7
The monotonous fruit fields change to rugged foothills covered in lodgepole pine trees as we head west. When we turn off the highway, gray granite cliffs flank the twisting uphill road toward the national forest. Carved wooden signs with painted white lettering point the way to a variety of sights, each marked with distance and pertinent details:
CANYON WALK, 6KM. 3.5 HOUR RETURN.
SCEPTER PASS, 4KM. WEAPONS PROHIBITED.
BLACKWOOD LAKE, 10K. NO PETS. NO FIRES. OVERNIGHT STAY REQUIRES WILDERNESS PERMIT.
And then finally, our destination:
MUIR CAMPING COMPOUND: 2K. 1 HOUR RETURN. WHEELED VEHICLES PROHIBITED PAST PARKING AREA.
Wait, what?
“This is us,” Reagan reports, turning. I make a mental note of a High Sierra bus stop here and wonder if this is the route I’ll need to use to get to the star party on Condor Peak.
A small, paved parking area sits at the end of a rocky driveway. A dozen or so cars are parked here, most of them luxury vehicles. We find an open space near some wooden steps that lead into thick forest. Another sign sits near the steps, stating that the trail is private property and only for guests of the compound. People using the trail must fill out a form and deposit it inside a locked box.
There is no road past the parking lot.
“Get everything you’ll need,” Reagan reports. “Unless you want to spend all your time hiking back and forth to the car. The walk back is fine, but it’s all uphill to the compound.”
“We’re hiking to the compound?” I say, staring at the sign. “Two kilometers?”
Reagan gives me a labored look. “Don’t start, Everhart. I warned you about hiking.”
I’m not even that upset about the hike. It’s just unexpected, is all. “I didn’t—”
“How long is two kilometers?” Brett asks.
“It’s nothing,” Reagan tells him brightly.
“A little over a mile,” I elaborate.
“Oh, cool,” he answers, but he’s smiling at Reagan.
And Reagan is smiling back at him. “Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.”
Why are they smiling so big? Did I miss a joke? And now they’re high-fiving each other—hard enough to hear the smack of palm-on-palm. It’s so . . . goofy. Lennon’s head turns toward mine, and even though a fringe of black hair obscures one eye, a single dark brow rises in shared judgment of the stupid high five.
Or maybe he’s judging me.
We all fill out the trail registration cards at the information sign—in case anyone goes missing or gets murdered along the way, they’ll know your name and next of kin. And after Brett and Lennon haul down everyone’s stuff from the rooftop travel carrier, I’m soon reminded that I’m a human Weeble toy, barely able to stand under the misaligned weight of my backpack. But it’s not as if I can repack everything in the middle of the parking lot. So I do my best to strap it on and adjust my stance.
“Saddle up, team,” Reagan says loudly to the group. “Luxury awaits us at the end of the trail.”
It’s just two kilometers, I tell myself. And the woods are pretty amazing, all shady and smelling of pine needles. Birds are chirping, and it’s not too warm. I can do this. About five minutes up the first steep hill, I begin to have doubts. Ten minutes up an even steeper incline, I’m picturing Reagan with one of those prospector axes from the general store lodged in her skull. By the time we reach the final stretch toward the compound, I’m just wishing I could drop into a fetal position.
The sign for Muir Camping Compound appears, and I nearly weep when I spot a big building inside a break in the trees. My head is sweating, and I’ve been walking uphill in a hunched-up position for so long, I’m a hundred-year-old woman with osteoporosis.
But it doesn’t matter. The promised land is in front of me, and by God, it may have been worth all that misery, because the compound is gorgeous. A modern cedar lodge sits at the forefront: walls of enormous windows, fat timber beams, stacked-stone fireplaces jutting from the roof. Lush forest surrounds it. Jagged mountains in the distance. The whole scene looks like something out of a dream. We head inside.
Warm sunlight streams through double-high windows as we tread across floors of polished river rock and stop at the registration desk. It smells so nice in here, like cedar and fresh-cut flowers. And they have expensive candy sitting in a bowl for the guests. I resist the urge to fill my pockets; Brett does not. He holds a finger up to his mouth and winks at me, stealthily emptying imported chocolate into a pocket on his backpack, while Reagan informs the middle-aged woman working the desk who her mother is.
The woman’s name tag reads CANDY. For a second, my oxygen-starved brain reads this as some sort of sign that Brett’s been busted, then I realize it’s actually her name. “You’re Belinda’s daughter?” she says to Reagan. “I barely recognize you. Didn’t you stay with us last year?”
“I did,” Reagan reports cheerfully. “Mom called you about the change in guests, right?”
Candy looks us over. “I was under the impression that your group would be girls. . . .”
You and me both, Candy. I sense a kindred planner spirit in her as she’s double-checking her computer screen and an old-fashioned paper registry. Reagan assures Candy that nothing is amiss with our guest list and begins providing her with everyone’s names. I meander around the room, and Brett joins me while I examine a wall of framed scenic photos. “Lennon said you take crazy-good photos of stars. I thought you just looked at them.”
The jittery feeling I get whenever Brett is nearby returns. Why can’t I just feel normal around him? “I . . . do both. Look and take pictures. Of stars. With my camera.”
Ugh. Zorie sound like cavewoman.
Brett just laughs, easy and warmly. “Not with your mind?”
“No,” I say, hoping my cheeks aren’t red.
“Do you just stick a camera on a telescope and zoom in?”
“Sort of. Not exactly? It’s . . . There are a lot of fiddly, techy parts. Hard to explain.”
His smile is gentle. “Maybe you can teach me how? Because I’d love to take photos of the night sky. Especially the moon. That would be so badass.”
Is he serious? He’s interested in astrophotography? I want to scream, I WILL TEACH YOU! I WILL TEACH YOU SO HARD. But Kendrick calls his name, and Brett ducks around me to answer. Before I can open my mouth, he’s gone, laughing with Kendrick about a carved wooden statue that looks like two squirrels having sex.
Dammit.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. It’s the same prickly feeling I had in the car, and it makes me anxious. I glance around, and my eyes immediately meet Lennon’s. The intensity of his stare is startling.
For the love of Pete, what do you want? It’s as if he’s accusing me of something. I haven’t said a word to him since the Gold Rush store, so I’m not sure what his problem is. I used to be able to read his expressions, but now he’s like the mediocre mime who performs outside the Jitterbug on Mission Street, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to get out of a glass box or signal a taxi. Does Lennon expect a thank-you for the peanut butter fudge? Or is he just trying to unsettle me?
If so, it’s working.
But I’ll never let him know that. I quickly turn away and head toward Brett and Kendrick and the mating squirrels.
After we’re registered, Candy leads us to our cabin tents, giving us an abbreviated tour and answering questions along the way. The main lodge has several lounge areas and connects to a screened-in dining pavilion where dinner will be served later. Outside, winding paths lead to dozens of canvas cabin tents nestled in the woods. Some are rectangular, some round—the yurts—but all are the color of unbleached muslin. They’re grouped into areas named after birds, each area a short walk from the next. It takes us about ten minutes to get to our area, Camp Owl, where two of the rectangular tents sitting near a dense forest are reserved for us.
Reagan isn’t happy about this. “We’re supposed to have a yurt,” she argues, “with a view of the valley.”
“Sorry, but Camp Falcon was accidentally overbooked. I put a family of six in my last one earlier this morning.”
“Not cool,” Reagan says grumpily. “We’ve had the reservation since last summer. My mom isn’t going to be happy.”
“If you’d like, I’ll call her and explain,” Candy says. “But this might work out better for you. Girls can take one tent, and the boys can take another.”
The implication is obvious. Candy will call Mrs. Reid and inform her that her daughter has brought along three boys. Reagan fumes quietly, but acquiesces. We really don’t have a choice.
“Just let life happen,” I tell Reagan.
“Yeah,” Brett says cheerfully. “That’s right, Zorie. You’re preaching my word, and I dig it.”
The look Reagan gives me could slice through steel.
The tents are both exactly alike: sealed cement floors, canvas walls fixed to a wooden frame, a screen door, slatted windows that can be opened to take advantage of the breeze during the day and closed at night to keep the cabin warm, along with a glass-front tent stove. A small seating area surrounds the stove, with a real sofa and brightly patterned Navajo rugs. Two sets of bunk beds stretch across the back of the tent, all with feather-top mattresses, luxury linens, and down pillows.
Behind the bunks, past a canvas divider, is an en suite toilet and sink. No showers. Those are in the bathhouse down the hill, shared with six other cabins in Camp Owl, Candy reports.
Candy reports a few other things, as well. “You’re in bear country, and yes, they’ve gotten through the national park fence and come into the compound. For everyone’s safety, all food must be stored in the food locker when it’s not in the process of being served or eaten,” she says, pointing outside the tent’s door to a green metal box that sits beneath a canopy with two rocking chairs. “Either there, or inside a portable food locker, meaning a bear-resistant food container that’s approved by Yosemite and King’s Forest.”
Lennon’s head slowly turns toward mine.
Why, oh, why does he have to be right? That peanut butter fudge is not sitting well in my stomach right now.
Candy ticks off a list on her fingers of what we need to store in the locker. “Unopened food, even in cans. Snacks, drink mixes, vacuum-sealed pouches. Every bit of it. All toiletries with a scent. Lotion, makeup, deodorant.”
“Cologne, too?” Lennon asks.
“Yes,” she says.
“I’m talking strong cologne. Like, some kind of extreme body spray.”
“Most definitely,” the woman answers, perplexed.
Lennon flicks his eyes toward Brett. But Brett is completely oblivious, as he’s currently trying to restack water bottles into a pyramid on a console table behind the sofa.
Candy points to the bathroom. “If you need extras of anything—water, razor, towels—just ask at the front desk. You can call, of course, but cell phone service is hit-and-miss up here. If you ever need to make an emergency call, we’ll let you use the landline. If it’s after ten p.m., Bundy and I stay in the log cabin to the right of the lodge.”
“What about backcountry permits for King’s Forest?” Lennon asks. “Your website said you can arrange it and have one delivered to our tent.”
“For a fee,” she says. “We have to drive to a park station to pick them up.”
“Put it on my credit card,” Reagan says breezily.
Candy gives Reagan a withering look. “You can stop by the desk at your convenience and fill out the form.”
Yikes.
“No music is allowed in the tent cabins,” Candy says to all of us. “No loud talking after sunset when you’re inside your camp. Other guests may be trying to sleep, and these walls aren’t soundproof. Quiet hours start at ten p.m. and last until seven a.m.”
“Geez,” Summer mumbles under her breath near my ear. “This place is a dictatorship.”
Candy points in the general direction of the lodge. “We have a small store that sells sweatshirts and rain gear. You can also rent bear canisters and camp stoves. It’s run on the honor system, so you’ll need to put cash in the bin or write your tent number and name on the sheet to have it added to your final bill. Also—”
Brett’s water-bottle pyramid crashes. Bottles roll across the floor. “Oops, sorry,” he says.
Candy pauses, and her inner struggle with patience is showing in the slant of her brows, but, clearing her throat, she finishes her speech. “Evening social time starts at six. We serve drinks, then a four-course dinner. We encourage you to mingle with other guests at the nightly bonfire afterward. The pavilion closes at nine. Any questions, come see us at the registration desk.”
What if I have questions now? No one else is paying attention to Candy, but I wish they’d listed all of this stuff on the website or given us a printout so I could review it and memorize everything. I’m itching to ask her to repeat everything so that I can write it all down. Actually, I’m literally itching and resist the urge to scratch. Lennon’s gaze flicks to my arms, and I feel as if he knows, which only makes the itch worsen.
If I make it through this week without having a nervous breakdown, I’ll consider it a win.