Deposit, No Return

A young bearded man, Gene, knelt on a flat rock nearly at the center of a deep mountain pool staring vacantly at his green-eyed reflection.  Behind him the stream cascaded down a series of small falls, the bubbling, plunking melody of water over rock.  “Hear that?” he called to the teenage girl and boy who stood at the edge of the creek bank whispering to each other.  “The sound of life.”

The girl, Terri, said to Gene, “Can Billy and I hike upstream by ourselves?”

Without turning to them, he said, “Yes, but don’t go far.  Remember we need to collect firewood.”

The teenagers followed the creek to the first waterfall, then scrambled up a rugged rock escarpment a hundred feet above the stream bed.  From there they could see the clear brown pool in the distance below.  They faced each other and kissed.  Terri said, “This will be our special place.  When we’re in school, suffering through long, boring classes, we’ll look at each other and think of this place.  Promise?”

“Promise.”

They hugged.  Billy looked over her shoulder at Gene kneeling on a rock in the middle of the pool.  Almost to himself, he said, “I wonder what sound of life he was hearing?”

“Who knows?  He’s always going on about stuff like that, things he sees and hears out here.”

* * *

The green Cherokee rolls out of Cottonwood on the Tuzigoot road.  Before reaching the pueblo ruins it veers left onto the dirt track into Sycamore Canyon, leaving a cloud of orange dust in its wake.  This is the red rock country west of Sedona.  The morning sun rising above a bank of pink cumulus clouds highlights the crimson and tangerine striations etched across the mesas.  Bill Reynolds drives the Jeep.  In the passenger seat is his ex-wife, Terri, who came back from L.A. yesterday for her brother’s funeral.  After the service, Terri approached Bill outside the cemetery chapel and said, “You have to take me into Sycamore Canyon tomorrow.”

“No problem.”

“Gene wants his ashes dumped back near that old cowboy line shack, and I can’t go there alone.”

She unfolded a map, smoothed it out on the hood of her rental car, and showed it to him.  Gene had traced the route up Packard Mesa, north along the plateau, and down into Sycamore Basin to Taylor Cabin.  There was a large X penciled over the creek where Gene wanted his ashes dumped.

“You know the place?” Terri said.

“Of course—and so do you.  Gene took us there several times.  Don’t you remember?”

“I guess so.  I’ve got a lot work on my mind.”

“Big city work, huh?”

 At the parking area near the trailhead Bill stops the Jeep between two junipers, gets out and goes to the rear compartment to get the backpacks.  This morning, before sun-up, he had thrown together equipment for an overnighter. 

While he retrieves the packs, Terri goes to stand at canyon’s edge.  Returning, she says, “It’s even more beautiful than I remember.”

While she transfers a few articles of clothing from a camel-colored leather duffel, he notices the brand-new hiking boots she’s wearing.  The last item she takes out is the silver urn containing her brother’s ashes, and when she holds it up she says, her voice quavering slightly, “Leave it to Gene.”

He helps heft the pack onto her back, and she bounces under the weight.  “Not bad.  I can’t believe you make a living doing this.”

“Still working on my first million.”

“Are we carrying enough water?”

“Plenty for one way.  We’ll pump out of the creek before we head back.  Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

 The first part of the trail drops two hundred feet to the creek, which is running fast from recent rains.  Bill finds two sturdy sticks to help with the crossing.  The black boulders are slippery, and just before reaching the far bank Terri takes an awkward step and plunges knee-deep into the water.  She’s livid when Bill pulls her out.

“Why didn’t you tell me they were slippery?” she says.  When Bill shrugs, she says, “If there’s an afterlife, Gene’s probably having a good laugh right now.”

The next part of the trail is the most difficult—a brown thread that climbs fifteen hundred feet straight up through the red rock to the top of Packard Mesa.  They stop three times on the way, the last to put a thin strip of moleskin over a hot spot on Terri’s left heel.  As soon as they reach the crest a full-grown mule deer buck crashes out of a clump of junipers, startling Terri.  “Jesus Christ,” she says, watching the deer bound down the mesa.

“Why so jumpy?” Bill says.

“You live in L.A., you’re jumpy.  Besides, I’m drinking too much coffee.”

“Really?”

“Six cups a day.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I get a headache when I cut down.”

 The trail along the mesa is level, and they hike at a good clip.  The sky overhead is clear now, but cumulus clouds are billowing at the horizon.  The early morning October sun has yet to reach the gorge below them, and the shadows there are nearly phthalo blue.  Once in a while Bill turns to smile at Terri, who walks close behind him.  Her short auburn hair has been recently layered in a shaggy cut, and at first she refused to wear the wide-brimmed khaki hat he gave her.  Her eyes are shaded by the brim making them seem a darker green.

They hike for hours in near silence until Bill finds a place to stop for lunch, a small rock outcropping near the intersection of two trails.  When Terri climbs out of her pack, she rubs her shoulders.  It’s obvious from the way she walks her feet hurt, too.  He breaks out hard rolls, cheese, salami, and granola bars—all of which they wash down with lukewarm lemonade.  She literally wolfs her food.

He says, “You’ll give yourself indigestion.”

“I want to get this over with.”

After lunch they set off on the Sycamore Trail, around a marble mountain that resembles a sphinx, and into a dense pine forest among the red rock.  The scene at Lookout Ridge erases her irritation.  It’s as if the whole world has opened up before them.  Individual trees merge in the distance, blanketing the canyon in green.  The north rim lies in ultramarine shadow, except for where the sun touches red rock, drawing it forward into three-dimensionality.  Heavy clouds press against the far horizon, their bellies swollen with rain.  While the two hikers stand for a quiet moment, he looks at her taking in the view.

But she can’t dally.  “Hadn’t we better go?” she says.

 From there the trail plummets off the plateau, switchbacking for a mile, then slashing straight down to the bank of Sycamore Creek.  They labor for about a mile upstream until they round a bend and see Taylor Cabin, a structure built of flagstone rock, three sturdy walls backed up against an orange cliff.

“At last,” Terri says.

* * *

After supper, they’re sitting at the wooden table in the cabin enjoying a cup of coffee (he didn’t mention it was decaf) when the sky bursts open.  It had been threatening all afternoon, and now the clouds deliver on the promise.  The wind kicks up and rattles the sycamore trees lining the creek.  Fortunately, the cabin is secure against the elements.  When the hikers had first entered, Terri was pleased to find the place so well-kept.  Bill said, “There’s an ethic among backpackers who use the place—leave it like you found it.”

Although Terri is tired from the hike, the supper has revived her spirits.  She unzips the pocket of her white windbreaker and extracts a photograph.  After staring at it, she passes the picture across the table to Bill.  It’s a faded color shot of the three of them somewhere on the Pacific Crest Trail in California.  Bill remembers how Gene had set the timer on the camera, then scrambled over logs to get into the frame.  Even with the full beard you can see he’s Terri’s brother.  The eyes are identical.  That trip had come right before news of the cancer.

“It’s strange looking at this,” Bill says, handing the photo back, “knowing his ashes are in your pack.”

 “It was his idea for you to lead me here.  Believe it nor not he specifically requested it in his will.”

“I believe it.”

Looking at the photo again, she says, “Remember how he treated us on that trip?”

“I do.”

“I told him we were separating just after you decided to leave L.A. and move back home.  Out of the blue Gene shows up all excited about doing a section of the Crest Trail.  He wasn’t too obvious when he said we had to go along.”

“And then when we were sitting around that campfire he just comes out with it.”  Bill imitates Gene’s gruff manner. “I know you’re both adults and it’s none of my business, but I can’t believe you’re splitting up.  You were made for each other.”

“When I told him all the important litigation took place in California he got especially grumpy.”  Taking her turn at imitating Gene, she says, “Big-shot environmental lawyer fighting for something you don’t get to enjoy yourself.”

“And then you reminded him he’d put you through law school.”

“He never had faith in the legal system.  ‘You’ve got to live for yourself nowadays,’ he told me the last time I saw him.  ‘Enjoy the world before it’s too late.’  That was in Phoenix.  I had flown in for a conference on the Central Arizona Project.  He was in the city for chemotherapy, and we had dinner one night.  He wanted me to spend a couple of days with him, drive up to Cottonwood to see you.  But I had to fly out the next morning, and he went into the hospital for good after that.”  She shakes her head at the photograph, a thin film of tears in her eyes.  “In the end, you saw him more than me.”

“The last time I saw him he told me how proud he was of you and that he really respected what you were doing.  He just worried the cost would be too dear.”

“It’s already been too dear.”

The storm worsens, battering the cabin with wind and rain.  Lightning, followed closely by heavy thunder, signals that the cloudburst is directly overhead.  During one enormous gust, the front door flies open, and a ghostly figure appears as a silhouette outside—a backpacker wearing a cheap, plastic poncho.  There are two of them, the other standing close behind the first.  They step inside cautiously, the second packer unable to close the cabin door until the first helps.

When they turn back to Bill and Terri, the first one, a young man with a breathy voice, says, “We’re sorry to intrude, but it’s bad out there and our tent just collapsed.”  He takes off his hood, revealing a baby face framed by slightly long blond hair.

The second packer is a young woman, and when she peels the plastic hood away from her wet, red hair, she says, “It wouldn’t have collapsed if you’d have read the directions at home first.”

The young man smiles to hide his embarrassment.  To Bill, he says, “Would it be okay if we stayed in here until the storm passes?  I can go out and put up the tent when the wind dies.”

“Why don’t you just spend the night?  There’s enough room.  You can take care of your tent in the morning.”

“If you’re sure it won’t be an inconvenience.”

“This cabin is for all backpackers, and since you two are backpackers, you have every right to be here.”

“If it was up to me,” the young woman says, “I wouldn’t be here—certainly not on my honeymoon.”  She says this last nearly under her breath.

“It’s your honeymoon?” Terri says.  “How romantic.”

The young woman’s sullen expression suggests otherwise, but her husband blocks further discussion of the subject, saying, “My name’s Ron Ruffner, and this is my wife, Dora.”  He shakes hands with Bill and Terri, who introduce themselves as Bill Reynolds and Terri Fisher.

Bill says, “Why don’t you guys get out of those packs, take off those ponchos.  How about a cup of coffee?  It’s decaf so it won’t keep you awake tonight.”

 Terri gives him a look about the coffee.  He shrugs, smiling, pours a couple of cups for the newlyweds.  Ron comes immediately to the table to sit.  He’s friendly, outgoing.  Dora is the opposite.  She sits reluctantly.  “I’m cold,” she says.  “Any chance we can start a fire?”

Terri says, “Bill, put a couple of logs on.”

Bill complies, and within five minutes a nice blaze spreads heat slowly throughout the cabin.

Ron takes a big sip of coffee, grateful for the hot beverage.  “We sure appreciate this.  We’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.”

When Dora raises the coffee cup to her lips, Terri says, “Your finger is bleeding.”

“The wind lashed a tent pole against it.”

Terri jumps up and goes to her pack, rummaging inside.  “I have Band-Aids in here somewhere.”  She starts pulling things out, the last of which is the silver urn.

When Dora sees it, she says, “What’s that?”

“An urn,” Terri says.

Ron says, “It looks like a funeral urn.”

“It is.”

“What do you mean ‘funeral urn’?” Dora says to her husband.

“You know, the kind that holds somebody’s ashes.”

 Dora’s eyes widen into hard-boiled eggs.  “Are somebody’s ashes in there?” she says to Terri.

“My brother’s.”

“Why do you have that with you?” Dora says, half rising from her seat.

Trying to lighten the mood, Bill says, “We take him with us wherever we go.”

Shaking her head and moving quickly around the table to the far end of the cabin, Dora says, “Oh no—I can’t be in here with a dead person.”

“Well, technically,” Terri says, putting the urn back into her pack and coming away with a small box of Band-Aids, “it’s not really a dead person.  It’s a dead person’s ashes.”

Dora says, “Same difference.”

Terri cleans the wound on Dora’s index finger with a sterile wipe, then wraps the Band-Aid around the cut.

While Terri attends to Dora, Ron says, “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you bring those ashes here?”

“To dump them upstream in the canyon,” Terri says.  “It was my older brother Gene’s last request.”  She takes the photo out of her pocket and hands it to Bill, who passes it to Ron.

“Wow,” Ron says.  “How cool.  I take it he really loved it here?”

“That would be an understatement.”

Dora says, “What’s so cool about it?—carrying a dead person around in your backpack.”

Ron’s still curious, and he says to Terri, “Are you Gene’s only surviving relative?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Dora says, “Listen to you, using his name like you knew him personally.”

Ron says to Bill, “What was your relationship to Gene?”

“Former brother-in-law.”

Ron nods his head, and the thought-process is evident on his face.  It takes him a moment to puzzle out the meaning, but then he says, “Oh.  Did Gene ask you both to bring his ashes here?”

Smiling slightly at Terri, Bill says, “You got it.”

“Wow,” Ron says.  “That’s so neat.”

Dora, whose brain doesn’t function as facilely as her husband’s, says, “What’s so neat?”

After Ron explains it, her interest is suddenly piqued.  To Terri, she says, “You guys were married once, and now you’re divorced?”

“Yep.”

“What happened?  What made you split up?”

Terri looks at Bill.  “It’s a long story,” she says.

Dora, suddenly fascinated by the possibility of getting a glimpse into another couple’s married life, says, “We’re not going anywhere.”

Ron says to his wife, “Can’t you see they don’t want to talk about their private life?”

“I’m sorry,” Dora says, but it’s obvious she has a deep-seated interest in the subject.  “I didn’t mean to pry.”

 Terri turns to Bill, and when he nods, she says, “It’s really quite simple.  After I graduated from law school, I got a job in Los Angeles.  Bill lived there with me for a while, but decided he didn’t like it.  He wanted to move back here to Arizona to start a business.  That’s what happened.”

“You’re a lawyer?” Dora says, impressed.  “And you chose a career over marriage?”  She says this last with an obvious tone of admiration.

Turning pointedly to Bill, Ron says, “Did you ever start that business, Bill?”

“I own Bill’s Backcountry Outfitters in Cottonwood.”

“No kidding?”  Somebody recommended we stop there if we needed equipment.”  After Bill acknowledges the compliment, Ron says, “So you chose the small city over L.A.?”

“Something like that.”

After this exchange there’s a silence that would be awkward if not for the distraction of the storm.  Lightning illuminates the cabin, momentarily turning night into day.  The thunder is simultaneous with the lightning, indicating the storm is still overhead.  The fury captures the attention of the cabin’s occupants, and all stare through the front window, each preoccupied with private thoughts.

After the lightning flashes again, Dora, who still stands by the far wall, says, “I’m not kidding, I can’t stay in this cabin with a dead person’s ashes.”

Terri goes to her pack and removes the urn.  To Dora, she says, “How about I put it outside?”

Ron says, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mean to be manipulative,” Dora says, “but it sure would make me feel better.”

Bill volunteers to take the urn outside, briefly battling the bad weather to pull the door shut behind himself, then placing the vessel with Gene’s ashes on the front porch under the window.  Inside, he struggles to shut the door, the raging wind sweeping into the fireplace, scattering sparks that swirl briefly in the cabin.  “There,” he says, seeing the relief in Dora’s eyes.

At bedtime, Bill suggests Dora and Ron sleep in front of the fire since she still has a chill.  He and Terri sleep on the far side of the table near the front door.  They all roll out their ground pads and sleeping bags at the same time.  After Bill turns off the Coleman lantern, Ron says, “Goodnight everybody.”  Terri and Bill say “Goodnight” simultaneously.  Dora says nothing.

Bill is surprised at how tired he feels, but obviously he’s not as exhausted as Terri, whose deep breathing signals sound slumber.  But Bill follows quickly behind.

After he has slept a while—he doesn’t know how long—he’s awakened by a noise.  The storm has passed, its only remnant the occasional dripping of rainwater from the roof.  But it’s not that.  Another sound catches his attention, the rustle of fabric against fabric, the low moan of a human voice.  It takes him only a moment to figure out what he’s hearing.  At first he’s taken aback by their nerve.  Then he smiles to himself.

 Slowly, quietly, he rolls over in his sleeping bag to look at Terri.  He’s surprised to find her awake, the dying fire embers glowing in her eyes.  She’s heard the sound, too, and she smiles at him.  For a moment—only a moment—they are strangers no longer, and he loves her like before.  He looks hard to see the feeling reflected in her eyes, but her eyes are shut already, followed closely by steady breathing.  Bill shuts his eyes and sleeps until morning.

* * *

For breakfast he makes everybody oatmeal and a pot of real coffee.  There’s not much talk over the table.  Ron and Dora are in a hurry.  Ron offers to help clean dishes, but Bill tells him not to worry.  After the newlyweds have donned their packs, Bill opens the front door to a morning that has dawned clear and bright, a moist chill in the air from the overnight storm.  Life is mundane again to Dora, but the encounter with Bill and Terri has meant something to Ron.  He says to Bill, “We live in Phoenix—maybe sometime I’ll drive up to Cottonwood to visit.  We can do some backpacking.”

“I’d like that,” Bill says.

After the couple leaves, Terri says, “I think you made a friend.”

“Nice kid.  Too bad about the wife, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they just seem incompatible.”

“She was uncomfortable.  They’ll be fine.”

“You think so?”

Terri shrugs, obviously not wanting to pursue the subject.

 The clean-up and packing takes less than half an hour, primarily because Terri’s in such a hurry to leave.  But when they step outside to collect the urn from the front porch, they can’t find it.  It’s gone.  Terri says, “Are you sure you left it here?”

“I’m positive.  I put it right under the window.”

The anxiety is evident on Terri’s face.  “You don’t think those two . . .

“No,” Bill says, calmly.  “Dora wasn’t faking her morbid fear.”

“Then where the hell is it?”

“Maybe the wind blew it off the porch.”  He searches for a short while, and sure enough, the urn lies under the second step.  “Here it is.”

She clutches it in her hand during the quarter-mile hike to the spot where Gene wants his ashes dumped.  Here the swollen creek runs through a small valley framed by sycamores and cottonwoods, their leaves orange and yellow in anticipation of winter.  Several deep clear pools of water mirror the blue sky.  It’s in the larger one where the ashes are to be dumped.

When Terri slips out of her pack, she says, “I’m sorry about the way I acted back there.  I guess I’ve been in a foul mood.”

“No worries.”

She looks at the urn, then turns to him.  “Might as well get this over with.”

“Before you do, let me pump some water.”  He gets his equipment—his filter pump and two large Nalgene bottles—and carries them to the edge of the pool, where he quickly fills them.  He expected the water to be muddy, but it’s remarkably clear.  When he’s done, he nods to her.

 He watches as she carries the urn to the pool edge.  Several rocks form a bridge almost to the center, and she walks cautiously across them.  When she reaches the last, she kneels down and unscrews the cap on the silver vessel.  She hesitates a moment, staring long into the depths of the water.  In the near distance the creek cascades over several small falls, percolating into other pools, filling the air with natural music.  Birds sing in the background.

Terri dumps the remains as if she’s sprinkling salt onto ice.  Some of the larger bits of debris—chunks of bone—plop into the pool, disturbing the mirror surface, creating concentric ripples that spread outward away from the center.  When the urn is empty, and Terri makes sure by peering inside with one eye, she screws the cap on, rises, and crosses back to where Bill stands.  When he sees the tears in her eyes, tears well in his.

“It was the oddest thing,” she says.  “When I bent over that pool, I saw my face reflected in the water.  For a second, it was almost as if Gene was looking back at me.”

“Gene’s here.  He always will be.”

Wiping the tears away with her right wrist, Terri says, “Well, make sure you say ‘Hi’ to him when you pass by.”

“You bet.”

“Let’s go,” she says.

They climb into their packs and start off, backtracking to the cabin to pick up the trail.  Again, Bill leads, this time at a slower pace.  Terri doesn’t say anything about it until they reach the base of Lookout Ridge.  “At this rate we won’t reach the Jeep by nightfall.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.  Why bust our tails getting out?  Whether we reach the truck tonight or by early morning, you’ll still have plenty of time to catch your flight tomorrow night.  You can clean up at my place before driving down to Phoenix.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“We’ll stay up on Packard Mesa tonight, get an early start in the morning.”

They don’t talk much as they struggle against the steep incline on the switchbacks leading up to Lookout Ridge.  Bill does a lot of thinking.  Mostly he thinks about the last time he saw Gene in the hospital when his former brother-in-law was already a skeleton.  Out of the blue, Gene said, “I’m going to be cremated, and I want you and Terri to dump my ashes in Sycamore Canyon.  Can you do that for me?”

“Of course.”

“And, goddamn it, if you two don’t get back together, there’s no sense in this crazy world.”

When Terri and Bill reach the top of the ridge, they stop to admire the view, peeling off packs and sitting together on a massive yellow boulder, like two lizards basking in the morning sun.  There’s a gentle breeze, birds chattering in the junipers.  Terri seems in an expansive mood, finally relaxed.  She sits with her arms wrapped around her knees, smiling at the canyon’s beauty.

“I owe myself an extra day off,” she says.  “Can you believe I was thinking about driving down to Phoenix tonight?”

“I believe it.”

The morning sun makes her face look youthful, and for a moment it seems like old times, each enjoying the other’s company.

She laughs.  “Leave it to Gene to get me out here like this.”

“Good old Gene.”

She pats Bill’s leg and smiles at him.  “Thanks for bringing me here.  I couldn’t have done it by myself.”

“You could have.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t have wanted to.”

He takes her hand in his, holds it for a moment.  “How’re you doing out there?” he says.  “Really.”

“Really?—surviving.”

“Still seeing what’s-his-name?”

“Hank?  No.  Apparently I don’t do well in long-term relationships.”

“You did okay with ours—for a while.”

They share a leisurely lunch on the mesa, pack up, then walk until early afternoon.  About a mile beyond the confluence of the Sycamore and Packard Trails, they find a small enclave among a stand of juniper.  It’s there they decide to spend the night.  Because it’s early, they take their time making camp.  After laying everything out, there are still a few hours until supper.  While Bill gathers firewood, Terri goes exploring, heading east toward a blue mountain, returning just before suppertime.

They eat lasagna, hard rolls, freeze-dried peas, and trail mix for dessert.  Later, while they sit back against their packs drinking decaf coffee, stars appear in a cobalt sky.  Small black bats zig-zag across the opening in the trees overhead.  An owl hoots.  Sparks swirl in the heat from the fire.  Terri stares into the embers.

She says, “I don’t know whether to envy Ron and Dora or to feel sorry for them.  I’m jealous about the good years they’ll have together, but frightened about what lies ahead.”

After a quiet moment, Bill says, “Well, I wouldn’t give up the good years we had together for anything.  As for the rest—that’s life.”

“I heard somebody say, ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re planning to do something else.’”

Her demeanor suddenly changes, and he can tell she’s not in the mood for further talk.  Then he sees the tears running down her cheek.  He moves closer, puts an arm around her shoulders.  The smell of her hair rekindles a thousand memories.  The two sit together for five minutes in complete silence until finally she says, “Now I remember the thing I hate most about backpacking.  Once it gets dark, there’s nothing to do.”

He looks at the familiar smile that gently curves the edges of her mouth.  He gets up and tosses paper trash into the fire, then goes to collect more wood.  While he’s at it, a nearly full moon slips over the horizon.  A coyote yips in the distance.  Another, further away, answers.  Soon, a pack of them are howling their heads off.  When he returns to camp, Terri says, “Coyotes.  I haven’t heard that racket in years.  There’s something oddly comforting in it.”

“They sound lonely to me.”

There isn’t anything to do but tend the fire, so after he goes to relieve himself beyond the trees, Bill climbs into his sleeping bag.  When Terri comes back from the trees, she crawls into her bag, too.  “I feel like I could sleep for days,” she says.  As if to prove it, she begins snoring immediately, a soft rushing sound like creek water lapping at a bank.  He stares at her for a while, the firelight orange on the profile of her face.  He’s disappointed that she’s drifted off so quickly.  But when he closes his eyes he goes directly into a dream.

He’s on the floor of Taylor Cabin inside his sleeping bag, a woman close beside him.  He wants it to be Terri, but knows it’s not.  When he peels the bag away so firelight can illuminate the woman’s face, he sees it’s Ron’s wife, Dora.  She says, “I’m glad you finally got rid of that stiff.  Now we can enjoy ourselves.”

He wakes feeling parched, reaches for the water bottle beside his bag.  While he drinks deeply he hears Terri stir in her bag.  She rolls over and looks at him, the dying firelight on her face.  “Still awake, Bill?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“About what?”

“All the things I have to do when I get back.”

“Me, too,”

He lies back again, staring up at the Milky Way, a white river running through a dark desert sky.  He counts four shooting stars before falling back to sleep.

* * *

In the morning the sky is glazed with high clouds.  The day has dawned quiet and still, as if the world waits for something to happen.  After breakfast, Bill pours water on the fire, buries the coals, and packs for the hike out.  It goes quickly.  Within a few hours they’re descending the mesa toward Sycamore Creek.  When they stand on the bank before crossing, Terri says, “Do you think Gene’s ashes have reached here by now?”

He shrugs.  “I suppose it’s possible.”

“What’s the worst that would happen if we drink water right from the creek?”

“We get giardia—backpacker’s diarrhea.”

“So we go to the doctor and get medicine, right?”

“Right.”

She opens her pack and breaks out her metal cup.  He does the same.  They each scoop water from the creek.  Then she raises her cup in a toast.  “To Gene,” she says.  He clangs his cup against hers.  “To Gene.”  They drink the cold, refreshing water straight down.  Then they stow the cups, secure their packs, heft them, and cross the creek without incident.

They climb the final two hundred feet to the waiting Jeep.  After freeing themselves of the packs, they go to stand at canyon’s edge, looking back over the way they’ve come.  Terri stares down at the creek for a long time.  Finally, she says, “What’s that saying about never being able to step in the same river twice?”

“That’s it.”

She says, “I’m really going to miss this place.”

The green Cherokee turns out of the parking area onto the dirt track leading back to the Tuzigoot road and Cottonwood.  The morning sun makes the mesas looked like brightly-decorated cakes.  Bill misses the backcountry already.  He remembers that young couple they left back in the canyon.  So much in love.  So many years ago.