AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her face brightened, even though I could see she hadn’t quite let go of the conversation we’d just had. “That sounds like fun,” she said. “I bet you’ve got plenty of granola and dried fruit, huh? Isn’t that what true hikers are supposed to pack?”
“Is that what you and Lucy pack when you go for a hike?” I asked her as she stood and took my hand.
“Nah, Lucy’s more of a nut kinda girl,” she explained. Then her face turned red, and we both started laughing at the double entendre. “We should just go before I say something else embarrassing,” she told me once she could breathe again.
“Good idea,” I agreed. “I’ll just go grab your hat.”
28
GEORGIA
Iwanted to be happy as we made our way to another quaint village named Grindelwald to begin our excursion up the mountainside, but I was having trouble snapping out of my funk. After Beau told me that his wife had been pregnant when she passed away, I wanted to cry for him. Thinking about his poor wife, how she must’ve been so excited to have her first child, and her life was snuffed out so quickly made me anything but happy.
And then there was the fact that he had lost his entire family in the blink of an eye. Not only was the woman he loved—someone he’d assumed he’d be spending his entire life with—gone with no warning, but so was his child, his own flesh and blood. Knowing Beau, I was certain he must’ve already had dreams and aspirations for that baby, probably from the moment he’d found out that his wife was expecting. All of that was gone, and there was nothing in the world that could bring it back.
“Are you all right?” Beau asked me as we got out of the car and headed toward a cable car that would take us to the beginning of the hiking path. Beau had explained all of this to me earlier so I wasn’t confused.
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just nervous that this might be more demanding than I was expecting.”
“Getting on the cable car?” he teased. “Nah, I’m pretty sure you can handle it.” He took my hand, and we walked over to where others were gathering to get aboard. There weren’t too many people standing around since it was a weekday, but considering it was summer, there were a lot of tourists. I heard several different languages as we took our place in line.
“No, not that,” I said, giving him a playful shove. “Just the hike in general.”
“It’s really not difficult, once we get up to the beginning of the trail. If we had to climb up the mountain to get there, that might make it a bit more challenging.” He grinned at me, but it also seemed slightly forced.
“I can’t imagine myself ever climbing a mountain,” I admitted as we boarded the cable car. “As long as it doesn’t get too steep, I’ll be okay.”
“The views from the top are amazing,” he told me. We held on to a bar to keep our feet steady as the vehicle began to move. “From the Mannlichen Summit, you can see Bachalpsee Lake, as well as the peaks of three beautiful mountains, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. There will be a ton of wildflowers, and you might just get to see some wildlife.” He gave me a pointed look, and the conversation we’d had the night before came back to me. I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking of our conversation about the poor dead goat with its head on the wall of the restaurant.
It didn’t take too long for us to reach the top. Waiting our turn, we held hands until it was our turn to get off, and then we began to make our way down the trail. At first, we were in a bunch with a lot of other people, but after a few moments, we began to spread out as people paused to take pictures or wander off into the wildflowers.
I couldn’t help but slow to check out the myriad of flowers myself. Beautiful white star-shaped flowers were the most plentiful. I wasn’t sure what they were, but they were lovely. We also saw a lot of yellow and blue flowers. I’d learned the names of the flowers in Seattle because Lucy always named them for me, but I didn’t know what these were.
As if reading my mind, Beau began to identify them for me. “The white ones are edelweiss,” he said. “The blue ones are gentian, and the others are mostly pansies.”
“The yellow and pink ones?” I asked, thinking I recognized a pansy when I saw one, but I wasn’t sure.
He nodded. “Later in the summer, there will be more purple and blue ones known as alpine aster. They’re beautiful also.”
“I’d love to see that,” I said before I thought it through. I didn’t want him to think I was inviting myself back for another stay. Surely, he didn’t think I was just with him for his money, but things had been awkward between us for the last day or so, and I didn’t want to say anything that would make him question me more.
“It’s really beautiful.” He smiled at me and lifted his hand slightly, and for a moment, I thought he might brush my hair back from my cheek as he had in the past, but he hesitated and didn’t. He also didn’t add the words, “Just like you,” which he had before.
I managed to smile back at him and then we continued on our journey. The hiking trail was well worn from so many boots, so it wasn’t difficult, even though we were climbing in altitude a bit as we walked. It wasn’t too steep or complicated, so we were able to chat as we walked along. Most of our conversation was about the spectacular views and nothing of substance as it had been before. We could see plenty of mountaintops all around us, many of them still brilliant white from the snow. Beau named many of them for me, but with several syllables I couldn’t pronounce, I knew I wouldn’t remember them anyway. I’d barely mastered Sitka. Or was it Stika?
We went around a curve in the path where the trees were thicker, and I heard the chatter of what sounded like a squirrel to me. I paused to look around and spotted a creature squatting next to a tree, nibbling on a nut or something. I squealed and put my hand on Beau’s arm. “That is the biggest squirrel I have ever seen!” I told him. It was like twice the size of the squirrels we had back home.
Beau immediately burst out laughing, scaring the animal. It raised its head and turned to look at us. I had no idea what was so funny, but now that he was making such a ruckus, I had to think there was a chance that he might actually draw the creature over to us.
“Be quiet,” I told him. “It’s staring at you.”
“What’s the matter?” Beau asked, once he could speak again. “You didn’t wear your hat. I’m pretty sure he’s not related to it, anyway.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that comment, which took me back to how much fun we’d had the night before, before everything had gotten weird. But I was still nervous that the squirrel was so massive and didn’t seem scared of us at all. It looked a bit strange to me, too. Maybe it was some kind of a mutant Swiss squirrel. Did they carry Swiss army knives?
“Is that not the fattest squirrel you’ve ever seen?” I asked Beau, taking another step away from it. The animal hadn’t moved closer to us yet, but he looked interested in seeing what we might have in our backpacks to eat.
“That is not a squirrel,” Beau said, still laughing at me.
