by Nowick Gray
Did
I really expect to see Faron, Suze and Ron all cozy in the cabin, drinking tea
and smiling for us when we arrived? Returning from my scouting mission, I walk
back into the cabin, stamping the snow off my boots, ready at least to warm
up while waiting. Matt sits with his feet up roasting by the stove, apparently
unconcerned.
"No sign of them yet?"
"No."
He reads my face, my heavy voice and says, "I wouldn't panic about it. There's plenty of daylight left."
He looks the part of the preacher now, with that smug assurance. But I'm not about to embark on a discussion with him about God's benevolent hidden agenda behind all the world's disasters.
Anyway, he's not here to talk shop. "Before you take those boots off, how about we climb that hill behind the cabin for a better view of what's around us?"
"Good idea." He can gaze at the mountains, I can scout the western approach from a higher vantage point.
After our sightseeing session we came back to the cabin and settled in, the sun's rays slanting lower through the cabin's tiny west windows.
At long last there was a voice in the distance, calling. Instantly I slipped on a pair of the cabin's battered old running shoes and ran out the door, down the rickety steps and across the snow in the direction of the shouts. The voice grew louder, closer.
A series of little parallel ridges, spines of alpine rock and scrub trees, angled down from the cabin toward the headwaters of Tumbler Creek. I crossed one or two as I headed down to meet the approaching hikers. Finally Faron came into view a hundred meters down along one of the ridges. She was alone with Suze, carrying a large backpack as well as the child on her shoulders.
As we approached like two powerful magnets, the force of our unfamiliar closeness was staggering. Within reach now, Faron's face beamed vibrantly under her bedraggled hair and skewed wool cap. We embraced with all the muscular energy we could muster, for long, long moments, silent but for our breathing.
Finally words came, breathless and trembling.
I said to Faron, "You made it."
"Yes. I can't believe we're finally here, together."
"You came alone? What about Ron?"
"When I came by to pick him up, he said he was sick and couldn't come."
"Oh, Faron. You look exhausted."
"Yeah, but--it wasn't too bad."
Suze still sat above me on Faron's shoulders, bundled in her purple snowsuit. I picked her up into the air and then cuddled her joyfully, while still holding Faron.
"I walked some-a-way myself," she chirped.
"She sure did," Faron said. "For a long way, too. And she would have walked more, except she was so slow, I didn't want to take the time. We were late getting started, at Ron's. He took a long time deciding not to come."
"I was getting worried. We've been here over an hour."
"What time is it?"
"Four-fifteen."
"Oh--we're practically right on time, then. It's only three-fifteen, our time."
For all my figuring of logistics, I'd forgotten we would be meeting on the time-zone boundary; and so I'd worried for nothing.
Except that now Faron had more to say about the difficulty of the way up. The trail she'd been following petered out in the alpine, and she'd come by instinct the last half-hour or so in the rough direction of the pass. Hiking up among the ridges on the west side, she lacked the clear line of sight that had guided us to the cabin from the east. Attaining the lower bowl of the pass, she'd lost her bearings and had to depend on her voice to make final contact with us.
When we arrived at the cabin Faron exchanged brief greetings with Matt, unstrapped her pack, and immediately collapsed on one of the bunks. I helped Suze out of her snowsuit and boots. As I did so she said in a thin, shy voice, "Will, I'nt someping a-eat."
Back in my familiar role, I chuckled, "Okay, Suze, what would you like?"
"Someping from backpack."
I opened Faron's pack and found it crammed with extra warm clothes for two, bedding for three, food for a group, toys and books and art supplies for Suze, and a bundle of mail for me. I was astonished at the size of the load--at least thirty pounds she'd carried up, with Suze doubling that.
"Faron, you didn't have to bring all this stuff, did you?"
"I thought you'd want to see those new books you ordered."
"Yeah, but I could have waited! I mean, I appreciate it, but all the way up here . . . and the junk mail--"
"It doesn't weigh that much."
I wasn't sure whether to admire her or simply feel appalled at the extent of her ambitions. I sat beside her, putting my arm around her. She leaned her head against my shoulder. I could feel the weight of her exhaustion and relief. It was so good to see Faron, to hold her again like this.
Suze reminded me of my promise to get some food. I found a muffin for her and sat back down beside Faron. Now I wanted nothing more than to cuddle with her under the bulky down comforter she'd brought along.
Matt graciously took his flute outside to serenade the mountains and left us to ourselves. Faron was so chilled from her trek that she kept her down coat on as we lay on the bunk together in tender embrace. That didn't matter; we could at last lie still together, with commingled feelings of excitement, fatigue, accomplishment and good fortune. By the time Matt returned, Faron had almost drifted away into the mists of sleep.
After a supper of lentils and vegetables, rice cakes, fruit and mixed nuts, we all gathered around the cabin's logbook, while a light rain fell outside. We learned that the shelter had withstood thirteen years of the clashing of weather systems at the top of this mountain range, where moist air traveling from the coast drops its last load of rain and snow before reaching the Rockies. Entries made in every month of the year recounted blizzards. We felt snug enough so far, though we had some reason to be apprehensive as we closed the logbook and prepared for bed.
Matt chose one of the top bunks. I made Suze's bed under his, while Faron piled our comforter on the other bottom bunk. Outside, the wind was picking up. We put more wood in the fire for the night and dove shivering into our beds.
Love was never so lovely as this, so patiently earned; so forgiving of the weeks we'd spent apart, and those yet to come; so generous with its soothing balm. Our hands played over the rediscovered terrain of our skin, finding here the mountains and rivers and forests that lay all around us in the unseen night. The roar of our passion was muted by respect for Matt's close-by solitude, yet in the process it was transmuted into deeper frequencies, richer harmonies, more resounding exclamations of the heart.
The cabin walls shook with the buffeting of wind and rain from all directions, while thunder and lightning made a mounting attack on the darkness. Our bodies clung tightly together into the night, courting sleep. Somewhere in the realm between love and the void, we heard a crashing of wood outside. Faron's eyes popped open--I could feel the lashes against my cheek. Instantly I was alert to the arrival of a grizzly, come to claim some of the new food in its domain.
Or, I considered, maybe it was just the wind blowing some boards about. As the sounds subsided amid the general
cracking of the elements, somehow we found our way into sleep, a long and dreamful sleep.
I am in a hallway, a long, cockeyed room like a carnival crazy house: with sloping floor, walls out of plumb, shadows painted at random along its indeterminate length. I walk slowly down (or is it up?) this narrow passage, noting the seven doors I pass, all closed. At the end I came to a warped mirror. I didn't like what I see there: seven more doors, and a wobbly me, stretching backward and forward forever. At the end of the hall where I thought I started, I find another mirror, like the first. There is no exit now, it appears, but through one of the doors.
But which one? They all look the same, at first. On closer scrutiny I see faded lettering, pale shadows of numbers. I pace the length of that hall several times, scratching at the peeling paint, deliberating. One door has what looks like a capital S on it: or a snake. Did it just move, darting a quick tongue out at me? Suddenly this room feels altogether too small--less a room than an oblong box.
I cannot choose among these nameless doors. But I will have to choose, if I want to get out. S--or what?
DREAMBOX--CHOOSE DOOR S: 
OR Continue to next page:
Now, the walls are closing in on me--still I can't choose. In a panic I thrash out with a wild arm at the warped,
grinning mirror advancing on me, and smash it into a million tinkling pieces . . .