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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
Me make fire for you
During what turns out to be my last summer as a single person, I fly to Idaho for a weeklong camping and horseback riding trip through the 2.4 million acre Frank Church Wilderness, miles from the middle of nowhere. Through a freak scheduling accident, it turns out I'm the only person on the trip. Just me, two horses, four pack mules and -- oh, my! -- my guide: Justin, a 20-year-old with a baby face and Wrangler jeans. Yes, just the two of us in the largest wilderness in the lower 48, accessible only on foot, horseback or teeny plane. It's like Blind Date meets Survivor meets Who Wants to Marry a Horse Whisperer?
When we arrive at our first night's camp, he sets about gathering wood, saying, "Me make fire for Lynn."
We are going to get along fine.
We sit up and talk, looking at the stars and thinking, "Holy shit, I am alone in the wilderness with a not unattractive member of the opposite sex." I learn that Justin and I have different skill sets. He can hunt, fish, shoot, track, build, farm, break a horse, castrate a calf, dissect an elk. I can read French.
When the fire goes out, I go to my tent. Justin sleeps outside. I don't dare, yet. Fear of being swallowed by the pitchest of dark, fear of being tempted by the stupidest of moves. Sure, Justin could fashion a condom out of a squirrel bladder, but neither that -- nor the fact that I'm 12 years older -- is the issue. You don't want to hook up with your lifeline. In the wilderness, it's not like you can avoid him the next day.
Still, drifting off, I think more seriously every sleepy second about becoming a frontier wife and filing my articles by pony.
For the next few days, Justin and I ride morning to dusk, through forest, over meadows, along creeks, over fire-scarred mountaintops spiked with sooty skeletons of pine. We talk about our first times; we go hours in silence. We sing Merle Haggard. We lie in a miniature meadow of tiny red berries, letting them pop in our mouths like caviar.
One afternoon, riding along a ridge, we spot a giant bear shooing her cubs up a tree. Shortly thereafter, a smaller -- but big enough -- bear steps onto the trail 50 yards ahead of us. Jumping off his horse, Justin hands me her bridle and the mule line. The danger is that the animals will spook, which is one thing in a barn, quite another on a ridge. I hold tight, watching Justin run toward the bear. Not a typo: toward the bear. He yells and throws small rocks at it until it shrugs and lumbers away. This is the coolest, and hottest, thing anyone has ever done in my presence.
That night, Justin shows me his .357 Magnum. One thing leads to another and I fire it. My tobacco-tin target lies untouched.
We celebrate my initiation with chicken-fried steak. Justin also digs up a bottle of vodka, which, it turns out, mixes perfectly with Country Time lemonade. We tear at the steaks and talk with our mouths full, fingers slick with grease, chase it down with sweet pink drinks.
Then we dance. Justin picks my plate off my lap, stands me up from my log, and leads me in a humming two-step around the fire. Suddenly, he's flipping me over his shoulder like the fancy people on the country cable channels. I am over the moon, over the bright crescent moon that no one else could see for hundreds of miles.
When we ride in to base camp we find the two other guides -- Jared and Shane -- making us margaritas in the cook tent. We all sit together in the outdoor hot tub. Not a typo: we all sit together in the outdoor hot tub. Drinking margaritas. (Wearing bathing suits.) My first thought: "Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought these letters were real ..." I imagine the porn movie we could make: "Laura Ingalls Just Got Wilder." But I just listen to the guys bullshit, proud that Justin could tell them that the city slicker could handle her horse, her rare steak, her two-step and her liquor, not to mention his gun. And I am glad that firing Justin's gun turns out to be a metaphor for what never happens between us -- not even that last night when Jared and Shane turn in, not even after Justin coaxes me into jumping with him out of the hot tub, into the freezing brook, and back into the tub. We hold hands and say, "Go!" and the sudden gulping cold-then-hot takes my breath away. God knows when I got this mature, but I figure sometimes it's better to wish you had than to wish you hadn't. I unroll my sleeping bag on some horse blankets, under the stars, next to Justin, who is next to his gun. And I sleep.
-- Lynn Harris
