Chapter 8

Friday, November 27, 1998

Considering the fact that Duane was home, Jason could have taken Friday off work -- but he'd known from the beginning that Duane had plans to spend much of the weekend with Cory working out the details of the Appalachian Trail hike. For four years it had been on the back burner, and the two kids hadn't even seen much of each other; now with the end of college only a semester and change away, the time had come to move it back to the front. From having done a fair amount of backpacking, along with reading about the AT and talking to a few thru-hikers, Jason knew it was more than just a case of picking up a backpack and starting to walk. It was a major logistical challenge with several knotty problems that could only be solved with thorough prior planning. From last summer, this weekend had been earmarked for firming up the plans and laying down what needed to be accomplished in the next few months.

Since Duane wasn't going to be around, there was no reason not to go to work. It would be a hectic day, Jason knew, partly catch-up from a skeleton crew the day before, and partly from the fact that the crew would still be pretty skeletal today.

It would be nice to think he'd put a lot of consideration into Mignon's remark as they stood leaning against the kitchen counter on Tuesday, but he hadn't -- mostly because it was such an unthinkable notion that there was nothing there to think about. It was coming up on ten years since Christine died, and would be all of it shortly after the first of the year. The first several years after her death, he'd mostly been focused on Duane -- which is not to say opportunities hadn't arisen here and there, because they had, but had to be measured against Duane's situation, too. The kid came first, and that was that, and most of the opportunities that came up would have had to involve at least some rearrangement of priorities. By the time Duane was heading off to college, he'd become used to not having a woman in his life, and wasn't so sure he wanted to mess with it again.

In the couple years that Vicky had been back in Bradford they'd picked up their old friendship -- but on much the same level as it had been, which is to say just friends. It had not escaped Jason that Vicky was again an available young woman, even though eight years had passed and a lot of water had flowed under the bridge since they'd had much to do with each other. He'd hoped she could pull herself together, make a new life, find a new guy who wasn't a jerk; they'd talked about it lots, and he'd had fairly detailed reports on her mostly dismally unsuccessful attempts with one guy or another over the last two years. Several times, he'd helped pick her up, get herself dusted off, and started over again. That was what friends were for, after all. Mignon's suggestion was so unthinkable that it seemed a joke, a tease, and that was that. He liked being around her, but then he'd always liked being around her, even when she'd been a tiny little girl.

Since the Varneys had planned Thanksgiving dinner late to accommodate his work schedule -- along with many other families in Bradford, of course -- he had hustled home after work, changed his clothes quickly, and headed across the back yard to find Duane already there. It had been the first time he'd actually seen him to talk to him on the weekend. It turned out Duane had left on Wednesday as scheduled, but with his snowboard strapped to the top of his Jeep. There hadn't been much snow in the Upper Peninsula snow belt around Marquette, for whatever reason, but he'd heard they were making snow on the lighted slope at Boyne Mountain. After calling home to warn he'd be running late he'd stayed at Boyne until they turned the lights off, and only then had he headed south on the five-hour drive to Bradford, arriving at four o'clock early Thanksgiving morning and spending a good part of the day sleeping. Duane all over, he thought, doesn't miss a chance.

Having been warned in the phone call the evening before that Thanksgiving dinner was going to be at the Varney's, Duane had slept late, then after getting around headed over there. From what Jason figured out, Duane had spent much of the afternoon teasing Troy about surfing, skiing, rafting, climbing, the chance to do the AT, and other joys of the single life, while Troy had tried to tease him back about the joys of marriage. It was pretty clear who had won that round, and it wasn't Troy.

Even so, Jason hadn't been sorry to shake hands with his stocky, solid, dark-haired son, a handshake that morphed into a hug without any difficulty. He hadn't seen much of the kid over the last three and a half years, mostly holidays and when he stopped off on the way through from one place to another. Unless a miracle happened it was likely he was going to see even less of him in the future unless he wanted to spend a lot of time visiting national parks -- which he suspected would happen. They grow up and go away, he knew all too well, but here it was -- in fact, it had happened when the kid drove the Jeep up the on-ramp and headed toward Northern Michigan University a few months over three years ago.

In spite of many dinners with the Varneys over the years, this one had been a little special, for having the extra kids present. He had noticed Vicky looked especially nice, in a skirt and blouse with careful makeup, most of which she didn't often bother with since she didn't feel like she needed to dress up much to run the register at Walmart. But, it had been Thanksgiving, and he hadn't given it any special significance.

But that was yesterday; today, as Jason came around the corner, he was just a little surprised to see Duane's red Jeep sitting in the driveway. He hadn't expected to see much of the kid, and figured he would be at Cory's house, as had been planned for the day.

He headed into the living room, to find Duane sitting there quietly, a glass in his hand. "You get everything worked out with Cory?" he asked, not detecting anything wrong.

"I guess," Duane replied dejectedly. "Cory's not going."

"Not going?" Jason asked, more than a little surprised. "What brought this on?"

"He's going to go to work at that place where he's interned the last couple summers," Duane shook his head. "They need him to start as soon as school is out. He didn't come out and say it, but it looks like it's been coming down since last summer and he was trying to put off a decision. It's a good deal for him, I guess, but damn!"

"When things like that come along, you have to make up your mind," Jason replied philosophically, sitting down in his comfortable chair. "Sometimes it's to change your mind."

"Yeah, but shit, how long have we been planning this?" Duane snorted. "Over four years, now! I should have seen this coming when he dumped wildlife biology."

"It doesn't have to kill the hike," Jason offered. "Don't you have anyone else in the outdoor club up there who might be interested?"

"No, not really, at least not any I think would be willing to do the hike the way I want to do it," he shrugged. "Actually, I've been sitting here thinking about soloing it."

Soloing the trail was a perfectly reasonable alternative, Jason knew; his reading on the Appalachian Trail hadn't been anywhere near as extensive as Duane's, but he knew a large percentage of thru-hikers were solos. "Might not be quite as much fun as if you were with a friend," he observed. "And maybe not quite as safe, but I guess it could be done."

"I know it can be," he said. "You remember Scooter, down at NOC? I think I introduced you to her last summer."

An image sprang to mind. If Scooter was who he thought she was, she was memorable. "Short, plain, around thirty, light brown hair, smokes cigars and acts pretty butch?" he smiled.

"That's her," Duane laughed. "The first time she tried the trail a few years ago, she went pretty hard, tore up her knees and had to drop out. The guy who had been with her finished up solo. The next year she tried it again and went solo, mostly because she knew she'd have to take it real easy. Some days she could go pretty well, and some days she could barely walk a mile. It took her almost eight months, but she made it. The last time she tried it a couple years ago she started with some other girl, but she was slowing her companion down too much so Scooter quit. The other girl made it in good time, solo again."

"So it can be done," Jason nodded, picking up on his son's thinking. "Even though it'd be a little riskier for a girl, not that I think I'd care to tangle with Scooter if she was in a bad mood."

"Right, me neither," Duane nodded with a smirk, then got serious again. "And, just between you and me, I'd been getting a little concerned about Cory, anyway. He's put on some weight; he hasn't been getting out and hiking like I've been doing. I can't help but wonder if maybe we'd get going, maybe get a hundred miles on, and he'd burn out on me. I'd have to quit, or else go on solo."

"So maybe it's just as well."

"Right," Duane sighed. "It's just that we've planned this trip for so damn long, clear back to when we were on Isle Royale years ago. So now, I'm sitting here wondering if I should just plan on going solo, or say the hell with it and start getting resumes and applications out in hopes of getting on someplace decent next spring, not some damn cannonball park or urban memorial."

"Are you looking for my advice, or just looking to talk out your thinking?"

"Both, I think," Duane sighed. "I'd like to hear your thinking on it."

"Well," Jason sighed, gathering his thoughts. "Right off the top of my head, I'm of two minds. Look, let's think about Troy for a second. If you were to hike across the back yard right now and ask him to go with you, what would he say?"

"He'd say, 'not just no, hell no, '" Duane snorted. "He's got Brittany, he's got a kid coming along, and he's got a pretty good job, considering. She'd rip him a new asshole if he took off on a six-month hiking trip." He shrugged and let out a sigh. "He didn't say anything, but I think there may be a girl involved with Cory's not wanting to go, too. Some kid from his college, I've never met her."