Swagger by Carl Deuker Page B

filled out the paperwork and dropped the fee into the fee box, I unloaded the trunk.
    I figured we’d just sling our packs over our shoulders and start walking, but Levi had a long checklist—compass, food, water, emergency blankets, matches. It wasn’t enough to tell Levi I had the item; I had to hold it up so that he could see it. The one thing I thought important—a cell phone—he didn’t own.
    About halfway through, I got frustrated. “We’re only going out for one night, Levi. It’s no big deal if we don’t have something. We’ll survive.”
    â€œOnly a fool goes into the mountains unprepared,” he said.
    That shut me up.
    At last we started up the trail. For the first mile, we saw kids with their parents out on day hikes. The second mile there were fewer people, mainly guys with their girlfriends. We’d smile and they’d smile, and for the first time in my life I wondered if somebody might think I was gay—a thought I didn’t like at all. Three miles out we saw backpackers, and now guys with their buddies outnumbered guys out with their girlfriends.
    Parts of the trail were steep. One spot was more than a little scary; a misstep and it was a long fall into a ravine—instant death. The backpack straps dug into my shoulders, but Levi didn’t complain, so I kept my mouth shut.
    As we hiked higher up into the mountains, I’d point to something and say: “That looks cool,” and then Levi would tell me all about it. Trees, birds, mushrooms, and insects—he knew about everything. He spotted cougar poop and explained how he could tell it wasn’t bear poop, not that I really wanted to know. “You can feel God here,” he said. “You can feel his perfect goodness.”
    At Thorp Lake, we searched for a place to set up camp. I saw a dozen spots that looked fine, but Levi found something wrong with each one. He was carrying the tent, so I trudged along, quiet, waiting.
    Finally he found an area that satisfied him: high ground, flat land, and layers of composting leaves to make the earth softer. He insisted that we set up the tent perfectly, stretching out the ropes and pounding in the pegs until our campsite looked like a magazine ad.
    We started a fire and roasted hot dogs; I wolfed down three along with a half pound of dried apricots. I’d packed the fixings for s’mores. We made some, ate them, made some more, and ate them too. As we ate, Levi told me about watersheds and how they clean the earth. I found myself yawning just as the first stars were coming out. I called it a night and headed into the tent. I didn’t think I’d sleep well, but I didn’t stir when Levi came into the tent.
    In the middle of the night, I had to pee. I unzipped the sleeping bag and the front of the tent, and then staggered outside. The fire had gone completely out, but it wasn’t dark. I looked up and understood why.
    Thousands of stars were shining down on me—way more stars than I’d ever seen on the clearest night in either Redwood City or Seattle. I could actually see the Milky Way wind its way across the heavens. I stared up at the stars until the cold forced me back to the tent and into my sleeping bag.
    The next morning I was sore, especially the back of my thighs. As we ate dried fruit and hot oatmeal for breakfast, Levi said he would have liked to keep walking deeper and deeper into the woods. I pretended to agree, but the Milky Way had been enough for one trip.
    As we hiked down, the sky clouded over. Rain hadn’t been predicted, but that didn’t stop the clouds from opening. I had nothing that could stand up against the onslaught, but Levi had packed a rain parka for himself and a spare one for me.
    It took far less time to come down the mountain than it had taken to go up. At the trailhead, we loaded our soggy stuff into the Subaru. I made a mental note to clean the trunk before returning the