Читать книгу Thirst - Heather Anderson - Страница 15

I had never seen the desert before I arrived in Arizona. My only experience with it prior to that had been the black-and-white John Wayne movies my dad watched repeatedly. I expected rippled dunes and scrubland where people crawled on their elbows toward a mirage, only to die of thirst beneath circling vultures.

To my astonishment, it was nothing like that. It was beautiful in a way I had not imagined. Soft colors belied the rugged, rocky terrain. The South Rim was thickly forested with pine trees. Kaibab squirrels, with their tufted ears and fluffy, white tails, ran amok in all directions. From the office, I collected paperwork, the key to my shared quarters, and a stack of uniform clothing before stepping outside to take in my first view of the Grand Canyon.

Even in my sleep-deprived state—having dozed fitfully on the floor of the Las Vegas airport the night before—I was unable to turn away from the view. I sat on a short brick wall for forty-five minutes and stared, transfixed.

By age eighteen, I had read enough of adventure to know that I no longer wanted to simply read about it. I wanted to experience it firsthand. I began by traveling with school and volunteer groups: first to Germany and then Alaska, South Dakota, and West Virginia. My first year of college, I found a brochure advertising volunteer ministry work in the national parks while working an additional summer job. I decided that I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so I filled out an application and mailed it in. A few weeks later, I not only received an acceptance letter from A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, but my employment packet from Xanterra, the park concessionaire managing the Grand Canyon. I’d be spending my summer living at the South Rim and working in the Yavapai Lodge.

The next day, my new coworkers invited me to hike down into the canyon. Although I was suffering from a raging blood infection in my foot from stepping on a broken fence right before leaving home, the side effects of the antibiotics for that infection, and mild altitude sickness from being above two thousand feet for the first time in my life, I said yes. There was no way that I wasn’t going.

I swallowed my morning antibiotics, grabbed a small bottle of water, and put a granola bar in my pocket before following the other four people from our housing area to the Bright Angel Trail. We walked down toward Indian Garden, spiraling through the eons frozen in the rock layers. I was too enthralled by my surroundings to feel the ache in my foot. I couldn’t believe such a place existed, nor that I was actually here.

One by one, everyone turned back except one of my roommates. She was determined to reach Indian Garden and I was determined to follow her. She was a collegiate basketball player; tall, willowy, confident, and strong. I was sedentary, overweight, and completely in over my head, but, wanting to be what she was, I refused to stop until she did. The temperature rose as we neared the broad, flat Tonto Platform. My infatuation with the scenery could no longer keep me distracted from the pain in my foot, heat-induced drowsiness, and the cramps in my legs, but I refused to turn back.

We reached the lush oasis of Indian Garden as the sun reached its apex. The large thermometer on a post alongside the trail read 120 degrees. We sat on a bench in the shade for a few minutes, drinking water from the faucet nearby, before beginning our climb back out. I’d never walked more than two miles before in my life—the roundtrip from Indian Garden was going to be at least four times that distance.

The world spun. I felt nauseous. Rest areas with fountains were spaced a mile and a half apart, yet I still ran out of water. My foot, throbbing, was swollen against the straps of my sandals. My head pounded. A mule team approached—a string of animals carting other overweight, sedentary folks down into the canyon. A voice in the back of my head chimed in over the sound of hooves clanking down the trail: People like you don’t hike, Heather. They ride. In cars, on mules, in airplanes. I leaned against the striated walls to let them pass and prayed not to die. When I started moving again, I could see that my roommate had pulled ahead of me. For some reason, all I could think about was my high school gym teacher. How I’d thrown the shot put in class almost as far as our state record holder. I thought of his repeated requests that I join the track team. He’d seen potential there, somewhere. I put my hands on my thighs and pushed down with every step, focused on not losing sight of my roommate.

I lost all sense of time as we hiked upward. My world was a spinning kaleidoscope of sky and swirling, colored rock layers, with my roommate at the center of my vision. Steadily, I inched upward through time. Finally, we crested the rim of the canyon.