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“How many have you done? The big ones.” I’m talking about all of the tallest peaks in all the ranges.
He looks at me sharply. “I’ll do them all eventually. In good time. Safely. The better question is how many have I rescued?”
“What?”
“The peak baggers. They set unreasonable goals for themselves. Then they refuse to quit no matter what. Get themselves in trouble. Then we have to rescue them.”
“You call them peak baggers?’
“Sometimes. Sometimes we call them dead.”
He stops short, surprising me. I stumble and he grabs my elbow, steadying me. He turns me to face him.
“The mountains are dangerous. They don’t feel. They don’t help you. They don’t show mercy.”
“It’s you versus the mountain.” I think my quip is pretty spot on, but he shakes his head.
“Not even close. The mountain will win every time. Your only chance is to respect it. Fear it. Never let your guard down. But this…”
He lets go of my elbow and points down the path. I’m tempted to rub the spot and feel where his hand was, but I just follow him. We step out of the trees. “This is pretty benign.”
“Benign?” I can’t keep the disbelief out of my voice. How could anyone call this benign?
The meadow stretches almost to the horizon, except there is no horizon, just a steep wall of gray.That’s the next climb,I think. I shiver as the full meaning of Rylan’s little speech becomes a very grim reality.
This may be a competition between beings but that giant slab of rock won’t care. If it could think, it probably would wish us dead, all of us.
“Okay, it’s kind of pretty.”
I look up at him. He’s staring at the snow-dotted meadow, and I turn back towards it. That’s what he meant, duh.
“Oh. Wow.”
A breeze kicks up, and I watch the tall grasses bend. It looks like a wave as it rolls across the field. Except the plants are dotted with flowers in every imaginable color, even despite the cold.
“There’s a path straight across.” Rylan points. “If you don’t mind walking a little more, we can take one of the longer paths. Keep our legs nice and loose for tomorrow.”
He opens his mouth but closes it again. I touch his hand.
“What else?”
It’s obvious he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
“We might find some eggs, that’s all. That would be good, right?”
I agree. That was not what I thought he was going to say. I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘I’d like to make love to you in this field of flowers.’ I hitch my pack up a little higher and swallow my disappointment.
Eggs would be good. Protein. Focus on the competition. Correction, focus on surviving, and then the competition second.
We follow the main path and then he turns. We can no longer walk side by side anymore. He walks ahead of me, stopping to let me catch up occasionally.
“You don’t –”
He holds his finger to his lips. I wait for him to reach for me. I’d settle for a kiss. It would be memorable, the breeze flowing over us, the heady floral fragrance. It feels almost like we’re swimming in an ocean of scent.
Instead, he motions for me to stay and creeps into the grasses. He comes back with three eggs. Each one fills his palm, which makes them almost as large as my hand.
“My hero.”
