Part 16 (1/2)
Hi Caleb, I have a present for Lily. I ordered it, but it's going to take some time to arrive. Would you all be able to come here to get it?
Shane.
When a UC soph.o.m.ore came to relieve him at noon, Caleb undertook a frantic sprint down the mountain to the house. At the slight curve of the road by the cl.u.s.ter of aspens, he came upon a small group of his housemates, huddled in a tight circle. The warm light fell on their suntanned skin so that they looked like warm stones in a fire.
Leigh, Juan, Alice, Makailah, and Kyle were listening intently to someone. Slowing down, he realized it was Rae. She stood so much smaller than the rest of them that it had been hard to see her. Her black hair was pulled into her usual tight ponytail, her arms folded. Caleb inched closer.
”It's too dangerous.”
”It's all dangerous,” Kyle was explaining dismissively.
”He's going to have aid stations,” Makailah insisted.
”Look, he's not hiding it,” Rae insisted. ”Ask him.”
”You're saying he wants us to get hurt?”
”He's planning to make this the most dangerous race in the country. They're selling it that way. The trails are totally isolated. No rescue Jeeps can get near them. They cancelled the original Yosemite because two runners died there, and they're bringing it back even more unsafe.”
”But why would he put us at risk?” asked Alice plaintively. ”You're not making any sense.”
”It's not about us,” Rae said, pus.h.i.+ng a loose strand of Cherokee black hair from her forehead. ”It's about television. He's not thinking clearly. Something's going wrong.”
”You don't have to run it,” Kyle told her.
”I'm not.”
Caleb was stunned. Never had he heard dissension like this, in all his years here. When he s.h.i.+fted his weight, a tiny branch cracked beneath him. Kyle turned quickly, his marine instincts undulled by either the pa.s.sage of time or his quitting of methamphetamine.
They turned as one and stared at him. He knew they all thought him to be closer to Mack than they were; he was, in their eyes, management.
”Hi, Caley,” Leigh nodded gently.
”Why are you guys talking about this here?”
Kyle nodded at him. ”You think Yosemite's too dangerous to run?”
Caleb shrugged unsurely, just wanting to get to June. He felt uncomfortable with how they all were watching him, all of them hungry for something. He understood now just how much Mack had riding on his Yosemite Slam. It was more than television coverage or the promise of more recruits. It was the trust of the Happy Trails Running Club.
”Every ultra is dangerous. Look what happened to me at Hardrock.”
”Right,” Kyle agreed.
”He just wants to get the sport seen. Like the Tour de France. He wants to open more houses. That's something he wants to do.” Caleb witnessed a chipmunk sprinting through the thin bark of the trees. ”He's been open about that.”
”You're running it, right?” Leigh asked.
Caleb looked past them, toward the house. Through these trees, it looked vulnerable to him, sitting as it did in the shadow of the mountain. An avalanche, an electrical storm, might smother it. It depended on their nurturing, their priming, their care, more than he had realized.
”Of course.”
He walked inside, up the stairs, and found June and Lily playing on the little oval rug in their room. June had hung bright yellow curtains with a blue moon over their window. Religious decorations were forbidden; Mack wanted no reminders of any faiths other than forward motion. But these he found acceptable. It is strange, Caleb noted, that the moon, moving tides, affecting behavior, a perfect circle, perhaps the most powerful proof of a guiding force in all experience, has no religious connotations at all, ignored by the symbologies of the world.
He showed June the letter. She read it, frowning, ”I don't understand.”
”He wrote it a.s.suming Mack would see it.”
”So it's code?”
He nodded.
”So, 'present,' that means medicine?”
”Yes.”
”In San Francisco?” She stared at him questioningly. ”How do we get there?”
Caleb shook his head. He was not in possession of a credit card, a driver's license, a cell phone, even a bank account. He supposed June still had these things.
”I guess Mack will buy us the plane tickets,” June nodded happily.
”I don't think,” Caleb said softly, ”that he will.”
She blinked, not following.
”He won't want us leaving here before Yosemite.”
”But that's not for seven months.”
Caleb nodded slowly.
”I have my license, I'll rent us a car. Mack always says we're free to leave.”
”Yes. But not to come back.”
She froze, understanding him now. ”I need to come back here, Caley. This is where we live. I don't want to live any other way.”
”Then we need to ask him the right way, so he'll help us.”
”How do we do that?”
Caleb considered this. If he came through at Yosemite, if he won and delivered Mack into the pages of Sports Ill.u.s.trated, then surely Mack would give them a month away from the house and welcome them back, if only to disprove certain media reports that Happy Trails was a cult.
But could Lily wait seven more months? Think it through, he told himself. Mack would never let him leave before Yosemite, but maybe he might let June and Lily go. After all, Caleb was his only chance to win. Didn't he need him happy and focused?