I’d noticed, just then and before, her use of the past tense in regard to her mother, but I didn’t ask. Instead, I just nodded. “Well, your voice is just as beautiful as I imagine hers must have been.”
She looked at me, surprised, probably expecting the question I hadn’t asked. “You never cease to surprise me, Ram.”
I set the smaller branches aside in a pile and started chopping the branch into manageable, burnable sections. When I was done, I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead with a forearm and glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I always expect you to ask about stuff, but you never do.”
I flipped the hatchet in the air and caught it by the handle. “I don’t appreciate being pressed to talk about shit I don’t wanna talk about, so it’d be kinda hypocritical to push you to do it, you know?” I shoved the hatchet into my belt and gathered the wood in my arms. “I figure if you want me to know, you’ll talk about it. And if you do, I’ll listen, and I’ll be glad as hell that you chose to trust me on it. If not, that’s your business.”
She followed me back to camp, and we set our loads of wood near the fire ring.
Brushing off her hands and shirt, Izzy glanced at me, as if weighing what to say next. “She died when I was thirteen.” A hesitation. “My mom, I mean.”
“Shit, that sucks. I’m sorry that happened.”
She nodded. “It was…awful. She got into a car accident on the way to pick me up after school. She just…never showed up. Dad was at work and was unreachable, and I just…I sat alone outside the school for hours, just waiting, but she…she never showed up. Eventually I walked home, but no one was there. Dad was head of the neurology department, so he worked crazy hours. A police officer showed up at my house an hour after I got there and asked for my dad. I told him he was at work still and wasn’t really reachable, and he said there’d…there’d been an accident, and that it was important I reach him.”
“Good lord.”
“Yeah. So, I paged him. The rule was no using his pager number unless it was an actual life-or-death emergency because, being a neurosurgeon, his work was, literally, life or death. He called me back a few minutes later, and I gave the policeman the phone to talk to Dad. The officer wouldn’t tell me what had happened, only that there’d been an accident involving my mom, and that it was best to wait for Dad. But…I knew. The way he was acting, that he wouldn’t tell me…I knew.”
I had no idea what to say to that. “Shit, Izzy. I…” I shrugged. “I have no idea what to say, honestly.”
She shrugged. “Nothing to say. It happened a long time ago.” She gestured at the pile of kindling. “Do we need more?”
I shook my head. “Nah. That’s plenty. I’m gonna go chop up another branch, and I’ll be right back. Just chill for a minute.”
I found another good-sized branch not far from the campsite, chopped it up, and brought it back, piling it near the fire ring. Izzy was sitting on a section of tree trunk, near the ring, that had been placed there long ago as a seat; she was eying the tent with an odd expression on her face.
“So, um…that’s the tent?” she asked.
I nodded. “That’s the tent.”
It had been a splurge for me, being one of the nicest and most expensive two-person tents available—being a pretty big guy, I liked having a tent large enough to sprawl out in, and I didn’t mind the extra weight which, as expensive as it was, was negligible. But, from the perspective of a city girl who’d never even been glamping in an RV before, I could see how the size of it would be disconcerting. It was big enough by far for one person, but for two? It would be…cozy.
“It’s kind of…small.”
I grinned. “Well, considering I typically hike and camp alone, it’s actually big.”
“When you said we’d just share a tent, I thought you meant a tent like…” She gestured vaguely with her hands, indicating a tent large enough to house six people plus possibly a horse. “Something bigger.”
I shrugged. “Name of the game when hiking is to carry only what you need and no more. This is more tent than I strictly need, but I’m a pretty big fella, so I like a big tent.” I gestured at it. “Climb in—we’ll both fit, I promise.”
She knelt in front of the opening, unzipped it, and peered in, and then turned to look at me over her shoulder. “Yeah, we’ll fit…on top of each other.”
I just winked.
“No,” she snapped. “Nope. Not happening.”
“No?” I grinned. “Sure about that?”
“Argh!” she howled. “No, Ramsey. We’re not sleeping—I’m not sleeping on top of you.”
“Other way around, babe. I’ll sleep on you. I get real warm at night, so I’ll be like a big, sexy blanket.”
“Ah, such humility,” she said. “Nope. That’s not gonna work.”
I laughed. “Well, that’s the only option. And babe, if you think I’m chivalrous enough to sleep on the ground outside while you take the tent, think again. I carried the fucker in and I’m carrying the fucker out, so I’m sleeping in it.”
“Nice.”
I shrugged. “Izz, honey, you need to relax.” I took my sleeping bag off my pack, knelt beside her at the opening, leaned in, and unrolled the sleeping bag to one side; I grabbed hers off her pack and did the same, laying them side by side, which left inches of room in between and on both sides. “See? Side by side, separate bags, plenty of room.”
She eyed the interior. “Huh. I didn’t think they’d fit.”
I laughed again. “It’s a two-person tent. Therefore, designed to fit two people.”
“Just barely.”
“Well, yeah. Did you think it was gonna have an espresso machine and a hot tub inside?”
“I wish,” she said, laughing. “Fine. It’ll work.”
I leaned back out of the tent and zipped it closed. “So. Ready to catch our dinner?”
She blinked at me. “Am I? Or are you?”
“We are, babe. You’re helping.”
She shook her head. “Oh hell no. I’m not fishing.”
“Then you don’t eat.” I shrugged, gesturing at her bag. “Or, at least nothing that’s not in there, and I only bought enough food to supplement the fish we’d catch tonight and tomorrow.”
“I don’t know how to fish.”
I clapped her on the shoulder. “Well, honeybuns, that’s what this trip is about, right? Learning new shit. How to hike, how to sleep in a tent, how to catch, clean, cook, and eat fish, how to build a fire.”
She glared at me. “Honeybuns?”
“Yup. Because those buns of yours are sweet as honey.”
She shook her head, rolling her eyes with barely restrained laughter. “You are such an idiot.”
I collected my fishing gear—collapsible rods, line, bait, lures, hooks, and stringer. “Well, this idiot is your only chance of eating fresh fish tonight, so I’d get a move on, honeybuns. Fish are waiting!”
She went to her pack and bent to shrug into it with an air of resignation. “Fine. Jesus.”
“Uh, Izzy?”
She glanced at me. “Yes, Ramsey?”
I gestured at the pack. “You don’t need that.” I gestured at mine, leaning against a tree nearby. “I’m leaving mine, see?”
“Oh.” She eyed the packs. “Won’t someone steal them?”
“I mean, I suppose the possibility exists, but it’s unlikely. Stealing someone’s gear is…it’s basically the worst thing you can do. The majority of the people that use these trails tend to show respect for the others on it.” I shrugged. “Plus, we’re close enough to both ends of the trail that we’d be fine even without it. It’s not like we’re in the true wilderness a week’s hike from, like, Coldfoot or whatever the fuck. We’re a matter of hours from the trailhead and the terminus.”
She nodded. “Oh. Right.” She looked around as she followed me. “So, this is, like, not really even the true bush, is it?”
I shrugged. “I mean, I
wouldn’t recommend getting lost off the trail, but no, not really.”
“You ever been out there?”
I shook my head. “Not like you’re thinking. To get to where you need your gear to literally survive, no. It’s on my list, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Most of my trips since moving up here have been day or weekend trips that I can access by car. To get to where I’d really like to be, you need a plane or a boat to drop you off and pick you up.”
I led her toward the creek, and then we strolled easily along it, following it upstream away from the trail and the campsite, where the fish were unlikely to have been recently disturbed. I found a beautiful little spot where the creek widened, with a big old tree near the edge throwing a nice big pool of shade across the water. It was calm but swift, stained with tannins but still clear enough to see the bottom, the water occasionally churning white around an outcropping of rock.
“This is a great spot,” I said. “Let’s try here.”
Izzy watched with interest as I set up both fishing rods, tied on hooks and bait, and then handed her one.
“I’m guessing you don’t know how to cast,” I said. “Safe assumption?”
“I know how to smartcast my phone to my TV,” she said, grinning, “but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean.”
“Uh, no.”
I lifted the rod and pointed out the various parts, showing her how to cast it. It took her a good half dozen tries, in which she only got the line snarled three times, but she started to get the hang of it.
I pointed at the pool of shade over the water. “Fish like to hang out in shady spots like that. What you wanna do is cast your line into the water upstream of the shade and let it ride downstream into it, and then slowly reel the line back in.”
“That’s it?”
I grinned. “That’s it. Fishing ain’t really the most complicated thing in the world, which I guess is why we dumb guys like doing it so much. Cast, reel, cast, reel. That’s it.” I waved a hand. “I mean, you can make it complicated. Lures and bait for specific kinds of fish, special rods and reels, various line test weights, all that. But, at its essence, fishing is really just putting bait a fish’ll eat on a hook, throwing it in the water, and hauling it back in.”
“I guess I expected it to be harder.”
“The hard part is the boredom. You may cast and reel a hundred times and never get a bite, but when you do feel that line tug, feel the fish hit, it all becomes worth it. You’ll see.” I gestured at the river. “Try it.”
I watched as she headed downstream closer to the shade of the tree, sorted out her hands on the rod and reel, worked the line release lever, and then, with an admirably smooth motion, cast the baited hook way out into the middle of the river.
“Nice!” I called. “Now let the line spool out a bit with the current until it’s pretty much clear of the shade, and then reel it in nice and slow.”
I figured she’d get a hit within the first few tries, so I kept an eye on her as I headed upstream a ways to a different spot, where I had to do a fancier bit of casting to get the hook where I wanted it. Cast, let it float, reel it in. I closed my eyes for a moment and just soaked in the moment. It was utterly peaceful. Just the sun on my face, breeze ruffling my clothes and cooling me off, an eagle screeching somewhere way overhead, the creek chuckling merrily. No cars, no buildings, no crowds, no bills, no saloon, no brothers—as much as I loved them. Just me and nature…and Izzy.
Which, oddly, was not as weird or uncomfortable as I’d thought it would be. I’d expected her to hold me back, drag me down, to complain and bitch about how heavy the bag was and, oh no I broke a nail, and the mosquitos are biting me. Instead, she proved to be an entertaining hiking partner, easy to talk to, fun to mess with, but quick to catch on to my weird sense of humor. Plus, hot as fuck.
I opened my eyes, reeled my line in, and glanced at Izzy. She was standing with her feet spread apart, head tipped back, eyes closed—like I’d just been—letting her line float.
She was just flat-out beautiful. Classically, breathtakingly beautiful. Hot, sure. But…beautiful. She could have been a pinup model, or a black-and-white era movie star, like Betty Page or Rita Hayworth. I watched her for a minute, watched her just enjoy the sun and the peacefulness.
And then the tip of her rod bent and tugged, and she shrieked. “Ram! What’s happening?”
I laughed. “You have a bite! Stay cool, babe! Just reel it in.”
I reeled my line in, set the pole on the bank, and jogged over to Izzy, who was wide-eyed with excitement. The reel was singing, the line bent nearly double.
“Dude, you’ve got a hell of a fish on there!” I said to her with a grin. “Just keep reeling. Angle the tip upward and reel it in, let the tip sag down a second, and then yank it up again and reel it in.”
She fought it, doing as I said—dragging the tip of the rod toward the sky and reeling like crazy, and then letting the tip settle downward again, only to yank it up and reel some more. “It’s so…heavy!”
I caught a glimpse of the fish—a massive river salmon. “Damn, girl! You hooked a monster!”
“I feel like it’s going to yank me into the river!” she said, leaning backward while reeling.
“Nah, babe, you’ve got it!”
“Can’t you take it?”
“Sure I could, but then you wouldn’t get the satisfaction of having brought that big bitch in on your own. This is your victory, not mine.”
She was silent, then, as she fought the salmon. I was honestly worried either the line or the rod itself was going to break, the way it was bending, but it continued to hold.
“It’s getting tired,” I told Izzy. “Let the line run for a few seconds, and then reel it in hard.”
She held the lever and let it float, the line sliding downstream as the tired salmon glided with the swift current, and then Izzy started reeling again, and now the fish started fighting again, but half-heartedly. Izzy slowly but surely brought the line closer and closer to the riverbank, and once it was within reach, I bent and grabbed the line, hauling the fish up out of the water.
“HOLY FUCK!” Izzy shouted, tossing the rod onto the bank and coming over to me. “That thing is a monster!”
It was easily two, almost three feet long and weighed several pounds.
“You hold it,” I told her.
She hefted the fish in both hands, and it gave a few exhausted wriggles, but it was too tired and out of air to fight anymore. I’d brought along a digital camera small enough to fit into my hip pocket, and I took it out, powered it on, and put Izzy and her giant fish in the frame.
Her smile was huge, exhilarated, and proud.
I put the salmon on a stringer. “You just caught dinner for both of us, babe,” I told her.
She was fairly vibrating. “I can’t believe I caught that!”
I laughed. “What I can’t believe is that you caught that monster on that rod and line. It’s a small miracle the line didn’t snap, if not the pole itself. You typically need heavier duty rods and line for fish that heavy.”
I collapsed the rods, secured the lines and reels, set the fish on the bank, and hauled out my knife.
“Time to clean it,” I said, handing the knife to Izzy.
She just stared at me. “Um…no?”
I grinned. “Part of catching it, sweetheart. I’ll walk you through it, and I’ll do the tricky parts.”
And, once again, Izzy absolutely surprised me—she wasn’t squeamish at all. She lopped off the head like a pro, tossed it aside, and followed my directions on cleaning the fish without so much as a whimper of disgust. When the salmon had been reduced to manageable filets, and the guts tossed aside for scavengers, I wrapped it in the tinfoil I’d brought along for the purpose, giving it to Izzy to carry.
“And there’s dinner. Now we go make a fire and cook it up.” We washed our hands in the cold, clear water of the river and headed back toward camp; I caught Izzy glancing at me with an odd expr
ession as we walked. “What?”
She shrugged. “If you’d told me even a week ago that I’d be out here, wearing this, hiking with you, catching a giant salmon, and getting ready to cook it over a fire, I’d have laughed my ass off.”
“What’s funny is that you include your outfit in the unusual aspect of all this.”
She shot me a side-eye. “I’m a fashion blogger, Ramsey. I don’t wear jeans and T-shirts even on laundry day.”
“Explain to me what a fashion blogger is,” I said.
“Sort of…a tastemaker, if you know what I mean? I keep up with the latest trends, watching what celebrities and celebrity designers and stylists are doing, and I try to make it accessible for the average person. So, like, if a Kardashian or Taylor Swift or whoever is photographed wearing something cool and interesting, it’s probably super expensive and out of reach for the average woman. What I do is find pieces and outfits that mimic that look in a price range a business professional or even a sale-savvy college girl can afford, and explain how to create a similar look. So I write about fashion trends, model the looks myself, and explain how to create the look at home.”
Judging by the look she gave me, I think she expected me to either give her a blank look, or laugh at her; I decided to surprise her with a question I doubted she’d be expecting.
“Is that a career for you?”
She frowned at me, as sideswiped by the question as I’d expected. “Um. What?”
“Fashion blogging. It sounds cool. Is that what you’re passionate about? Is that your future?”
She didn’t answer for quite a long time. “I…huh. You are the last person on earth I’d have expected to ask me that.”
“Why?”
A shrug. “I dunno.”
“It’s a question that’s been on my mind about myself lately, so I guess I’m just curious.”
“You’ve been asking yourself what your future is?”
I nodded. “Well, sure. Growing up, my brothers and I had one singular goal: get the fuck out of Oklahoma. We knew we weren’t cut out for, or interested in, sports, even though we’re all athletic enough we probably could’ve gone that route, and the military didn’t interest us. So, what could three big, strong, active, troublemaking young fellas get into that would put money in our pockets and get us the fuck out of the ass end of Redneckville, Oklahoma?” I shrugged. “Wildfire fighting ended up being the answer. At first we were just thinking regular old forest service fire crew, and we got into a hotshot crew, but we didn’t quite fit in. We met a couple of smokejumpers in a bar in Idaho, got to talking, and realized that was where we belonged—on a smokejumper crew. So we headed to Cali, joined up, and spent the next few years there, fighting wildfires with the smokejumpers.”