him. Wondering how deranged his senses were, he thought he smelled something sweet and skunky and familiar before he coughed shallowly and passed out.