7
BY THE TIME we stopped at a campground in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, we’d been driving for seven hours. Robinson had stuck to the back roads, and I wasn’t complaining. My fear of getting pulled over by cops looking for a black Harley with an Oregon plate hadn’t completely disappeared, but I was thinking about it less as we got farther and farther from home.
The sun was low above the horizon when we pulled into the park, and it vanished completely as we entered the green canopy of trees. Robinson let out a low whistle as the shadows enveloped us.
Old-growth redwoods. How can I even describe them? They towered above us darkly, and they felt alive. Not alive like regular trees, but alive like they had souls. Like they were wise, ancient creatures, watching with only the faintest hint of interest as two road-weary teenagers walked beneath them. The air was cool and slightly damp, and the silence was profound. I felt like we were in church.
“I totally understand the whole Druid thing now,” Robinson whispered.
“I think the Druids actually worshipped oak trees,” I noted. “They didn’t have redwoods in ancient Ireland.”
“Smarty-pants,” Robinson said, poking me.
I put my hand on a rough, cool trunk. “Majestic tranquillity,” I said softly, seeing how the words felt in my mouth. A little too pretentious: I wouldn’t be writing that down in my journal. But there were real writers who’d seen redwoods like these, and I could steal from them, couldn’t I? “‘They are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time,’” I said.
“Huh?” said Robinson.
“John Steinbeck wrote that in Travels with Charley.”
He sighed. “Another one of the books you gave me—”
“That you didn’t read.”
Robinson used to pretend he felt guilty about ignoring the stacks of books I passed to him, but eventually he stopped bothering. “I thought I was supposed to read East of Eden first,” he said.
“Let me know when you get to it,” I said. “I won’t hold my breath.”
“Well, you can let me know when you listen to that Will Oldham CD I got you.”
“I put it on my iPod but, as you know, it’s broken,” I pointed out. “Your eyeballs work just fine.”
We found our campsite then, a small clearing surrounded by a ring of redwoods, with a picnic bench, a fire pit, and a spigot for cold, clear water. I unhooked my tent from the backpack. It was an army-green miracle of engineering: big enough to contain two people and their sleeping bags, it weighed less than a pound and, folded up, fit into a bag the size of a loaf of Wonder Bread. Robinson eyed it, impressed.
“Watch how I set this up,” I directed. “Because tomorrow night it’s your job.”
“I thought it was the woman’s job to keep house and the man’s job to hunt for food,” he said, grinning slyly.
I snorted. “Are you planning to kill an elk with your screwdriver? Good luck.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a squirrel,” he said, but even that was ridiculous, because Robinson would never hurt anything. I mean, the guy had to grit his teeth to kill a mosquito.
I unpacked the veggies I’d bought, plus a hunk of aged Gouda and a bag of lavash, the thin flatbread I love and couldn’t get in Klamath Falls because apparently it was too exotic.
“Well, well, well,” Robinson said as he watched me skewer mushrooms and peppers on sticks I’d stripped of their bark. “I guess you’d do all right on Survivor.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I paid for this stuff, Robinson. I didn’t forage for wild green peppers and cheese. Now, are you going to gather some sticks for the fire or what?”
“You couldn’t buy firewood, too?” he asked, but he ambled good-naturedly into the brush to find things to burn.
Soon we had a nice fire going, and we roasted our kebabs over the flickering flames. I stuck slices of cheese between pieces of lavash, wrapped them in foil, and set them near the fire until the cheese melted. When everything was ready, we leaned against a fallen log that was covered with springy green moss, which made a surprisingly comfortable backrest. We didn’t have plates, and the vegetables were a bit burned in places, but it was the best dinner I’d ever had. It tasted like freedom.
Robinson complimented my cooking, but within the hour he was raiding my backpack for junk food, claiming to be suffering from vitamin overdose.
“What else do you have in here?” he demanded. “I know you’re keeping Fritos or Oreos or something terrible and delicious from me.” I watched as he pulled out the map, two feather-light rain ponchos, my Dr. Bronner’s, my toothbrush, and my journal.
“Open that on pain of death,” I warned.
Finally Robinson held up a chocolate bar, triumphant.
“Half for you, half for me,” he said.
“A quarter for you and a quarter for me,” I corrected. “I’m rationing.”
Robinson laughed. “You’re a planner, I know. You always have everything figured out. But do you really think there’s a shortage of chocolate bars on the West Coast?” He reached out and handed me a small piece of chocolate. When our fingertips touched, I twitched as if I’d been shocked. It surprised both of us.
“You’re jittery all of a sudden,” he said. “We’re safe here, Axi. No one’s going to find us.” He walked over to the bike and lovingly patted its seat. “Or the hot Harley.”
While Robinson fondled his new toy, I tried to calm down, breathing in that “sweeter, rarer, healthier air,” as old Walt Whitman would say. Night was coming, bringing darkness and deeper silence. It seemed like in all the world, there were only the two of us.
I’d always told Robinson pretty much everything I thought about, but I couldn’t tell him this: I wasn’t nervous about being discovered. I was suddenly nervous about something else.
Sleeping arrangements.