Part 17 (1/2)
”She just started walking.” Alice told them, pus.h.i.+ng tears across her cheeks with the flat of her hand. ”I don't know if she went to Superior, or up to the city, or where she went.”
Mack walked in from his room and stood quietly against the bookcase, listening.
”Is she going back to Portland?” asked Leigh.
”She didn't say anything.”
”Maybe she had a family issue. Like, her mom.”
”She would have told me if her mom wasn't good.”
”She's been acting strange,” Kyle explained. His voice did not communicate empathy.
Aviva stared straight down at her feet, her brightly tattooed arms balanced on her knees. While Alice had been Rae's roommate, Aviva was her closest friend. She was clearly shaken.
”Let's go find her,” John suggested, standing. He ran his hand along his crew-cut white hair, and waited. ”We can check the motels around here. The bus station. She's probably still walking to Superior.” There was some agreement here; people started to rise.
Then Mack dropped a book on the floor. It hit the ground with unexpected force.
”She didn't leave because she wanted to.”
The room turned sharply to him.
”Who would leave here on their own?” Mack asked them, his nasal voice low and calm. He watched members of Happy Trails consider this. Caleb saw the muscle of Aviva's jaw tighten and release.
”Anyone hazard, you know, a guess?”
Kyle raised his hand.
Mack pointed a finger at him. ”My boy.”
”She was expelled?”
”Absolutely.”
The room held its breath.
”Was it because she didn't want to run Yosemite?” Makailah asked.
”That's part of it. But that was a symptom. There was a root disease. She didn't like it here anymore.”
”She loved it,” Aviva muttered to herself.
”She was ill.”
People sat straight, surprised.
”What's wrong with her?” June whispered.
Mack stepped closer to the circle. ”Rae was infected with a virus. The virus of negativity. I asked her to partic.i.p.ate in killing this virus, to use her kinetic energy against it, but she refused.” He looked around the room, making eye contact with each one of them. ”What I ask you guys to do matters. Every run, every private energy session, everything goes toward the collective kinetic energy of our house. We can't have one person refusing to partic.i.p.ate. Creating stasis.”
Caleb stole a glance at Lily, in June's arms. Rae had spent a lot of time with her, encouraging her to sit up, trying to get her to crawl, cradling her, singing to her. Lily would miss her, Caleb realized. To be loved is to never forget.
”When you feel negativity, like if someone at your job says something to you about us, or if you're injured for a time, when you're not sure what to think or what to do? Remember you always have the answer. What is it?”
”Run it out!” Kevin called.
”Run it out. Negativity comes from Taco Bells and flight delays, and its antidote is on the trails. When you're exposed to it, don't think, seek the trails. You always have a choice, to stop or to run. Rae stopped. What do we do?”
”Run!” they each shouted, the mood s.h.i.+fting.
”We'll have a healing session now, a healing of the emotional pain of losing a loved one. It's what we need.”
Even Aviva nodded. Mack went to his room and emerged carrying a half-full bottle of Jim Beam and a small hash pipe. June took Lily upstairs and put her into her crib. John went to the fireplace and added a large amount of cherrywood, which popped like firecrackers in the flames. Caleb felt someone staring at him. When he dared to glance up, Mack caught his eye and winked.
Then he sat down in between Alice and Makailah, and they all began to chant.
On Thanksgiving, Mack allowed a tofurkey with root vegetables.
This rare deviation from their diet was accompanied by much local ale. The day began with the annual Thanksgiving Fat Race at Bear Peak. Two hundred locals showed up for the fifty-mile run through the snowpacked course. Caleb was a monster; he won by a full minute. Every member of Happy Trails finished in the top fifty, including, to Caleb's pleasure, June. Everyone was overjoyed, and they invited the other runners over to the house to continue the party. A blowout commenced. Mack held an increasingly drunken court, opening big bottles of Beam, dispensing new ideas for the perfect head position during descents. Mostly the guests wanted to hear about the Yosemite Slam.
”The most intense ultra ever run,” he beamed.
”The ultra ultra,” a girl who had placed eleventh suggested.
Mack laughed loudly. ”The ultra ultra. That's cool. That's cool.”
Caleb approached Mack when the last guests had left. ”Can we talk for a second?” he began nervously.
It was eight o'clock, and Mack was tying his laces by the front door for an alcohol-infused sprint through the snow, one of his favorite things in the world. A new dusting of icicles grew against the windowpane like DNA, spiraling, precise.
Mack looked up. His eyes were alight, the wrinkles around them like rivers flowing in reverse. He looked then as if he might accomplish anything.
”You can come with me, brother.”
Outside the cold greeted them harshly. The moon was buried behind a curtain of cloud. They took off as fast as their legs would carry them into the eight inches of new powder covering the field toward the base of the mountain, sinking with every step. Mack would not slow, Caleb knew. The idea was to run until exhaustion, to fill their bodies with blood and delirium.
Suddenly Caleb's right eye began bothering him; he felt a breathtaking and pure pain. Soon he could no longer blink. As they returned, wet with sweat and leaked toxins, sober and alive, Caleb stumbled against the side of the house.
Mack leaned closer. ”Hey, that f.u.c.ker's frostbitten.”
He rubbed his palms together as if they were flints, breathing in deeply. He placed his palms an inch away from Caleb's face, and immediately Caleb felt a warmth caress his eye. Then it began to burn, as if a match were being held to his pupil. He pulled back.
Mack pushed his feverish hand closer to the white mucus of his eye, his face only inches from Caleb's. ”So,” Mack whispered, his breath full of Beam, ”what do you want to talk to me about?”
Caleb stammered, ”My brother wrote me.”
”Yeah? What's Shane up to?”