Ridgelines

He rummaged through the kitchen drawer, looking for scratch paper. Finding a lined tablet, he tore off a sheet and used a felt tip to carefully print: I’ll return when it’s time. Love, Kent. 

He drew a heart around his name and laid the note and his cell phone on the counter where Jenny would find them. Shouldering his overstuffed backpack, he slipped out the front door, leaving the porch light on. Under a moonless October sky, he moved silently through the dark neighborhood, past houses where families snuggled into their covers and dogs whimpered in their dreams. He had two hours until his wife got off her shift, and he wanted to get clear of the city and reach the first ridgeline. 

He turned onto Lizzie Street and walked uphill in the roadway. The streetlights offered a golden path forward. The road ended in a cul-de-sac circle big enough to land a Black Hawk. Kent had never lost the habit of sizing up LZs, even decades after Desert Storm. 

The trail to the top of the Santa Lucia foothills began at the end of the street. He turned on his flashlight’s night vision beam and moved forward into a grove of coast live oaks. The path followed a drainage swale. Under the trees’ canopy, the blackness hid everything. He moved carefully, knowing one wrong step could end his insulate odyssey. His pack pulled at his shoulders; an ice pick–in-the-back pain became a distraction. 

The steep slope caused Kent to slip on the holly-like oak leaves, and he struggled to keep his footing. Breathing hard, he pushed forward until the trail broke free of the trees. Bright stars and star clouds covered the heavens. He stopped to rest. The frigid night air turned his sweat to ice water and he pushed on. 

Near the top of the first phalanx of hills, the trail climbed a slope of serpentine, a green stone that looked something like jade. Kent stuck his flashlight in his mouth and scrambled on all fours, scraping his knees against the rocky ground until he felt blood trickle down his shins. 

At the top of the ridge, he stopped, chest heaving. The city lay before him, a lake of lights covering a valley surrounded by the brooding shoulders of coastal California mountains. Somewhere below in a particular cluster of lights was their house. Jenny would be home by then, would read his note, probably cry. He hated it when she cried, especially when he caused it. 

Kent ground his teeth and rose, teetering on the balls of his feet. He followed the trail across the ridgeline until it turned downhill into a shallow valley, away from and out of sight of the city. Leaving the trail, he pushed through the thick brush and found an almost flat space, well concealed. Under a brightening gray sky, he unrolled his foam pad and sleeping bag and changed his undershirt, hanging the sodden one on a bush to dry. He smeared antibiotic cream on his banged-up legs and lay on his back, staring upward as the rising sun lit the gold and green crest of the towering Cuesta Ridge. Kent drifted off to sleep with the fragrance of warm sage tickling his senses. 

* * * 

On her drive home from the hospital, Jenny phoned Kent. Her call went to voice mail. Normally, she’d stop at Starbucks to buy her husband a mocha latte and herself a piece of coffee cake for breakfast. But she felt nervous, didn’t like the way they had left it the night before. Kent had sat all day and stared at the TV, not saying anything. He had good reason to be quiet. But they had known for weeks, and nothing had changed. 

“Kent, I’m home, honey.” The dark house didn’t answer. She pushed through the front door and turned off the porch light. In the kitchen, a sheet of lined paper and Kent’s cell phone lay on the counter. She read the note then grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, breathing hard but thankful that at least he’d said he’d come back. 

Jenny checked their bedroom, then the TV room where he’d been trying to sleep lately. In the garage, relief washed over her when she found his motorcycle parked under its tarp. But something had been moved—taken away or rearranged. She studied the walls. His backpack and camping gear were missing along with boxes of supplies left over from their last year’s High Sierra adventure. 

She phoned her best friend, Gabriela, a charge nurse who worked the night shift with her. 

“Gabby, it’s me, Jen. Kent is gone.” 

“What do you mean ‘gone’?” 

“I came home to an empty house. He left a note saying he’ll come back when it’s time.” 

“That’s not too bad. Doesn’t sound like he’d . . .” 

“No, I don’t think so, either. Can you help me find him?” 

“Where do you think he went?” 

“I don’t know. His motorcycle is still here and I have the car. But all his camping gear is gone.” 

“Hey, look, I’ll come over. You shouldn’t be alone right now. Just take it easy. I’m comin’.” 

“Sorry about this ,Gabby. You’re the best.” 

Gabriela arrived with a package of cinnamon rolls. Jenny made a pot of English breakfast tea, and they sat at the kitchen counter, licking icing off their fingers and worrying about what to do next. 

“Do you think he’s in the city?” Gabriela asked. 

“No, if he’s anywhere, he’s in the mountains close by. He would take his ecology classes on field trips into the hills. Sometimes they’d stay overnight. He loved . . . I mean, loves that.” 

“Jen, do you think . . . think maybe we should call the police? I’ll do it for you.” 

Jenny took a sip of tea she had spiked with rum and sighed. “I don’t know, don’t think so. He’s not in any danger. He’s just . . .” 

Jenny’s tears dripped down her pale cheeks. Gabriela encircled her friend in her arms. “I know. You two have had it rough. Besides, maybe he’ll call and—” 

“No, he left his phone here. He definitely doesn’t want to be found, at least not yet.” 

“If you want, we can drive around and look. Maybe we can spot him.” 

Jenny bowed her head. “I think . . . I think maybe I should leave him alone. This past month he’s been trying to accept what’s happening. And my chatter hasn’t helped. He’s been having these dreams . . . wakes up screaming . . . scares me to death.” 

Gabriela sighed. “I kinda wondered why you looked more tired than usual. Maybe both of you need a break.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” Jenny downed the rest of her tea and clasped her friend’s warm, brown hands. 

* * * 

The dream woke him: images of fast-growing, fleshy tentacles penetrating a quivering gelatinous mass, spreading out like a tangle of underground roots, and Kent low-crawling like a mad soldier, trying to escape their grasp. He sat up, breathing hard, not quite sure if he was awake. Hearing voices, he crouched behind the brush, held his breath, and stayed perfectly still. Two couples hustled along the nearby trail, talking the whole time. They passed without seeing him. 

He lay back, relieved but disappointed. Kent had hoped the dream would disappear once he left home and slept in the wild, where he didn’t have to answer any more questions or be overwhelmed by the cloying kindness of those he loved. But, if anything, his nightmare had grown more vivid. He lay shaking, even with the sun high and the wind down. As the minutes passed, the silence and the smell of coastal sage calmed him. Red-shouldered hawks drifted above in their sea of endless blue. 

Kent reached for his pack. Finding a tiny box of cereal, he mixed water with some powdered milk in his canteen cup, poured in the Cheerios, and crunched his meal. He ate out of habit and the knowledge he’d need energy to climb the Cuesta Ridge that afternoon. He hoped to reach the top by sundown. 

And he wondered what Jenny was doing. Would she go to work? Call out the sheriff’s search and rescue detail? Stay at home and cry, maybe with her nurse girlfriend? His heart ached, guilty for shutting her out those last few weeks, as if only he had a stake in the game. 

By midafternoon, he stood braced against the steep grade, just below where the grazing lands gave way to dense chaparral. Exposed to anyone who might scan the mountain with binoculars, he had donned his camouflage jacket and floppy boonie hat from his days in Iraq. Staring downslope while trying to catch his breath, the valley and city turned purple and blue, the streets slithered like dayglow green snakes, shimmering in bright orange sunlight. He sank to the ground and curled into a ball, eyes squeezed shut. In a few minutes, his heart slowed, and he sat up. The world had returned to its blue, green, and gold glory. 

By late afternoon, Kent scrambled over the lip of the ridge road and stopped to rest. The valley opened up before him, the city more of a texture than individual buildings. At its far edge, a series of winding waterways fed the low, marshy lake. The creeks reminded him of the tentacles in his dream, and he spun and hustled eastward. 

A strong northwestern wind blasted him, and he turned to stare at the Pacific, a white-fringed blue band twelve miles away. Dark clouds extended from horizon to horizon. They moved quickly onshore and flew low, as if purposefully aiming at him. The air filled with mist. At a spot hidden by gray pines, he turned off the road and set up camp behind a rock outcropping. He barely had his tent erected when the rain hit, large drops whipped by the wind. 

Kent ate a light meal of crackers with sips of water, his stomach in turmoil. He put out his canteen cup and the rest of his mess kit to catch rain. Lying on his sleeping bag, he tried reading from a book of stories. But the light faded fast, leaving him in pitch-black darkness with the pines thrashing in the storm. A hoarse groan sounded, and he realized it had come from himself. He tried to control his breathing. His face felt numb, and he rubbed and slapped it hard until the pain told him to stop. 

Another downpour battered the tent, and he covered his ears, trying to think, trying to remember his plan and the purpose of this whole backpacking thing. He remembered he wanted to circle the city, cross the valleys and hike the ridgelines, see his life and home from all angles, from new perspectives. But the why of it escaped him. Maybe there was no why. He pulled the sleeping bag over his head, curled into a fetal position and slipped into his nightmare world of tentacles and pursuit. 

* * * 

Gabriela finally left her alone, promising to see her at work that evening. Unable to sleep in the too-bright afternoon, Jenny showered and dressed. She retrieved the high-powered binoculars from Kent’s study, bundled up in her warmest down jacket, and drove to an undeveloped hill in the middle of her neighborhood. Its flat top made it a perfect spot for kids to fly kites, teens to smoke and sneak booze, and young couples to hook up. For Jenny, the hill let her scan the surrounding mountains, with the intent of spotting Kent and maybe going after him. 

She sat on a bench with the wind whipping her hair, the ground littered with crushed beer cans and condoms. She lifted the heavy binoculars and scanned the northern foothills, then shifted to the Cuesta Ridge farther out. Its broad, grassy flanks rose to support chaparral and gray pines near its summit. She couldn’t spot Kent; she bowed her head and wept. She wondered if she should call her mother in San Diego. Her mom would know what to do, would help when the time came. But Kent detested her, thought she was a controlling bitch and should butt out of their lives. It had been that way for twenty-five years. 

Her mind filled with a self-critical conversation with her husband: What do you want me to do, Kent? I’m a trained nurse. I should know. And you don’t have to prove anything to me. I just love you and want to wrap you in my arms and rock those damn dreams away. Did you think it unmanly to stick around? Did I pester you too much? Are you still trying to figure it out? Because there’s neither rhyme nor reason to any of it. Should I pray for you even though you don’t believe? Or just let you go? I feel so helpless, so alone. 

The autumn sun cast long afternoon shadows on the streets below. She blew her nose and raised the binoculars one last time. Near the top of Cuesta Ridge, a tiny figure moved onto the fire road, too far away for Jenny to identify who it was. She wanted to believe. Relief flooded her body and she sucked in a deep breath. The figure moved eastward until disappearing into the trees. 

The first drops of rain spattered against the ground, throwing up dust. Jenny hadn’t noticed the storm approaching. The wind and rain increased, and she made a mad dash down the trail to her car, smiling all the way.

* * * 

He fell into a pattern: break camp early, hike, eat, make camp, read, and dream. And day after day, the rain drenched the ridgelines. He spent long afternoons lying in his tent, reading the complete collection of Hemingway’s short stories, at least during the hours when he could focus his eyes on the page. 

The storms slowed his progress. He continued eastward along the Forest Service road and hiking paths, noting the tracks made in the fresh mud by deer, skunk, possum, and coyote. He knelt to inspect the prints of a mountain lion and fingered the can of pepper spray on his belt. Descending into the valley, he waited at the base of the slope until sunset, hidden in a deep, wooded ravine. Under a half moon, he crossed the flatlands, keeping to farm tracks and little-used public roads. The ascent into the southern hills took all of his strength to reach the ridgeline. He collapsed, pulled his tent over himself, and slept. 

Unlike the northern mountains, oak woodland covered the Coastal Range. The ridgelines afforded no trails, not even game tracks. Under the trees, thick tangles of poison oak stopped any straight-line headway. Kent struggled to find a clear path, pulling his jacket sleeves down over his hands to protect them from the oily poison. He was careful, but not careful enough, and by his second day in the southern hills, his blistered hands itched like crazy. 

When the storms finally passed, Kent read his stories until almost sunset and ate a meager dinner outside, staring downslope at the city, at planes taking off and landing at the county airport. Their wings seemed to flap like giant shrieking birds as they climbed into the violet sky and disappeared. He wondered if he should have slipped away to someplace else, maybe flown to Tahiti and lived Gauguin’s mythical island life. But that was all just one grand fiction. 

Besides, his nightmares smothered long thoughts of anything beyond his past life. The tentacles chased him now during his waking hours. And he heard himself arguing out loud with God, with the Devil, or with no one in particular, beseeching them to take the damn dream away. His words came out slurred, as if from a drunken idiot railing against the universe. 

Thoughts of Jenny filled the few remaining good spaces in his mind. He wondered if he’d done the right thing by going on his rain-soaked odyssey. Or had he caused her more grief than she would have suffered from witnessing the ugliness of his decline? He needed her warm touch, her presence in bed on dark nights when the sound of her breathing reassured him, made him feel connected, made him feel loved. 

In the early evening of the final day, Kent descended the southern hills and moved north into the city along the old state highway. The dayglow green street and sidewalk felt squishy under his feet, and he slipped and fell several times. He struggled through the business district with pedestrians giving him a wide berth. The colors of traffic lights were all wrong, and a delivery van nearly clipped him. 

His head pounded, and he banged an arm against a storefront, trying to distract himself from the piercing pain in the back of his skull. His poison oak–scarred hands had gone numb. He tried following the lines in the sidewalk, but the squares kept shifting to the right and left. He stumbled and fell hard. The head pain kicked up a notch, and he groaned. People turned and stared but kept their distance. 

A bicycle cop skidded to a stop in front of him and dismounted. 

“Hey, buddy, have you been drinking?” 

Kent gaped at him, mouth open, groaning. 

The cop knelt. “Are you alright? Do you need help?” 

The officer’s face had haloes around the eyes. He wore bright orange lipstick and looked like the Joker in the Batman movie. Kent covered his face with his blistered hands and curled up on the sidewalk. A kaleidoscope of color exploded in his brain, then dimmed to soft black. The smell of wet concrete faded. The pain vanished. He breathed easy for the first time in weeks. It felt like the right time to rejoin Jenny. 

* * * 

Gabriela met her in the hospital parking lot. “Jen, they brought Kent in a little while ago. He’s in the ER.” 

Fear and relief did battle for control of Jenny’s mind. She grasped Gabriela’s arm for support. They pushed their way through the crowded waiting area to a curtained-off treatment room and to Kent. He seemed asleep with a slight curl of a smile on his lips. His ten-day-old beard looked like a dark mask with specks of gray. 

Jenny moved to grasp his hand but stopped, noticing the telltale blistering from poison oak. From a wall dispenser, she pulled on a pair of blue examination gloves and returned to his side. 

An ER nurse entered. “He’s resting quietly now; he’s been given Ativan. Dr. Hampian ordered a cranial MRI. He’ll want to review the pictures and the radiologist’s report with you.” 

In a daze, Jenny nodded. Things moved too fast for her to take in all the details. 

Gabriela wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “He’s in good hands. Do you want me to stay?” 

“Please, will you?” 

“Of course, Jen. Come, sit down. I’ll get us some coffee.” 

“Why haven’t they moved him onto a ward?” 

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Dr. Hampian.” Gabriela looked away, as if not wanting Jenny to know she was lying. 

They sat without talking, sipping toxic cafeteria coffee. Jenny got up several times to check the IV inserted in the crook of Kent’s arm and the urine bag hooked to the side of his bed. It gave her something to do. Time flowed like extra-thick honey, and she remembered what patients often complained about: that hospital minutes were ten times longer than regular ones. 

 In less than an hour, Hampian bustled into the treatment room followed by a PA pushing a portable computer stand. He touched Jenny’s arm. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Kent was in really rough shape when they brought him in. We’ve stabilized him, but…” 

“Can we see the pictures?” Jenny asked. 

“Sure, sure.” 

The doctor nodded to his assistant. A series of black-and-white images appeared on the computer screen. The PA enlarged them one at a time. 

Jenny gasped and started to collapse before Gabriela steadied her. The MRI images showed long tumors invading most regions of Kent’s brain. 

Hampian cleared his throat. “The disease has progressed rapidly. As you probably know, high-grade astrocytomas can quickly spread tentacle-like through normal brain tissue. They’re nearly impossible to remove surgically . . . at least in your husband’s case.” 

“So… so how bad is he right now?” Jenny asked. 

The doctor sighed. “He doesn’t respond to sound and appears to be blind and speechless.” 

He pointed to an image showing tumors at the back of Kent’s skull near the spinal column. 

“I’m most worried about these . . . they will stop his breathing.” 

“Is he in pain?” 

“I doubt it. There’s so much damage that I’m surprised he made it here.” 

“How . . . how much longer does he have?” 

“Minutes, a few hours at most. His heart’s already tachy and his kidneys are shutting down.” 

Jenny covered her face with her hands and bowed her head. Her shoulders shook as she wept. Her sobs filled the room and beyond. When she finally looked up, everyone had left except Gabriela. She pulled off her gloves, moved to Kent’s bedside, bent, and kissed his lips. She brushed his graying hair away from his eyes and laid a hand on his cheek. 

“I hope you know I’m here, Kent. I hope you found peace wherever you went. I’m . . . I’m sorry if I failed you somehow.” 

She pulled up a chair and sat, placed a hand on his chest and hoped he could still feel. The minutes dragged until the bank of monitoring machines began to sound. The room filled with doctors and nurses, the final witnesses. The quiet returned as they retreated. 

* * * 

A moonless night, a dreamless sleep, a gentle touch on his lips, chest, and cheek. He felt connected, felt loved.

TERRY SANVILLE

Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California, with his artist-poet wife and two plump cats. His stories have been accepted more than 370 times by journals and anthologies. Two of his stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and one for inclusion in the Best of the Net anthology. Terry is an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist.