Chapter 7

Day 12 - Friday, April 29, 2005

When Sam and I awoke, we were warm and snug, cuddled together in our sleeping bag. The problem was, outside our sleeping bag, it was freezing, literally. You could see every breath we took.

"I don't wanna get up," Sam whined. "I wanna lay right here all day and snuggle."

"It's not going to get any warmer, Love. They have some really freaky weather here in Maine in April."

"Yeah, I know I have to get up. My bladder will burst if I don't. I just hate the thought of hanging my butt out in the wind to take a pee."

I laughed and hugged her, then I snaked one arm out of the sleeping bad and snagged our new silk underwear. I pulled it into the bag with us and stuffed it down between us. Sam screamed and tried to pull away from it, but I pulled her back.

"It'll warm up in a second, Honey, and when we have warmed back up, we'll pull it on while still in the bag. That way your pretty butt will be covered when we get out."

We did finally manage to get into our underwear while in the bag by helping each other. It was so damned cold when we got dressed that I said to hell with it and built a small fire to help keep us warm until our coffee water boiled.

We packed the camp quickly and I put out the fire. We hit the trail with vigor, trying to make our muscular activity warm us up. We hadn't gone half a mile before I noticed we were on a slight downgrade.

By noon, the temperature was in the low 40s and we were at least five hundred feet lower in altitude. By evening it was over fifty. We felt like it was the middle of June.

Day 13 - Saturday, April 30, 2005

The temperature was in the upper thirties when we awoke this morning, but after yesterday it felt like a heat wave. We brewed our coffee and drank it leisurely before we took off.

"Did I tell you we are only about a mile from the New Hampshire border?" I asked.

"No. How long will it take us to cross New Hampshire?"

"We'll be in Vermont by noon tomorrow. We just cross a very small neck of New Hampshire."

"Hey, as long as it starts getting warmer, I don't care what state we're in."

We turned Northwest from this point. We were about forty miles south of the Canadian border, and we wanted to start working closer to the border.

We felt a lot better this morning as we started out, and it just got better still as we went along. I would think the odds of meeting another backpacker while in the wilderness would be phenomenal. We had just sat down for our morning break and were cuddled together munching on some GORP, when we heard voices approaching us.

It sounded like a man and a woman, so we weren't too concerned. They were both in their early twenties and when they walked into the little clearing we were in, you'd have thought someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on them. Both of them gasped and stopped dead in their tracks.

"I'm Ed Hill and this is my wife, Sam," I said as we got up to greet them.

"We're Bob and Angie Griffith," the young woman said.

"We're kind of new to backpacking," I said. "Do you often meet other people when you're out in the wilderness like this?"

Bob laughed and said, "We've been out for three days and you're the first we've seen. There have been other times when we've been out for two weeks and never seen anyone else. Where are you guys headed?"

"Newport, Vermont right now," Sam said. "This is our thirteenth day out and other than in towns or a couple of guys we met on the highway, you're the first we've run into. Where are you guys going?"

"Thirteen days is a long hike and you've got a ways to go before you get to Newport," Angie said. "We're going to be out for two weeks. We're on our way to climb Tumbledown Mountain."

We tried to talk them out of it. We told them of the freezing temperatures and the snow in the passes south of Tumbledown, but it didn't do us any good. They were determined to go on anyway. We never heard from them or about them again. They seemed like a nice couple. I hope everything went well for them.

We were around ten miles inside New Hampshire when we stopped for lunch. The temperature had risen to the low fifties. We ended up making a little over twenty-three miles for the day.

It may not have been as cold as it had been, but Sam and I retired to our sleeping bag right after we'd eaten. We cuddled, talked, and made love for almost two hours before we fell asleep.

Day 14 - Sunday, May 1, 2005

The temperature was great this morning. I'd say it was in the mid forties, still too cold to take a bath, but much nicer than it had been. We had hiked around five miles before we crossed the Connecticut River on the SR-105 bridge at North Stratford, New Hampshire and were in Vermont.

We ended up following SR-105 most of the day and passed the villages of Bloomfield and East Brighton. We made twenty-two miles for the day and camped a little west of SR-105.

Day 15 - Monday, May 2, 2005

We reached Newport, Vermont by the middle of the afternoon. Newport is made up of Newport City, Newport Town, and Newport Center. Together they make up a fair sized community. We found a nice Bed and Breakfast that had a room available, so I went ahead and booked it for two nights.

We found the Eastside Restaurant quite by accident and I was extremely glad we did. The food was excellent. After dinner we walked down to a little park that was located on the banks of Lake Memphremagog. What a name, right? It's probably Indian or something.

We sat down on a bench and I put my arm around Sam. She snuggled in and we sat looking out across the beautiful lake with the impossible name. "Does this remind you of anything?" I asked Sam after a while.

"Except for your arm being around me and the beautiful lake, I guess it does."

"I'm so glad you aren't in that situation any more," I said as I squeezed her.

"Yeah, I am too. You wouldn't believe how many of them there are out there. There were at least ten living in that park in Grand Rapids. Some were as young as eleven or twelve."

"Were they mostly girls?"

"No. Actually there were probably more boys than girls. Some of them, boys and girls alike, prostituted themselves for a little money to eat on. I had worked at a Burger King for a while before I ran away. I knew they had to throw anything away that had set under the heaters for too long. Most of the fast food places have the same policy. If I never see another Big Mac or Whopper, it'll still be too soon."

I had to laugh. "Once a month is about all I can handle them anyway. I'm more of a Coney Dog or an Arby's fan."

"You know we're being watched, don't you?" Sam asked in a whisper.

"No," I said without looking around. "I wasn't aware of it."

"I think it's a girl. Younger than me, maybe fifteen or so. I've caught a glimpse of her a couple of times when the wind blew a tree she is behind."

"Shit," I said softly. "Now I'm going to be worried about her. Is there anything we can do for her?"

"She'd probably run off if we tried to talk to her."

I thought for a minute then asked, "If I was gone, do you think she'd talk to you?"

"She might. What did you have in mind?"

"I thought I might walk back over to the restaurant and get a nice takeout meal. Any suggestions?"

"Steak, baked potato, and a huge salad."

"Okay, I'll be back shortly." I got up, gave Sam a soft kiss, and walked off toward the restaurant.

When I got to the restaurant, I walked straight to the cashier and asked, "Do you have containers that you could fix me a big takeout meal?"

"Yes, sir. What did you have in mind?"

"I want the biggest steak you have cooked medium rare. I want a baked potato with butter and sour cream in cups on the side. I'd like a salad that is at least twice as big as the one my wife and I were served with the dinner we had in here a while ago and I'd like half a dozen different dressings in cups on the side and if you have some of those little salt and pepper packets, that'd be nice."

"That's not a problem. It'll take about twenty minutes."

"That's fine. I'd also like to buy a real knife and fork from you and I'd like a piece of your delicious cheese cake with the order. Whatever you'd charge for the knife and fork is no problem."

"Yes, sir. You can have a seat in the waiting area and I'll call you when your meal is ready."

The twenty minutes went by quickly and when the cashier caught my eye, she waved me over. She had three large and one small container sitting on the counter and there was a plastic bag beside it.

"You're doing this for a street person, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, a young girl who appears to be around fourteen or fifteen. My wife is trying to get her to talk to her. I figure if she doesn't talk we'll just leave it on the bench down by the lake and maybe she'll pick it up after we're gone."

The woman gave me a big smile and said, "The knife and fork are on the house." Then she gave me a price for the meal that was no more than one of the meals Sam and I had earlier. She handed me a large drink container and said, "She'll probably need something to drink with the meal." I decided I really like these Vermonters.

As I approached the bench where Sam was waiting, I saw the girl standing in front of her, deep in conversation. When she saw me, she started to walk away, but I heard Sam say, "This is the man who saved me from living in a park like you are. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be living in a park in Grand Rapids, Michigan."

The girl hesitated, then turned back around. I walked on up to them and sat my burden down on the bench next to Sam. "Come on, eat up," Sam said. "This is for you. If my man got what I asked him to, you're going to like it."

The girl walked tentatively over to the bench and I had a chance to take a closer look at her. She looked a little disreputable, but her clothes weren't nearly as bad as Sam's had been. Her face and hands were clean, but her red hair, although combed, looked like it could stand a good washing. She was thin, but again, she wasn't as thin as Sam had been.

She sat down on the end of the bench and started opening containers. Her eyes got big as she saw what we had bought for her. "I didn't know what kind of salad dressing you like, so I had them put in several kinds. They're in the bag along with butter and sour cream for your baked potato."

The girl looked over where I was sitting on the grass and said, "Thank you."

"Cassie, this is Ed. Ed, the young lady here is Cassie Tufts."

"It's nice to meet you, Cassie," I said.

She smiled at me then she cut off a piece of the steak and put it in her mouth. She rolled her eyes up and made a low moan of pleasure at the taste.

"Obviously, Cassie is a runaway," Sam said. "Her problem was a step-mother. Her mother died a couple of years ago and her dad re-married about six months ago. Tell me if I get something wrong, Cassie."

Cassie nodded as she took another bite. "Cassie was always a daddy's girl and he thought the sun rose and set in her. When he married his new wife, she started abusing Cassie because she was jealous of the relationship he had with Cassie."

"Why didn't you tell him what was going on, Cassie?" I asked.

"I did. I even showed him the bruises on my back and belly. She told him I hated her and that I was bruising myself to make it look like she was mistreating me. She convinced him and he was going to send me to a psychiatrist. My step mom told me that if I ever told him anything again, she'd kill me and make it look like I had committed suicide."

"Anyway, the abuse went on until about a month ago when Cassie ran away from home," Sam said.

"How old are you, Cassie?" I asked.

"I'm fourteen," she said defiantly.

"Shit," Sam said. "I ran away when I was almost sixteen. It was hard on me making it on my own. It must be really hard on you."

"It hasn't been easy. The hardest parts have been keeping clean and finding something to eat."

"I know about that. We're still not keeping the cleanest, but now it's for fun."

"What do you mean?"

"Ed and I are hiking across the country. We camp most nights and the weather has been too cold to take a bath in a stream."

"Wow. That sounds like fun. Mom and dad and I were members of the Sierra Club before mom got hit by the drunk driver. We did a lot of camping and hiking and backpacking and stuff. I actually took my backpack and sleeping bag when I left home. I had a tent too, but someone stole it."

Cassie was really demolishing the meal while we talked. The salad was gone and she was half way through the steak and the baked potato. "Cassie, we're staying in the Bed and Breakfast down the street here. Would you like to come back to our room and get cleaned up?" Sam asked.

It was nice that she felt secure enough to invite Cassie without checking with me first, but I kind of wished she hadn't. I was afraid this would develop into something I wasn't ready for. I was enjoying my time alone with Sam and I didn't want to give up any of our privacy.

Cassie hesitated for a minute then said, "I might, but only if you promise you aren't going to try anything."

"I know you don't know us, Cassie, but I'm seventeen and I had a really hard time convincing Ed I was old enough to have sex with him. There's no way he'd even consider having sex with you."