He heard what he was looking for, I guess, as he put his heavy workbook in my armpit.
“Have you ever had a boot in your armpit?” I remember someone asking me once.
It was almost the worst part, I would tell Mac later, with a sincere thank-you added in.
“Okay…on three,” he said. “One…two...” He pulled on two, and I should have expected it. My shoulder slid back in with a suction sound, like the last bit of water going down a drain.
“No way!” I said aloud… “It does feel better,” I announced, trying to stand.
“Whoa, now!” Mac replied. “It’s back in, but you’re done using it for a while.”
“Help me get on my machine,” I told him. “We’re almost to the top!”
“That’s not happening, either,” he replied. “Besides, you can’t run the throttle and steer with your left hand… I think we’ve seen enough for today.”
“Awe, man!” came the chorus from my boys.
We had talked about the camp a hundred times before the day, and I was sure they could describe it in detail without ever having been there.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked Mac, walking out of earshot from the others.
“My camp, my favorite place anywhere on this earth, is 100 yards up that road. Do you see that tree, right up on the Saddle, the big one?” I pointed towards it with my good arm. “That’s the spot, right behind it,” I added, not waiting for a response. “I’ve told my boys so many stories about that spot, and the way things have been going lately, I’m not sure we will ever get another chance to see it.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. How about a compromise?”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I’ll tow you up to the spot. You stay there with your family while Drake and I make the hike to the top of the cliffs. I told MacDonald we would get him some info, and we need to see where the fire is anyway.”
“Deal,” I said. “And thanks. This means a lot to me.”
“Just a minute,” he told me, digging in his pack. “We’re going to tape that arm to your body. The tape will have to be cut off later, but it should hold it in place until we get home.”
Steering with my left arm, he towed us the last way up.
* * * *
“There she is!” I called out to the boys. The camp, and the most special place I had ever been, was now right in front of us. The shelter, once meticulously built and maintained, had been through dozens of harsh winters and still stood—not perfect but the outline remained like a woman who had seen 100 years of life and endured every year with confidence and grace. The rocks, ten of them in all, remained piled just as I had left them all those years ago, adding to it one at a time over decades.
It had been nearly 30 years since I had been up here. I felt a wave of emotion, which wasn’t like me. Joy had always joked before that I could win a mega lottery and not make a sound. I let Mac and Drake get halfway up the cliffside before asking everyone to be quiet.
“Why, Daddy?” the boys asked.
“Just listen. No words…just listen. I’ll tell you when to stop… Now!” I said, nearly five minutes later, and not all of it quiet. “Okay, raise your hand if you can tell me what you heard.”
“Me, me,” they squealed.
“Okay, Jax. You’re first.”
“I heard nothing, Daddy.”
“Nothing?” asked Joy.
“Yeah, nothing but the wind blowing the trees.”
“And the birds and the squirrels?” asked Hudson.
“Chipmunks up here,” I said. “Basically, the same thing, only smaller. What else?”
“I heard Mac saying potty words walking up the hill,” said Hendrix, giggling.
“Well, it’s a bear of a hike, I know,” I replied, smiling.
“That’s what I love about being up here,” I continued. “It’s just the wind, birds, animals, and nothing else.”
My old shelter retained its skeleton. I told them she lost her guts.
“Ooh, she lost her guts!” said Hendrix, never missing an opportunity to be the funny kid.
Joy sat quietly, smiling as if she had been meditating up here for hours on end. A traumatic experience like we just had with Hudson and me would have spoiled the moment in the old-world. Frantically, we would search for the best doctor or hospital, wondering how much the health insurance covered and how I would fit the likely physical therapy into my work schedule. Now I looked down at my arm, securely taped across my chest, and deeply inhaled the cool mountain air…
Before we left I called Hendrix over, asking him to blindly reach into my daypack.
“What will I find, Daddy?” he asked.
“You will know it when you feel it,” I replied.
“It feels like a rock,” he guessed as he pulled it out, recognizing the treasure immediately from where Mike and I had rescued him in the canyon on the dusty Texas plains.
“We, son, will add it to this pile that signifies my favorite place on God’s Earth—and now hopefully yours too.”
The Saddle was my favorite spot in the world, and one of my old friend David’s too. The kind of spot where you could leave a single worry on the rocks or an entire backpack full. We went up there often, he and I, over the years, talking about archery, fishing, and girls. He moved to the Pacific Northwest and we lost track of each other, as friends sometimes do, but I continued to spend time on the Saddle, just me alone with my thoughts and the profound stillness of a perfectly balanced dreamworld…
* * * *
“Son of a...” we heard Mac say, as he slid the last way down the
