Rendezvous: a hypertext adventure

by Nowick Gray

Morning light drew our eyelids slowly open. I pulled Faron closer for a kiss while we still had the chance.

"Nine weeks," she said in a forlorn whisper. "Nine weeks too long."

As soon as our lips touched, Suze awoke from her bed beside us, right on cue. There was no turning the clock back now.

Never had I been away from Faron for longer than a week, in our four years together. Now we would have to last likely four or five weeks at a stretch, until I could arrange a quick trip back home on a couple of days between shifts. The treeplanting camp would be a full day's drive away, in the next valley.

But when John Harris had called me, a job offer out of the blue, I'd told him I'd do it; because with a half-finished house and a three-year-old, we needed the money. The house was a full forty feet long, but so far, only fourteen feet wide: like an overgrown trailer, or a glorified railway shed. The exposed hallway served as a temporary outer wall, showing not one but a row of doors to various rooms in what was really only the back half of the future house.

We got up and dressed; then Faron made breakfast while I finished packing. It was all happening so fast. Over breakfast and a road map we tried to calculate how many round-trips our budget could bear, feeding the gas-guzzling Ford three-quarter ton truck.

I wasn't too concerned about using some of the big bucks I'd be making for the odd trip home. At a hundred and fifty dollars a day . . .

Faron was more prudent: "Remember all the other things we need that money for, Will; those planting days have to cover us for the whole year."

"Yeah, I know, but--"

"Hey, I know how we could do it!"

Uh-oh, I thought. She's got that adventurous gleam in her eye. I almost flinched.

"You're going to be up near Inverness in a couple of weeks. Directly across the mountains from here."

"Yeah, that's kind of neat."

"More than neat, Will. Look on the map. There's Mirror Pass, right up there. If there's a trail on the east side, you could hike over the pass on a day off and meet me on the Tumbler Creek side."

"That's true. You could drive up to the trail--if the road's open--and pick me up. It would take me a whole day to get home, though. If I happened to be lucky enough to have two days off, I'd have to head right back over the next morning, and then work another shift with no rest. We wouldn't have much time together; just the overnight."

Faron leaned onto a muscular forearm. Her jaw was set. This meant one thing: there had to be a way; and if not, she'd push one through anyhow. "Still, it seems so close."

I had no solution to offer, other than driving the long way around.

"Hey, I've got it. You hike up your side, and I'll come up the trail from the west, and we'll meet at the pass. There's a cabin there, where we can stay the night. We'll have more time together that way." Her eyes sparkled.

I pictured our bed, not in the cabin but out under the millions of stars wheeling around amid the frosted peaks. "Hmmm. I wonder. Maybe it's not such a crazy scheme after all."

Suze had stopped stuffing pancake in her mouth long enough to attempt speech. The result was something of a strangled whimper, muted but nonetheless effective.

It brought me back to earth. I spoke for the little tyke before she choked: "But Faron, what do we do about Suze?"

"Oh, I'm sure she'd love to come, too."

"I'm sure she would." Suze was vigorously nodding her head, with her cheeks still bulging. "But how's she going to get there? It's what--a three-hour hike for an adult, in shape?"

"She could walk up part of the way."

"And have you carry her the rest? Wouldn't it be easier to find someone she could stay with?"

"Oh, she'd rather come--wouldn't you, Suze?"

When Suze hesitated, perhaps trying to swallow first, Faron added, "We'll bring lots of food along; and your bluey quilt . . ."

"Yessee, yessee, I wanna come."

That settled that. And so our plan was hatched--at least in principle.

Saying good-bye was difficult--though less so for me than for Faron. I had the excitement of a trip and new experiences to look forward to. Faron would be at home with Suze and the big garden to look after; and as if that weren't enough, she'd also taken on the job of babysitting two other kids.

"Are you sure you can manage all that?" I'd wondered.

"Oh, no problem." And for Faron, it probably didn't seem like much. Backpacking around Europe at seventeen, running a printing press at nineteen, roaming the mountains for a week in her twentieth year, and having our child at twenty-one: these all came naturally to her. With Faron it was a matter of style, pace. On a morning off from more widespread obligations, she could conjure a whirlwind in the kitchen yielding a batch of bread, a couple of dozen quarts of canned fruit, and several pies--with a cord of firewood split and stacked, between infrequent peeks in the oven. One or two burned pies, no big deal: the cost of accomplishment.

But now as we held each other one last time by the brown truck door, Faron cried for her coming loneliness. I smoothed the wet strands of hair to the sides of her cheeks, encircled her arching back to pull her closer, and took her mouth to mine. Then I got into the truck, tried to smile for her, and rumbled down the driveway.

Go direct to cabin in pass, or

Proceed on highway to work...