— 1 —LAST MORNING
At first I could hear nothing. No sounds to tell me where the danger had moved. But the fear in my heart, and the foreboding in my mind, presssed me into the hollow of the cedar. I pulled my knees to my chin, and held on.
How I wished this beast would turn away, or the tree I had taken refuge in was not dead-rotten. It was no match for the teeth and claws that have been chasing me.
I heard myself mutter, “I’m not much of a man … but I refuse to let my wildness be defeated.”
Have you ever felt yourself waking from a dream, when it still feels real, but you can watch it fade away? Wishing you could win, but knowing the dream’s only truth is that you are powerless?
I left my thoughts inside my bedroll as I unfolded the very real legs and arms that had been dozing inside my bivvy bag. It felt better to stand again, and look up along granite to the stars above.
A morning gust questioned my stability on this ledge, high above the Katahdin River valley. So I clipped myself to my top rope, and shook the remaining numbness from my feet.
I climbed toward the flat top of the butte. I loved this place, but had work to do. When I reached the top, I headed for the protection anchor provided for climbers like me. That’s where my pack was waiting, and my top rope was attached. I pulled a quickdraw double D from my gear pouch, and inserted it between my rope and the stainless pin in the rock. Under the tether, I carefully placed a piece of basalt, chosen for this purpose. I tested the assembly and then crawled over to rest for the last time against an ancient massif the first men who came here called “Gookooko’oo”—The Owl.
As darkness began to negotiate with twilight, I pulled out a granola bar, and ate breakfast. A red squirrel ventured over from a stand of wind-swept balsam firs, and chattered low. She wished no disrespect at that early hour of the day. I offered to share a crumb of my granola. She declined it with a tail twitch. So I reached deep into my breast pocket and produced two cones from the last day’s hike: a balsam pod I must have slept on, which disintegrated into my hand, and a luscious eastern hemlock cone. She squeaked her gratitude and carried it into the trees behind me.
I rubbed my back against the Owl, satisfied I had eluded my real pursuers and could complete my plan in peace.
I rappelled back down to the ledge where I spent the night, and muscled my knapsack and bivvy back up to the head of the rope. There I sorted what I would need, and what I would not. Into the stay-pack went extra water and food, my wallet, journal, worn copy ofBeloved. I rolled the bivvy tight, and clipped it to the pack with my bedroll still inside.
To my go-belt I attached a coiled full length climbing rope, two canteens of water and enough protein bars to get me through a day. Plus a fish hook, short coil of line, and angler net. “That’ll do for a long day’s climb,” I thought. Then I left my pack and rappelled back down to the ledge.
It made me feel kind of immortal to choose a place like this, where my life could uncoil exactly as I chose, away from the eyes of authorities. When I first made my plan, Katahdin seemed like the place to do it. But the zeal of Maine’s governor complicated things. She thought a new disease madehiking unsafe.
The stars still shone bright enough to compete with the rising moon’s crescent. And I was ahead of schedule. So I sat with my legs dangling. I leaned back on my elbows, head against the cliff, and looked up just as a meteor pierced the dar
