The Arrival 

The Greyhound’s brakes yelped; four wheels shuddered in response. A fine white dust swirled, obscuring the mountains from the eyes of the silent passengers. The bus stopped three-quarters of a mile beyond Marble, a village of twenty-three summer residents who relished their solitude and daily frequented the only diversion in town—a dilapidated wooden structure that purveyed soda, chips, licorice, and candy bars. It was called, simply, the Pop Stand. Now and then a local passed the time of day with a tourist nonchalantly explaining which was the only fly to catch a Rainbow at sunset. Depending on the season, the eight miles from Redstone to Marble consisted of either dust or mud with stretches of washboard chatter that made not a few stomachs nauseous.

Powder clung to the air when the door opened. The young men stretched and strolled aimlessly in mid-day heat. No one spoke. The bus raised dust a second time when it whined backward a quarter-mile to turn around at an intersecting ranch road. The boys watched then startled at the sound of laughter. Three men in shorts and navy blue T-shirts walked smartly out of the trees from an unnoticed trail. One held a clipboard.

“Alright, gentlemen, gather ‘round and listen up. I’ll call out an instructor’s name and he’ll raise his hand. After that, I’ll read a list of your names. If I call your name, go to that instructor. He’ll tell you what’s next.”

The instructors looked like gods. Sinewy muscles in their forearms glistened through tanned skin. When they moved, calves and quadriceps rippled. Their attire spoke of wilderness know-how: natty wool socks, khaki shorts, and the navy blue T-shirts with a white logo depicting a compass rose. One sported a red bandana around his neck; another slipped a rope belt through the loops of his shorts and tied it in front with a square knot. In fashion and manner, they exuded competence. Henry’s throat tightened. He felt frightened and yet attracted at the same time, like he had once when he gaped at players filing through the gate at the end of a college football game smitten and yet unable to ask for the autographs he coveted.

            Matt Griswold led his boys up the road a short way to a shelf of smooth rock. Stretching miles in both directions, the Crystal River Valley fell beneath them. A forest of pines, firs and spruce rose up the slopes; deciduous trees dotted the riverbank. Even in July, strips of snow still clung inside shadowed crevices. Though they looked, none of them enjoyed the view.

“Okay, guys, I’m Matt. You can learn a lot here by paying attention to me and trying your best. Let me be clear about something; I am not your babysitter, nurse, counselor, or your best friend. I am your patrol instructor, and I will be with you day and night for the next month. It’s my job to show you how to make your way in the mountains and to keep you safe. For me to accomplish this you must do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. Your safety and the safety of the rest of the guys depend on it. And I want you to have fun! Got it? All right, pick up your gear and let’s stroll up the road together. In a mile the road forks. We take the left fork. That road dead-ends at the school. Alright, saddle up!”

            Henry flung his canvas Sea Scout bag over his shoulder and crunched up the rutted jeep trail with the others. The sun was dry and leering between cloud puffs. Two boys walked in worn penny loafers; the rest sported tennis shoes, except for one. He wore polished wingtips, oxblood, with silky dark socks. In one hand, he gripped the wooden handle of a leather suitcase; in the other hand he swung a matching valise. Already, his pinstriped oxford shirt clung damply to his back and underarms. A maroon tie with an embroidered crest matched the flush of his face.

            Heat and altitude spread the boys along the incline. Two students raced for the lead, while the formally dressed boy lagged far behind.

“Alright, hold up! Everybody stop right where you are. I said that we would walk up this road together. You did not follow my instruction. Look at you, spread out all over this mountainside. Our goal is teamwork, working together. That’s how we will accomplish our tasks as a patrol. We must function as a unit. You glory-hunters out front, stay with the rest of us. And you, Mr. Brooks Brothers, keep up with the group. Now, let’s walk the road steadily and together. Got it?”

Shaking his head, Matt surveyed his new students and then resumed walking. After a few minutes, a thud and the sound of shoes scuffling broke the silence. Henry turned and saw the red-faced kid stuffing medicine bottles, handkerchiefs, underwear, and other clothes back into the spilled valise. The boy was trembling.

                        “Hold up.”

Matt sauntered down to him.

                        “What’s your name?”

                        “Martin, sir.”

                        “Let me clue you in on something, Marty. This is not a summer resort at

the lake with ice-cold mint tea and apple scones waiting for you on the veranda while the maid unpacks and hangs your summer wardrobe so that the you can change your clothes for supper. This is the Colorado Outward Bound School. Got it?”

 “Yes, sir.”

“I hope to God that you’ve packed boots in that suitcase.”

“Yes, sir, they do. I mean it does have them, sir. In there, I mean. Yes sir, I do have boots, sir.”

“Keep up.”

                        “Yes sir.”

            Henry had despised Martin from the first when; he noticed this boy decked out in a coat and tie and stumbling up the bus stairs.  His reaction was reflexive: “This cream-puff rich kid probably goes to one of them private prep school in the East. How the hell did he ever get into Outward Bound?” Henry played the man; he hefted the sea bag, hocked, spit, and looked askance at the Martin. Though he had felt frightened on the bus ride, he knew a measure of confidence now. A few of the boys looked athletic, but he reckoned himself, “better off than that fat ass.”

            Henry played football in high school, captained the swim team, and ran track. By no means a star, his success emerged slowly from a tenacity that ignored pain. He endured arduous workouts that fuelled his intermittent pride. Once, for example, as the shortest player on the junior varsity football team, he dove from his middle linebacker position through the center’s legs as the boy hiked the ball then snatched it out of the quarterback’s hands. The center fell back on Henry’s left elbow, crushing it. The pain exploded from his elbow up to his shoulder and down into his hand. But he stuffed the pain. For the first time that season, the coach had given Henry a start. Only being knocked out and carried from the field would force him from the game. After he had stolen the ball, he saw the coach smile and say something to one of the assistant coaches as he trotted toward the bench. Henry shyly beamed. Years later the orthopedic surgeon who examined the elbow determined that the injury could not be repaired without risking worse damage. The splintered bone fragments had fused into a calcified mass. The elbow never straightened. In a mirror, Henry often regarded the bent reminder with the pride of wounded veteran. Now as he trudged uphill, he tried to spit again; his mouth was too dry.

            Even though the school was only two miles away, he hike up the road took an hour.
Thin air and heat took a toll on everyone and relief accompanied rounding the last bend. They dropped their bags and lingered on a graveled flat beneath a dark-stained building. “Dinning Hall,” a rough-hewn sign reported from its balcony. Further on, a low structure with a well pump beside it wore a “Wash House” plaque. Most had to pee, but no one ventured there just yet. Some boys blanched, while others coughed and wheezed against 9,200 feet of elevation. Martin was nowhere in sight, neither was Matt Griswold. Track season had ended a month ago. Henry figured he should have run up the road. He stifled a cough.

            Bobby Lee strolled from the washhouse toward the milling group. Pulling a pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco from his back pocket, he cut a plug and smiled at Henry as he rolled it between his gum and cheek. An awestruck boy pretended not to watch. Bobby Lee spat. Henry and Bobby Lee attended the same high school; neither had much use for the other. Lincoln High School bulged with 2,200 students, six hundred in the graduating class. Suffice to say, they located in different circles; Henry fit in with the jocks, while Bobby Lee enjoyed the company boys with fast cars and ducktail haircuts. Two years ago they had words after gym class in the locker room. Bobby Lee shoved Henry against a locker and Henry glanced a blow off the top of his opponent’s head. After that, they kept a resentful distance, though this year the gap closed when they double-dated sisters for the spring Prom.

“Well, by the looks of these buildings and the tents up there, this sure as hell ain’t no country club.

A snicker approved his evaluation.                   

“Want a plug?”

Offered Ricky Lee, to the gaping boy.

“No?”

 Ricky Lee thought not. The boy hailed from Boston and favored that nickname. He became Bobby Lee’s devotee.

            They heard Martin before they saw him. He barked those deep-chested hollow coughs—annoying. Even at a distance, the boy’s skin showed pink. His shirttails flapped outside the dress slacks and clung to his chest with sweat. Obviously, the wingtips would need re-polishing. Matt walked behind Martin; his arms folded across his chest. The instructor expressed a cool, self-possessed demeanor. Henry recalled the photograph of an explorer on the cover of National Geographic, a gentleman in the wilderness, unperturbed, prepared for any exigency, simply at home. Martin barked again. Bobby Lee spat brown juice.

                        “Got yourselves a marshmallow, I see.”

Henry shook his head and looked down. Boston laughed along with Bobby Lee.

After Matt oriented them to the facilities, he led the way to large grove of aspen trees. Tents hung on wood frames, white canvas squares with peaked roofs. They rested on box platforms planked with 2 x 6’s. Inside, two steel cots with metal link springs comprised the only furnishings. Sleeping bags would replace the sheets and blankets of home. Martin sagged low on the bedsprings gulping pills from three medicine bottles when Henry threw back the flap and stepped inside—tent-mates for a month. “Ah no, not him.”

“I’m Henry. If that’s the bed you want, then I’ll take this one. Okay?”

                        “Sure.”

He wanted out of there; the tent smelled of sweat and farts. He tried not to look at Martin. “Of all the luck, I’m stuck with the marshmallow.” Martin gagged as he forced down the final pill without water. He was pathetic. Henry tried to ignore him and set about to unpack. He had asked for a goose down bag for Christmas but his Mom bought an Army surplus sleeping bag stuffed with second-grade duck feathers. Often the end of a feather pricked him through the lining. Although confining, it slept warm enough.  He unrolled the sleeping bag on the empty cot, opened his sea bag, and dumped the out the contents. Henry sorted his clothes into neat piles and placed them under the bed: T-shirts together, underwear, jeans, socks, two sweaters and a windbreaker. He put his shaving kit at the foot of the bed. “Damn,” he muttered when he felt the glass bottle sandwiched between his underwear.

He had argued with his mom about that pink bottle. She survived on Pepto-Bismol. She would laughingly inform her sister on the telephone that once again she was dancing the green-apple-two-step. It embarrassed him when she talked like that, and then mortified him that even in public she would take the odd-shaped bottle from her purse, shook it vigorously, and drank from it, even in public. Driving in traffic, she would tilt the bottle against her lips and chug two or three swallows of thick pink liquid. A medicine-mint smell filled the car. Turning away in the passenger seat, Henry tried to concentrate on storefronts or other cars to avoid the cotton candy like traces in the corners of her mouth.

She had assured him that the Pepto would settle his stomach when upset or nervous. Of course, if he shuffled the infamous green-apple-two-step from camp food, it would be a godsend. He raised his voice with a flat-out “No way!” She dropped the suggestion temporarily. When he returned from the garage with his gear, he found it necessary to say no again, louder. She relinquished but he stood warned. She must have wrapped the bottle in the underwear and slipped in his bag while he had called his Aunt Fran to say goodbye. He considered pitching it, glanced at Martin, and decided that it might come in handy after all. After placing the bottle in the bottom of his sea bag, he rolled it up and chucked it under the bed.

            Martin, never called Marty except by a bully up the block who ritualized him with, “Marty, Marty, You are fat and farty,” looked frightened. Henry stole a glance. The boy’s hair, white-walled high above the ears and parted down the middle, lay limp. It was that fine blond kind of baby hair. Sweat trickled behind his ears. His neck glistened. Even the lap of his trousers had a dark stain of sweat; Henry hoped he had not peed himself. The boy’s face was creamy and dappled vermilion at the cheeks; puffy hands heaped on an ample belly. He appeared about to cry or vomit, or both, and Henry knew the boy would not survive Outward Bound. He smiled knowingly, “He’ll quit and go home in a couple of days. I’ll have the tent to myself.”

            A siren startled them. It growled low, then, with hand-cranked speed, screeched into an air-raid warning like old movie, The Battle of Britain. Henry flung open the flap and hustled out relieved to quit a boy he had no desire to know.  Students from all the tents ran toward the sound.  As the cranking stopped, the siren returned to its low moan. In a clearing, log benches formed the outside of a large circle with a fire pit in the center. Matt laid the siren on a log. No one sat. Near the center stood a man with hands on hips. Older than the instructors, he wore climbing boots with wool socks. A blue nylon belt buckled with two brass rings surrounded the narrow waist of his wool pants. The red T-shirt displayed, in white, the Outward Bound logo circled with the motto, “To strive, to serve, and not to yield.” Henry was riveted. The man’s forearms were hairless cords of rope. The chest and neck defined years of mountains; shoulder muscles raised his shirt along the shoulders. His mustache was close-cropped and matched a sandy crew cut. Forty-two young men stared intently at this icon.

                        “Welcome, gentlemen, to the Colorado Outward Bound School. I am John Pack,

Chief Instructor. I trust that you will profit from as well as enjoy your month with us here in this beautiful and extraordinary place. We have much to do this afternoon: equipment to issue, introduction to the rope’s course, and a map orienteering session with your instructor. But first, I wanted to greet you and tell that we are glad you came to Outward Bound. Before we dismiss for lunch and the tasks at hand, please listen carefully to these words written by Henry David Thoreau over one-hundred years ago.”

John Pack took a small brown book from his front pocket. The edges, frayed from years of use, were held together by a thick rubber band. He surveyed the spellbound boys. His eyes never left them when he recited.

                        “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only

                        the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,                                                and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

As the Chief Instructor began to comment on the implications of Thoreau, Henry listened elsewhere remembering when his heart first received those words.

Two years ago, a student teacher at the high school befriended him. Richard Pulaski had studied English and Education at the University of Colorado. Though only older by five years, he spoke with winsome passion. Henry never took a class from Mr. Pulaski, but they saw each other from time to time in the hall. First they exchanged a smile. Soon after they ate their sack lunches together in Pulaski’s room. Other students joined them from time to time. They talked about important matters, those coming-of-age issues that Henry felt vividly: adventure, books, life, death, music, painting—what counted most in a person’s life. The teacher knew how to put Henry’s feelings into words. He girded the boys heart with Steinbeck, Cather, and Hemingway. Henry’s soul was tinder and with exquisite timing, the teacher struck a match.

            As John Pack’s voice broke through Henry’s reverie with a second reading of “Walden,” the boy’s eyes misted and his throat tightened.

                        “. . . and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

The Chief Instructor peered intently into each boy’s eyes. Henry dropped his when John Pack lingered. He stood of average height, full chested from years of swimming, and his arms were thin. Neither straw-colored nor white, his blond hair was cropped short. The chin and one cheek retained the memory of acne. The moment was indelible; Henry inhaled the pungent woods. Light flickered through scudding clouds, though green. He felt a loud stillness inside.

            In the evening after supper, the new students wandered in small groups of twos or threes. Some kept to themselves and acted busy in their tents or attended to personal matters in the wash house. Henry scrubbed his face with warm water and soap. The only reminder of home was the frayed white wash cloth he brought with him. He brushed his teeth and felt lonely, almost in tears. He heard Bobby Lee, and washed his face again as an entourage scuffled on the wash house floorboards and stood together at the urinal. 

“Yep, that’s what our good old instructor said. ‘Said that we’d rise and shine tomorrow morning at 5:30 with that damned siren and then, he added that we’d all take, “a bit of a jolly run down the trail in tennis shoes and swimming trunks for your first go at the Dip.”

Boston laughed at his mentor’s English accent.

                        “What the hell’s the Dip?”

“Didn’t say, but it sounds like water to me. Probably no heated pool the way I figure it. Hell, it may be the river.”

“Nah, they wouldn’t make us jump in the river. It’d be too cold in the morning.”

“Listen, bright eyes, it’d be too cold any time of day. That sucker’s fed by snow. But remember this here’s Outward Bound—make a man out of you, boy.”

“It sounds crummy.”

“Well, maybe we’ll figure out a little short-cut or something.”

“Cool.”

            Henry zipped up his shaving kit and flung the towel around his neck. He and Bobby Lee nearly collided rounding the corner between the toilets and the sinks.

                        “Hey stud, ready for a little dip in the morning?”

                        “Yeah, I reckon.”

He banged open the screen door and bounded from the porch.

 

First morning

In a sweeping arc where the Crystal River took a bend and deposited sand, a pool three feet deep had been fashioned by a work crew of instructors during the last weekend in May. The task involved shovels, buckets, and 2 x 4’s to build a silt barrier. They labored at ten- minute shifts in the frigid water, and warmed themselves with jesting in anticipation of groggy students stumbling down the path into the shock of glacier-melt. Even now in mid-summer, the creek danced from its source. Not more than half a mile above the pool, the Crystal emerged from under a snow pack that covered the river until August.

            Now, on their first morning, the boys jogged half-asleep clothed in swimming trunks, tennis shoes, some in T-shirts, and all in dull dread. A narrow path meandered through the aspens and then alongside a hillside meadow where dew soaked the grass. After a mile, the trail plunged toward the stream where Matt and the other patrol instructors waited. No matter how many times the students would run and dip in the mornings to come the experience retained all its first-time shock; in fact, it grew more hateful with familiarity. If rain had fallen during the night, then the trail mired with mud. Such was the case on this first morning. Now and then, a slip would put a boy on his knees or flat on his bottom. Everyone’s legs and backside streaked brown from the mud.

            Some ran quickly, got ahead of the pack, and leaped in the water without encouragement. The rest struggled toward the inevitable in a tight knot of goose-pimpled adolescence. At poolside, they waited their turn shivering to the sound of splash and gasp as one after another located the water and his place in it.

The reluctant found a compelling external motivation. A smiling instructor standing in calf-deep water held out a welcoming hand. If the hesitant boy caught the strong hand, the instructor yanked him flailing into the pool. If not, another instructor nudged him, none to gently, from behind. Only after chest, shoulders, and head submerged underwater could the suppliant scramble out of the icy bath; no one did less, with or without instructor help. When a breathless boy shivered immobile in the water, two or three instructors would push and pull him up the slippery bank.

The return trip to the school followed a different path. Every sneaker sloshed. Those with socks vowed to run sockless the next morning.  No one cared about a muddy trail or even slipping down. Hot showers waited. If they ran fast enough, the effort warmed them; most, however, staggered with a half-walk, half-jog. Henry discovered that the run back to the school comprised the best part of his day; twenty-three hours separated him from the next dip. Morning after morning he anticipated this torture by awakening several times in the dark before the siren. Then its screech startled him out of a fitful sleep. His senses cauterized the memory so that years later the mention of the word “dip” brought prickles on his neck. Henry’s dread of the screeching siren never tempered. Years later his judgment never wavered—“that dip was by far the most damnable part of Outward Bound.”

After scalding showers and breakfast, the students gathered around Matt in a semi-circle. While he talked, he pointed into the tall aspen trees; Matt called it the ropes’ course. Forty feet above the ground, a rope bridge swayed with the morning breeze. All kinds of ropes, loges and wires dangled from the trees. A swinging log was suspended between two Ponderosas by a chain; stumps cut to various heights and placed in a serpentine fashion were used to practice balance, and a single steel cable descended from the treetops some sixty feet high. Matt called it the “zip wire.” He told them that they would clip on to the cable with a metal snap-link called a carabiner. The carabiner fastened to one end of a sling rope, the other end tied around the waist. Leather gloved hands gripped the sling and then, whoosh. The descent felt like a free-fall until the cable sagged with body weight, a sudden brake at the end, and the boy swung violently until his boots came to rest on the ground.

Bridger Patrol spent the morning on the ropes’ course. At lunch, talk was sparse. Most boys ate with heads lowered, stealing glances now and then to size up the competition. Only Martin chattered. His mouth revealed the lunch menu. He boasted about the tennis courts at the club and some obscure connection between his father’s military service and his presence at Outward Bound. Martin was ignored. In the end, he sat alone, as one by one the others took their plates and silver to be washed, but kept their glasses. The abundance of cold milk was not lost on them. More then once they refilled their glasses at the stainless steel dispenser.

If there was comfort in full bellies, sore hamstrings, calves, shoulders, and arm muscles made them grouchy. A nap would be just the thing. Matt made other plans. Now that each aspect of the rope’s course had been explained, demonstrated, and attempted, the instructor bade them to move through the entire course without pause. At this point, Matt explained that patrols would be competing against each other in many activities including the rope’s course. He insisted that they win the competition. A stopwatch encouraged speed, and a further inducement encouraged their effort through a heart-breaking penalty. When a boy stumbled off a stump, or slipped from the swinging log, or otherwise experienced a mishap, then he had to return to the start and begin again. No mercy was given. Martin never moved beyond the stumps the entire four-hour afternoon.

Late adolescent boys in 1962 grumbled internally but not aloud. What escaped from their lips consisted of, “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.” Rebellion found covert expression because the ethos of the time prized respect and submission as manly. These values would radically change in the years to come. However, at this time, private opinions kept hushed except for a targeted misfit, a weakling. Poor Martin was the butt of all his patrol mates fears and failures. His isolation concretized. Though he kept up a verbose banter, inside he knew his father had been wrong sending him here. Supposed manliness would elude him here just as it had in every gym class from elementary through high school.

Brushing his teeth a second time, Henry dreaded returning to the tent, more precisely, his tent mate. The boy was sleepy and started up the path to his tent. He hoped Martin would be asleep. He wasn’t.

“Well, that bastard Matt really put us through the paces today, didn’t he? Reminds me of old crank Fostick in sixth-grade gym. I never could climb that rope and touch the top. Fostick called it the Rafter Club. He made a list of everybody that did it and posted it on the wall. My name never got on the list. Nope. All I got for my efforts was the nickname, Fat Ass. But I had girls. In high school, I went out every Friday and Saturday night with a different chick. They loved my Corvette. It was a cherry red job with chrome spinner hubcaps and a hot radio. Bucket seats made it hard to makeout with the girls, but I managed. You know that necessity is the mother of invention. In fact, one time I took this chick named Lorna up to . . .”

Henry heard no more. Sleep grasped him until the sudden squeal of the hand-cranked siren jolted him into the pale dawn of the next morning.

 

The Rescue

The call from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office came around two o’clock in the afternoon. Earlier, a wrangler had ridden his sorrel into Aspen from the scene of an accident high up in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area. He tied his horse to a parking meter, wiped the mud off his boots on the wooden stairs, and entered the office. The dispatcher listened to the report while taking up a yellow pad and a fountain pen. The wrangler reported that a guest had fallen from his horse with an apparent heart attack. The dispatcher radioed for the Sheriff. With a cup of black coffee in hand, the wrangler leaned back in the wooden chair and filled in the details. A fishing party, comprised of a husband and wife and their daughter along with the guide, wrangler, and helper, had ridden from Lariat Dude Ranch on horseback the day before, then camped that night beside Snowmass Lake. Early this morning they had ridden over Trail Rider Pass. Coming down on the other side of the pass, the party contoured off the trail northwest across a creek toward an unnamed alpine lake for more fishing; the husband collapsed before they made the lake. The veteran guide administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and when the victim’s breathing stabilized, he was placed in one sleeping bag and wrapped with a second. His body temperature felt low to the touch; the lips faded to gray. The stricken man and the rest of the party were waiting for help at over 10,000 feet where they made camp. The guide immediately sent the wrangler for a rescue party. He rode as fast as his horse could negotiate the steep trail back up and then down the pass. The fallen man’s wife and daughter stayed behind with the guide and his young apprentice.

            John Pack had instructors in camp, their assistants, and a school of inexperienced students. Still, he assured the Sheriff, he would have a rescue team deployed within thirty minutes. He would lead. On the hour, the chief instructor would attempt radio contact with the school. There the call would be relayed via telephone to the Sheriff.

The patrols were back on the rope’s course after lunch. Strength and balance fled under the stopwatch.  Suddenly, John Pack whistled through his fingers and gathered the instructors apprising them of the situation. He told them to pick two students from their patrol and them to a meeting at the fire ring as quickly as possible. Matt and two other instructors would accompany the team. Within ten minutes, the Chief Instructor gathered with his rescue party. On one side of the fire ring, he faced the boys and their instructors.  His sunglasses reflected clouds and leaves from their mirrored surface.

“Here’s the situation men, we have a rescue. This is not a training exercise; this is real. We move out in twenty minutes. To reach the victim by tomorrow morning, we have to walk through the night. I estimate a twelve to fourteen-hour hike, depending on exactly where he’s located. This aluminum basket is called a Stokes Litter. It is a lightweight and durable means to evacuate the victim if he remains unconscious or otherwise immobile. We will carry him in the litter back to the school where a helicopter will evacuate him Denver. Fill your canteens from the pump next the washhouse. From the supply room, you will need several plastic bags. Fill them with gorp, trail biscuits, cans of tuna, chocolate bars, and fruit. Matt, when we dismiss, show the boys to the supply room and get them started.  We’ll take four pack frames to tie on food, first aid supplies, radio, climbing ropes, and extra clothing. Take a sweater, poncho and leather gloves.”

John Pack elaborated on the details

Henry listened for a while, then he drifted; he felt proud that Matt chose him, along with a quiet Chicano boy. He memorized the moment as he studied the Chief Instructor. The man’s face was lean, smooth and hard. Taught muscles worked the jaw line; each hand gripped along the waist. John Pack knew things, manly things, like a coach. Henry respected coaches. He always wanted to please them, to know their approval because their rough nurture comforted him. As he gazed, he felt warm pressure behind his gray-green eyes. He would not allow tears. Many times when he sat alone in the gathering darkness of his basement room at home, tears wet his cheeks. He would picture a coach or a favorite teacher; tears fell when a season ended or school dismissed for summer. 

“Any questions? Okay, we’ll saddle up here in twenty minutes sharp.”

Of course, there were no questions; no one knew enough, but the students felt the electricity of excitement and fear. They ran to their tents or the storeroom under the dinning hall. Canteens were filled at the well pump. Henry sat on his cot and changed from tennis shoes to climbing boots as quickly as he could. He was breathless. He stuffed stiff new leather gloves into the back pocket of his jeans. In neat strips, he folded the poncho and tied it around his waist. Reaching in the tent corner, he grabbed the aluminum pack frame, a wad of nylon parachute cord, three stuff sacks, and his wool sweater. He bounded out the tent and plowed directly into Martin.

                        “Look out!”

                        “Where are you going?”

Henry did not answer.

            For six hours, they had slogged the darkness of a trail through the woods. Then, abruptly, the rescue party left the trail and climbed almost straight up through a thick forest of Douglas Fir and Englemann Spruce. Weaving the aluminum litter through the trees consumed both time and patience. The calves ached and their hands pounded with blood so that no one noticed when they had climbed up past the tree line. Henry noticed a smudge of gray toward the east where a mountain peak emerged from its shadowy backdrop. The boy peered into the softening darkness. Patches of gnarled Bristle Cone Pines startled him with their surreal shapes.

Through the night, they had stopped hourly for John Pack’s radio attempts to the Sheriff’s Office, sometimes successfully, mostly not. In those moments, the rescue patrol stood silently clumped together, drinking from canteens, and chewing dry trail biscuits. Handfuls of gorp—a mixture of peanuts, raisins, and M and M’s—brought quick energy for the moment and later, belly cramps. In those pauses, Henry’s sweat chilled on his neck and down his back. It dried, and then prickled his skin. When he started climbing again, he heated quickly and sweated.

            Now and then, a breeze stirred across the barren slope. Sometimes Henry felt strong and he moved with confidence. At other moments, a wave of nausea swept though him and his feet had to find their own way. When his belly rumbled, he worried about diarrhea; maybe the pink liquid would have helped. He had left it under the cot. Every muscle in his legs ached, and his back strained against the pressure of the loaded pack he carried. Hot spots had formed on both heels, and blisters followed quickly. Soon they popped, and the dampness alternately oozed and crusted. His heels throbbed.

Henry kept his eyes from his mates, but carefully observed John Pack and Matt. Weary, as he was fascinated. The older man manifested leadership with an assurance that allowed kindness, an encouraging word. Henry felt timid. He never spoke to John Pack. With Matt, an ease began to grow. The boy admired his instructor’s skills and enjoyed Matt’s stories, his jokes, and his habit of touch—a squeeze on the arm or tousling Henry’s short blond hair.

            What if the man was already dead? Worry began to assault the boy. He’d only seen one corpse, his grandmother. That bark-frozen old lady lying in satin haunted him many nights afterwards. Again his belly rumbled with exertion and gorp with tepid canteen water sloshed inside; relieving the gas was impossible. Passing wind embarrassed him, yet he was fearful that if he held it too long, he would get sick. His worries recycled over and over in his mind. What if they had to carry out a dead body? Maybe he would have to touch it. Why didn’t they bring the helicopter up here? The pace quickened over the spongy tundra. “Move, boys, move slow and steady,” Mr. Pack cautioned.

Within an hour, the sun cleared the ridgeline; yellow light comforted him. In the sun, Henry considered it amazing that they had walked through the night— they were still walking. Two at a time they took turns with the litter, climbing ledge after ledge of smooth granite filled with wet tundra grass between. Henry planted his boots flat to keep them from slipping against his raw heels. Toward the top of one ledge he heard the dull scraping of horses’ hooves. Gaining the ledge, the patrol descended to a campfire. The boys hung back keeping a shy distance. A pocked-marked man with a gray handlebar mustache tended the fire with a stick. His eyes hid under a crumpled cowboy hat. He rose stiffly to clasp John Pack’s hand.

                        “Good time, Johnny.”

                        “These boys are strong. What’s the status, Vince?”

“Not rightly sure. He’s been unconscious since he fell from the saddle. Artificial respiration steadied the breathing. Heart beat’s pretty steady, but shallow. Color’s awful, but he’s still ticking.”

                        “Let’s have a look.”

Henry overheard and instantly liked Vince. He seemed like an older version of John Pack.

Vince introduced the chief instructor to the stricken man’s wife, Nora. Mr. Pack spoke gently to her. While they stuffed their bellies with trail rations, the boys glanced and tried to hear. Henry thought better of eating and walked toward a freshet below camp where the horses munched the grass. He yawned. His blisters stuck to his socks. He lacked the will to take off his boots and dreaded looking at his feet.

            John Pack and Vince knelt by the stricken man in the sleeping bag—their voices hushed and clipped. John Pack swung around and called out to Matt.

                        “Bring the litter and one of the climbing ropes.”

Three boys on either side put their hands under the wrapped weight. Henry put on his gloves; he feared touching the man. Only ashen lips were visible, maybe he was already dead. Matt and another instructor held the head and feet. They strained, but the bundle barely rose. Vince and John Pack took opposite sides alongside the boys.

                        “Okay, men, on three. One. Two. Three. Lift.”

The litter slid underneath. Vince fashioned a pillow from a wool blanket and arranged the sleeping bag that served as a blanket. Matt uncoiled the rope while John Pack’s practiced hands began to lash the man into the basket creating a rope harness at either end. Vince explained.

“Boys, this here’s Mr. Campbell. Come up from Boston. And this here’s his wife, Mrs. Campbell. They’ve vacationed with us at the Lariat for several summers along with their daughter, Clare. I believe this is their eleventh year with us. The man loves fly-fishing. Caught a twelve-pounder last year. They all ride real good. I reckon we don’t know what happened here to Mr. Campbell, but we’re mighty glad you came up here to give us a hand.”

Mrs. Campbell sat cross-legged stroking her husband’s hair. Her voice full of whispers as she peered intently at her husband.

“You’re going to be okay, Jack. The rescue party is here. They’re going to take you down now. I know your going to be just fine, darling. They’ve got you packed all comfy. You’re a going to be all right, Jack. Please hang on. We’ll get right on to Denver.”

                        “Ma’am, we’re almost ready to go."

Mrs. Campbell stood gracefully taking John Pack’s hand. She looked down at her husband. His face, more visible in the flooding sunrise, was the color of the granite ledges above him.

            Henry helped douse the campfire with water from several canteens. Matt told him to refill them for the hike out. A brook flowed out from under a shelf of snow fifty yards down-slope of the camp. He clanked toward the water with the canteens held by their chained tops in his hands. The horses stirred. With an apprentice, Vince smoothed blankets over their backs as they saddled the five horses. Henry knelt on one knee next to the water. The turf was boggy. His knee soaked through and sunk so far that he nearly fell headlong into the stream. He awkwardly plunged both hands into the frigid water. He drenched his wool sweater above both elbows. The empty canteens clanked against the rocks as he struggled to get his arms out. He quickly glanced toward the horses. Vince did not look up; he smoothed wrinkles out of a saddle blanket. His young helper shook his head and chuckled. Henry turned back to fill the canteens.

            Off to his right, something moved. He looked upstream, but saw nothing. Then he turned further and peered up a steep rise of rock. He sat back on his haunches. Silhouetted against the brightening day, Clare stood on top of the rock outcropping. She wore an oversized blue cardigan. Her arms spread wide, fingers open; she moved them in a slow arc from the ground to the sky. Andrew stared. The young woman’s hair fell full, vermilion in the brightening air. Her skin, the profile of her nose, the mouth, her arms spread wide, he absorbed every detail.

            She lowered her arms and slowly turned her eyes toward him. He swallowed. She raised her head and walked back to the camp. A packhorse grew restless, snorting and pawing the tundra. Henry startled. Quickly he knelt re-wetting his knees, and buried the burbling opening of each canteen in the rush of numbing water.

            On either side of the litter, three students gripped the aluminum rim. Each of them had tied a sling rope around his shoulder in a large loop and then fashioned a small loop where he clipped a carabiner to the rim. In this way, they could alternate between carrying the weight with a hand or a shoulder, or both. In addition, the arrangement insured that wherever the litter went, they went. Matt clipped in at the foot, and another instructor carried the front. The third instructor would spell the others on a regular rotation, as would John Pack who followed with Mrs. Campbell and Clare. Vince and the apprentice packed the horses with camp gear and rode in the opposite direction back to the Lariat Ranch. Henry looked back for Clare.

            They had hiked fourteen hours through the night to reach the man. Within a half-hour they now headed back to the school. Instead of a light aluminum basket to manage they had to deal with weight of a corpulent man.  When they started, they staggered. The carrying process took practice. Each step was unpredictable. Henry shivered.

            After an hour, Henry glimpsed the trail meandering far below at tree line. At present, however, the smooth slabs of rock that held their boots on the way up felt ready to vault them into space under the awkward weight of their burden. Then too, the grass sandwiched between the slabs had grown slick from a light rain that began to fall. John Pack stopped.

“Hold up. We need to rig a belay for the basket. We’ll move over there to the left and lower him down the cliff.”

Two climbing ropes were uncoiled. John Pack took four steel pitons from his rucksack and with a small squat hammer nailed them into four separate cracks in the granite behind him. With each blow, the ringing pitch of the steel rose. Carabiners were clipped in the eyeholes of the pitons and the ropes ran through them. Campbell had not stirred. The litter was lowered down the cliff where it would be free from banging against the rocks of the sloping ledge. It was safer than negotiating the weight and awkward bulk of the basket down the tilted slabs. Matt guided the basket as he rappelled alongside. A frightening moment came when the frame caught a projecting rock.  The basket tipped vertically, Matt swung to the side, tied off, and balanced the litter while slack was taken up. Henry watched in amazement as Matt deftly handled the awkward load. He felt proud of his instructor’s skill. And he wondered how Matt, Mr. Campbell, and the Stokes Litter held in mid-air with only ropes fastened to thin rock cracks by tiny shafts of steel. With head and foot matched, the belay played out until, finally, Campbell rested near the trail eighty feet below where he began the descent.

When the rescue party began hiking down the trail, Henry took the position at the head of the litter. He clipped in the carabiner, and adjusted the length of the sling rope to press a slight tug on his shoulder. Throughout the rest of the rescue he never again unclipped, never relinquished his place at the head.

            As the sun rose higher, a high-altitude dryness filled the air—no wind, only heat and the smell of desiccated pine. Henry walked, and his thoughts drifted, dissolved, and reformed like clouds. Now and then he caught his breath from the pain in his shoulder where the sling dug deeply when he tired from holding the weight with his arm. New blisters replaced the old dried ones. He tried not to feel and was mostly successful.

            He recalled August’s heat, the torture of two-a-day football practices. His coach purchased new cleats for the team, low-cuts for the running backs like Henry. The unyielding leather rubbed against cotton socks against his flesh. Then, as now, his heels raised searing blisters. Those blisters infected. Tears slid down his eyes when he carried a two hundred and sixty-pound tackle thirty yards in a torture called wind sprints. He loathed Coach Kline’s shrill whistle that commanded another thirty yards and another. Yet the practices brought about home-cooked lunch and dinner at their conclusion. At night, he slept as though drugged and without dreams. In the morning, a damp circle on the pillow near his mouth marked exhaustion. Henry complained and moaned like all his teammates. But he loved it too. The boy consistently went to practice a half-hour early to spray his injured heels with adhesive and apply moleskin patches with a holes cut out of the middle to protect over the blisters. Gingerly he pulled on his cleats, hopeful, but pain returned immediately. Worse was peeling the stuck moleskin from the blisters after practice.

Now he was tied to a heavy Stokes Litter, hiking a narrow trail. Pain was center, unrelenting;

                        “Crap. Dang. Puke.”

Under his breath, the litany of oaths made no difference, so he stopped swearing and became a robot. He fell into a trance to separate from his pain. Close to noon, one of the students fled his part of the load, groped at a tree trunk, and threw-up. But Henry was a machine. “Okay,” he snapped back each time that Matt asked him how he was doing. He held on to the front of the basket, alternating hands with his shoulder, unrelenting. His hand touched the stricken man’s face several times; if he was dead, Henry no longer cared. The gloves on both hands wore through at each of the fingers. He didn’t care about that either.

            From time to time, Henry’s mind screamed at him to quit. Repeatedly, his thoughts commanded a halt. The boy had heard that voice before, and he had obeyed its command. But now, in the midst of more suffering than he had ever known, he would not quit. The sinews of pride—the desire to prove himself—overcame the voice that beckoned him. Hatefully, he embraced the opportunity. He strode like an automaton; he would do so until he fell over and died. He failed to notice when the boy on his right unclipped and sat down whimpering.

            Like most seventeen-year olds, Henry successfully avoided most discomfort. Apart from the glory of athletics, he took his ease. He hated summer yard work, or shoveling snow, or cleaning up the garage, or any of the menial tasks around the house. His Dad would scowl, in that particularly constipated face, and bark before Henry would disgustedly get up from listening to a record album to clean the prolific dog messes in the yard and then crank the lawn mower. He ate voraciously, slept past noon on weekends, and drove downtown with his buddies. He existed in adolescent limbo, no longer a boy and not yet a man. His estimation of himself faltered with his moods. Although temporarily buoyed by the frenetic pace of student council, senior electives, editor of the school newspaper, sports—the detritus of high school—he felt cavernous about his worth, a cold draft up his backside. Vicariously, the boy warmed with the adulation that others heaped on his heroes. And he longed for his own applause, in response to an extraordinary feat and astonishing skill.

Down through the forest Henry trudged in pain and in a self-made glory, a member of a life-saving rescue at Outward Bound. He had long since passed the anxiety over pain or illness. Here and now, Henry could be a hero—whatever it cost him. Henry imagined carrying Mr. Campbell by himself—flung over his shoulder for hours until he walked into the school where cheers would resonate in his ears. His burden would be lifted. Mr. Campbell, alive and talking, would thank him effusively and offer a money reward that Henry would refuse. John Pack would proudly shake his hand. Clare would be smiling. So he continued; he never sat down at the rest stops and drank water sparingly if at all. He stayed clipped to the litter. Henry never gave up his place.

            In the gloaming, the rescue party entered the school thirty hours after they had embarked on the rescue. They carried Mr. Campbell to a graveled parking area below the dining hall. The helicopter engine sputtered and then caught after fresh hands lifted the litter aboard. John Pack leaned in and spoke to the lashed bundle, then turned his ear to listen. Henry watched, but could only hear the flap and whistle of the blades. Heavily he sat down on a log pitched along the edge of the parking lot to keep vehicles from rolling down the hillside. The boy thought he might be out of his head. The engine revved and the helicopter lifted and vanished down the valley. Henry stared vacantly at the gravel.

            Most of the boys from the rescue limped to the washhouse for showers and needed gastrointestinal relief. Henry didn’t stir. His body ached and a silence loomed inside him. His earlier heroic musings vanished. What did he want, a medal? He glanced up at the sound of Mrs. Campbell’s voice. She sat on the passenger side of a Land Rover with the door open talking with Mr. Pack and the school’s Director. No Clare. Henry focused on the mud caked in the lugs of his left boot. He picked at it with his thumb.

            He saw narrow legs in blue jeans. The legs ended with white tennis shoes. The boy gazed at the hair framing both sides of her face; his gaze her luminous eyes. Clare knelt on both knees. Her hands reached out and took his ragged gloved hands in hers. She pressed.

                        “Thank you.”

                        “Okay.”

Henry stumbled his way to his tent and bed. But each time he closed his eyes they swam rocks and dirt and trees. At first he chilled, then, sweated. His skin felt clammy against the mummy bag as it wrapped around his body. Henry could not relax; he knew an enormous thirst. He peeled out of the bag and lay in the cool air and began to shiver.

                        “Are you alright?”

                        “Go to sleep, Martin.”

Henry drew the sleeping bag around like a blanket. He stared up at the red dots swimming in the dark pool above him. He did not want to shut his eyes because again and again he saw the tips of his boots, and rocks, and rocks, and more rocks. Over and over his mind played the rescue like a film loop: the heft of the litter, the bundled lump, his aching heels, the rumble in his gut, and thirst. He drank two pitchers of milk at dinner and filled his canteen with water before bed. The canteen emptied quickly and the dryness in his throat returned. He rolled on his side toward the canvas wall of the tent; his palm moved up and down the fabric. The canvass felt cool and it eased him. No sound from his tent mate. Martin shared the silence.

                        “It must have been really hard, Henry?”

                        “Go to sleep.”

                        “I’m sorry to bug you.”

                        “You are bugging me.”

                        “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just really wasted. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“’Night, Henry.”

They lay quietly.

                        “Do you have to run the dip tomorrow?”

                        “Yep. Matt said he’d see me there in the morning.”

                        “They never give up, do they?”

                        “No, I guess not.”

Martin rolled over on his stomach. In a while, Henry heard his tent mate's breath grow wheezy and slow.

            He fought with himself, “What a pain to get up and go to the wash house for a drink, but I have to. I’m thirsty.” Peeing outside off the tent platform took little effort, but he needed water and that meant hobbling down to the washhouse on his damaged feet.

            He threw off the sleeping bag and searched for his tennis shoes. Bandages covered both heels. Matt’s doing. Before he had showered that afternoon, he sat on the wood bench across from the sinks and stared at his heels. His socks had to come off and he feared the sight as much as the pain. The outer wool socks showed round rust spots the size of a nickel on each heel. Henry removed them carefully. The inner socks were blood-soaked and congealed. He pulled one of the socks down close to the heel; yellow fluid oozed. His head spun. Slowly, he tried to move it across the stuck place but it stayed stuck. As a kid, his Mom would jerk a Band-Aid across a healed cut. So, he jerked the sock. It stayed stuck. He swooned against the wood wall. He felt sick.

When he opened his eyes Matt stood in front of him with a white metal case under his arm. He knelt down on one knee.

“Those look pretty bad.”

“They’re okay.”

“Let me have a look.”

The instructor carefully moved the sock toward the blister. Henry winced.

“Sorry. I know they’re really sore. I got an idea.”

Matt picked up a dry wash cloth from the bench and put it in the sink. He let the water run to steaming, then rung it out. Gently, he pressed it against Henry’s heel for several minutes and repeated the process twice more.  The hot dampness softened the mess so that the sock peeled off without much grief. Henry kept his eyes closed. When he showered, the water trickled down his legs and stung the open wounds. 

            Matt waited for Henry to finish. Then, he opened the first-aid kit and dressed the blisters with iodine. For the second time that night, Henry thought he would faint. Matt cut blister-sized holes in several layers of gauze pads and taped them to each heel.

                        “There you go.”

                        “Thanks, Matt.”

                        “Your welcome. Get some sleep. Aspirin might help.

                        “Okay.”

                        “See you at the dip in the morning.”

                        “The dip?”

                        “Yeah, if you can.”

                        “Sure.”

In the moonless night he hobbled back to his tent. He carried two full canteens, his own and one he took from Martin. Just his toes were in the tennis shoes. The heels were on the outside squashing down on the back of the shoes.

 

Initiative Tests

Three days later, the students gathered at the fire ring. John Pack explained the initiative tests. Teamwork skills would be developed along with ingenuity and problem solving. He explained to them that each test involved a physical dilemma. He sent them off to various locations around the area where their instructors would explain more fully. Bridger Patrol, with Henry as their newly elected patrol leader found Matt by an electric fence. Of course, there was no fence, electric or otherwise. What they saw in that open space was a rope tied between two trees seven feet apart and about eight feet high. On the ground was a log, a foot in diameter and ten feet long. Matt explained the scenario.

“Here’s how it works, guys. You’re inside a prison camp, a brutal prison camp. You have to escape or you will be killed. You have to do it now. Concrete walls, tall and smooth stand on three sides of this area. The only possible escape is over this fence represented by the rope tied between those two trees. The problem is that the fence is electrified with a deadly voltage and it is raining. Whoever touches the fence is wasted immediately. The only tool you have is this log and, in fact, it is a metal beam. So, if it touches the fence, whoever is touching it is zapped. You’ve got to get all your men over the fence without electrocuting them. Figure out a plan and make it work. Got it?”

No, they did not get it, and they asked several questions. With exasperation, Matt summarily repeated the scenario, turned his back, and walked a ways away.

“Alright, no more questions? Good. When you are ready to put a plan into action, I’ll time you for the patrol competition. Now, get to work.”

            Henry felt pressure to lead, but he was clueless about where to start on this problem. For a few minutes, several boys made suggestions while the others rudely dismissed them. Henry stole a glance at Matt. The instructor was strolling, whistling, with his back to the patrol. Henry looked back at the ten boys and remembered something called brainstorming. Last year, his psychology teacher taught a senior seminar focusing on group dynamics, including decision-making techniques. One was called brainstorming. For a week, they broke into small groups and practiced the technique on several problems. He considered that it might work in this situation; besides he could not think of anything else to do.

                        “Okay, now, we’re not getting anywhere like this so let’s try brainstorming.”

He began to explain the process. Their response did not encourage him—much grousing.

“Cool it, guys, nothing else is working, so just hold on a second and let me tell you how it works.”