A puffed voice down the way called out for a break. The call continued up the line as others passed the call along, people happy to give the stranger who started the cry, and themselves, some comfort. Amanda Mason whispered it under her breath, then groaned in relief when the line backed up and came to a stop.
People started to turn around and bend over with hands braced on their knees, facing down the mountain to pull the cool air into their lungs. Unhooking the waist strap to her backpack, Amanda felt the straps slide off her shoulders and nearly followed it's gravitation to the ground. She was some sort of fool to hike a mountain on a first date, she thought, as Zack reached out a hand to steady her. Here he was, looking only a little rugged, breathing in slow, steady breaths, and she was . . . .
Well, she couldn't imagine, or maybe she didn't want to imagine the picture she made. Pulling a wash cloth from where she'd tucked it in her pocket, she mopped up her face and turned with the rest of the crew to catch her breath. Placing her hand on her knees she briefly looked down the mountain from where they had come, and then closed her eyes and savored the victory. It was something her father had taught her a long time ago.
Too long ago. The aches were just a little too fresh to say that she was enjoying herself. When Zack had asked her during a Single Adult fellowship if she would like to go with him, she had been too caught up in the eagerness in his blue eyes to remember the laziness of her muscles.
Feeling the line shift, Amanda turned and stepped out of the way when she saw their guide coming down the mountain, tucking her radio to her waist band, her speed suggesting that someone was hurt down the trail.
Zack handed Amanda the canteen he'd obviously already unfastened from her back pack, looking confident and ready to tackle the rest of the mountain.
"Mmm," she muttered, unscrewing the cap and sipping a few precious mouthfuls, letting the liquid moisten first her parched lips and mouth before sliding down past her greedy throat. "Thanks," she managed with a smile, then repeated the sip and swallowed. As she capped it, he took it from her and slipped it in the side pocket her pack.
"You're doing better than I thought you would," he said with an easy smile. "After you accepted, you seemed a little wary."
"It's been a long time," she admitted and looked up the trail to see only the trees framing the line of people. They were nearing the top, so the trails were narrower and steeper. "My dad used to bring us hiking, my two sisters and my brother, our friends and my dad's friends. We usually made the trip at least once a summer, though most of the time more. He grew up in the mountains. Not here, in Georgia, but further north. Closer to Virginia."
"Bring back a lot of memories?"
"Yeah. A hike to dad was never just physical exercise. It was a spiritual journey."
"So he was into all that ancient Indian folklore."
"No, actually, he was about God," she looked up the path, then down, seeing people in their own conversations and breathing exercises. "Like now, he might have said, ‘narrow is the road as we walk, and steeper is the climb,' and he would remind us over and over that the view was worth every step, every pain, and I'm sure it was worth all the whining he had to put up with."
"I don't know how many times I've repeated that lesson in my head just in life. Things might seem so rough and the pressure so tight that it's easy not to strive, and it's easier to fall back and fall away. But the mountain top is so much better than the path that leads us there."
Zack was smiling when she finished, "I think I would have liked your dad. I learned what I know about hiking from my friends the summer after we graduated high school. Needless to say, we weren't thinking about God when we were up here. They're the ones that knew all the supposed ancient traditions," he shook his head, as if shaking the memories away, "My dad wasn't much of an outdoors kind of guy, though. My earliest memories are of him in a suit, coming and going to work."
Amanda was beginning to feel the chills as her body cooled off. In the midst of her prayer that they start moving again, she thought of the person who was possibly hurt down the way, the other people suffering like her, and lifted them up before God, too.
"What other kind of wisdom did your father impart on the trail?"
"Hmm?" she asked, slowly brought back into their conversation, "Oh, I don't know," she took a deep breath, and leaned back against a tree as she thought about it. "I remember once, I don't know—it was probably my first time up with the family, and since I'm the youngest by seven long years, everyone else was practically hopping their way up," she glanced wearily up the trail and realized that she'd yet to see someone hopping their way up, and she laughed at herself, "or at least, that's how I remember it."
"I was so far behind, but my dad didn't push me or carry me, even though we couldn't have been far from the top. He just let me hold his hand and walked beside me. He made it into a game, telling me to point out the tree we would reach next before we had to stop. So we would get to that tree and I would pick out another, further up and we would go to that one. Sometimes we stopped, sometimes we immediately picked out another. My dad never complained or pushed me, he just listened to the nature or pointed out a tree or a spider's web or a burnt stump."
"Then I remember that one time we stopped, and I was almost in tears. I could hear everyone and I knew they were celebrating because they were at the top of the mountain. My dad just smiled," Amanda paused, wanting to get the words just right. She could still see her father that day, bending over, his hand on her smaller head, his eyes so large and his smile so warm.
"He said, ‘sometimes we push ourselves up a mountain and we rush, and we miss so much. We don't stop to listen, or get away from the crowd so we can, and we forget that there's more to hiking then the climb or the top of the mountain.' Then he took my hand and had me point out another tree, and we went to that one, and I remember seeing the leaves rustle slightly in the wind, hearing the sound. And he said, ‘Mandy, sometimes we want to run up a mountain. Sometimes we think it's best, but that's not always what our heavenly Father wants. Sometimes he wants us to take it tree by tree, so it can be Him that enables us."
Amanda watched as Zack's eyes took in the upcoming trail, the trees, and her words. In the silence, she heard the shifting and the change in the pattern of speech from below, and turned just in time to move out of the way as their guide made her way back up the trail.
Zack reached down and lifted her pack, helping her settle it on her shoulders. As the line started to move, with Zack taking the place in front of her, she thought she heard someone down the way say, ‘we'll just make it to the next tree, Amy.'"
Holding a branch for her, Zack looked back and winked, having heard the same words.
Later, Amanda finally stretched out on the mountain top, leaning against the hard granite rock, the muscles of her body slowly unwinding and stretching. Her lunch was set out between her and Zack, along with his, a tidy array of sandwiches, chips, and their precious water.
Before them the sky was a clear blue, allowing them a great view of the Blue Ridge mountains, the rolling peaks, capped in a sea of blue and green. Beyond, they could see the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, or so said their guide. Though a few buildings were nestled into the mountain side, and power lines ran up the middle of one mountain, little could spoil their satisfaction, as her father had promised so long ago.
Zack pointed out a small rural church, framed by the cleared ground around it. Then he laughed at her, noting the look on her face, "You're quite satisfied with yourself, aren't you?"
"Just glad I made it up and excepting my reward."
"From God?"
She nodded, "Paul said in Hebrews, eleven-six, ‘without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.' My dad always led us in a Biblical lesson after we came to the top and one time, he used that verse. He said, ‘we strive earnestly to push ourselves up the mountain, and because we believe, because we have the desire to capture the goal, we have been rewarded.'"
"Later, I understood that the reward for our faith was more then a mountain top experience. It was the sustaining breath when we reached bottom—a reminder of where we'd been and who we'd been with. God . . . my dad. Both blessed me . . . God used my dad to reward, to bless me, to give me the sustaining breaths so I could make it up a mountain again and again."
"I really would have liked to meet your dad," Zack said again, shaking his head in awe. "Has he been gone long?"
"Gone?" Amanda repeated, then chuckled as the realization hit. "Oh, you mean dead? He's not dead," she laughed, shaking her head, "he'd quite alive. Didn't I say?"
"No—you said you hadn't hiked . . . and I just assumed . . ."
"My dad's quite alive and quite happily retired," she assured him, still quite amused with herself and him. "College and life got in the way of me joining him recently, but he's still quite active and he still takes his children and grandchildren up the mountain for their lessons in faith. In fact, he and my mom are hiking down the Appalachian Trail right as we speak!"
Return to Elizabeth Delayne's Short Stories
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